iPhone 3G running slow on iOS 4? Time to jailbreak

Update (26/10): Apple have released iOS 4.1, which pretty much fixes the speed issues on the 3G.

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I’ve been slow to the iPhone jailbreaking party, but I just found the killer app for my 3G – overclocking.

Since upgrading to OS 4.0, my iPhone has been dog slow.  Apple have confirmed this is an issue and are working on a fix, but in the meantime you can do something about it have released a fix, woo.

Disclaimer: at the very least this could make your iPhone run hotter and increase battery consumption – worst case, it could brick it.  But if you think it’s worth the risk then keep reading…

To get your iPhone 3G to run at 600 MHz (normally 421 MHz), follow these instructions:

1. Backup your iPhone through iTunes
2. Jailbreak: open Safari on your phone, browse to www.jailbreakme.com and follow instructions [Note – iOS 4.0.2+ is not supported, so if you’ve already upgraded then restore a previous backup first]
3. Follow instructions to overclock (I used iFile rather than SSH)

You should notice that apps like Google Maps run much faster now.  This hack also works on the 3GS.

Some more benefits of jailbreaking:

• Multitasking on the 3G (backgrounder)
• Internet tethering for your laptop without paying extra
• Install any app, not just ones that Apple arbitrarily allows onto the App Store

On the last point - I’m not suggesting you go and download apps like TomTom without paying for them, but there are plenty of legitimate apps that for some reason Apple haven’t approved.

And in case you were still worried…

• Jailbreaking is completely legal (in the US at least)
• All existing iPhone functionality will still work, including syncing with iTunes and the App Store
• You can completely reverse the jailbreak by restoring a previous backup of your iPhone

On the downside, your phone might crash a bit more (not that I’ve noticed) and you won’t be able to get the latest official iPhone updates until they’ve been cracked by the jailbreak community.

Showing Delicious bookmarks in your Blogger sidebar

I thought this would be easy, but not so much.  Here are a few options:

1. Delicious linkrolls

Great idea, but this doesn’t seem to work with Blogger; paste the script into http://www.blogger.com/add-widget, and you just get an empty element on your blog… neat.

2. Widgetbox

There are a few widgets that claim to be Delicious feeds, but they all look pants.  And the free version requires you to have a  big fat Widgetbox advert.

3. Blogger’s “Feed” gadget

This is what I went for – it works, and it doesn’t suck too much.

Just add a gadget to your blog, select “Feed” from the list, and put in your URL (e.g. http://www.delicious.com/duncsmith).

One small thing – there seems to be a bug where the feed URL has “count=15” at the end, which doesn’t give you the latest bookmarks.  You need to change this number to match the number of items to show (max = 5).

Multiple vsmdi files with VS 2008: the path to freedom

If you use a combination of Visual Studio 2008, MSTest and TFS, you've probably come across this problem at some point. Your solution folder is suddenly full of vsmdi files:

You may have worked out that Visual Studio generates a vsmdi file the first time you run unit tests with MSTest. This file basically stores the list of tests that will be ignored.

The problem comes when multiple developers are running tests at the same time – rather than checking out the same vsmdi file, your Visual Studio will "helpfully" create a new one, adding it to source control.

The best solution seems to be to exclude these files from source control altogether:

1) Delete all .vsmdi files from both source control and your local solution folder

2) Open the solution in Visual Studio

3) Open Test View (Test > Windows) and toggle the "enabled" property of a random test - this will force it to create a new .vsmdi file

4) In Solution Explorer, select the new vsmdi file (should be under Solution Items), right-click it and Undo Pending Changes

5) With the file still selected, click File > Source Control > Exclude [file] from Source Control

6) Check in

As long as everyone now "gets latest", you should each end up with a single writeable vsmdi.