We’re WordPress.com’s Top 10 Blogs of the Day, Again!

It’s not the first time but it’s still pretty satisfying to know we’re WordPress.com’s Top 10 Blogs of the Day once again. Actually, this time it’s BOTD twice in a roll.

On Jan 18, we hit the 9th’s spot overall. The following day we move up one spot to numero otto. The total visit for that day reached an all-time high record of 14,828 visits. Madness.

Since last December 2, the blog received 113,932 hits. Ouch.

How on earth did all these things happen, so quickly?

Not bad….

“Surprisingly, and contrasting to my previous rant iTouch-people (or at least those coming here from Rupert Gee’s blog) sure take time to read the posts and look for more.” - The Neverendingbooks

You’re most welcomed.

Live Blogging: Upgrading a jailbroken iPod touch to 1.1.3

Everybody wants to know if we can jailbreak 1.1.3. Well, as of now, the answer is no.

But I’m curious what’s in the update, and more importantly, if I can downgrade and jailbreak again. So I’m going to do the upgrade now and blog about it as I go along.

(13:00 Hours) Clicking Update sent the iPod touch through the update process. Nothing out of the ordinary happens. It went smoothly. After upgrading, I’m greeted by a new-look Home Screen. The Dock has a new background (that I like very much). It resembles the dock background of the iPhone but the perforated metal mesh is shinier. Nice. The big surprise, however, is all my music, videos, calendar and address book entries are intact. The sad thing is… of course the relatively empty Springboard. Installer is no where to be found. Yes, upgrading to 1.1.3 wipes out all your 3rd party apps. Confirmed. I looked everywhere but I can’t find the button for “Add to Home Screen“. Strange.

(13:30 hours) Okay, enough exploring in 1.1.3. I’m ready to downgrade back to version 1.1.1 in preparation for jailbrake. Wish me luck.

Sennheiser CX 300 on the iPod touch

I never quite like the original iPod eardphones. It’s uncomfortable, and I was told doesn’t sound as good as it should. The last time I actually bothered to go out shopping for a replacement pair, I was dumb founded no shops let me audition them before purchase. Oh, c’mon! Do they expect me to buy earphones based on how they look inside sealed packages? Fed up I gave up the idea of getting a new pair. Upon reaching home I figured it would be unhygenic to audition them anyways….

But last week I chanced upon read good reviews on the Sennheiser CX 300. The reviews weren’t written by someone with commercial interest in the product but a bunch of headphone heads, such as those at the SgHeadphone forum (yes, an entire forum and site dedicated to headphones… and you still don’t think Singaporeans are crazy?) and other special interest group around the globe. Since I can’t audition any pair, I decided to just get the CX 300… and get over it.

So I bought a pair. I hated them the first time I plug them into my iPod touch. But my friend absolutely love the deep bass and crystal clear sound. “It’s such a big improvement over the original iPod headphone! The sound stage opens up like magic.”

I thought he was kidding… and tried them on again. They stilllllll suck! C’mon!

“Hey Rupe… you have to stick them into your ear canel, creating a complete seal. Stick them in!”

“Oh?”

“Yah.”

Push push shaft shaft…. “Ok, I’m a moron.” Blush. These are my first pair of ear buds! How am I suppose to know the correct way to use them?

Wow! It’s true, these Sennheiser are amazing (compared to the original iPod eardphones). The bass is deep and strong. I find the treble a tab sharp but fortunately mid is strong. Stolen by Dashboard Confessionals never sounded so good on the iPod. Not only can I hear the drums I feel them!

So… if you need a relatively inexpensive earphones … the Sennheiser CX 300 are an excellent pair.

Oh, beside silver, black and white, Sennheiser makes them in Pink too!

CAVEAT:

Believe it or not, the Sennheiser CX 300 are so good, there are plenty of fakes out there. Be sure to google on this matter. Immitation may be the sincerest form of flattery… but not if you bought yourself an expensive fake!

WARNING: Malicious repository alert

STE posted a warning on malicious repository:

“The repository “Silver Repo”, with a maintainer of “Mikey”, a category of “Cool” and a URL of “http://www.jmwiki.com/repo” is malicious. Remove this Source from Installer as fast as you can.“

Read the rest of the warning.

Edit: Owner of ModMyiFone.com writes about the havoc one of the malicious app creates. I echo ModMyiFone.com’s view that “… It is a shame to see that people in our community are set on causing problems for others, their actions are not admirable.” It’s especially a pity that parenting went wrong and the actions were done by a 11 year old kid.

Below are some screenshots.

—
UPDATE: It turns out this was a prank by an eleven year old boy of Lake Bluff, Il. STE has spoken to his daddy, and the repository will be taken down. Nevertheless, this highlights why Steve Job wanted to keep the iPod touch system closed. I guess the onus is on ourselves to make sure we are deligent and only add trust worthty installer source.

UPDATE (January 9, 2008): CNet picked up this news.

Happy 2008!