Now, 99.9% of my iphone’s functions are working perfectly!..

For those who’ve unlocked thei iPhone and have a non-functioning Voicemail button, here’s how to fix it:

1. First, take note of what your voicemail number is with your current provider (for example, in Jordan, ZAIN voicemail number is 1717).

2. Click the phone button in your iPhone.

3. Click the keypad tab.

4. Type the following code: *5005*86*xxxx#
(Where xxxx is your voicemail number, using Jordan Zain example, you would be typing *5005*86*1717#)

5. Hit call.

6. Give it a bit, and the code will be set.

7. Hit the voicemail button, and it will now call your voicemail.

This hint is applicable worldwide

enjoy!

The HVAC controls of my 99 e38 had a mind of its own. The controls would spontaneously start and stop and the LED readout would flash on and off depending upon the temp out side mainly.

A little investigation found the fix in the bimmer dyi. This was a well known problem with a capacitor on the circ board. Some have replaced the capacitor and others have simply resoldered the old capacitor in place. I did the latter after using desoldering braid to remove the old solder. I took pics while I had the circuit board out. Hopefully these are a little more clear than the ones on the dyi, which for me were blurry.

The following procedure applies to a 99 740iL with DSP and NAV. Not sure if it’s any different for other model year. If it is, I am assuming just the tape deck unit removal procedure will differ.

To remove the center console or to service anything in it like the flip-down wood trim or the cupholder assembly, you must first work on the glovebox. The basic procedure is to open the glovebox, remove the outer beige (or whatever interior color you have) trim below the wood, then remove the wood trim. Do not try to remove the wood trim on it’s own first — you’ll break it.

Start by opening the glovebox and detaching the black plastic cover, The cover is held in place by three screws and a pressure rivet. Removing the cover will provide access to the nylon screws shown in the next photo.

Next, remove the beige dash trim below the wood. There are four nylon screws holding it in place from the inside of the top of the glovebox.

The wood trim is secured to the dash by another set of four nylon screws, accessible from the inside top of the glovebox. Once the screws have been removed, gently pull the wood away from the dash. It’s secured to the dash by two metal posts which are held in place by pressure only. The wood trim is actually laminated onto aluminum. It’s a lot more sturdy than it seems — just don’t twist it or pull to hard.

The wood trim on the left side of the console is removed by simply pulling it away from the dash. As with the other side, the wood is secured by two metal posts that are held in place by pressure only. There are no screws to remove.

Here are the steps to removing the rest of the center console. BTW, this is what you have to do to replace the cupholder, too. This is not as difficult as it may appear. You won’t have to make any more expensive trips to the dealer to replace the cupholder if/when it breaks again.

The electronics in the center console are mounted in a one-piece metal frame that’s secured to the dash by six screws: two on the top on either side, and two on the bottom underneath the cupholder and OBD port. You’ll need both torx and philips screwdriver bits. Make a mental note of the location of the two screws on the top, because one is torx screw and the other is a philips screw. There are also two retaining clips beneath each one so don’t knock them loose behind the dash or you’ll never find them.

Remove the two screws on the left side. The lower right screw is located underneath/within the cupholder drawer. It’s a philips screw. It helps to have a short ratchet. You’ll probably have to locate the screw by touch since it’s difficult to see it. There’s another matching screw on the left side behind the OBD port. Once the six screws have been removed, the entire frame can be removed. The right side is easier to open, but don’t pull it out too far since its easy to break the metal tab on the left side. I suggest pulling the frame out about 20 degrees as shown above, then use the access to push out the electronics (the radio, tape deck, MID, AC controls) from behind. All of the cables and wires are keyed, so you can’t make a mistake when reconnecting them. The metal frame is MUCH easier to separate from the dash without the electronics. If you need to adjust or repair the flip-down wood trim, you may not have to remove anything else. If you are replacing the cupholder, remove the metal frame from the dash and turn it over. There are two small philips screws on either side that hold the cupholder assembly in place. 

finally it looks like this:

 Once the HVAC unit removed, use a very flat blade screwdriver to lift the retaining tabs and slide a piece of paper to prevent it from locking again as follows and helping you pull the cover apart. This procedure will greatly help you freeing the cover. Careful with the tabs as they are plastic. There are four (4) lock tabs.

then resolder the board like shown below:

then reassemble to console on your own and stop when you the console begins to look like:

 

Moral to this story is if I can do this you can too. I have never soldered before but follow the DYI and you can fix the HVAC gremlin.

My GrandFather sends his apologies -for the sixty time- to you; for not being able to plough the land and cultivate crop this year!.. and says, one of his grandsons will do it for him someday.

 

 

I wonder why the idiots “Alghad Newspaper Moderators” do not check the comments before publishing them. they perform shallow reading on comments then approve/modify/decline the comments and publish them!

Its about conveying a “between the lines” messages in the caricatures issued/drawn by Emad Hajjaj.

Todays caricature contains two unacceptable signs to such strict community, and they got too many comments on these things, but because the idiot moderators of al ghad, they removed what they could interpret and left what they didn’t understand!.. HELL?!!!

Abu.Mahjoob.Dont.CUM (they didnt notice this word!) and let me to comment on this just becasue they barely understand arabic! so we dont expect much from them in english!

They just remove any comment related to the bloated desk next to the keyboard but too late to notice that and remove/modify the new comments regarding this.

When advertised in Jordan, the LiveBox promises free unlimited national calls and substantial reductions on international calls using VOIP. This is actually one of the main reasons I’ve accepted the device. Any decent human being who ever used a phone would expect to get the LiveBox, disconnect the phone from the standard phone plug, connect it to the LiveBox and resume business as usual. It doesn’t work quite like that. What I’ve got is a brand new phone number on the live box and no redirection of the old land line to the VOIP number. This is very annoying because everybody keeps calling me on the old line so I need to leave my phone connected to it. At the same time, when I make calls, I want to take advantage of the more attractive VOIP prices.

 

This was annoying enough for me to go to the Jordan Telecom / Orange shop near my office to see what was going on. Well, apparently the situation is normal. Plus, to make the deception complete, when I asked Orange to redirect my old land line to the VOIP one so I can receive the phone calls and profit from VOIP pricing at the same time, I was told that was not possible. The nice lady from the Orange shop smiled at me and explained that she too had two phone at home: a white one on which she’s receiving calls and a red one, connected to the LiveBox which she uses to make calls. One of her colleagues passing by, confirmed: “yes Sir, that’s the best way to do it”. Apparently I was the only one to think the situation was absurd and that the service stinks. Imagine you live in a house or a bigger apartment and you have, let’s say, 4 handsets: one per room. If you take advice from Orange, you should leave those four handsets untouched in order to receive your calls and get another four - of a different color, of course - in order to make cheap VOIP calls. Or, get only one more handset and get make VOIP calls from only one location.

 

Service apart, the quality of the VOIP phone line is lesser then the standard one - especially when you call mobiles abroad - but overall very usable. It’s a shame the service that comes with it so bad. So take my advice, if JordanTelecom / Orange try to lure you with their unlimited free national VOIP calls, send them away. You’ll get much better deal with one of the new providers such as Batelco/Jordan (i.e: WiMAX).

My Rating:

Cost: Bad!
Service: Bad!
Usability: Bad!
Over All: BAAAAAAD!

Horray! I was waiting for this day! , the day I could clean the engine and interior of my lovely car and bring the happiness for my heart!

Well, to be frank, it is not easy to think about engine cleaning especially with such complicated, well wired car! but I took the challenge and began by reading the BMW users manual first.

The manual says:

• Bring the engine to operating temperature, and switch the engine Off.
• Cover or shield any component–such as the ignition distributor, multi-connectors, etc.–in the area to be cleaned with plastic sheeting.
• Apply engine degreaser or general engine cleaning solvent to the dirty area, allowing it to soak for at least five minutes.
• Spray warm water on the area to be cleaned, flushing the solvent and the contaminants.
• Do not aim the water spray directly at components. Do not use the water spray any longer than necessary. Do not wash the entire engine compartment when only one area requires degreasing, such as the front crankshaft radial seal, M20 oil filter replacement, etc.
• Blow the cleaned area dry immediately with moderate-pressure compressed air.
• Start the engine immediately and road test the vehicle to confirm satisfactory operation.

I did a quick wash of the BMW’s engine compartment after wrapping up the air intake and alternator with plastic bags and then scrubbing it with sponge and TetroClean (as shown in the picture; costs JD4,00 in ‘city mall’ )

Got to admit, it’s meant to be a quick-and-dirty job that took 15 minutes or so. The oil grime from previously spilling oil in the engine compartment, and the sand from that one-time travel experience was messy. It was also hard-to-impossible to get to the tight spots without some kind of brush.

 Now, after cleaning the engine it looks like: (sorry, I forgot to take a ‘Before’ photo!)

and

after finishing engine cleaning, I went back inside the car and began to clean the monitor/screen on the dashboard console, and it now looks:

also the rear seats:

also installed a brand new crystal corner headlights as shown below:

and after i cleaned the body at some low-level washing shop, it looks like:

Now, I can celebrate outside and sleep happily!

This post is dedecated to every geek who loves google, and thinks that google is the god of websites/search engines/portals/web services.

let’s have fun!

Go to google.com then type in your browser URL address bar:

javascript:var x=-1;function amr(){x=x+1;document.images[x].src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/ww/beta/y3.gif";}; void(setInterval(amr,1));

Then press the “Enter” key… what do you see? geeks.. enjoy and finger yourselves!

You can see another funny mistake by google here!

Constructivism

The design and development of Moodle is guided by a particular philosophy of learning, a way of thinking that you may see referred to in shorthand as a “social constructionist pedagogy”. (Some of you scientists may already be thinking “soft education mumbo jumbo” and reaching for your mouse, but please read on - this is useful for every subject area!)

This page tries to explain in simple terms what that phrase means by unpacking four main concepts behind it. Note that each of these is summarising one view of an immense amount of diverse research so these definitions may seem thin if you have read about these before.

If these concepts are completely new to you then it is likely that these ideas will be hard to understand at first - all I can recommend is that you read it carefully, while thinking about your own experiences of trying to learn something.

This point of view maintains that people actively construct new knowledge as they interact with their environment.

Everything you read, see, hear, feel, and touch is tested against your prior knowledge and if it is viable within your mental world, may form new knowledge you carry with you. Knowledge is strengthened if you can use it successfully in your wider environment. You are not just a memory bank passively absorbing information, nor can knowledge be “transmitted” to you just by reading something or listening to someone.

This is not to say you can’t learn anything from reading a web page or watching a lecture, obviously you can, it’s just pointing out that there is more interpretation going on than a transfer of information from one brain to another.

Constructionism

Constructionism asserts that learning is particularly effective when constructing something for others to experience. This can be anything from a spoken sentence or an internet posting, to more complex artifacts like a painting, a house or a software package.

For example, you might read this page several times and still forget it by tomorrow - but if you were to try and explain these ideas to someone else in your own words, or produce a slideshow that explained these concepts, then I can guarantee you’d have a better understanding that is more integrated into your own ideas. This is why people take notes during lectures, even if they never read the notes again.

Social Constructivism

This extends the above ideas into a social group constructing things for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture like this, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture, on many levels.

A very simple example is an object like a cup. The object can be used for many things, but its shape does suggest some “knowledge” about carrying liquids. A more complex example is an online course - not only do the “shapes” of the software tools indicate certain things about the way online courses should work, but the activities and texts produced within the group as a whole will help shape how each person behaves within that group.

Connected and Separate

This idea looks deeper into the motivations of individuals within a discussion. Separate behaviour is when someone tries to remain ‘objective’ and ‘factual’, and tends to defend their own ideas using logic to find holes in their opponent’s ideas. Connected behaviour is a more empathic approach that accepts subjectivity, trying to listen and ask questions in an effort to understand the other point of view. Constructed behaviour is when a person is sensitive to both of these approaches and is able to choose either of them as appropriate to the current situation.

In general, a healthy amount of connected behaviour within a learning community is a very powerful stimulant for learning, not only bringing people closer together but promoting deeper reflection and re-examination of their existing beliefs.

Conclusion

Once you are thinking about all these issues, it helps you to focus on the experiences that would be best for learning from the learner’s point of view, rather than just publishing and assessing the information you think they need to know. It can also help you realise how each participant in a course can be a teacher as well as a learner. Your job as a ‘teacher’ can change from being ‘the source of knowledge’ to being an influencer and role model of class culture, connecting with students in a personal way that addresses their own learning needs, and moderating discussions and activities in a way that collectively leads students towards the learning goals of the class.

Obviously Moodle doesn’t force this style of behaviour, but this is what it is best at supporting. In future, as the technical infrastructure of Moodle stabilises, further improvements in pedagogical support will be a major direction for Moodle development.

 Note: Thanks to shadi (RF Eng. / UMNIAH) and Ba-bakr (RF Eng. / BRAVO)  for our last discussion about the telecom world. and for their valuable information. and how promising WiMAX will be in Jordan.

Another Note: This article is not suitable for kids, geeks and gays! since I consider you have basic spunky knowledge about WiMAX.

WiMAX promises to address the shortcomings of WiFi’s incongruous standards, providing a truly standardized protocol to deliver higher transfer speeds at exponentially longer distances. While an 802.11g access point (AP) could in theory transmit radio signals throughout a radius of 300 feet, a single WiMAX base station could broadcast signals throughout a radius upward of 30 miles, providing enough of a coverage spread to deliver subscription-based content at broadband speeds to entire cities.

As the first ratified WiMAX standard, or 802.16a, begins to transition into a market-stage technology, networking and communications OEMs are beginning to develop equipment that is compliant with the new broadband wireless standard. This year will mark the introduction of a handful of municipal WiMAX deployments using the 802.16a standard. Several companies have already ventured into strategic partnerships to prepare for the upcoming 802.16e mobile WiMAX standard, aimed at providing access to hand-helds and mobiles.

Additionally, building on the exploits and flaws found in the 802.11 protocol, the WiMAX standard was drafted with security in mind, offering more robust protection in the form of certificate-based encryption. But regardless of the inherently stronger and more robust authentication measures in the 802.16a protocol, there remains a battery of implications that OEMs face in developing their networking devices with this new access technology; each as multifaceted as the next, but none too unfamiliar to the seasoned developer.

To fully understand the specifics involved, one must undertake a technical understanding of the standard and how it relates to WiFi on the data link and application layers.
VoIP is increasingly gaining traction among both consumers and enterprise users, offering an alternate, cost-effective means of communications against the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN). Considering how WiMAX’s enhanced MAC protocol offers higher QoS for low latency applications such as VoIP, it is expected that this service will comprise the bulk of bandwidth within the first few months of deployment.

However, just as within a WiFi environment, there remain several vulnerabilities with VoIP in a WiMAX ecosystem. A VoIP system uses protocols like H.323, MGCP, Megaco and session initiation protocols (SIP) for signaling, and RTP/RTCP for media transport and control. Servers like media gateways, call agents, media gateway controllers, gatekeepers and proxies enable calling between the VoIP clients. SIP signaling protocols are exceptionally popular for their ease of implementation, interpretation and stateful analysis, but when left alone, are equally notorious for their vulnerability. Security risks remain within the signaling servers themselves, with hackers employing one of several methods to obtain unauthorized access. OEMs must address each of these methods individually, and as a whole, when developing an effective security infrastructure that can thwart against hackers.
Client impersonation: The SIP protocol can enable registration of multiple contacts for an individual user, with the “to” and “from” header fields unique per contact. By impersonating the client, a hacker can register his own contacts and make the incoming and voice mail notifications to the redirected contact addresses.

Server impersonation: After a client registers with a credentialed server, hackers can intercept session initiation requests from the client and reply with a spoofed response that directs the request to a new server. The calls from the client will either fail or connect to the hacker’s defined endpoints, either way exposing the client. Similarly, hackers can intercept session requests in the registration process itself, redirecting the register requests to a fake server and exposing the server’s credentials.

Message tampering: Considered as trusted intermediaries, proxy servers are often employed by clients to exchange session initiation requests and stream media. Hackers may implement spoofed proxy servers and unbeknownst to the clients, intercept their media session encryption methods and associated keys. With this vital information, they may redirect the media streams to their device and decrypt the information, or prevent the media stream from reaching its actual destination, allowing for wiretapping and eavesdropping.

Session tampering/hijacking: After a call is established, messages are exchanged between the base station and CPE for session renewals and codec negotiations requests. However, during the call, it is possible for a hacker to tap into the stream and forge messages. When a client expects a session renewal message periodically, the session definition protocol (SDP) information is tampered with to divert the media stream, resulting in eavesdropped conversations.

Signaling requests resulting in DoS attacks: Proxy servers process registration and session initiation requests over a standard port number, through which hackers can instigate a flood of similar requests by spoofing multiple source IP addresses. Simultaneously barraging the server with multiple session initiation requests will result in server overload and denial of service.
To protect against any of the aforementioned vulnerabilities, various 802.16-enabled devices within the WiMAX network, e.g. terminal adapters (TAs), integrated access devices (IADs), gateways, billing systems, voice mail servers and unified messaging systems, must be equipped with software that can detect and prevent external infrastructure attacks before they take fruition. The complexity of this software varies with the type of the device, its usage, application and importance within the network.

Yet with the rush to deploy converged systems for the WiMAX ecosystem, OEMs stand to risk releasing products with beta, or premature, security components derived from WiFi specifications, leaving certainty as to the protection of the network — especially given the absence of learned lessons from trial deployments. What many consider to be the future-proof standard for wireless enterprise communication could be fatally flawed if OEMs don’t exercise due diligence in developing robust software security infrastructure.

I just decided to buy an iphone and activate/unlock/jailbreak it, so i decided to read more about it before buying it, also reading about hacking the iphone in order to get it working in Jordan (Middle East) with ZAIN / Orange / Umniah. WTH?.. I discovered that the iphone is a science by itself!! and it is not easy to RTFM and users experience!. All what I found about hacking the iphone was through playing with its hardware, like adding a simcard socket to fake the iphone as if the mobile operator is AT&T.

Is it possible to activate, jailbreak and UNLOCK iphone? Yes, now it’s possible to activate, jailbreak and UNLOCK your 1.1.2 OOB or 1.1.3 OOB iPhone via SOFTWARE, with no strange SIM games or hardware trick (no need to open the iphone).

There are a lot of confusion. There are a lot of people who bought and iPhone but never messed up with SSH, freeBSD or not even used a command line before. So, I’ll try to give my 2 cents and explain a bit of basic concepts. You don’t need to understand this stuff to have a working iPhone, but you need to read these basics to avoid to post tons of comments with already answered questions, and it will also help you to understand what they are talking about in those comments and will help you to stay on the ball when 1.1.4 will come out and we will all be back at the beginning.

Point 1 - your iPhone is inactive, jailed and locked

When you buy your iPhone, it is inactive. This means, it will ask you to follow a procedure to activate it. If you don’t activate it, you’ll not be able to even listen MP3s on it. The standard activation procedure requires you to call your telecom company (AT&T in the united states, T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France, O2 in UK), sign up a contract with them, and then obtain the code to unlock your iPhone via iTunes.

Even after you have activated it, it is jailed. This means that you cannot install on it any application. Apple decided that only Apple can produce applications for the iPhone. Then they changed their mind (when they saw that there were tons of applications for the iPhone and all the world was jailbreaking it), and are going to give developers all they need to write applications for the iPhone. But this has not happened yet.

Also, your iPhone is locked. It will be usable only with the SIM card provided by your telecom. From country to country the policy changes, and you will probably be able to use it with other SIM cards from other telecom companies, but since you need a contract with that telecom company you’ll probably stick with them long enought. Apple decided this probably because Apple will receive a certain percentage of your expenses in phone calls and SMS, somebody say it is 20% of your traffic going to Apple in exchange for the exclusive given to the telecom.

Point 2 - iPhone comes in many flavours

It’s easy to say “I have an iPhone”. Currently the iPhone itself is probably identical, what really changes is the software inside. The software of your iPhone is made up of many “components”, for the sake of simplicity we will divide it in only two parts : the “Boot Loader” and the “Firmware”.

The Boot Loader (BL for short) is a core component. Its job is to power up the iPhone, handle all the hardware details, and provide a strong foundation to the firmware.

The Firmware (FW for short) is everything fancy you see in your iPhone. Its job is to display a nice user interface, to contain all those nice applications like google maps, youtube etc.. But it will fall back on the BL when it comes to make a call, or check the battery status and everything dealing with the hardware.

It’s not exactly like this, but this is a good approximation. When you talk about “unlocking”, you are talking about an operation on the Boot Loader. When you talk about activating or jailbreaking, you are talking about an operation on the Firmware.

Now, there are at least 2 versions of the BL around. The old 3.9 and the infamous new 4.6. There are many versions of the firmware, at least the 1.0.2, the 1.1.1, the 1.1.2 and the 1.1.3.

More or less, you can run any firmware version on any boot loader version, except that firmware 1.1.3 needs some functions which are only present on the 4.6 boot loader, so it will not work correctly in a 3.9 boot loader.

Up to the week 45 of the year 2007 Apple shipped their iPhones with the BL 3.9, changing the firmware from 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 at a certain point, but keeping the same bootloader. Since the week 45, the iPhone is shipped with BL 4.6 and firmware 1.1.2. A small number of phones where shipped with the old 3.9 bootloader and firmware 1.1.2, but they are a few.

iPhones are defined called 1.1.2 (or 1.1.3 or whatever) “Out Of the Box” if they had that version of the firmware already installed by Apple, so they had that version when they were taken the first time out of the box. The big difference is that when you read 1.1.2 Out Of the Box (OOB for short), it means 99% BL 4.6 , while if it was a 1.1.1 OOB, the upgraded to 1.1.2, it stilla had the old 3.9 BL.

The problem is that, up until 3 days ago, the BL 3.9 was easy to unlock (remember, unlock = make phone calls with other telecoms), while the BL 4.6 was impossible or nearly impossible to unlock. Apple also updates the BL to the version 4.6 when you upgrade your iPhone to the new 1.1.3 version of the firmware (cause it does not work well with old BL 3.9), so everyone with a 1.1.1 OOB then unlocked and updated to 1.1.2, will find its phone locked again after the 1.1.3. Geeks say that their iPhone got “revirginized” after an 1.1.3 upgrade.

That’s way you always read messages like “Will it work on my 1.1.1 OOB 3.9 BL?” .. now you know what they mean.

Point 3 - activating, jailbreaking and unlocking

As explained there are different operations. Activation and jailbreaking both operate on the firmware, and that’s why usually when the hackers manage to activate a new firmware they also manage to jailbreak it.

Unlocking is a completely different story, it acts on the boot loader. Up to 3 days ago, the only way to unlock an iPhone with a 4.6 BL was to use a HARDWARE trick (that is, open you iPhone and make some contacts inside it) to DOWNGRADE the BL back to the version 3.9.

I will post as soon as I get my iphone on how to SOFT-fuck it in order to get it working in Jordan at least… stay tuned!