Category Archives: Hacks

JetCarrier – get an mailbox in the USA (for Norwegians, Danes and Swedes)

JetCarrier.com has a service that lets Norwegians, Danes and Swedes get an address in the USA to be able to order things that isn’t shipped overseas by default, like the original Apple iPhone, a Chumby or something you would like to buy on eBay that the seller wouldn’t ship overseas. JetCarrier will then forward your parcel for you (they ship the parcel themselves by air or by sea). They will do all the customs work, that’s included in the handling and shipping fees. You would only need to pay the VAT (Value added tax) if the price for the product is over 200,- NOK.
If you sign up for JetCarrier you’ll get an address like this that you could use when shopping overseas:

JetCarrier [your customer number]
Att: [your name]
601 W Linden Av Suite [your customer number]
Linden, NJ 07036

So if your name is John Doe, and your customer number is 31337, then your adress would look like this:

JetCarrier 31337
Att: John Doe
601 W Linden Av Suite 31337
Linden, NJ 07036

You will get a real address and not just an post box. This was how I ordered my original iPhone back in 2008. Many other Norwegians did the same thing when ordering their iPhones.
There is also a similar service called Ship2Me that also gives you an US address, and Forward2Me that gives you an UK address. These services use regular shipping services to ship packages to your country, which means they could ship to most countries in the world.

DIY – Force an iPhone to charge on a regular USB-charger

Hacked USB extension cord + iPhone USB cable
The hack connected to a 12 VDC USB charger

I discovered an easy hack to force an iPhone 3G[S] to charge on a regular USB-charger with just one resistor.
To force charging you have to force high the levels of the data pins 2 (D-) and 3 (D+) (white and green wires) by connecting a resistor of about 20 kΩ (or 68 kΩ as I used) between the data pins on the USB cable. This resistor would act as a pull-up resistor. You don’t need to connect this resistor to VCC (+5 VDC) since the iPhone outputs +2.84 VDC on the data pins when it is connected to a power source. This is enough to force the levels of the data pins high. To do this hack, I recommend using an USB extension cord, instead of ruining an iPhone USB-cable, since you of course wouldn’t be able to use this as an regular USB-cable afterwards.

iPhone charging hack schematics
Schematics

Remember to leave the data wires going to the male USB-connector end (the one you plug in to your power source) unconnected, you might seal the ends with insulating tape or glue. This way you could use this cable to be able to charge an iPhone on a computer that is in standby-mode or a computer that supports the sleep-and-charge USB feature, which would let you charge your devices even when the computer is turned off.
This hack would probably work on other iPhone models too, the iPod Touch, Classic, Shuffle & Nano models, and the iPad. It might even work on other devices needing a signal on the data pins to be able to charge.

More information

Links to interesting articles about iPhone charging, where I found out how easy it was to force an iPhone into charging mode:

Charging my iPhone with my hacked USB cable
Charging my iPhone with my hacked USB cable

Apple iPod, iPad and iPhone dock Connector Pinout – AllPinouts has some information about force charging using two 10k resistors connecting D+ and D- to VCC
USB – Universal Serial Bus Connector Pinout – AllPinouts also mentions that one could use 10k resistor to force charge USB devices.
Modify a generic USB car charger to charge a 3rd gen iPod Nano – Instructables Instructables article about modifying a car charger to be able to charge an iPod Nano. Also use two resistors.
How to Charge an iPhone – tzywen.com Mentions how to force charge an iPhone, and shows a proof-of-concept charging circuit schematics.
DIY iPhone Charger – tzywen.com A DIY iPhone charger using 4 resistors, made from the proof-of-concept shown above.
DIY iPhone 3G Charger – tzywen.com another DIY iPhone charger using 4 resistors. Also mentions why an iPhone needs a pull-up-resistor to be able to charge.

Disclaimer

I take absolutely no responsibility for what might happen to your iPhone, your charger or even yourself using the method mentioned above. You do this solely at your own risk.

Creative Commons License
DIY – Force an iPhone to charge on a regular USB-charger by HÃ¥var I. Henriksen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Kon-Boot: Bypass Windows login-password with a LiveCD

KryptosLogic splash screenKon-Boot is a great LiveCD that allows you to bypass any Windows login-passwords, in case you’ve forgotten the password, and tools like Ophcrack isn’t able to find your password. Kon-Boot works by patching the windows logon-process in memory, to be able to accept all passwords entered on the logon-screen.
Notes and cautions:

  • Kon-Boot has become payware, but the old version of the software is still freeware. Only the new, payware, version of the software works on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, while the old freeware version only works on 32-bit Windows.
  • If you are using Kon-Boot to logon to a domain user, you would of course not be able access the networked resources, only the local resources on the computer.
  • If you logon to a domain user on a PC that isn’t connected to the domain server at the moment, the cached password of that user will be changed. This means that if you later try to logon with the domain user with the original password, you wouldn’t be able to do that if the PC is still not connected to the domain server.
  • If the user has some encrypted folders in the homefolder you wouldn’t be able to access those files, and if you decide to change the password once logged in via the Kon-Boot hack the user might loose access to that folder forever.

Kon-Boot splash screen

The program has been tested under the following Windows versions:
Windows Server 2008 Standard SP2 (v.275), Windows Vista SP0, SP1 and SP2, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise,
Windows XP, Windows XP SP1, SP2 and SP3 and finally Windows 7. So it should probably work with all Windows versions after Windows 2000. It doesn’t seem to be working with Windows 2000.
Note, it might not work with older computers or virtual computers. I tested it on an old Aopen XC cube, and the computer just crashed very early in the boot process. The same problem occured when I tested the ISO image in VirtualBox. It seems like Kon-Boot crashes if the following message is shown:

  • Dummy BIOS detected, trying to fix SMAP entries.

Installing Spyware Doctor SE from the Google Pack, without using Google Updater

Edit: Google Photos Screensaver and Norton Security Scan has been removed from the Google Pack, and the links are no longer valid, but the links have been kept for "historical" reasons.
Note: This post was previously posted under the title: "Installing progams from the Google Pack, without using the Google Updater program".

Most of the programs in the Google Pack could be installed without using the Google Updater program, but there is three one exceptions: Spyware Doctor Starter Edition, Norton Security Scan and Google Photos Screensaver, you can’t install any of these this programs without using the Google Updater program.
The version of Spyware Doctor that you could download from the Spyware Doctor website is limited to only scanning your computer, but not removing spywares.

But there is an solution, I used the Freeproxy program to sniff the connection, and set the Google Updater to use this proxy server when downloading the programs. I enabled the logging of all connections so that I could get the direct download link to the setup files.
The download links to the different programs are is:
Spyware Doctor Starter Edition v7.0.0.545 (Multilingual) (alt)
Spyware Doctor Starter Edition v6.0.0.362 (Multilingual)
Spyware Doctor Starter Edition v5.5.0.204 (Multilingual)
Spyware Doctor Starter Edition v5.1.0.272 (Old version) (Link still working)
Use the last download link, if the first doesn’t work. (Just update it afterwards).
Norton Security Scan v2.0.0.87 (English version)
Norton Security Scan v1.3.0.26 (English version)
Norton Security Scan v1.3.0.26 (Norwegian version)
Google Photos Screensaver v2.0.0.1077