All posts tagged unlock

How To Unlock Your Blackberry For Free

by Darryl Kraemer on September 19, 2011 in BlackBerry with No comments

If you’ve ever wondered how to unlock your BlackBerry for free, here’s the steps you need to follow. I just went through this with my Torch 9800 and it was such an easy process, I just had to share it with others as it took a lot of forum, and Google searching to find it.

There are a lot of paid services out there, but I came across FreeMyBlackberry.com, did some searching for reviews on their service first, and decided to take the plunge and try them out.

The first step is to find your MEP ID. Follow the instructions located here to find, and write down your MEP ID.

The second step is to find your IMEI number. Type *#06# into your BlackBerry to get your IMEI. Write this number down.

Now, you have the information you need to fill in the Unlock Request form found here.

I received my unlock code back from them within 24hrs which is a get turnaround for a free service. They also have a paid option if you need this faster (i.e. you are going on a trip overseas and want to use a pre-paid SIM card when you get there).

Once you receive the email from them (check your spam folder to make sure it didn’t end up there), simply follow the detailed instructions they’ve put together here to unlock your Blackberry. Presto, you’re all set.

Enjoy, and if you have any other tips on maximizing your unlocked Blackberry please share them in the comments below.

How To Upgrade, Jailbreak and Unlock iOS4 On Your iPhone 3G

by Darryl Kraemer on June 23, 2010 in iPhone with 8 Comments

Wow. That was fast. One day after iOS4 was released by Apple, the folks at iPhone Dev-Team have already release an update to Pwnage and redsn0w to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone 3G.

So, I took the plunge today, and jumped right in after backing everything up using iTunes on my iPhone 3G. I had previously jailbreaked and unlocked my iPhone running 3.1.2, and held off on the 3.1.3 upgrade as per the iPhone Dev-Team’s instructions on their blog. As you can see from the screen grab below, my baseband was still 04.26.08, an older version preserved by the Pwnage tool along the way.

After reading, and re-reading the info that the iPhone Dev-Team posted here: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/post/726179754/foursome-news I then proceeded to read it one more time. I’m serious. And so are they when they tell you to take some time reading all the info they put in this post, as it will go a long way to ensure you don’t brick your iPhone in the upgrade/jailbreak/unlock process.

The Steps:

Here’s the walk through of what you need to do to upgrade/jailbrake and unlock your iPhone 3G using Pwnage.

  1. Download and install iTunes 9.2. You need the latest version to do this.
  2. Connect your iPhone and backup your iPhone to your computer.
  3. Grab a copy of the Pwnage tool from the iPhone Dev-Team here: http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/5645662/PwnageTool_4.01.dmg.5645662.TPB.torrent
  4. Download a copy of the original 4.0 .ipsw file from Apple to your desktop from this link.
  5. Run the Pwnage tool, and choose the iPhone 3G(S) device.
  6. Pwnage should find the .ipsw file that you downloaded in step 4. Click on it and then click next.
  7. When prompted, click No when it asks you “Do you have an iPhone contract that would activate normally through iTunes?” Clicking on “Yes” will update your baseband to the latest version. Click on “Yes” only if you are on an officially supported carrier like AT&T.
  8. Pwnage will now work its magic to build you a custom .ipsw to jailbreak your iPhone 3G.
  9. Pwnage will walk you through putting your iPhone into DFU mode.
  10. Once in DFU mode, connect your iPhone to your Mac and launch iTunes. iTunes will recongize that the iPhone is in restore mode.
  11. You now have to restore using the custom .ipsw that you created in step 8. To do this, click on your iPhone in the left sidebar, hold down the left-Alt key and click on the Restore button in the main window.
  12. iTunes will bring up a browse window so you can select the custom .ipsw from your desktop that you created in step 8 and click Open.
  13. Now, go grab a coffee and let iTunes do its thing.
  14. When step 13 is complete, congrats you have a jailbroken iPhone 3G on iOS4.

Here’s a screen grab of my iPhone post upgrade, and pre-ultrasnow carrier unlock.

Unlocking Your iPhone 3G

Now, if you want to unlock your iPhone 3G, ultrasn0w is your friend. Here’s the instructions from the iPhone Dev-Team on how to unlock your iPhone 3G with ultrasn0w:

  1. Run Cydia or Icy
  2. Please add the repo repo666.ultrasn0w.com to Cydia or Icy. That last “o” is actually the number zero “0”! If you use the letter “o” you’ll get an error.
  3. Search for ‘ultrasn0w’ in cydia or icy and install ultrasn0w
  4. Reboot your iPhone 3G
  5. T-Mobile USA users should disable 3G before using ultrasn0w
  6. Enjoy!

Once you are done unlocking, iTunes will recognize that you have a backup of your iPhone, and you can restore all your apps, music, contacts and photos.

That’s it. Here’s my iPhone 3G in all its iOS4 glory, unlocked and running on the Rogers network.

Enabling Multi-tasking, Home Screen Wallpaper and Battery Percentage

Now, you may notice that you don’t have Multi-tasking, don’t have the ability to customize your wallpaper on your homescreen and don’t have the ability to toggle the battery to percentage. This is by design from Apple as they feel the first two take up too many resources, and slow down the iPhone. Well, there’s good news as the iPhone Team-Dev comes to the rescue again. With their redsn0w tool, you can enable all three.

Head on over to http://wikee.iphwn.org/howto:rsbeta and grab yourself the latest copy of redsn0w. Then, follow these steps to enable these three options on your already jailbroken, and unlocked iPhone 3G.

  1. Launch the beta redsn0w 0.9.5b
  2. Select your stock 4.0 ipsw (you’ve already used this to update your device to 4.0)
  3. Ensure the following options are selected (and make sure Cydia is de-selected):

    Click Next> and follow the prompts to let redsn0w do its thing.

    When your iPhone reboots, you are back up and running, with all these options enabled.

      Hope this helps you out, and if you tried it out, hit up the comments and let me know how it went for you.