A few months ago, I applied a Jailbreak to my iPhone.  This was a simple process to install and I lost no data in the process.  There are lots of tutorials out on the web on how to do this.  I used an application called QuickPwn at http://www.quickpwn.com/. 

Having a jailbroken phone gives you some benefits.  The things I like are;

• You can customise the way the interface looks, with different themes and backgrounds.
• You can install applications that weren’t sanctioned by Apple, but completely possible on the phone.
• You can tether your notebook to the phone and use it as 3G modem while travelling.

There are more benefits than this but these are what I enjoyed about it.

Still, Jailbreaking the phone voids the warranty.  It also makes upgrading to newer iPhone versions very difficult.  But, I didn’t mind this as it allowed me to feel as if I’d joined the upper echelons of geekhood and mastered the device.

But every time I had any problems, whether it was a poor 3G signal or an application that didn’t look right, I had to wonder if it was because of the jailbreak. 

Also, the iPhone 3 software is going to be released this summer which will include functionality like Copy and Paste.  I would need to release the jailbreak at some point anyway if I want to upgrade.

Yesterday morning I bought the National Rail app (nice app) which would not let me see the full train times because my custom font was not the font they tested with.  So, the train times showed up as “06:..London Paddington” which is useless if I can’t see the minutes.  The only thing I really use the Jailbreak for is to use PDANet and connect to the phone from my netbook.  So I decided it was time to restore the phone.

Restoring the phone to it’s original settings is easy.  If you Google how to do this, you find a post of someone who says he nearly bricked the phoned when attempting this, but I had no problems.

Apple make it surprisingly easy to restore your phone AND keep all of your settings:

1.  Right click the device in iTunes and do a backup.

2.  In ITunes under the devices, click the Restore button.

3.  It will give you some warnings about losing settings.  I stopped several times before doing this, as I didn’t know what this entailed.  It’s not major.  It also said I paid for songs which were not transferred to iTunes and I would lose them.  I couldn’t find any so I proceeded.

4.  It will download the latest firmware (which is 2.2.21 now, I think).  It’s over 200 Mb, so this takes a while.

5.  The firmware is installed and the device restarts. 

6.  ITunes recognizes the device as a new one and asks if you want to restore a back-up you have created to the phone.  Yes, you do.

7.  This step took about 45 minutes for me.  I was not sure whether or not the backup would replace the firmware again with the jailbreak.  It didn’t.  All my mail settings, pictures, alarm clock settings, etc. were restored.  I found this step pleasantly surprising.

The entire process took over an hour, so don’t do this just as you are about to head off to work. 

My iPhone is back to it’s normal hum-drum interface.  The pizzazz is gone.

This is how it worked for me.  It was surprisingly easy.  If you have problems, I’m no expert.  There is a risk involved here.  I am not liable for any damage to your phone by following the steps above.

If you’re a jailbreak fan, I understand why.  I may go back in the future, but for now, I’ll stay legit for a while.

Yesterday, I completed the Reading Half Marathon.  My time was 1:52:21.  In the last few miles, I didn’t think I was going to be able to make it, but I held on.  It’s funny how much of it becomes a mind game after a while.  I knew that if I stopped once, just for a minute, that would be it.  I’m happy with my time and really happy that I finished.

There were 17,000 people there yesterday.  It turned out to be a long day.

This morning my legs are very sore, but they still work.

The Apprentice started a new season on BBC Wednesday night.  Along with it will come lunch-time conversations and news updates on firings.  I’ve always been a big fan.  I really enjoyed watching it last year.

This year, with all that’s going on in the economy, I don’t want to watch it.

I don’t want to see project managers argue with each other and posture and demonstrate how their leadership skills are better than the others.  I don’t want to watch Alan Sugar on his big boat or the winning teams who get pampered because they won a task. 

Every day, there are more stories in the news about people who are losing their jobs and their homes.  There are people struggling, and the rest of us are wondering how long until it gets us.  Some people are questioning whether our society is living beyond its means.  Others are waiting for the good old days to come back.

I’m all for business, but I don’t want to go back to 5 years ago when everyone was starting their own consulting businesses.  I’ve gotten swept up in this too.

I used to go to networking events for ECademy, which turned out to be giant orgies of people trying to promote themselves.  I was there to talk to people about Overpass, and they were there to talk about their own companies.  Everyone was trying to sell to each other.  I met people who promised they could get my site to the top of Google (without knowing what keywords I wanted or what my business actually is).  I met so many people who decided one day to be a life coach without having any skills to support it (except for the fluff "people person who cares” skills”). 

It has gotten to the point that no one has any skills any more.

There have always been managers and executors.  In the Army, the enlisted men were managers and the officers were delegators.  Officers had a skill of telling people to do things they couldn’t do themselves.  Officers were pampered as strategic thinkers.  Enlisted men couldn’t stand them.  40 year-old First Sergeants would have to salute 20 year-old lieutenants.  It never seemed right.

If you visit a garage, it is easy to see the division between skill and management.  Managers are customer-facing and tell the others what to do, but they may not be able to do it themselves.  They may have been very good at fixing cars one day a long time ago, but have fallen out of practice.  If there are lay-offs, the manager will probably stay.  The skilled labour will go.

I see this a lot in my current profession.  At various jobs, I meet project managers or business analysts who don’t understand what I do.  They consider me their resource.  I can’t tell you how many times a project manager has said, “I started out as a programmer, so . . . “ and tell me about how they coded VB4 back in 95 but couldn’t do it today.  I had one PM tell me, “I could write that sql, but I’m a project manager now, so that would be taking a step back for me.”  How could you not be insulted by that?  Since when did Project Manager become the next promotion step for developer?  I’ve turned down Business Analyst opportunities before. 

Everyone wants to be a manager.  Everyone wants to be a consultant.  Everyone wants to call themselves a leader.  We are running out of people who can”do”.  We are losing those who can execute.

Tom Peters, one of my favourite management gurus, has a great quotes “You don’t promote your most talented violinist to conductor”.  The Peter Principle (different Peter here) states that, “You are promoted to your level of incompetency.” 

From where I sit, however cynical it may be, I see the massive layoffs as a big hit to our ability to execute.  While the mass skilled staff who don’t sit at board room tables or in meetings are being layed off, the managers are trying to make the case for why they should stay.  We don’t need more managers, we need more do-ers.

This is why I can’t stomach the Apprentice this year.  I’m not up for it.  Too many people are losing everything, and I don’t want to see a bunch of un-skilled managers (I don’t think management is a skill) argue with each other so they can get their dream job. 

I guess this is MY populist rant.

Thursday, I went to lunch with a bunch of friends where conversation turned to the Apprentice.  I sat quietly.  Apparently, so-and-so deserved it and so-and-so was very rude.  I can’t be bothered.

Maybe next year.

I get the impression that train managers have their favourite warnings to give during train journeys. There are a few standard warnings, but then there are the “Where did that come from?” warnings.

Last year, a train manager came onto the speaker and talked for nearly 5 minutes about how important it is that we don’t flush the toilet in stations. Saying it once, I can understand, but this guy wouldn’t let it go. “I must stress that you must not flush toilets in stations. It is acceptable between stations, but not while stopped in a station. I repeat, that flushing toilets in the station . . . “ and on and on he went.

Why can’t I flush the toilet at the station? Is there a trap door that drops under the train and leaves a turd in the middle of the tracks? Is it so we don’t have to stand on the platform waiting for a train while trying not to acknowledge the huge dump in the middle of the tracks? Toilet paper and all? If it is a trap door, why is it okay to do it while travelling through the residential areas leading into the city? If we aren’t allowed to flush in the stations, can you still use the toilet without flushing? Do they just leave it there until the train leaves again and they can dispose of it away from platforms?

The only reason people run to the toilet before leaving the train is that the toilets at Paddington station cost 30p to use. 30p is not a lot of money, sure. But there’s the whole problem of fishing around in your pockets for the right change when you’re dancing around with a full bladder.

Anyway, this is not about train toilets.

Last week, a train manager spent a few minutes explaining to passengers why it is a bad idea to put our head out the windows while the train is moving. It wasn’t a joke, she was serious. I suspect someone must have done it and she saw him and didn’t want everyone else to jump on the bandwagon. She talked at length about how close some objects pass to the train and how it could result in injury. We sat there, many people in their business suits and blackberries, being lectured to like children. It went on for over a minute.  When she finished talking(“I must stress, once again, that you must not hang your head out of the train window while the train is moving. Thank you”), someone sitting a few rows behind me added, “Yeah, and don’t mess around with the electric sockets.”

Training for the half-marathon is going well.  This morning, I woke at 3:30am.  I dressed, synced up my iPod, and hit the road by 4.  I ran 13.25 miles.  It took me 1 hour and 50 minutes.

I now don’t have to doubt whether I can run the half marathon in 12 days time.  I know I can.  The only question is how well will I do on the day.  And can I keep from injuring myself until that time?

This morning’s long run was interesting.  Although it’s getting lighter earlier, at 4am, it’s still pitch dark.  This morning, while running through a long stretch of road with no traffic lights or buildings, I heard something rustling in the bushes besides me.  You never seen someone run so fast!  I was hoping a car would drive past so I would have the benefit of some headlights instead of my small wind-up flashlight.  Whatever it was, it didn’t chase me.  I made it through the rest of the run pretty well.

I’m on the train home from work now.  The run was ages ago. I think I found every opportunity today to casually mention my run this morning to anyone I could.  Like, I’d stand up and my legs feel very heavy, so I’d say “Yeah.  Went for a long run this morning so I feel a little sore.”  But no one would ask “How far?” So I just add an unsolicited “Yep, 13 miles.”  It was shameful, really.

But my biggest problem today is my nipples.  Back when I first ran a half-marathon at age 20, I was surprised how my sweat-soaked shirt bounced up and down and basically rubbed my nipples raw.  So, I used to either tape them up or cover them in Vaseline.  Well, the same thing happened this morning.  I didn’t noticed how bad it was until I got home and jumped in the shower.  I yelped at the stinging sensation.  There’s blood on my running shirt.  For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing ten mile runs with no problem, but today they chafed at 13 miles.  My nipples have a 10-mile limit.  Who knew?

But, it’s nice to know that at age 36 I can still run the distance I did at 21.  Not as fast, of course, but I could endure it.  So as I sit here, trying to restrict my movements so my shirt doesn’t rub against my chest, I can be satisfied with what I’ve achieved.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted anything here.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time running and playing with Twitter.

Twitter has grown so fast it’s incredible.  It seems like every day more and more celebrities and politicos are joining.  Of course, the celebrities immediately have loads and loads of followers almost immediately.  Other people follow loads of other people in hopes that they will reciprocate and give them a high number.

The avalanche of Twitter use really hit me when Kevin Pollack posted a few days ago “After 19 days of Twittering . . . “ but it seemed like he was one of the early adopters and was one of the top 10 Twitterers (with the most followers) when I subscribed to his feed.  I’ve been following Newt Gingrich, Jonathan Ross, and Scott Hanselman among other people.  They post several times throughout the day.  But having only done it for a few weeks, I think it’s something that will lose it’s novelty soon enough.  A year from now, we’ll be saying “Remember when we were all into Twitter?” and laugh and laugh at how silly we were to latch on to that fad. 

I’ve been Tweeting once or twice a day. Usually to say how far I’ve run or what I had for lunch.  Nothing major.  If I have an idea about something, I can keep it to myself or write it.  It makes no difference, really—it’s easy enough to do both.  If anyone is interested in what I’m doing, they can follow it—but if it evaporates into the ether without anyone noticing but me, I see no problem with that.

I still don’t talk about Tweeting when with my friends or colleagues—they are too cynical and it exposes more of my nerd-dom.  They may latch on in a few months or a year (like they did with Facebook).  There are still people I don’t tell about the blog, because they see it as superfluous anyway.

The other activity that has been taking a lot of time recently is running.  In two weeks, I’m running the Reading Half Marathon.  The last half marathon I ran was the Kole Kole Pass Half Marathon in Hawaii back in 1993.  I was 21.  I’ve run ever since then, but never with the regularity to run 13 miles.  My practice runs take place in the very early mornings—the longest so far is 10 miles.  It’s odd to run 10 miles before 6am.  The run is long forgotten by lunch time.  At that time, it’s dark and quiet and cold.  Strangely, morning running suits me as it rarely has another activity (like a meeting at work or a situation at home) to delay it. 

The Half Marathon is on the 29th.  Baseball season starts a week later.  Perfect timing.  My early morning runs will be replaced with watching Padres night games in the early morning hours here.

Oh, and I recently bought Guitar Hero for the Wii.   Fantastic game.  I have a habit of buying video games thinking I immerse myself into them, but never do.  This game is different.  The big plastic guitar is fun to use and it’s an easy game to pick up, play for twenty minutes, and then move on to other things.

That’s it.  That’s what I’ve been up to.