Archive - 2010

iOS 4+ Compatible Slim Slider Theme

December 15, 2010 in Apple, iPhone, Jailbreaking, Mac, Technology with 2 Comments

So a lot of people have noticed when you moved up to iOS 4.0 and any beyond there that the Slim Slider theme for your lock screen doesn’t work. I’ve been hunting like crazy and finally found out a way to make it work.

You can see what my lock screen looks like to the left. I will provide a link to the iOS 4+ compatible Slim Slider.. and it also includes phone sliders, power off sliders.. basically anything where there is a slider.

For those wondering the fix. You need to put @2x at the end of the file name for the images in the theme folder (for example bottombarbkgndlock@2x.png) so with this, if you have a slim slider theme that you already like, you should be able to go into the theme folder and just add @2x to each of the png files for the sliders.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, thats ok.. it’s super geeky iPhone modding stuff.. it comes over time. A few things for those who will ask.. YES you need to be jailbroken, also someone will ask about all the info on my screen.. that is called LockInfo, its available in cydia, I’m going to say it was $8.99… but I could be wrong, I can’t remember. LockInfo is the main reason why I jailbreak my iPhone.. I love it!

Happy modding.. Heres the link for the iOS 4 compatible Slim Slider.. unzip the file, SSH into your iPhone, navigate to Root-private-var-stash and put the folder in Themes.agfTS0

Any questions? Just drop them in the comments section, I’ll try to answer them for you.

Use Pandora Radio On Your iPhone in Canada

December 8, 2010 in Apple, featured, iPhone, Mac, Music, Rogers with 24 Comments

UPDATE: The link provided to get access to Hotspot Shield has stopped working, as they claim they no longer support iPhone, BUT it does in fact still work for the iPhone and iPad, you just need to know the details yourself. Please follow this link to get the details for setting up Hotspot Shield on your iPhone

Pandora Radio is by far the most popular internet radio app for your iDevice.. the only problem is, due to the FCC and copyright law, if you are not in the USA you cannot use the app, which leaves us Canadians (and other nations) hanging when it comes to some good internet radio apps.

For the past year I’ve been using TuneIn radio which is pretty decent, but it’s no where near what Pandora is. TuneIn is simply a place that holds all the radio stations across canada who stream to the web, and allows you to listen to them.

So last night I decided it was time to play around and get Pandora working. There are always ways to get these “US only” apps and websites working in Canada, and the way to do that is to set up a proxy server, which blocks the website from reading your local IP address.

Step in HotSpot Shield. I’ve been using hotspot shield for years on my Mac, so that I can use HULU to watch TV shows.. well now you can bring it to your iDevice as well.

Step 1: Download Pandora to your iDevice. You cannot do this through the Canadian store, so you will need to create a new iTunes account using a USA address. For instructions on how to do this check out: http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/tips-tricks/how-to-open-a-us-itunes-account-without-credit-card/

If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can simply go to Installous (available in Cydia) and download Pandora.

For step 2 follow the link above that is in bold, as the directions below no longer work.

Step 2: Set up a VPN on your iDevice.

Turn off WiFi. Then find the VPN settings in
Settings -> General -> Network -> VPN -> Add VPN Configuration:

~~Visit Hotspot Shield’s iPhone page here. Then click “Get Account ID”. This will then reload the page and give you all the information you need for your VPN~~.

~~Select the IPSec tab/pane~~

Description: HotspotShield
Server: 68.68.107.101
~~Account: [enter info after clicking Get Account ID]~~
~~Passord: [enter info after clicking Get Account ID]~~
Use Certificate: OFF
Group Name: hss
Secret: hss

2. Save the settings and hit the “HOME” button to quit. Make sure to turn Wi-Fi back “ON”.

3. To activate Hotspot Shield on your iPhone, the VPN setting needs to be turned on.

Settings –> VPN –> ON (tip, if you are jailbroken and have SBSettings, there is a VPN toggle)

Once you’ve turned on the VPN open pandora, and enjoy! When the VPN is on, you can turn your wifi back on if you want, and listen to Pandora over wifi, but it will also block the IP if you are on 3g, so you can listen in the car as well!

Enjoy

Frustration Over Cellphone Rates

November 28, 2010 in Culture, iPhone, Rogers, Technology with 0 Comments

I’ve been a Rogers wireless customer for a very long time.. I got my first Rogers phone when I was in grade 11 (2001) and it was a pay as you go phone.. not a long of my friends had them at that time.. but they were starting to get popular among young people.

I will say that the original reason I signed up for Rogers was because, at the time they were the only company I knew of that had pay as you go that I could walk into a store and buy, and not have to have my parents sign a paper for me (there were probably others, I was just impatient and saw what I wanted). I didn’t sign up with Rogers because of their coverage or because of their rates.

Fast forward to 2010. I’m still with Rogers.. but I will say it’s not because I want to be.. it has nothing to do with rates or coverage.. their rates suck and where I live coverage is coverage.. just about every company works here. To be honest, I would drop Rogers in a heart beat if it wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg to get out of my contract.

I know that Rogers charges what they charge simply because they can. They are one of the biggest cellphone companies in Canada (if not the biggest) and sadly, people will pay whatever Rogers tells them to pay. I currently pay about $65 a month to Rogers for my iPhone 4 plan. I will admit that I do have a good plan, 1000 day time minutes, free evening and weekend, 6gb of data, visual voice main, unlimited text and my-5. Though I will say that the only reason I have such a good plan is because Rogers screws up my bill almost every month.. as a result of them screwing up my bill, they keep giving me bonuses on my plan (I only pay for 200 day time minutes).

BUT.. I am still frustrated with them (not just because they screw up my bill monthly) I sit here on my couch at night, and I see cellphone commercials for Wind Mobile.. a new company to Canada, and they are advertising a Unlimited Talk and Unlimited Text… for $17.50.. how is it that a small brand new company can offer better prices than the biggest company in the country? I would think that a new small company would have to gouge their customers so they can cover their costs.. but Wind believes in being fair to their customers… they don’t want to rip us off, because they were tired of getting ripped off.

Then I decide to look around at more of their plans.. unlimited talk and text CANADA WIDE for $25/month.. UNLIMITED Data for a mere $25/month.. Yes Wind has some limits RE: Coverage, but they are growing all the time.. and yet their prices are staying low.

Rogers.. if by some fluke someone from your company reads this, please explain to me why you guys are ripping us off.. why is it that a small company like wind can offer prices WAY better than you guys, the biggest company in Canada?

Are you tired of your cellphone company taking all your money? Check out this 20 minute video that CBC did in March on “Canada’s Worst Cellphone Bill” .. lots of information in it that really made me mad.. people who know how the financial side of cellphone networks work.. and they explain how much it ACTUALLY costs to use a cellphone.

Separate Jesus from the People of the Church?

October 20, 2010 in Culture, Faith, God, Ministry, People, Twitter, Youth, Youth Unlimited with 1 Comment

I sent a tweet yesterday morning that really seemed to cause a stink on twitter and facebook. For those who didn’t read it, it was: “We must separate the Jesus of the Gospel from the people of the church, because the people will always let you down, Jesus never will” some people completely agreed with me, while others didn’t agree, so I’m going to try to explain it in this blog post (as I told them I would) which would then hopefully cause them to understand where/what I was coming from.

First of all, I cannot take credit for this quote, my friend and chaplain to our staff Bob Scrivens said this yesterday at our staff meeting. Bob is an amazing man. He’s easily in his 70′s maybe even more.. and is a retired counsellor/pastor/amazing man. He carries a lot of wisdom, and believes 100% in what we do at Youth Unlimited, so much so that he tries to mention our ministry in nearly every conversation he has.

So where did this idea come from? Are we talking about taking Jesus out of our minstry? Out of the church? Are we trying to be “seeker sensitive” (how’s that for an early 2000′s buzz word) are we trying to be politically correct? The answer is a resounding NO to every one of these points.

At Youth Unlimited with work with about 85% non-christian/non-churched kids. These are the kids of Judges 2:10 (After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.) Our job at YU is to share the gospel with teens, allowing them the option to accept or reject Jesus. So then, if our goal is to help them to learn about Jesus, why remove him from the church?

We work with kids who have little to no interaction with the church. For most of them, the only interaction they have had is what they see on TV. They see things in the news about the church and the bad things it’s done. They see stories of slander, rape, pedofilia and many other things. When I talk to students, they always say “why would I want to be a Christian, I see all the crap that they do in the world. The reason they say this is because, you never see the good things that Christians do in the news.

The reality is, if Christians were what I saw in the news, I would never want to be one either. So this is why we say “we need to separate the Jesus of the Gospel from the people of the church.” When I talk to a student about God, my goal is to guide them to becoming a Christian, so when they bring up the bad christians, I point them to Jesus. I tell them that they shouldn’t throw Jesus out the window because of some bad eggs that they’ve heard of or had experience with in the past. I tell them they aren’t here to follow Christians, they are here to follow Jesus.

Now to address a few thoughts people had on twitter and facebook:

The main things the nay sayers said were things like “can we separate the head from the body”, “the people who gives us the bad rap aren’t really part of church”, “lets change the definition of church”

These can all be addressed in a simple manner. The kids I work with don’t go to church, and would likely never step into a church (it’s a sad reality, but I came to term with it 4 years ago) so if we change the definition of church, it’s not going to matter one bit. Young people equate church (the building) with christians (and the church.. of the bible) they don’t separate the 2, because they don’t know that there is a difference.

As a result of that, we need to utilize what we can, and be all things to all people. If the church is a bad thing to a student, I’m not going to talk about the church, I’m going to talk about Jesus and point them to Him, hopefully some day we can get to a point where I can talk to them about the hurts they were caused by the church, and maybe try to heal that.

I hope that makes sense to people. I tried to explain it as best I can.. feel free to discuss it more and we’ll see if we can get more info in on this one.

Is Social Media a Waste of Time

September 29, 2010 in Apple, Culture, Fad, Family, God, iPhone, Just Sayin, Mac, Ministry, People, Twitter, Youth with 1 Comment

I Have no problem admitting that the cartoon to the left is far to much a reality in my house. Am I proud of it? No.. it’s just what this crap can do to us.

Lately I’ve been engaging in a few conversations with some people (mostly through twitter… ironic..) about cellphones.. and whether they are a need or a want. I came to the conclusion that for me, a cellphone is a NEED, because I don’t have a office phone.. however, I also decided that the iPhone 4 was a want (and its predecessors). In fact this coming Sunday I’m going to be addressing marketing in a sermon, and utilizing the Droid commercials, and how they, instead of focusing on the qualities of their phones, focus on the things the iPhone doesn’t do. Cellphones really can no longer be called cellphones.. which is why they now have titles like “smart phones” and yet, we don’t need all the crap that they can do. Yes, it is very convient that my iPhone can do all the things it does, in fact, I think I use the camera on my phone more than I do the phone itself.. I mean it shoots in 720p HD for crying out loud.. and it’s a cellphone..

Social media is literally with me 24/7. When I’m not sitting at a computer, my iPhone is in my pocket, when it’s not in my pocket, its on my iHome, which is on my bedside table, which is literally 1 foot from my head, and always within an arms reach. My phone has become a total time waster and has isolated me from a lot of social interaction. Don’t get me wrong, I love that, for example there is alway a bible in my pocket, or that I have a game I can play when I’m in the bathroom.. don’t make that face, you know you do it too.

This isn’t one of those “I’m throwing out all my social media connections” posts.. as I would never do that.. twitter has been one of the most amazing tools for me over the past year or more.. I’ve had more meaningful conversations with other christians who have encouraged and challenged me than I can count… so why would I give that up.. however, I have been trying to be a little less rampant with it. I don’t (always) carry my phone with me everywhere.. I don’t (or try not to) check in on my tweeps while I’m driving own the road anymore.. I don’t jump as soon as I hear my phone buzz anymore.. I do still keep my phone by my bed.. because thats how kids can reach me, and if there is something wrong in the middle of the night, I want them to be able to get a hold of me.. or it’s great for situations like last night, when at 11pm I received a text from a kid that simply said “DUDE.. Philemon.. AMAZING” that text made my night, because it meant a student who I challenged to read his bible that night, was actually doing it.

I guess the point of this post is, to check why your doing it. Are you on twitter just because you want to get more followers than Ashton Kutcher or Oprah? What is your purpose in using Facebook? Check yourself, like I did, make adjustments where necessary, and in all things social media related, be smart about it!

Make sure you check out my post on “why I twitter”