Star Trek fans rejoice!  Lock phasers on that gadget.  You can simulate a Star Trek Tricorder on your iPhone or iPod touch by directing Safari to http://38i.biz/tricorder.  This is a web app that’s optimized for the iPhone/iPod.  It doesn’t do much, but it’s cool way to get show off your Trek nerdery.

What is a Tricorder you ask?

A tricorder is fictional handheld device used for scanning an area, interpreting and displaying data from scans to the user, and recording information to isolinear chips.  Read all about it on Wikipedia.

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The Picard Song

If you have tried to view the hidden folders on your iPod touch or iPhone, you’ve probably realized that it is a pretty difficult task to accomplish. After jailbreaking my iTouch, I found myself needing to see the hidden files, so that I could copy things into those directories. I tried several methods and after much trial and error, I’ve found what I believe to be, the easiest way to view the hidden directories.

1. You must first have a jail broken iPod Touch or iPhone and you must be connected to a wireless network. The easiest application, I’ve found to jail break your device is iLibertyX.

2. Install BSD Subsystem. Installer>>System>>BSD Subsystem.

3. You must have SSH installed on your iPod or iPhone to enable FTP. To download this, run the installer app, navigate to System and scroll down to find OpenSSH.

4. Find your device’s IP address. Do this by opening Settings>>Wi-Fi. Click on the blue arrow next to your wireless network’s name.

5. Open your favorite FTP application. Mine happens to be Transmit. Your FTP client must support the SFTP protocol. Use the aforementioned IP address as your server address. Set the port to 22 if your client doesn’t default to that automatically. Set your user id to root and the password will be alpine.

6. Now you’re ready to connect. Please be advised that the first SFTP connection will take about to 30 to 40 seconds to establish. When finally connected you’ll see your devices hidden files.

It’s as simple as that!

So far, the best application I’ve found for accessing music and videos from your iPod Touch or iPhone, without using iTunes, is iPod Access by Findley Designs. It includes support for both Intel and PowerPC Macs.

From iPod Access website:

“Pod Access is the leading iPod/iPhone music and video transfer application for the Mac. With iPod Access you have instant access to all the songs on your iPod and iPhone. Your songs can be be displayed and sorted in almost any fashion so you can find the songs you need right when you need them. With the new instant search feature in v4 you can find songs just as quickly as you would in iTunes. And once you have found the songs, movies and playlists that you want, iPod Access will copy them right back into iTunes or to an external drive for backup. If you need music from your iPod or iPhone back on your computer then you need iPod Access.”

I had it running and figured out in just a few minutes. Just select the songs you want to copy & press the copy button in the top of the window. You’re presented with a save window, select where you want the songs to be saved, and bam, they’re there. Screenshot below.

I’m very impressed with this little app, and for $19.99, I don’t think you can go wrong.

Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher, iPod software v1.2 or higher . There is also a Win XP/Vista version of iPod Access.

I just read an article stating that many stores in the U.S. are running low on iPhones.  Speculation suggests this could be a component shortage or that stores could be making room for a new model.

Read this article on Yahoo! News