A while ago we wrote about removing the DRM from Netflix "Watch Now" movies. At the time, it involved wading through a bit of HTML source to find the target video URL. Since then, a couple of important things have happened: a Greasemonkey script was written that makes it a bit easier to download and process the DRMed WVM file, and more importantly, Netflix is now allowing unlimited downloads.

What can you do with this? Well, you can download a number of videos ahead of time and then watch them at your leisure, especially if you travel a lot and are offline for extended periods of time. It also means you can convert the files to mp4 format for playing on your mac, iPod or Apple TV device. Or maybe you were hoping to finish that documentary you were making about the strange facial expressions of Sylvester Stallone and needed a few more clips to splice into your film...

How To Rip Netflix "Watch Now" Movies - Link
Netflix Downloader Greasemonkey Script - Link

The Touchmods team recently released a working version of their iPod Touch VoIP app, making it possible for Touch owners to place outgoing calls on the device.

The Touch doesn't come with a built-in mic, so part of the hack involves either modifying a Walmart iVoice III mic, buying a Touchmods designed add-on, or building your own from their schematics. After that, you just need to add http://touchmods.net/rep.xml to the Installer's package source list, install the SIP-VoIP.app, configure it with a SIP account and hop on a WiFi connection.

Incoming calls are not supported yet, and as far as I can tell this isn't an open source project. Charlie Sorrel from Wired's Gadget Lab describes it as being fairly buggy at this stage, and was unable to get it to function, but we'll see how things progress after a few version updates. Anyone out there with an iTouch who wants to give this a shot and report back their findings?

VoIP For iPod Touch - [via] Link
DIY iPod Touch Mic - Link

fstedie came up with a nice hack for adding internal Bluetooth audio support to your iPod:

1st Ever Bluetooth-Enabled iPod!

If you're like me, you've often asked yourself why Apple has not added native Bluetooth capability to their iPod line up. Even the iPhone only supports mono Bluetooth!

Sure, there are numerous adapters that plug into the iPod's dock connector to give you wireless music, but they are clunky, they come off easily, can't use them with your case and you have to charge them separately!

So, here is my way to add "native" internal Bluetooth support to your 4G iPod. The same method may be used with other iPod versions, I leave that up to you.

The hack essentially involves disassembling a small Bluetooth audio adapter and wiring it directly to the iPod mainboard. Audio input is tapped from the headphone jack and draws power directly from the iPod's battery, giving you a completely wireless and dongle-free audio device.

Check out the picture above, though, and you'll also notice fstedie has replaced the iPod hard disk with a CF card. He has an instructable for that, too. I mentioned Mark Hoekstra's hack to create an iPod-to-CF adapter last year, and it looks like these are now more readily available and can be ordered online. Pretty cool little iPod hacks, I must say.

Add Internal Bluetooth Capability To Your iPod - Link
Convert your 4th Gen iPod to use Flash Memory - Link
iPod CF and SD Card Capability - Link

MakeFan pointed us to a howto for installing the Encyclopodia software, an alternate iPod interface built on iPodLinux which turns your iPod into an offline Wikipedia browser.

Yes that's right. Thanks to iPodLinux, you can now have the entire Wikipedia encylopedia on your iPod. Clocking in at only 1.7 GB of space, it is a very handy tool if you have the sudden uncontrollable urge while out at the shops to discover the capital of Mongolia or the mating habits of eels. The Wikipedia file is updated approximately once every 6 months so you won't have the most up-to-date version but hey it's free and Mongolia isn't going to change their capital anytime soon.

Unfortunately, the iPod Video and Nano devices as well as the Touch and iPhone are not yet supported by iPodLinux. If you have a slightly older iPod, however, it's a simple hack to turn it into a full pocket encyclopedia.

Encyclopodia: the encyclopedia on your iPod - Link
How to Install Wikipedia on Your iPod (Windows users)- Link
Encyclopodia Installation Guide for OS X and Linux - Link

Listening to music on your Linux desktop doesn't mean having to duplicate all your audio onto your local harddrive. By streaming your music over WiFi from the iPhone or iPod Touch, you can keep your music portable.

Using two programs called FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) and sshfs we can mount the iPhone filesystem in Linux, then configure ssh key pairs so we can connect without needing to sudo or login as root every time we want to sync the phone, then we'll install beta versions of Libgpod and Rythmbox to end up with something insanely great.

We've talked about the sshfs FUSE filesystem before, but this is a pretty cool application for it. You're basically turning your iPhone into a wireless harddisk. Unlike a normal portable drive, you can access it from multiple machines at the same time. This allows a couple people to listen to different tunes off the same iPhone library simultaneously.

How To: Stream Music From The iPhone In Ubuntu - Link

A working TIFF buffer overflow exploit was finally released for the iPhone 1.1.1 firware and the iPod Touch! This is huge for iPod Touch fans, as it means we can finally install other apps on the device. Like before, it'll probably be a few days before there is a user-friendly tool, but if you don't mind working through it, there are now working instructions available for both devices.

The first step to jailbreaking the devices is loading up a special TIFF file in Safari which remounts the storage in read-write mode. I don't want to be a fear monger, but I'm a little concerned about a couple of things here:

1. I haven't seen source released anywhere, so who knows what the image is doing with root access on your phone
2. It's completely realistic to think that a more sinister version of the TIFF exploit could eventually be peppered around the web in comments and forum postings

It'd be smart for the iPhone and iPod Touch Dev teams to release the exploit code as well as instructions to manually apply the patch for libtiff. It'd be pretty ironic (not to mention good PR) for the dev teams to beat Apple to the security update. Especially since the update requires the jailbreak process to get it installed.

Links:
iPod Touch Jailbreak Guide - Link
iPhone Dev Team announces public iPhone 1.1.1 Jailbreak - Link
iPhone v1.1.1 Jailbreak & AppTapp Installation Guide - Link

Also Worth Reading:
Heap-based buffer overflow: how the iPhone and iPod Touch could be hacked - Link

The heap, however, _is_ executable, and a heap based buffer overflow which exploits the libtiff bug may be the way to gain usable access to the iPod Touch and the 1.1.1 upgraded iPhone.

This was a few days ago, and it looks like the hash used by iTunes has already been reverse engineered. Every time the database is updated--whether you change the name of a song file, or add or remove music--a new checksum needs to be calculated, based on the contents of the library and your device's unique ID.

Right now, you can continue to use your current software, and then generate and update the checksum in the database manually. No doubt that within another three days all of the nitty gritty details will be automated for you in your favorite open source iPod software.

Ian Monroe, makes this valid point, however:

Really the only "correct" solution is for folks to stop using Apple products. The iPod might have its own version of DAAP's iTunes 7 which has a checksum more difficult (apparently) to crack. But for the time being, things are fine.

Fifteen years ago, a lot of us started making the switch to Linux from Windows, even though the platform was a little foreign, took some work to learn, and was a bit crusty around the edges. The real catalyst was that Linux had a hell of a lot more to offer in terms of networking capabilities, a programmer-oriented free development environment out of the box, and a level of performance and stability that the Microsoft operating systems couldn't touch.

I'm not sure what the final motivating factor will be for people to switch to an open hardware/software platform for their mobile connectivity and media devices. The ability to use it with your preferred desktop OS--not to mention the ability to share your data between multiple devices and multiple desktop clients--is enough reason for me.

Making New iPods work in Linux - Link

Over at the iPhone Dev Wiki, people are taking a crack at hacking the iPod Touch. The discussion so far is that Apple has encoded the firmware image differently for the iPod Touch. Because of this, there is currently no working jailbreak method that will allow you to get 3rd party software onto the deivce. I'm pretty excited for this to get sorted out... there are some key features that are sadly missing from the iPod Touch.

Keep your fingers crossed, though. Here are a few things you'll be able to do once this obstacle is surmounted:

• enable SSH access
• copy Mail, Maps, Stocks and Weather apps from an iPhone to the iPod
• install important 3rd party software like Apollo IM (AIM client) and NES.app (Nintendo emulator)

Personally, I just want a nice little WiFi-enabled web client that I can install apps on for, say, a hundred bucks less than the iPhone.

First, the not so easy ways... You can't make an iMix since that's just for things you can buy (see image below).

Here's a screen shot of the ones I have...

In iTunes you can see the XML feed, but you can't copy and paste it.

One thing that is possible is to drag the podcast title from iTunes on to the desktop, it creates a .pcast file (Podcast subscription file) which contains the feed location.


It's possible to cut and paste from a .pcast file once you open it in a text editor - and you can paste the url in to iTunes... (*Note, you can also drag RSS/XML feeds in to iTunes from a browser). If you like the shows listed here - download my .pcast files linked below or all of them in the zip file - Link.

That said, the easiest way for folks really in to this is to just use an OPML file. iTunes can export and import OPML files (a list of locations / feeds of the podcasts, audio, video and PDF). Here's how...

In iTunes click podcasts in the main window.

In the menu choose File > Export.

In the pull down list choose OPML. That's your OPML file, you can now send this to someone, post it online and import it... Here's how -

In iTunes go to the menu, choose File > Import and select the OPML file.

You'll get this dialog and you're all set!

Here's my iTunes OPML file - Link.

That's it - go fill up those devices! It's what all those gigs are for.

Bonus tip: If you have your own podcast you can make a one-click subscption link. Just replace http:// with itpc://

For MAKE ours is: itpc://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast/index.xml

This opens up iTunes and subscribes.

Or, you can use a link to the show within iTunes - here's ours again...
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=74069835&s=143441

To get a URL location of any podcast just right click (or on Mac ctrl - click).

I'm pretty sure this works on both Macs and PCs, if it doesn't post up in the comments.

For AT&T / Cingular customers just text your user name SPACE password to 265000.

You can set up your address book for quick sign on, just add a contact with 265000 as the to address.

After you text 265000 with your screen name and password. You'll get a SMS back with a short list of your buddies.

If you know the buddy name text 265010 with their screen name SPACE and a message. When they reply the SMS will be numbered, just hit reply and those text messages will go to that buddy.

It looks and sounds like iChat, so it's a lot like what you'd expect an iChat to be like.

Some other useful codes.

Text anything (The iPhone does not allow blank messages) to 265002 for your buddy list. You'll see your buddies get assigned temporary short codes.

Text anything (The iPhone does not allow blank messages) to 265001, that will sign you off.

There's an entire PDF from AOL with tons of information on using AIM over SMS here - Link.

You can do the same with Yahoo, and since Yahoo and MSN work together now you can with Yahoo/MSN people too... - Link.

If this is too complicated you can sign on to AIM and have the instant messages forward to your phone here - Link. You can't ping your buddy list, so it's not as useful.

First, get HandBrake - Link. There are also PC versions of HandBrake, it might work about the same way.

Install it, run it. Pop the DVD in. Pick the DVD volume. Choose your settings, I use the defaults usually.

It takes about 30 min or so, it runs fine in the background.

Drag the MP4 file it makes in to iTunes, in videos tab in iTunes for the iPhone select the movie, click Sync.

In a couple minutes it transfers over.

It's about a gig.

The video is in the videos section. iPod / Videos.

It looks and sounds great!

*Joe notes - I found if you create a new preset for iphone in handbrake and set the video dimensions to 480x320 you can crunch movies down to a much smaller size optimized for the iphone native resolution.

Open iPW, load your firmwire. Go to Layout, scroll down to Font Types. In that list, go down to item 24223, which is the titlebar string. Now look at the z2 tag. It should say 0xFF000000. We're going to change that. Click on it so that the cursor goes into the hex field and highlights the first character in the series of hex, which should at the moment say 00 00 00 FF. Ignore the FF at the end, and change the first three digit series from 00 00 00 to DD 00 00. Write your iPod, eject, and look. Your titlebar text is now red!

It works with 1 bit fonts, allowing you to adjust the color, size and font face of the menu, title bar, stop watch, dates, etc.

Resources:

• Changing your titlebar font color - iPodWizard.net forums
• iPodWizard - tool for changing the fonts, graphics and text on your iPod

The little iPod drive connector is peculiar. It's not mini IDE and not quite PCMCIA (though it uses a PCMCIA-style connector). It is, however, compatible with both technologies, so with the right adapter, you can use an iPod drive in an embedded computer, or perhaps even convert an iPod to use an SDCARD. There are cheap SD to CF adapters that fit inside the CF footprint, so essentially it's a no-brainer if you've gotten Mark's CF iPod hack to work.

Links:

• Put flash memory into almost any iPod
• Hack to use an iPod drive as a standard IDE drive

Today we're publishing at the Microsoft Download Center a recommended final compatibility update for users of Windows Vista and the Apple iPod; this same update will be automatically available via Windows Update on Tuesday 22 May. The release is for users worldwide and works with the latest version of Apple iTunes to correct an issue that caused some iPods to become corrupted when ejecting them using Windows Explorer or the "Safely Remove Hardware" function in the System Tray.

Related:

• iPod & iTunes Hacks - Link
  

What's also interesting about Rockbox--and this is slightly less talked about--is that it handles gapless playback really nicely. Instead of pausing or fading between songs, Rockbox will start the next song immediately after the previous one ended. This is great for playing back audio taken from electronica and live/concert CDs that blend one track straight into the next.

My friend Justin went about upgrading his 4th gen iPod to use Rockbox the other day and he ended up upgrading his iPod's hard disk and battery as well, in order to accommodate playback for all the larger FLAC files he's been encoding. Thankfully, he put together a nice little howto which documents the whole process, including the tinfoiling of his new drive (above photo), which eliminated an EMI issue that he encountered with the new disk.

Resources:

• Upgrading the 4th gen iPod HD & battery for Rockbox, FLAC
• Rockbox: open source jukebox firmware
• FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec

I like iTunes for a lot of things. It's great for managing my music and video library, and it's a nice interface for desktop playback.

What I don't like is that it wants to reformat my Shuffle every time I am on a different computer. I don't want to be shackled to iTunes and its opinion of where and how I should listen to my music. The database builder will let you move files to and from the Shuffle on your own terms, with whatever machine you are at, using any OS you wish.

I recently discovered by 1. Simply opening your ipod 2. Disconnecting your drive 3. Turning the ipod back on and letting it boot until it gives you an error 4. Turning off the ipod 5. reconnecting the drive and 6. Turning the ipod back on will fix it....

I have no idea why this works but i have had 100% success with 3 ipods; 4g; 3G; and ipod mini.

Links:

• How-to fix an iPod that won't boot -Link.
• Drive disconnect iPod fix -Link.

Here's an online service that will transcode FLVs for you into several common formats, such as AVI/DivX, MOV/MPEG4, 3GP, etc. I've only had a chance to try it on a couple videos, but it seems to work well. You can submit a YouTube URL or a direct link to an FLV and it will kick out a recompressed version that you can easily play on your desktop, iPod or PSP. -Link.

They've also released the trasncoder source under the LGPL, which you can grab over at sourceforge and use in your own transcoding project. Nice! -Link.

Related:

• Howto: Download Youtube and Google Videos