You can use your own backgrounds with a simple hack, though. Basically, you just replace the background images OmmWriter uses with your own, and then choose between them within the app. This can be useful if you don’t like the backgrounds bundled with OmmWriter, or if you want to use an image of your blog, so you can see what your text will look like when it’s published, like this guy did here.

To do this, go to your Applications folder and select OmmWriter. Then, right-click it and select Show Package Contents. There are three default background images used in the free version of OmmWriter, with names “background_white.jpg”, “paisaje_1920x1200.jpg”, and “textura_oscuro_1920x1200.jpg”. Choose which file you want to replace and move it to the trash (don’t worry, you can always drag it out again). Now you need to rename the image you want to use as a replacement with the name of the image you removed. Then, all you have to do is drag your replacement image into the OmmWriter Resources folder and that’s it. When you restart OmmWriter, you should be able to choose your new background image.

Your replacement background image will have to be a JPEG. Since you can’t change the color of the text in OmmWriter, you’ll want to choose an image that’s light enough for you to see the text. You can find some good images from InterfaceLift, and you can always change the opacity of the picture with your favorite photo editing software if you need to lighten it up.

You can also use this method to replace some of the audio files OmmWriter uses for ambiance. OmmWriter is a great app for writers looking to boost their productivity, and this nifty little hack should help you get even more in the zone. Does anyone else use these distraction-free writing tools?

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Last week the news about yet another non-belligerent iPhone worm did the rounds and people responded by saying things like “How silly jailbreaker’s are for not changing their SSH root passwords,” and “It’s only a matter of time until a worm appears that’s not so friendly…” OK, yes, geeky people said those things. Normals will likely never know that jailbreaking is something you can do to a phone.

Well, the predictions of gloom have proven true. Over the last few days, and reported by The Mac Observer, a new worm has been identified. This one, (so-far limited to iPhone owners in the Netherlands), takes advantage of the exact same SSH-exploit as the previous worm. Once on a user’s iPhone, it circumvents Mobile Safari’s anti-phishing technology to present a spoof of a popular banking website. Users are tricked into handing over their online banking authentication details. The worm spreads from iPhone to iPhone, but is limited to jailbroken handsets connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

Apple has weighed-in with its own sage wisdom and advice on the matter. Speaking to The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple, Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison said:

The worm affects only a very specific set of iPhone users who have jail broken their iPhones and hacked it with unauthorized software. As we’ve said before, the vast majority of customers do not jailbreak their iPhones, and for good reason. These hacks not only violate the warranty, they will also cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably.

If you live in the Netherlands and have jailbroken your iPhone and installed SSH, you need to change the default password to protect yourself from this particular exploit. Just don’t think you’ll be safe — Apple might keep the iPhone platform locked-down tight, but you can’t argue against the obvious security advantages of doing so. To date, there have been four confirmed worms “in the wild” on jailbroken iPhones. How many confirmed worms have appeared in the wild that affect non-jailbroken iPhones? There you have it.

The Real Question Is…

But the real question, as I see it, is this; who jailbreaks any more? I mean, really… who? Why? The single biggest reason people originally went to the trouble of jailbreaking their iPhones was due to frustration at the lack of native apps. (Back in the early days of iPhone ownership, and before the app store existed, only Apple’s own home-grown apps were locally installed on the device. Every third-party apps ran inside Mobile Safari and, therefore, required access to the Internet.) I did a lot of travel back then, usually by air and train, so I didn’t always have a reliable Internet connection; this rendered most of my web apps useless. That annoyed me, and I very nearly did the whole jailbreaking thing just so I could install applications locally that would work irrespective of an active Internet connection. (Ultimately I wussed-out, too afraid I’d permanently mess-up my precious — and expensive — iPhone.)

But that was then, and times have changed.. What other compelling reasons were there to void Apple’s iPhone warranty? MMS, video recording, exchange server support, multitasking and Copy & Paste were the “most missed” features. Today we have more apps than you can shake an iPhone at. We have MMS and video recording, exchange support and copy & paste.

The only thing missing is “true” multitasking, but for the vast majority of iPhone owners (for whom multitasking is another way of saying “I want instant messaging!”), Apple’s Push Notification Service does a decent job of balancing productive multitasking with preserving battery life.

So… why jailbreak? Is it a form of protest against Apple’s broken application approval process? Is it because you absolutely must replace the default icons with something far less classy? Perhaps you can’t live without tethering? Tell us in the comments the (few) remaining reasons for jailbreaking an iPhone.

Just please don’t say it’s for geek cred… I might cry!

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Despite the odd syntactical choice made by Psystar’s copy editor, the ramifications are clear: you should, in theory, be able to install Mac OS X on any old PC hardware. Not only that, but Rebel EFI also reportedly scans your system for compatible hardware and downloads all the appropriate drivers where they are available.

Of course, Psystar is in the business of making money (though sometimes I wonder how it thinks that’s possible when tangling with Apple in court), so Rebel EFI isn’t free. It’ll cost you $49.99 to get the full version, which ships as a direct download.

You don’t have to dive in blind, though. Anyone can download and use Rebel, but the trial version limits some hardware features and only works for two hours. To prevent piracy, you see, or the unlicensed use of Psystar’s software. Yes, the irony is delicious.

Psystar bundles the Rebel EFI with the Darwin Universal Boot Loader, or DUBL, which allows for users to install multiple operating systems on the same computer on different drives. It supports up to six, so you could have OS X, Windows, and any number of Linux builds all running on the same machine, for example.

Rebel also uses the same “Safe Update” method Psystar includes on its pre-modded hardware, which automatically screens updates from Apple and lets you know if they’re safe to install. The same tool also checks with Psystar’s servers to make sure all your hardware is using optimal drivers.

Finally, Psystar has even introduced a new “home certification program.” The program encourages users of the Rebel EFI software to send in hardware components that aren’t fully compatible with the tool, so that the clone-maker’s engineers can correct the problem for all users affected. To me, sending your own hardware components in to a company with a questionable track record which could, theoretically, close its doors any day doesn’t seem like the wisest course of action, but to each his own.

If anyone is planning on purchasing the Rebel EFI, or even just downloading and trying out the demo ISO, we’d welcome an account of your trials and tribulations in the comments.

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The Knowledgebase Article makes it sound as potentially bad as it is.

Impact: Receiving a maliciously crafted SMS message may lead to an unexpected service interruption or arbitrary code execution

Description: A memory corruption issue exists in the decoding of SMS messages. Receiving a maliciously crafted SMS message may lead to an unexpected service interruption or arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue through improved error handling. Credit to Charlie Miller of Independent Security Evaluators, and Collin Mulliner of Fraunhofer SIT for reporting this issue.

All iPhones were vulnerable to attack, regardless of OS version. The only defense from having your personality rewritten or being possessed by a ghost was to shut the phone off, which was hardly practicable. While it’s always nice to see Apple give credit to the those who discover an exploit, it’s unfortunate it took the researchers going public to get the company to move on this issue.

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With the release of webOS 1.1, Palm Pre users cut off from iTunes 8.2.1 are connected again, at least until iTunes 8.2.2 shows up in Software Update.

For today, however, Palm can talk some trash. Or at least John Traynor, VP of Business Products for Palm, can and does on the company’s blog.

Oh, and one more thing: Palm webOS 1.1 re-enables Palm media sync. That’s right — you once again can have seamless access to your music, photos and videos from the current version of iTunes (8.2.1).

You have to love the “one more thing” bit, if not the battle between Apple and Palm over iTunes. A war which no one is winning, though ironically the biggest losers arguably are Pre users.

To recap, the Palm Pre was released on June 6 with “Media Sync” built into the OS for synchronizing with iTunes. On June 16, Apple published a knowledgebase article warning that newer versions of iTunes “may no longer provide syncing functionality with non-Apple digital media players.” That newer version, iTunes 8.2.1, was released on July 15, breaking Pre compatibility with iTunes. Pre users wondering why webOS 1.1 was taking so long to come out probably got their answer today, as Palm was likely waiting for Apple to break the hack so the Palm could patch it, and make no mistake, a hack it is. The Pre fools iTunes by using Apple’s USB vendor ID, identifying itself as an iPod. Whether or not that’s illegal, it’s certainly not fair.

It’s not fair to Pre users.

Palm advertises iTunes syncing as a feature of webOS, and when that feature suddenly stops working, they are at a loss until Palm issues a new hack. Sure, Palm blames Apple, but what does that do for Pre users who just want to listen to their music? Pre users are looking at a future in which their Pre won’t work half the time with iTunes. If Palm doesn’t have the resources to create its own media software, it should point users towards doubleTwist or Missing Sync for Pre. If Palm can’t do right by its customers, perhaps looking at it from a financial perspective would make sense. A hyperlink on a web page costs even less in development time than a miserable hack.

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Photo by Flickr user Jinho.Jung

Over in London, the experimental electronic music scene is positively flourishing.

Having lived in the UK’s capital city for the latter part of 2008, I discovered a bubbling sonic subculture — a community of creatives hijacking ice cream vans, reappropriating medical EPGs, and hacking instruments out of scraps of junk, all for the purposes of audio experimentation.

Particularly interesting is that, among these esoteric technologies, the iPhone seemed to be emerging as a burgeoning platform for sonic exploration. Since leaving London and moving to Helsinki, things have advanced even further as, in what is perhaps a world first, the iPhone orchestra (conducted via Wii controller, naturally) has been established.

The London Geek Community iPhone OSCestra’s inaugural performance was May 8 at Open Hack London, a one-day event supported by Yahoo! that brought together ultra tech-savvy hackers for a day of coding and communicating. The orchestra, a crew of eight musicians, opened with an impressive (and deliciously geeky) performance of the “Doctor Who” theme.

It seems that the iPhone is the perfect augmentation to any serious sonic-hacker’s audio artillery. Alongside its audio capabilities, touchscreen and Wi-Fi, the device can run third-party apps natively. Apple has made coding for the iPhone a breeze (even if getting your app approved isn’t so easy). Most importantly, though, the iPhone is readily accessible and relatively low-cost.

While it’s not clear when the The London Geek Community iPhone OSCestra will perform next, it’s actually surprisingly easy to get started making music in the same way. In particular, the musically minded among you who have been inspired by the iPhone orchestra will be pleased to hear that a combination of free iPhone and desktop tools were used for their performance.

The orchestra downloaded mrmr (free) from the App Store, an app that allows you to create highly customizable audio controllers and send the data to other devices using OSC (Open Sound Control). A controller could be a piano-style keyboard, a bank of faders, or an array of twisty knobs and flashy buttons — essentially interactive widgets that allow you to control sound and music.

Free desktop application OSCulator caught all the data, beamed wirelessly from mrmr on the iPhone, and sent it to Ableton Live. Live is my musical tool of choice, an incredibly powerful performance and production platform. In this instance, the orchestra performed using a bank of synthesizers running within Live. If you’re interested in going beyond Garage Band and making music on your Mac, it’s worth checking out the Live demo.

Thanks to the iPhone and, in particular, the growing number of sound toys and audio tools in the App Store, it’s becoming easier than ever for listeners to become performers. Drop by the comments, and let me know if you’ve been using your iPhone to make music.

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Besides removing what is arguably the last significant barrier to running a hacked version of OS X on the Wind for less advanced end-users, the move reveals another potential threat to Apple’s OS X sovereignty. Realtek is not Psystar or EFi-X USA, they’ve been around for a while, and they’re not doing anything that will necessarily attract the serious attention of Apple’s legal team, but their move should still be a wake-up call to Cupertino. It shows, indirectly, two things. One, and this is good news for Apple, there’s significant demand for an Apple netbook if Realtek is willing to develop drivers that make it easier for their customers to buy even a hacked one. Two, if Apple doesn’t want to play ball, then third-party component manufacturers, responding to consumer demand, certainly are.

In short, Apple, the netbook train is leaving the station, and unless you want to be stuck on the platform holding your luggage, you’d better hoof it and jump on that caboose. Realtek knows where your bread is buttered, do you?

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Fortunately for me, and anyone else annoyed by this, a little poking about in the plist files uncovered a way to hide them. 

1. Quit iTunes
2. Open Terminal.app and input this: defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool FALSE
3. Restart iTunes

All of the arrows to the iTunes store should be gone!

To re-enable the arrows just open Terminal.app and input this: defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-arrow-links -bool TRUE

A quick tip to start your Monday off musically and arrow-free.

[Hat tip: MacOSXHints.com]

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To reset your OS X password without an OS X CD you need to enter terminal and create a new admin account:

1. Reboot
2. Hold apple + s down after you hear the chime.
3. When you get text prompt enter in these terminal commands to create a brand new admin account (hitting return after each line):
   • mount -uw /
   • rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
   • shutdown -h now
4. After rebooting you should have a brand new admin account. When you login as the new admin you can simply delete the old one and you’re good to go again!

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It was bound to happen sooner or later, but barely 3 days after Leopard’s release we now have a simple app that changes the menu bar to solid white.

OpaqueMenuBar from Eternal Storms seems to just simply put a white bar over the menu bar. The only negative thing I found was that on dual-monitors it puts the white bar across both monitors instead of just the “master” monitor that has the menu bar.

OpaqueMenuBar is free for the taking.

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It requires quite a bit of hackery and, if you’re not careful, could very well kill off your iPhone altogether.

I honestly don’t think I’d want to risk that considering it costs a small fortune to purchase an iPhone in the first place.

If anything, it’s a pretty good read just to learn more about the inner workings of of the iPhone (atleast from a software standpoint).

The usual disclaimers apply. It’s your own fault if you break it. :)

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It seems that it took some curious iPhone users only 3 days to hack an iphone firmware image and discover the encrypted root password and then to crack it. The super-geeky details can be found here if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

You can click through the link above to find the passwords if you so desire, but again, it really does you no good at all. For now.

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