SSH Into Your iPhone/iPod touch

SFTP/SSH as its called, is a set of protocols that lets you access the contents of you iPhone/iPod touch, provided its jailbroken and you've set up SSH on it. Today, I'm gonna teach you guys just that !

What you need:
iPhone/iPod touch
Mac/PC
Cyberduck
WiFi Connection

What you can do:
Make use of custom themes
Set custom Ringtones
Brick your iPhone/iPod touch

Note that your iPhone/iPod touch needs to be jailbroken and they need to be on the same network as your Mac/PC

Now, here's what you'll need to do to enable SSH on your device, if you haven't:

1. Install OpenSSH & Toggle SSH from the Cydia package manager
2. Open Toggle SSH app and press "Enable" to enable SSH
3. Restart your device

Optional: If you have SBSettings installed, you could simplify your job of turning SSH on/off

That's almost it, now head over to your Mac and open Cyberduck
Click on "Open Connection" and a dialogue box like the one below should pop up. Make sure you use similar settings and fill in the details properly.

The IP Address of your device can be looked up in WiFi, by clicking the right pointing arrow of your WiFi network

After you do that successfully, you should come across a screen like this one:

To use custom themes, you need to have WinterBoard installed on your device.
You should be able to get some really kickass themes from the MacThemes Forum

To install them, you need to place the .theme folder under /Library/themes (Alias)
To use custom ringtones, you need to place the files under /Library/ringtones (Alias)

DO NOT fiddle with any directories, other than those I mentioned
I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LOSS to your data/device if you goof up with something

I mentioned something called bricking of your device. If you do something terribly wrong, such as deleting the lib/dev/bin directories, even by mistake, don't get your panties in a bunch yet :P

You'll just need to reset your device OS, by putting it into DFU Mode, and restoring with the firmware of your choice

DFU Mode:
1. Connect your device to your Mac/PC
2. Hold Home and Power buttons at the same time for exactly 10 seconds
3. Let go of the Power button after 10 seconds and continue to hold the Home button until iTunes pops up and detects your device in Recovery Mode

I'm gonna say it again for my own safety, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING AT ALL, if you goof up

Useful, Free Apps For The Mac

Audacity

Do you have the Audacity to edit sound ? If yes, this is the right app for you ! Audacity lets you edit sound in ways you wouldn't have imagined. Its THE MOST powerful sound editor available across all platforms ! Its a nifty tool giving an inclination to the user. You can cut/chop/copy/duplicate/paste/do whatever the f**k you want with your sound clip or for that matter, a whole set of clips ! You can convert any music format to any other music format, its just limitless. Psst, you can also make ringtones with it, don't ask me how ;) Please don't complain about the UI though. I know, its horrible for a Mac app.

Tweetie

Tweetie, as the name suggests is a Twitter client for Mac OS X, developed by atebits. Its a beautifully written program, with some really nice animations to get you going ! You can sign in to multiple Twitter accounts at the same time, if you wish to. The free version comes with ads, but they're not irritating, as they're quite relevant and useful in some cases. You can upgrade to the full version by paying a premium of 20$. By far, of all the Twitter clients I've seen, Tweetie is the best ! The bird won't let you down when it comes to friendliness :)

AppCleaner

Uninstalling an App on a Mac is not as easy as drag-and-drop. The Apps that you install create plist files in System directories. Quite obviously, the new Mac user would not dare to tamper with uncharted territory ! AppCleaner does the job for you n00bs out there.

It makes uninstalling apps as simple as installing applications, drag-and-drop. It will automatically find relevant files for the app you want to uninstall, and delete them all in one go ! Its also capable of uninstalling Widgets, Preference Panes and Menu Plugins ! Its got some kickass animations as well ! So, go ahead, install-uninstall and play around without fear !

HandBrake

HandBrake is a one-stop-app for all your video converting needs. It supports a huge variety of formats. It also rips DVDs to any format you want. It supports various profiles for all kinds of devices. Being quite a powerful tool, you can convert a 2-hour DivX movie to an iPod compatible format in under an hour on a fairly powerful Mac. Think, the new aluminum MacBook Pro.

The UI is a simple one, which even a n00b can understand. You can even choose to queue up a few videos and leave it on.

So, if you wanna watch videos within the comfort of your iPod/Mobile/PS3/Xbox, this is what you're looking for !

Two Torrent Apps For The Mac

Well, I can safely say that your favourite torrent application for Windows would be uTorrent. There are just tons and tons of these applications. Which one to choose is the question ! I personally prefer using uTorrent because of its very familiar interface. I do love Transmission, but some users experience uploading/seeding problems with it, and unfortunately, I'm one of them. As far as I'm concerned, uTorrent and Transmission are THE BEST torrent applications out there for the Mac. Here's a quick look at the top two Mac torrent applications:

uTorrent

Its quite a familiar interface for the average Windows user. I love the simplicity of the UI. Its a no-strings-attached application, which is meant to perform the task its given, in this case, download/upload torrents. If you wanna make it look even more simpler, you could just click that small tab like button on the top right of the window and the button on the bottom left, to make it look like this:

This look is what I like to use on a day to day basis. Its completely clutter free. You can Start/Stop/Pause/Delete torrent just by right clicking in your list of torrents.

Pros:

• Excellent, simple hassle-free UI
• Good speeds, of course, on a good connection
• Easy download management

Cons:

• No Web UI
• Huge interface inspite of it being simple, takes away half your desktop

Transmission

The Transmission UI is ever more simpler than any other app available out there. I won't say much about it, cause the screenshot speaks a thousand words, no wait, a million pixels !

Pros:

• THE MOST simple UI out there
• Web UI for iPhone/iPod touch
• Organization of Downloads

Cons:

• Seeding/Uploading problems for some users

If you manage to get Transmission up and running, with proper seeding, consider yourself lucky !

The best part about Transmission is the organization of your downloads. Labels. Consider this, you're downloading some music, photos or some apps, and you want them to go into their respective directories, you can assign unique colored labels to them and make then go there after they complete downloading.

iPhone/iPod touch Web UI

Its just like a stripped down version of Transmission running on your iPhone. You can practically control and manage your downloads from around the reach of your WiFi network at home. You can also control it from anywhere in the world, provided you have your iPhone with you, have access to the internet, your Mac is connected to the internet all the time, and you have a static IP. Nerdy ain't it ?

Download links:

uTorrent
Transmission

Lemme know which one you like better, Transmission or uTorrent. Feel free to comment !