Hey everyone! We’ve all been back for about a week here at Stony Brook, and things kick off at an exciting time! I just watched the Superbowl on TV yesterday with a bunch of friends in my room, Eli’s pass and his ability to avoid a sac was amazing! That was a moment of sports history that is truly memorable! We had chips and dip and soda! It was great, everyone was watching! I’m glad that the Giants won, they went on to defeat the undefeated New England Patriots (18-1)!s

Tomorrow is also Super Tuesday! The day where Republicans and Democrats get to choose their Presidential Candidates in the primaries! This is also very exciting because finally a change will happen in our government. So I’m gonna vote tomorrow at the Student Activity Center. Doors open from 6AM to 9PM.

I was actually volunteering part of my afternoon today to make phone calls to remind people to vote on Super Tuesday for NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group). We believe students need to vote because we have the power to change the future!

What is Web 3.o? Some people still don’t know what Web 2.0 is yet. Guru’s are struggling to define the next revolution but some agree that Web 3.0 is the mobile takeover of the internet. Web 2.0 applications will join Web 3.0 in letting users use that application on mobile devices. Mozilla is already developing it’s Firefox WAP browser soon to be available on mobile phone. Opera already has a successful WAP browser. Slowly services are appearing on mobile phones as we speak. Google has done a nice job of releasing some useful mobile services. Hopefully others will follow.

Web 3.0 means that there will be more money for wireless carriers all of the world! They will put more emphasis in marketing mobile internet and start to offer free WAP as an incentive for people to switch over to their carriers. It’s both a win-win situation because we will start seeing free or more affordable data plans.

I’ve been using a web 2.0 application that was in beta and required invites only for about a month now (called Mint), and I have to say that it is one of THE BEST web 2.0 applications out there. The reason I did not mention it sooner is because I had to respect the press embargo they requested. I could not blog or post screen shots about the beta experience. But if I blogged about it, it would have all been positive stories! This is highly recommended! Learn more about mint, keep reading… Introducing MINT!

So what is Mint anyway? “Mint allows you to view all of your banking and credit card transactions side-by-side, making identifying all of your transactions much easier and faster than ever before.

How does this help you? We make it easy for you to track down erroneous charges or bank fees, and keep a closer eye on your money.

Mint even lets you label your transactions so you know what bills you need to split with your friends or roommates, know which ones need to be reimbursed for your company, and more.”

Features? Wow features! Too many great features to list, read them all here!

I think everyone who has any type of bank account should have a Mint account, it is essential just like having a Google Account. The green interface is robust and sexy. It’s just so easy and friendly to use!

Sign up for Mint today!

Just released from beta literally 30 minutes ago, get it while its hot!

People who are tired of seeing ads on their browsers have been using Firefox’s AdBlock plugin for some time now to block those annoying ads from websites such as MySpace an DoubleClick. But now they are saying that they will sue the creators of AdBlock because it is costing them substantial amounts of revenue.

There is an estimate of 2.5 million plus AdBlock users which means that all 2.5 million of those users skip out on 1,000+ ads we encounter everyday. Thats a whopping 250 billion ads blocked each day. You can begin to imagine how much money they are loosing. If you ever hosted ads on Google via their AdWords program, you know how expensive it can be. It was like $5 a keyword click they would charge you. Imagine Google loosing $5 x 2.5 million because of AdBlock!

AdBlock and Filter.G are again Firefox plugins that automate the blocking of these ads on any website. There is a lawsuit going on that might end the use of these programs. So take my advice and install them and update them before it may be too late! I’m a proud user of them and will hate to see it go away. For those of you who has never tried it, I highly recommend it, you will not be sorry, I promise! Ads are not just annoying, they make pages longer to load!

Actually by doing this, I’m loosing out on money too because my Google ads would be blocked but still I advocate for this plugin! My loss is your gain! Seriously!

If you refer to my previous blog here, you can get info on how to download them.

That’s right, too bad for the guys at iPhoneSimFree. They were the first to announce the software hack for the Apple iPhone which allows you to unlock the iPhone up to version 1.02. On their website, they sell it for $60 per license. But now a group of hackers announced a free open source version of the unlock software called iUnlock! Thank god for the open source community!

Currently the open source packages are scattered around the net, if you want to hack your iPhone, you can figure out what packages to use but if you want to wait a little longer, someone will put together the complete package with detailed tutorials. iPhoneSimFree should not have waited this long to release their hack to the public, that wait cost them a lot of potential money because that was the only hack available at the time, now there is a free competition.

Free Open Source v.s Commercial: Open Source wins if it promises to do the same job. iPhoneSimFree doesn’t even guarantee that their software works for versions after 1.02. I’m sure if the open source hack gets popular, they will make it work for any version of Apple’s firmware. That’s why I love open source, they update each step of the way!

For information about the packages and actually do the hack see here!
BTW, there’s also a GUI hack too which is confirmed to work!

:: Update :: anySIM Download
Get anySIM free for download here!

Probably no one will read this because everyone is reading Engadget or something but I will post this anyway for those who frequent my blog. Rumors of Apple’s iTouch and the “Fatty” iPod Nano were true. They even reinvented the regular iPod and now calls it the iPod Classic. Three new designs for the iPod, the iTouch is exciting, Apple yet again continues to take the mp3 market by storm.

The “fatty” iPod mini was exactly what rumors predicted. Images were released last week on blog sites of the new iPod mini. Apple quickly took legal action to get them to take it down. That move by Apple directly confirmed that the ugly design was indeed the one that they manufactured. By the looks of that thing, it’s essentially a regular iPod that shrunk in height. In my opinion, it is pretty ugly, for those of you out there still looking for an iPod mini, buy yours today before they sell out. They are cheaper now and still better looking than the new.The iPod classic looks exactly the same as the 5th generation Apple iPod. One physical difference I noticed was that it has a bevel, unlike the 5th generation, the screen is now bulged up like the 4th generation. The music library interface has some improvements but no major change or new features were noted. Again, there is no real benefit in upgrading.

Now the iTouch is something to rave about! It features all the things on an iPhone without the phone. Yes, it does internet, yes it does YouTube and they do it at an affordable price of $299 for the 8GB model. Physically, it looks like an exact replica of the iPhone which is good. Something else that is new is that it has the ability to now wirelessly download music from iTunes, I think this feature will defiantly boost sales from the music store because it will be the only other way as of now to get music without a computer. I was really hoping that they allow it to share music like they have it with the Microsoft Zen and then have an option to also but it via iTunes if one likes. This product will sell because there are no contracts with AT&T involved or other fees.

I’m seriously considering getting one because it’s simply HOT! The only thing that is stopping me right now is that I just got a iPod about 2 months ago. I should have waited.

Wow, I haven’t used any of my time today to work on my project, SBUGuide because there are so many great discoveries today. The long awaited hack for the iPhone has been confirmed. You can soon unlock your Apple iPhone to work with other SIM carriers such as T-Mobile.

There are two methods I found today which are promising. One done by George Hotz 17, a hardware hack that allows the use of the iPhone for other carriers and a software hack by iPhoneSimFree, a team which Engadget confirmed that their software works. It will be distributed with a cost to the public soon.

Of course, this is all bad news for Apple and AT&T, looks like their exclusive partnership isn’t so exclusive anymore thanks to the l33t hacking community. WOOT WOOT!

The bad news for me is that I’m stuck on the stupid Verizon contract for another year and a half. One thing I dislike about Verizon’s Wireless service is that they install Verizon’s firmware on their phones usually crippling features such as simple OBEX or Bluetooth. Another is that the phones do not use SIM cards, hackers tend not to hack Verizon phones because of it.

You can find instructions of the hardware method on Hotz’s Blog.

Back to school is getting nearer for most of us, some have already started. Everyone is trying to market their products towards students, from Back to School sales to providing a list of essential needs for a students success. Most of it I think is BS! BestBuy released their annual Back to School campaign called “Knowledge for College” which is a guide to products which are recommended for college. All they want is more $$ from you of course.

Mozilla released it’s Firefox Campus Edition today, which was disappointing for me at least. It comes with the core Firefox browsing engine along with three extensions. What ONLY 3? I was expecting it to come with at least 5 NEW features or at least a new theme. The extensions that it comes with are FoxyTunes, Zotero and StumbleUpon.

• FoxyTunes - Basically a iTunes control from your browser.
• Zotero - Citing and organizing your college research.
• StumbleUpon - Internet channel surfing and social bookmarking.

I have to say all these features are pretty much useless, none of these make the Campus Edition worth downloading in my opinion. But if you prefer, you can get it here.

If you already have Firefox, you can make yours “Campus Edition” by just downloading the extensions here.

I got a email in my inbox the other day from EV1Servers.net. A company where I first registered TONYCAI.COM with, they have been recently acquired by The Planet, the company went along with all it’s clients (me). I was not notified of this acquisition. The email told me that my domain would expire in 90 days. So I quickly went to renew it because I knew how devastating things are when you loose ownership of the domain.*

When I logged into The Planet’s domain manager and tried to renew, it told me that I had to do it manually with the reseller. So I knew this renewal was going to be a pretty long process. Decided not to waste my time and transferred and renewed it with GoDaddy. They have a good reputation for domain products. So I renewed it for 2 years total of $14 and I got the GoDaddy Certified Domain add-on which is awesome!

* When one looses ownership of the domain, you’d either have to pay a high rate to reinstate the domain or some domain company might have bought your domain to reap the benefits of your visitors so they can make money off your visitors through advertisement parked pages. This happened recently with my friends domain he failed to renew. JHENDI.COM use to belong to my friend Chomell, but now it belongs to “TBD eNom Customer“.

The lesson about domains is renew it way before it expires because once it does, there is a high chance someone will buy it before you do!

What the heck? That was quick, a little more than a month and we’re already seeing refurbished Apple iPhones on sale at Apple’s clearance store. Hmm. So what’s wrong with it? Maybe nothing, maybe everything!

re·fur·bish (rē-fûr’bĭsh) - To make clean, bright, or fresh again; renovate.

That can only mean a few things, these iPhones were defective when the someone purchased it and returned it to Apple or AT&T. Or simply the fact that the owner did not like it therefore returned it. Maybe Apple is releasing a newer version of the iPhone and is trying to get rid of the older version. Whatever the reason is, it’s a steal! Go grab one if you are looking for a cheap but brand new iPhone.

• 4GB iPhone - $399 ( New : $499 )
• 8GB iPhone - $499 ( New : $599 )

My two cents on refurbished products: I’m a big fan of them, not only are they much cheaper than retail, they are practically brand new. If it was defective, then the manufacturer was told about this issue and had already fixed it, cleaned then repackaged. So in a way it offers the buyer more peace of mind. It almost guarantees that the product won’t be defective when it gets to you, because it was already defective and they fixed it.

Check it out, cheap refurbished iPhones here.