Guide: Get MMS on iPhone 2G (AT&T OR T-Mobile OR Any Other)

Well now, lets take a look back at WWDC ‘09.
I can quote Apple stating that the iPhone 2G will not be receiving MMS capabilities because of a “hardware limitation”.

DO NOT TRY THIS ON AN IPHONE 3G, IT WILL BRICK YOUR IPHONE

You have been warned.

However, there is a new package on Cydia that is going to help us get there.

Something to note about this hack:
You do not need SwirlyMMS! This works though the Messages.app (Text/SMS App)
All previous hacks used SwirlyMMS, a paid jailbroken app that lets you send messages through its own app, but not the official Apple Messages.app.

And some of the things you’re going to need to get this working:

And for AT&T users you’ll ALSO need:

Once you’ve taken care of that, lets start with the step-by-step.

1. Go to Cydia, and download “ActivateMMS2G”

2. Install it, and reboot your iPhone. If you’re on T-Mobile, you’ll need to find your correct MMS settings… So grab them from here. Do this ON YOUR IPHONE, as it will auto-install the configuration.

3. For AT&T iPhones, you’re going to need to do a lot more work… Start by downloading This customized iPhone AT&T US carrier file. Save it to your desktop somewhere.

4. You need to configure iTunes to let you use this file with your phone, so follow the directions for your operating system.

MAC OS X:
Close iTunes.
Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
Run the command:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes carrier-testing -bool TRUE

Windows 32 Bit:
Close iTunes.
Go to Start then Run and type CMD.
Run this command:

“C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

Windows 64 Bit:
Close iTunes.
Go to Start then Run and type CMD.
Run this command:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

5. After that, plug in your iPhone to your computer, launch iTunes back up, and option click (Mac) or shift click (Windows) the “Check for Updates” button. Change the type to be the carrier file, and select the AT&T US file from your desktop.

6. Take your iPhone SIM card out, and put it in your other AT&T phone…

7. Make some calls… I called AT&T Wireless Customer Support at 1-800-331-0500.

8. Check your AT&T Account Management online, to see if your number has changed from being an iPhone to whatever phone your using. If not make some more calls and check again. Once you’ve noticed it’s changed, go on to the next step.

9. This is why you need to have a pre-existing messaging plan, because when you’re SIM is in the new phone, it allows MMS’s to go through, because it’s not an iPhone. Switching back to the iPhone doens’t (yet) seem to block MMS’s again. If you do not already have a messaging plan, you MAY be able to add one to your account online, but I cannot confirm this works.

10. Go to this link on your iPhone, and find the US > AT&T carrier configuration, and install that.

11. Reboot your phone.

9. Send a test MMS to yourself. Please NOTE: The sending of MMS files takes some time… be patient with it, the sending bar will get NEARLY full, and then stop… wait it out, check it in a minute or two to see if it went through. If you see a red ! mark, then the message failed to send… something along the way wasn’t done properly, check the MMS settings (shown below), and try again, if it’s still not working then start over with the custom carrier files.

And here are the correct AT&T settings.

This is under Settings.app > General > Network > Cellular Data Network
(If this section is missing you did not properly apply the patch through iTunes, go back and try again.)

Some sites have reported the need for a username (wap@cingulargprs.com) and a password (CINGULAR1) but I have had success without authentication. Please let me know your findings.

Please also note, it also takes some time to RECEIVE an MMS, your one you test-sent to yourself should send, and you might not receive it for 30 seconds after that. Be patient.

This has been working for me for two days now. So far AT&T has not disabled MMS for my number, if they do I’ll be sure to update this post.

Please comment with your feedback and findings. I’ll be happy to try to help.

Guide: Hide “Microsoft User Data” Folder in OS X

Well well, if it isn’t that pesky Microsoft Office, screwing things up again.

Now if you ask me, my Documents folder should be for… well… documents. Not settings and user preferences, that belongs in ~/Library, for good reason.

If you want to hide the “Microsoft User Data” folder, you’re going to need the Developer Tools, and you can easily obtain them by inserting your OS X disk into your Mac, and just installing them

If you are unsure if you have them or not, open a Terminal and type

cd /Developer/Tools

If you get an “Error: No such file or directory.” then you’ll need to install them off the disk.

Once you’re sure you have the developer tools, then open Terminal, and type the following command.

/Developer/Tools/./SetFile -a V "/Users/YOUR_USERNAME/Documents/Microsoft User Data"

After that you might need to restart Finder for the effect to show. You can do this one of two ways… One way would be to restart your Mac, but we all know that’s not ideal, so back to Terminal we go… If you havn’t already noticed, terminal is one of the most powerful tools you have available to you in OS X. Anyhow, go to Terminal and type:

killall Finder

This command will kill any processes for Finder, and Finder will automatically restart itself.

After that, head to your documents folder/stack and you should see the changes.

It has also come to my attention that if you’re using a Documents stack, that you may need to drag an icon in/out of the stack for that to refresh as well, as it’s handled by Dock.app and not Finder.app

Enjoy your now clean documents folder.

Shell Script – Server Maintenance

So here’s my first shell script, written for a server at work who has maintenance tasks that need to be completed, and the commands get tedious to input and remember, now all you have to remember is ./maintenance

The script automates 4 tasks that our server has. Restarting out PostgreSQL database, restarting apache, vacuuming the database, and running our custom import scripts, which has to be done as a specific user each day, and NOT as root… which has caused issues in the past, but now if you run them with the script I wrote, there’s no issue at all.

When launched, the script displays a menu for you, on which you make your choices.

You can then make your choice, via number, and it will complete the task and prompt you to continue.
When a wrong choice is made it tells you that you need to select a number from the list. The help command gives you an idea of what each other command does, and exit obviously exits the script.

So here’s a video to demonstrate how the menu system works.

Its a simple shell script, but it works, and it works well for what it does.
And of course I’d want to share the actual script with you, and document it in my blog,
so here it is, Frank’s maintenance script!

#######################################################
#  _______        _            _                      #
# |__   __|      | |          | |                     #
#    | | ___  ___| |__        | | __ ___      ____ _  #
#    | |/ _ \/ __|  _ \   _   | |/ _` \ \ /\ / / _` | #
#    | |  __/ (__| | | | | |__| | (_| |\ V  V / (_| | #
#    |_|\___|\___|_| |_|  \____/ \__,_| \_/\_/ \__,_| #
#                                                     #
#           www.techjawa.com/category/code            #
#             www.corey.degrandchamp.com              #
#                                                     #
#######################################################
#                                                     #
# Written  By: Corey DeGrandchamp                     #
# Written  On: June 18, 2009                          #
# Written For: Michigan Drill Corporation             #
# Description: This shell script will automate all of #
#              the maintenance tasks on Frank.        #
#                                                     #
#######################################################
#                                                     #
# Edit   Date: June 24, 2009                          #
# Edit     By: Corey DeGrandchamp                     #
# About  Edit: Fixed script so the heading/title will #
#              show every time now, also made it      #
#              pause and wait for the ENTER key to    #
#              be pressed before it continues.        #
#                                                     #
#######################################################

#!/bin/bash

# Display the title.
clear
echo '
     __  __    __    ____  _  _  ____  ____  _  _    __    _  _  ___  ____
    (  \/  )  /__\  (_  _)( \( )(_  _)( ___)( \( )  /__\  ( \( )/ __)( ___)
     )    (  /(__)\  _)(_  )  (   )(   )__)  )  (  /(__)\  )  (( (__  )__)
    (_/\/\_)(__)(__)(____)(_)\_) (__) (____)(_)\_)(__)(__)(_)\_)\___)(____)

	'
# Display possible choices.
CHOICES="RESTART_POSTGRESQL RESTART_APACHE VACUUM_DATABASE RUN_IMPORTS HELP EXIT"
# Define commands for choices.
select choice in $CHOICES; do
	if [ "$choice" = "RESTART_POSTGRESQL" ]; then
		/etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql restart
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Finished restarting PostgreSQL."
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	elif [ "$choice" = "RESTART_APACHE" ]; then
		service httpsd restart
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Finished restarting Apache."
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	elif [ "$choice" = "VACUUM_DATABASE" ]; then
		su ********-c "/usr/bin/vacuumdb -* *******"
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Finished vacuuming the database."
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	elif [ "$choice" = "RUN_IMPORTS" ]; then
		su ********-c "/home/********/********/********/IMPORT"
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Finished running the imports."
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	elif [ "$choice" = "HELP" ]; then
		clear
		echo "RESTART_POSTGRES"
		echo "     - Useful for when SOEFIE giving errors, or functioning slowly."
		echo ""
		echo "RESTART_APACHE"
		echo "     - When changes are made to websites, or websites are not working."
		echo ""
		echo "VACUUM_DATABASE"
		echo "     - This will vacuum the veritime database, clearing our all of the junk."
		echo ""
		echo "RUN_IMPORTS"
		echo "     - Runs the imports from the AS/400 to SOEFIEs database."
		echo ""
		echo "HELP"
		echo "     - Displays this menu"
		echo ""
		echo "EXIT"
		echo "     - Exits the program."
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	elif [ "$choice" = "EXIT" ]; then
		clear
		exit
	else
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo ""
		echo "Please choose a number from the list."
		echo ""
		echo "Press ENTER to continue."
		read
		clear
	fi
# Display the title after each choice again.
	echo '
     __  __    __    ____  _  _  ____  ____  _  _    __    _  _  ___  ____
    (  \/  )  /__\  (_  _)( \( )(_  _)( ___)( \( )  /__\  ( \( )/ __)( ___)
     )    (  /(__)\  _)(_  )  (   )(   )__)  )  (  /(__)\  )  (( (__  )__)
    (_/\/\_)(__)(__)(____)(_)\_) (__) (____)(_)\_)(__)(__)(_)\_)\___)(____)

	'
done

Some parts taken out to protect our security….

I know there are other ways to do what I achived here, but as I said before, this is my VERY FIRST shell script.