Atelier Winsonli

Gave the owl a Christmas hat, scarf and boot to celebrate.

I got myself a matte screen protector (anti glare screen protector) and love it. The screen is now smoother to touch while finger prints and grease won’t show. This is a must have for iPod Touch and iPhone.

Before and after pictures to demonstrates its anti-reflectiveness:

Before

After - with anti glare screen protector

The pictures won’t show its justice. All I can say is, the iPod Touch is now more fun to touch. You won’t be rubbing on the iPod Touch screen anymore, but gliding.

Apple has released the firmware 2.0 for iPod touch or some time already. The new firmware include the iTunes App Store which allows you to download applications for the iPod and iPod touch. I have pwned the 2.0 firmware with Pwnage Tool.

Pwning the iPod Touch allows you to download even more third party apps through Cydia (previously known as Installer). The reason I pwned mine is as I want to use custom themes.

Follow these steps to pwn your iPod Touch.

1. First you’ll need firmware 2.0, I bought it from the iTunes App Store. I believe there are other methods to obtain it though.
2. Download Pwnage Tool 2.0.1 (Windows user download WinPwn)
3. Use it to create a custom firmware
4. Enter DFU mode by following the on screen instructions
5. Open iTunes, go to the iPod Touch page
6. Alt + click Restore (shift + click for Windows user) then select the custom firmware

Wait for the custom firmware to be installed on your iPod Touch. All your notes, clocks, weather and other settings will be synced back to your iPod, so no worries.

I was using the mystique theme before. Now I want something more simple, just like a plain black background without the dock.

To remove the dock, follow these steps:

1. Open Cydia, install WinterBoard, MobileTerminal and Open SSH.
2. Tap on terminal, wait for the first line to appear.
3. You then need to gain admin rights by follow the instructions below. Skip to step 7 if you have done so already.
4. Change the password by typing “passwd”
5. If it asks for your old password, use “alpine”
6. Type in your new password, and confirm it
7. Login as root, type “su root”
8. Type in the password you just set
9. Navigate to the themes folder by typing “cd Library/SummerBoard/Themes” (case sensitive!)
10. Create a folder called Blank by typing “mkdir Blank”
11. Enter the folder by typing “cd Blank”
12. Create an empty Dock.png by typing “touch Dock.png”

Press the home button (the physical button below your screen) to quit, SummerBoard should restart. Unlock your iPod to see the changes.

I listed the steps from my memory. If you followed the steps and could not remove the dock, please let me know.

I said earlier on my Xanga that if Steve Jobs did not replace the Macbook Pro in Macworld 2008, I would buy an iPod Touch to thank him. He didn’t, and I bought it.

The case is the Speck SeeThru Case for iPod Touch. They have several colors, I chose red as it would work with my theme. One thing I don’t like about the case is that larger headphone plugs (eg. Shure ones) won’t fit.

It was a headache to work with something unfamiliar. It took me a whole evening to figure out how to downgrade the firmware, how to jailbreak it, how to install iPhone apps, how to patch stuff, etc.

The iPod Touch has to be conditioned for the theme to look good:

1. Downgrade to firmware 1.1.1 (YouTube guide)
2. Jailbreak by going to jailbreakme.com with iPod touch.
3. Install Summerboard
4. Install Customize
5. Install iPod Customize Fix (to use full size iPhone dock themes)
6. Install Dock Icon Reflection Removal
7. Install PureFTP-d

Items 3-7 could be found in installer.app. For the downgrade, PC users should hold the shift key when clicking the update firmware button in iTunes (refer to the YouTube guide). Mac users should hold the option key.
I designed a wallpaper for the lock screen. I used the color themes and graphics from the 2008 countdown. The graphic resembles an king of spades design.

I’ve been trying different designs for the the past few days. I tried to see if I could use elements from the court cards.

I used the Orb from the king of clubs to design a few wallpapers. Here are two of them:

It doesn’t look very nice when applied as a theme.

I got the icons from a theme called Mystique. It is a nice theme, and I decided that I should work on that. I change the background color to green, and it looks perfect.

I’m still thinking of other designs, as I want to have elements from playing cards, especially the court cards. I was thinking about the flowers the queens are holding, the ace of spades design and a kaleidoscope effect of the back design. Suggestions are welcome.