Walt's Blog

How To Jailbreak The iPhone 3G With 3.0 Software Using Redsn0w

I had a jailbroken 3G iPhone running the old (2.2.1) software and I wanted to upgrade to the 3.0 software (but keep it jailbroken).  I did it last night and shot a video showing how it’s done…

Just a couple notes:

• Here are the instructions from the Dev-Team along with a list of places to download redsn0w (I used this one).
• When you run redsn0w, the first step asks you for an .ipsw file, you can get that from this page (you’ll select the iPhone 3G Firmware version 3.0)

How To Use Facebook Chat In Firefox Without Being On Facebook

I use this all the time…

1. Right click in the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox, select “New Bookmark…”
2. For “Name” type FB Chat (or whatever else you want)
3. For “Location” type Location http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php
4. Make sure to check the box to load the bookmark in the sidebar
5. Click “Add”
6. That’s it…when you click the new bookmark in your toolbar it will open up Facebook chat in your sidebar!

How To Get Royalty Free Background Music For YouTube Videos

If you want to make a YouTube video, be careful of what music you use on it.  Are you legally allowed to use it?

Let’s be honest…if you’re making a personal video for fun and you’re using a random 50 year old song in the background, no one’s ever going to notice.  YouTube’s never going to pick up on it.  And even if they somehow do, they’ll just mute it or take down the video…it’s not like you’re going to get a bill for royalties owed.

That being said, if you’re doing something commercial (or something that you’d like to make money off of someday like Awesomeology) it’s pretty important that whatever you’re doing is 100% legal from the beginning.

Royalty Free Background Music (Free)

There’s a guy on YouTube (audionautix) who mades a ton of totally free music available to you.  Go to one (or all) of these 4 videos, and look over on the right in the description field…click on “more info” and you’ll see TONS of excellent music you can use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_NWf8RQCcE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyuzwdCt0GQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do1M5FzrIVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavny6zKqDE

How great is that?  It’s a LOT of stuff to go through, and there’s a good shot you’ll find someting that works.  I used his stuff as background music for the first 33-ish episodes of Awesomeology.

Royalty Free Background Music (Paid)

If you’re looking for something else (or specific sound effects), I personally recommend AudioMicro.  They’ve got an enormous selection of high quality stuff and it’s really cheap.

Quick tip if you’re looking for background music…find something less than a minute long with a seamless loop…that way it’ll only cost you 1 “credit” and you can just loop it over and over regardless of how long your video is.  Credits will cost you anywhere between $1 and $5 depending on how many you buy (and they never expire).

Whatever you buy is yours to use in whatever you want forever, royalty-free.  I’m currently using two tracks from there as the opening sound effects on Awesomeology.

Hope that was helpful!  If you have any questions, shoot away, I’ll do my best to answer ‘em.