Cui – On My Way

Yes, I really don wanna go back to firefox 2. But there are some add-ons i really need there. So what should i do?

After some googling i got this work-around today. I tried immediately by adding the boolean “extensions.checkCompatibility” with the value of “false”. Then restart my firefox.

You know what? Oops, it works! At least most of my favourite add-ons are working now, including del.icio.us, ABP, IE Tab, Foxyproxy, Search Status and Forecastfox. Then from now on I will stay at firefox 3 for sure, even it it’s still in beta. Tons of positive reviews plus my personal experience push me make the choice.

We all know in the end those add-ons will be definitely upgraded to be compatible with firefox 3. for now I just can’t wait.  How about you?:-)

Update(Feb.17,2008): if you are now in firefox 3 beta 3, just as i am, you may check out my new post here on how to make your favorite add-ons working there.

1. icosta 1.0.3 released, which will be working under ff 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.

great progress, icosta team!
I haven’t got a chance to try it out yet.and i’m now considering to upgrade my iphone to 1.1.1 later.

2. screenshot – capture your iphone’s screen freely.

I just happened to get this utility. It’s very nice and now has won a fixed position on my iphone’s springboard.

3. google’s new homepage for iphone.

very nice. the best part for me is google reader. Now i use it every day to read the news when i’m on the way to office or back home.

4. open-sourced anysim by dev team

To be honest, actually considering the quality issue of the following to-be-public hacking tools based on it, i’m not one of those who’d love to make it open, even if i’m one of those who’s looking forward to the next anySim 1.1.3 miracle

1.You must install weDict first by either iBrickr or Installer.

2.Then download the dictionary in your language from startdict.

For me, I downloaded the oxford-gb dictionary(en – zh_CN) 牛津现代英汉双解词典(click to download). And the file I got is stardict-oxford-gb-2.4.2.tar.bz2.

3.Now unzip the .bz2 file by winrar, which is the one I take, or any other uncompress software you prefer.

Three files extracted: oxford-gb.idx, oxford-gb.ifo,oxford-gb.dict.dz.

4.Re-unzip the .dz file by the freeware 7zip to a .dict one. WinRar can’t do this for you.

5.Copy the .idx and .dict files to iPhone’s /var/root/Library/weDict/ by WinSCP or Putty.

6.Launch weDict and enjoy!

Update: for the most recent weDict version 0.5, in order to make the newly added dictionary work, you have to manually choose the dictionary first(which is not necessary in the previous version).You can get it by checking the following picture out.

One more thing,if you use WinScp to copy the dict files to iPhone, make sure you copy them to the right place, because WinScp’s default folder for iphone is very similar to the right folder. Again, see the picture, please.

Update(Feb 12,2008): If you are in firmware 1.1.3 and weDict can’t work any more, you may check out George’s fix as quoted below. There’s lots of other fixes here.

weDict stores the dictionary index cache in /var/root/Library/weDict, if for some reason this folder was not created (which is my case), apply the following fix:

mkdir /var/mobile/Library/weDict

chown mobile /var/mobile/Library/weDict

ln -s /var/mobile/Library/weDict /var/root/Library/.

Update(Jul.10,2008): I’ve uploaded the oxford ready-for-iphone dict files here(click to download). Download and unzip it to your local disk, then copy the two dict files to the right folder on the phone. Launch wedict and enjoy.

Update(Sep.26,2008): Currently the dictionary files you copied to the wedict folder are NOT always avaiable. Check out the details on the comments of this post here.

NativeCn is another chinese input method for iphone. It works only under fw 1.1.1 as said. Most latest build is 1.0.1 beta.

Compared with iCosta which i use in my iphone(1.0.2), NativeCn has more input methods  like Traditional Chinese(繁体), Guangdong(粤语) even Japanese.

Installation steps:
1. Download NativeCn_1.01.zip;
2. Extract then copy the folder to iphone’s folder: Applications/
3. Set the execute permission by running:
cd /Applications/NativeCn.app

chmod +x ncn

The installer.app installation is under developing.

Since my ff is 1.0.2 then i haven’t got the chance to take a try on NativeCn yet. And i’m sure i will later, after an upgrade to 1.1.1.

Yeah! All chinese iphone owners can now enter chinese characters in any iphone applications now! Yes, you get it: a platform IME! COOL,right? :-):-)

Oh, I forgot its name: iCosta. And now version is 0.9.

If you use Installer (AppTApp), please launch Safari in iphone to visit here. Then follow the instructions and reboot your iphone;
If you use iBrickr, then download iCosta.pxl and install from your local disk. Don’t forget to reboot your iphone, either.

And the switch between en keyboard and ch is “.124” key. Try it out now! Time to say goodbye to my installed SMS chin apps now with much appreciation

Update(Sep.25,2008): for now, iCosta has updated to 1.2.3(Chinese) for the new iPhone OS 2.0.x and 2.1. You can get it through Cydia. Currently iCosta is still my preferred IME for Chinese.

Update(Sep.16,2009): 1.2.8 for 3.0&3.0.1 released.

TUAW has reported this.

Since AnySIM 1.1 is for virgin iphone 1.1.1 only, I’m waiting for next release with the re-virginizer.

It’s around the corner, i know that

We all know it’s just a matter of time. We just don know it comes so soon   Yes, the jail of iPhone firmware 1.1.1 has been broken!

Let’s give a big applaud to iPhone Dev Team, again!

Two Talented gurus have created an individual SMS application for Chinese people who own an iPhone. Even if both can’t solve the chinese input problem completely, they DO help a lot to those chinese SMS heavy users like me. Much appreciated. Now let’s take a look.

One is from HK and the app names ChinSMS. The latest build is ChinSMS0.52.pxl, which supports multiple input methods by which both SC and TC characters can be entered.

The other is from mainland and called weSMS. The latest is WeSmsv0.2.1.fixed.7.2.pxl. Designed and developped by and for the mainland, WeSms can also write the sent sms into the iPhone’s private SMS DB.

Both are still in developping, so check their sites often for the most updated version.

For now I installed both. I like the way ChinSMS sorts contact which makes me easily add them into ‘To’ field and the ability WeSms can write the sent sms into the native Sms DB which i can check my chinese sms very easily

Update(Oct.11,2007): Please check ChinSMS and weSMS for update. Both are keeping on improving all along.

Update(Jan.7,2008): I recommend you to install the system level Chinese input method iCosta so that not only can you send Chinese SMS but also you can input Chinese anywhere in the iphone apps like Note and Safari etc.

1. call-in volumn too low
I now use either speaker or earphone.

2.bluetooth doesn’t work well
I tried in firmware 1.0.1. At that time, my friend’s Nokia N70 can find my iphone with its bluetooth enable.
When comes to 1.0.2, N70 can’t find iphone any more.
I googled around. And got nothing confirmed.

3.chinese input
I’m in beijing, china, don forget that.

4.youtube issue
‘error playing video’ needs to be fixed completely.

Since my iphone has been unlocked already, then it’s not necessary for me to try the newly released GUI tool – anySIM.app by iPhone Dev Team – in person.
And since I HAVEN’T tried, so are the steps not very detailed. It’s just a overall guide. Therefore, if you’ve got any questions in any single step, please leave a comment and i’ll do my best to help you out.

Before you try, make a backup and good luck

1. Make sure your iphone firmware is version 1.0.2.
2. Use iBrickr to jailbreak your iphone;
3. Download unlock GUI tool directly from my hosted here(version 1.0.1))and install ‘anySIM v1.01′ by iBrickr
   
4. Launch the anySIM tool on your iPhone and wait until it finished;
5. Insert your local SIM card and start calling around!

Here’s what the tool looks like.