With the change in administration it’s time to stop pussyfooting around the issue of broadband access in the U.S. It quite honestly sucks. Yes, some people have access to FiOS, but others have access to speeds that rank even lower than the lame 768 kbps classification of broadband adopted this year (!) by the FCC. Uneven coverage and a lack of competition mean that we in the U.S. pay more for our broadband than many other countries and that about 1 percent of the population can’t get access at all. This has got to change, and the private market isn’t going to do it because it simply isn’t profitable to string fiber, coax or even copper everywhere people have settled.

With consumer groups and industry players calling for a broadband bailout, I’m inclined to agree, even if it does mean Google gets more broadband subscribers for free. The government needs to get involved, and it needs to throw some money at the problem — albeit in a highly organized way. I’ll argue later about what should be done, but first here’s a few reasons why it’s important. Broadband is like electricity and running water — every town, if not every person, needs access to it. Not to watch cats on treadmills or download porn, but because it gives people cheaper access to the world.

Educational Access

Today the New York Times ran an article about the rising costs of a college education and offered up the idea of distance learning as being one solution to rising costs. I don’t think distance learning can substitute for the entire college experience, but having participated in several distance learning classes, it can be used in conjunction with meetings online or weekly in-person meetings  to create a rich learning and discussion environment. Broadband makes that possible today, and faster speeds will only add to the interactivity of those online environments — making a college education more accessible. The kids who most benefit from this are not living in FiOS areas; they are in poorer areas where ISPs try to avoid or delay launching high speed services. I know, I live in one of those areas. The government needs to step up to improve this access divide.

Medical Care Improvements

Broadband also can save on medical costs and improve access to health care. A release issued today highlighted radiologists’ frustration with quality of care. Ninety-four percent of radiologists surveyed blamed missed or delayed diagnosis on the inability of medical imaging systems to communicate with information systems of physicians and hospitals. Delivering radiological scans via broadband requires fat pipes and rapid speeds, but the benefit to patients, insurers and doctors would be many: fewer scans, faster delivery of images where they are needed, and lower costs associated with the process.

Telecommuting Expansion

Another benefit of better broadband would be the ability for people to telecommute. This has far-reaching benefits, from fewer cars on the roads to increasing a family’s resilience in the face of economic uncertainty. As a telecommuter, when I change jobs I don’t have to sell my house, uproot my husband’s career or leave the network of friends and family who support us. The more people who have that flexibility, the less traumatizing job loss can be both for the individual family and for a particular region.

Those are a few of the reasons the government should care about broadband access. Broadband can help promote an educated citizenry, could help lower the costs of providing health care and could increase workforce flexibility and decrease traffic. So while older generations of legislators might deride the web as a series of tubes, the truth of the matter is those tubes could be the lifeblood for citizen access to education, information and services. We need policies and funding to make sure broadband reaches everyone, and we need it today. It would’t be a bailout. It would be an investment.

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That's according to Sony, which addressed several LittleBigPlanet concerns in a recent (and now weekly) post on the official PlayStation Blog. "The vast majority of moderated levels were due to offensive material," wrote SCEA marketing manager Mark Valledor, "however we are evolving the way moderation happens to ensure that creators are made aware of why their level was blocked." Earlier this year, level creators expressed their frustration at becoming victim of Sony's inscrutable moderation policies. The company has since released some general "don't put this stuff in your level" guidelines.

Valledor also noted that other online aspects of the precious platformer are being examined and improved, including the occasionally problematic servers and the maddeningly unhelpful level search function. "We've heard your requests to get better search functionality to find levels and getting the PLAY, CREATE, SHARE stats up and running on the Info Moon and have put this on the top of our list."

We hope you guys tagged that list properly -- it's going to be awfully difficult to find otherwise.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/li...proving-proce/

pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/ps3/" rel="tag"Sony PlayStation 3/a/pdiv align="center"a href="http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/12/02/sack-it-to-meweekly-answers-to-the-lbp-communitys-questions/"img vspace="4" hspace="0" border="1" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/10/lbp-490.jpg" alt="" //abr //div That's according to Sony, which addressed several a href="http://www.joystiq.com/tag/littlebigplanet"emLittleBigPlanet/em/a concerns in a recent (and now weekly) post on the official a href="http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/12/02/sack-it-to-meweekly-answers-to-the-lbp-communitys-questions/"PlayStation Blog/a. "The vast majority of moderated levels were due to offensive material," wrote SCEA marketing manager Mark Valledor, "however we are evolving the way moderation happens to ensure that creators are made aware of why their level was blocked." Earlier this year, level creators expressed their a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/09/littlebigplanet-levels-being-deleted-with-no-warning-or-explanat/"frustration/a at becoming victim of Sony's inscrutable moderation policies. The company has since released some general "don't put this stuff in your level" a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/sony-issues-littlebigplanet-moderation-guidelines/"guidelines/a.br /br /Valledor also noted that other online aspects of the precious platformer are being examined and improved, including the occasionally problematic servers and the maddeningly unhelpful level search function. "We've heard your requests to get better search functionality to find levels and getting the PLAY, CREATE, SHARE stats up and running on the Info Moon and have put this on the top of our list." br /br /We hope you guys tagged that list properly -- it's going to be awfully difficult to find otherwise.p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/littlebigplanet-level-moderation-a-continually-improving-proce/"LittleBigPlanet level moderation a 'continually improving' process/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:14:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa href=http://blog.us.playstation.com/2008/12/02/sack-it-to-meweekly-answers-to-the-lbp-communitys-questions/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/littlebigplanet-level-moderation-a-continually-improving-proce/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1390388/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/03/littlebigplanet-level-moderation-a-continually-improving-proce/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gM2yTpSfoDrLKvZRnPLdeHcr0mw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/gM2yTpSfoDrLKvZRnPLdeHcr0mw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=JpWcpzMZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=JpWcpzMZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=NbKTwVmS"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=NbKTwVmS" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/3dBks-rcKDI" height="1" width="1"/

div class="image"a href="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/big_show.php?/avaxhome/d9/f9/0009f9d9.jpeg" target="_blank"img src="http://pixhost.ws/avaxhome/d9/f9/0009f9d9_medium.jpeg" id="external_img_653785"//a/divbr/ div class="center"bLiving a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditionsbr/ Self-Management of Heart Disease, Fatigue, Arthritis, Worry, Diabetes, Frustration, Asthma, Pain, Emphysema, and Others/bbr/ By Kate Lorig, Halsted Holman, David Sobel, Diana Laurentbr/ Publisher: Bull Publishing 2006-09 | 384 Pages | ISBN: 1933503017 | PDF | 2 MB/divbr/ Filled with hundreds of tips, suggestions, and strategies, this guide offers practical medical solutions in clear language. It explains how to develop and maintain exercise and nutrition programs, manage symptoms, determine when to seek medical help, work effectively with doctors, properly use medications and minimize side effects....

Reconnu pour sa bonne humeur, Guillaume Latendresse dissimulait mal sa frustration au lendemain de son retrait de la formation. Le gros ailier ne comprend pas les explications de Carbonneau.

December 1st is observed around the world as AIDS Day and the occasion is largely publicized. Unlike the attention World AIDS Day receives, World Disability Day barely registers on the world media’s radar.

Circle of friends by Flickr user Jimee, Jackie, Tom and Asha and used under a creative commons license

Celebrated every year on December 3rd, World Disability Day honors the contribution made to our world by those with physical and mental handicap. In case of South Asia, there is severe stigma attached any kind of physical and mental handicap. World Disability Day is an opportunity to spread awareness about the rights of the handicapped and that being differently able is not a sin or something to be ashamed of.

In India, activist Javed Abidi, the country’s leading advocate for the rights of the handicapped, will lead an event called “Dilli Chalo” or “Lets go to Delhi” to mark the occasion. It will be held at the historic India Gate.

Mr. Abidi says that India has made some progress in securing rights of the disabled but more needs to be done.

“Now, in India, as we are aware, we have had the Disability Act for the last 12 years. Last year we thought was a momentous year for two reasons. One was that our country ratified the UN Convention, and the second was that we also got the XI Plan. And in the XI Plan.....for the first time, there is a distinct chapter or a section on disability. And we thought that things were going to change. ......if we were look at the last one year, we find that things have not really moved the way we had expected them to move....”

Along with addressing legal issues related to the rights of the disabled and the opportunities they deserve, efforts are also needed to help those living in abject poverty because of their physical condition.

A news report published by the The National shows how urgently India’s poor disabled citizens need their government to take steps to insure that they are able to live in dignity.

Shaikh Azizur Rahman reported this November that an elderly father taking care of two severely disabled bed ridden daughters has asked the Indian President that they be allowed to be euthanized. He said that he is too poor to take of his daughters who need round the clock care and attention. Fatema, one of his daughters, says that she too wants her life to end.

“I told my father many times to bring poison for me. Nobody is helping me to kill myself.”

Across the border in Pakistan, there is still the mountain of odds facing citizens with disability. Writing for Dawn, Zahid Abdullah, who works for the Center for Peace and Development in Islamabad, says that country still has a long way to go before those with different ability can feel that society values them too. He also expresses frustration at slow pace of legal reform regarding the rights of the disabled.

Like in India and Pakistan, the society in Nepal too views physical and mental handicaps as a result of past life’s sins. Handicapped are usually treated as sub human; they have very limited access to education and meaningful employment. Often you can see a person with physical disability begging on the streets to sustain life.

Meen Raj Panthi says that families hide those with a disability to protect their honor and prestige:

“The notion that people with disabilities have equal rights and duty as any other individual, is largely absent from the popular mindset.”

Children are most vulnerable to discrimination. National Disabled and Helpless Upliftment Association in Nepal cites an example of a little girl named Manisha held captive by her parents because she is blind:

“While her parents work at fields, she is often locked in her own room and tethered with rope by her parents because she has no one to look after her at home. But her elder brother and sister go to school.”

Thumbnail image by Flickr user Shizhao and used under a creative commons license

I've left my phone virgin since I bought it during the 3G rollout, but finally deviced to take the plunge when I saw some cool apps like PDANet. So, I'm a N00B, and I Jailbroke my phone with QuikPwn which worked great!

My frustration lies with the fact that there are no clear compatibility reports in Cydia about each of the apps you download. It seems like 75% of the apps I have tried don't work with the new 2.2 firmware. Some of these include the AppFlow program which uses coverflow to navigate apps. I also tried Dock, which also does not seem to work, when I do the little swoosh, my contacts come up but when I click on a contact my phone locks up and I have to reboot it. I realize that some of these will be fixed in the future, but in the meantime it's real frustrating to download all these apps and not know if the issue is with the 2.2 firmware, or is it my phone, the app, am I doing something wrong?

On the other hand, PDANet works GREAT. Even on an EDGE connection at my parents house up in the mountains, surfing the web worked great. I wouldn't try to download anything, but just reading blogs, the news, etc, it works great on EDGE.

So, i guess as a N00B to all this, can anyone point me to some good sites which have a lot of useful information, or is this forum the best place to find stuff?

If challenging 2D games are your thing then you'll love span style="font-style: italic;"/spana style="font-style: italic;" title="More news on the Demon Penguin's hero debut" href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/category/Prinny-Can-I-Really-Be-the-Hero-/cid/5316"Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?/a Get a thick, rubber coating for your PSP 'cause you might end up throwing it straight unto the nearest wall in frustration.brbrFirst of all, Prinny is a terrible jumper. Prinny's bones must be lined with metal plates from all his bone-breaking adventures, and that waist pouch must have a full-size sedan in it. Despite being able to suspend in mid-air when sword-slinging, Prinny feels very heavy, needing good momentum to get some good distance out of a jump. He IS a penguin after all.brbrp style="text-align: center;"a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126978/Prinnyfull_qjpreviewth.png?328791" rel="lightbox[article126978]" title="Err... 20Now 20what 3F 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126978/Prinnyfull.png 3F328791 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open 20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 3px;" alt="Err... Now what? - Image 1" title="Err... Now what? - Image 1" src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126978/Prinnyfull_qjpreviewth.png?328791" align="" border="0"/abr/pbrJust like X and Zero, getting hit in mid-air means you drop straight down like a used diaper. Lucky for the a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/maverick/1885" id="tag" title=""Maverick/a Hunters, they've got moves to cover that weakness - Prinny does not. You have to be extra careful that you clear the way before you jump.brbrThe worst part is that Prinny, despite being heavy, is not heavy-armored. The poor thing can only endure three hits - and that's in Normal Mode. You basically have to go through the levels - taking enemies down and jumping like a rock - then you have to take a boss down, all on three points of health.brbrHell Mode is even worse, take ONE hit and you're dead. Fortunately, a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/nippon-ichi/3234" id="tag" title=""Nippon Ichi/a acknowledges the difficulty with a good amount of checkpoints. Still, Prinny seriously needs to start using those wings, 'cause he can't live on swordplay alone.brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"More news on Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?br/spanullia href="http://www.qj.net/Yes-Prinny-you-can-be-the-hero-and-you-ve-got-3-vids-to-show-for-it/pg/49/aid/126659"span title="Prinny's got 3 vids" style="font-style: italic;"Yes Prinny, you can be the hero, and you've got 3 vids to show for it/span/abr/li/ulbrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=56KVz1uW"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=QsHwn2wG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=onI4aI54"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=43" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/QJ/PSP/~4/zKzB5aYUqxg" height="1" width="1"/

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=47a93be94b543772005f960amaxX=201maxY=226" border="0" alt="mobilead.jpg" title="mobilead.jpg" width="201" height="226" /Users of online video sites like YouTube (GOOG) typically won't wait for ads to play -- they'll just click to another site in frustration. So are people watching streaming video on a cell phone enough of a captive audience to sit through a pre-roll?/p pWe doubt it. But MySpace (NWS) is keeping its fingers crossed, and is rolling out a new service to send video to mobile phones, packaging the content with ads./p p style="padding-left: 30px;"a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4B216V20081203"Reuters/a: On Wednesday, News Corp's online social network will make video clips from its members' pages available for viewing on mobile devices including the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Centro, Motorola Q9, LG Voyager, Nokia N95 and Samsung Instinct.br /br /Members will be able to look at video on their own homepages as well as friends' pages. They also will be able to view professionally produced video from TMZ, the celebrity news and gossip website owned by Time Warner Inc; the National Hockey League; National Geographic magazine; satirical newspaper The Onion and others.br /br /The free service will be supported by advertising./p pEarlier this week, MySpace CEO a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/myspace-ceo-acquisition-targets-dirt-cheap-and-getting-cheaper"Chris DeWolfe named mobile/a (along with music and overseas users) as one of the three areas where he expects his company to find growth. Nor a bad idea to jump in the game, but a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/youtube-s-mobile-ad-test-confirms-infant-state-of-mobile-advertising-business"the mobile ad business remains so tiny/a MySpace won't see significant revenue from its mobile video ads anytime soon. If ever./p pstrongSee Also:/strongbr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/myspace-ceo-acquisition-targets-dirt-cheap-and-getting-cheaper"MySpace CEO: Acquisition Targets Dirt Cheap And Getting Cheaper/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/michael-wolff-myspace-and-its-braindead-users-are-going-to-zero"Michael Wolff: MySpace And Its Braindead Users Are Going To Zero/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/dewolfe-myspace-hasn-t-seen-any-impact-from-financial-crises"DeWolfe: Recession Hammering MySpace's Growth/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/youtube-s-mobile-ad-test-confirms-infant-state-of-mobile-advertising-business"YouTube's Mobile Ad Test Confirms Infant State Of Mobile Advertising Business/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_DF6qM5tYwuUixxpx0wZkJ78Zkg/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/_DF6qM5tYwuUixxpx0wZkJ78Zkg/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=AHxZ46vq"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=AHxZ46vq" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=e5zHvP2z"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=l5u8Z1JN"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=9qIgD9d0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=9qIgD9d0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=4yssigVu"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=VhcajOPt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=PQCBYCwx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=f17IUrfv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/kirh46dDcHk" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/92855?ns=guardianpageName=Film%3A+How+Hollywood+grew+up+about+teen+sexch=Filmc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Film%2CCulture+section%2CSex+education%2CSexual+health+%28Society%29c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CHealth+Society%2CSchools+Educationc6=Henry+Barnesc7=2008_12_03c8=1128017c9=articlec10=GUc11=Filmc12=blogc13=c14=Film+blogh2=GU%2FFilm%2Fblog%2FFilm+blog" width="1" height="1" //divpParents! Do you know what your teenage son has got himself into? The answer, according to the people behind such films as new teen comedy a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/127833/sex.drive"Sex Drive/a, is socks, apple pies, soft fruit and his friends' mums. If it's inanimate or inappropriate, he's been there./ppApologies for crassness, but that's exactly the kind of humour regularly employed by Hollywood scriptwriters to describe the coming of age experience. Male teens are sweaty lumps of sexual frustration who will hump anything; they're enthusiastic but useless lovers who think finesse is something you yell when it's over. /ppWe have Paul Weitz's genre classic American Pie (in which unions with all the above occur) to thank for this stereotype - which, shockingly, is an improvement on the previous state of affairs. Following the progress of four high-school boys who make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night, the film gifted the sexcom genre with a whole new set of moves. /ppBefore Pie, comedy films for the teenage market followed Russ Meyers' mantra - "big laughs and big tits" - but weren't much bothered if the latter squeezed the former out. The format was all about cramming in gross-out gags regardless of the plot, hence the shallow humour of 80s hits such as a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v="W3A9rLoz_0o""Caddyshack/a and a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v="pKZV1MSldJk""Porky's/a. There were no consequences, there were no lessons, just slobbering blokes chasing after vacuous women - Benny Hill goes Beverly Hills. /ppThe relative realism of American Pie (pie-coupling notwithstanding) changed everything. It dealt with the issues that shape teenage sexual behaviour - peer pressure, competitiveness, parental attitudes - without ridicule, and it didn't patronise its audience. Put bluntly, it gave teenage boys a voice as well as a hard-on. /ppPost-Pie, it appears teen comedies are taking a (slightly) a href="http://yas.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/1/37"more sophisticated view/a of adolescent sex and sexuality. Sex Drive, the story of one boy's road trip across America to sleep with a girl he's met on the internet, is an example of the developing maturity of the genre's film-makers. Director Sean Anders takes inspiration from the sexual insecurity implicit in Gen-X classics such as Swingers and Clerks; hence, Sex Drive's hero, Ian, isn't just a randy teenager. /ppHe's lonely, desperate and hormonal, bullied by an older brother who boasts greater sexual prowess and outgunned by a more experienced best friend. He's also painfully insecure around girls, who tend to ignore or use him. Incidentally, it's significant that here, as in most blockbuster genres, the female characters are still always either a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=axizXOjRjbI"sex objects/a or "one of the boys". The genre's film-makers still have a lot more maturing to do when it comes to their views on equality. /ppStill, it's reassuring that the film industry's love affair with the movies at the extreme end of the scale - the true a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362120/"trash/a inspired by the genre's moronic, sexist 80s - appears to be fizzling out. It suggests that Hollywood is beginning to realise that most teenagers are driven by more than their base instincts. Concerned parents should take comfort in that. After all, hormones alone are unlikely to turn your teenager a href="http://www.imdb.com/media/rm466065664/tt0163651"pie-fucking crazy/a. But hormones, plus the influence of Porky's-like idiocy, just might./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/sexeducation"Sex education/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/sexual-health"Sexual health/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/cKa8xzetrk9qZ3GkmD1qiRGb9Nw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/cKa8xzetrk9qZ3GkmD1qiRGb9Nw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Background Info:
Phone: Iphone 3G firmware 2.1 Jailbroken (but not unlocked)
OS: Windows XP
Software: Itunes 7.7 and Itunes 8.0 (latest)

Story:

My phone crashed when I tried taking a call while the phone was charging. When I picked up the phone, I yanked it a little too hard (damn cords are too short) and the usb connection was half-pulled out while at the same time, I managed to slide the answer bar all the way to the screen, resulting in the phone crashing.

I pressed power + home to shut off the phone and hopefully turn it back on. It wouldn't turn back on.

So I went home and tried to put it in DFU mode. Itunes 7.7 was able to detect it I downloaded the firmware 2.1 (even though 2.2 has been out for a few days, I didn't want to update yet). I hit shift-restore and selected the firmware, and after a minute or two when itunes is trying to prepare the Iphone for restore, it gives me an error message of 1601.

I tried Itunes 8.0 and restore with the firmware. Same result
I tried Itunes 8.0 and restore with the new firmware 2.2. Same result
I even tried Itunes 7.7 and restore with the new firmware 2.2. Still same results.

I noticed that just before it says "Preparing Iphone for restore" I hear the USB disconnection sound each time, so I figure I would disconnect the phone while it is preparing for the restore, reconnect it and go through the steps to put the Iphone in DFU.

This time it gave me the error of 1600. For all the same combination above as well. I have restarted my computer each uninstallation of Itunes (I followed through with removing even programs like "bonjour", "apple mobile update", etc.

Has anyone had this problem before? How did you solve it? I'm trying really hard not to blame the person who called, but y'know, anger and frustration overpowers logic. TIA.

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/bestof2008_01.png" width="494" height="290" style="display:block;" / iframe src="http://digg.com/api/diggthis.php?u=http://digg.com/software/Lifehacker_Best_New_and_Improved_Software_of_2008" align="right" frameborder="0" height="82" scrolling="no" width="55"/iframe Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year. iPhoto by a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/1947414336/"Gaetan Lee/a./i/p pbr clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Firefox 3/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/firefox3-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Not only did you swoon over the release of Firefox 3 because of a href="http://lifehacker.com/392160/top-10-firefox-3-features"the "AwesomeBar" and the rest of the "Had no idea I needed this but now I love it!" features/a it offers, but because the launch itself was a grass-roots community-driven effort towards making software history. Indeed, on June 17th of this year, the makers of Firefox a href="http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-07-02.html"set a new Guinness World Record for most software downloads in a given day/a, at more than eight million downloads of the new browser iteration in 24 hours. If you haven't dug into the advanced functionality Firefox has to offer, check out our a href="http://lifehacker.com/396312/power-users-guide-to-firefox-3"power user's guide to Firefox 3/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Chrome/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_gchrome.png" width="135" height="135"While Mozillians and Firefox users celebrated across the globe over the summer, no one knew that search powerhouse Google was in the software development lab cooking up their own lean, mean browsing machine that would forsake all of the fox's bells and whistles (and extensibility) to run Javascript-based applications lightening-fast. On September 2nd, Google released the first beta of a href="http://google.com/chrome/"Chrome/a, their new web browser which they hope you'll make your window to the web and all its apps. Our own in-house a href="http://lifehacker.com/5055406/browser-speed-tests-the-compiled-up+to+date-results"browser speed tests show that Chrome is indeed speedy/a, and we're seeing a significant uptake on Chrome usage by Lifehacker readers. (Last month's browser breakdown for Lifehacker readers was 62% Firefox, 22% IE, 8% Safari, and 6% Chrome. Not bad for a browser that's been out only a few months.) For more Chrome goodness, see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5045904/the-power-users-guide-to-google-chrome"power user's guide to Google Chrome/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 and the App Store/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/iphone20-sq-thumb_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Yeah, yeah, the iPhone launched in 2007, but this year the iPhone 2.0 software and the new iPhone 3G model with a faster data plan and GPS came out to hype almost as big as the original iPhone launch. The combination of an operating system that finally ran third-party apps officially plus pinpointy GPS goodness set the bar for what users can expect to get from the next generation of smartphone with a fast internet connection, full-on browser, and spot-on location-awareness. Plus, dozens of the apps available for the phone are free. At first, we were a href="http://lifehacker.com/395171/how-your-location+aware-iphone-will-change-your-life"in/a a href="http://lifehacker.com/398338/iphone-20-gets-you-laid-and-more"love/a. Later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/398658/why-youre-better-off-avoiding-the-iphone"we had our doubts/a. The iPhone 2.0 launch did start to show some of the cracks in the Apple armormdash;several of the earliest versions of the software were crash and freeze-prone, requiring many users to uninstall apps and reset their phone software to fix maddening keyboard delays and application crashes. Meanwhile, Apple's approval-only App Store left a few applications out in the cold. Still, the iPhone 2.0 software created a compelling mobile platform and app marketing campaign that made Aunt Bertha really want to try that Neil Diamond song out on Shazam.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"iPhone 2.0 Jailbreak Utilities and Apps/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cydia-thumb.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" What with the App Store limitations and Apple's insistence on ruling over what you can and cannot do on your phone, it's not surprising the enthusiastic "jailbreak" community soldiered on this year, continuing to offer installers and non-Apple-approved applications for your iPhone even in the face of the mainstream iTunes App Store. We take our hats off to these intrepid hackers, who offer such lovely functionality as the ability to SSH into, theme, and download video clips to your phone; if you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPod touch, here are a few of our picks of best a href="http://lifehacker.com/400148/iphone-20-jailbreak-apps-you-cant-find-in-the-itunes-store"iPhone 2.0 jailbreak apps you can't find in the iTunes Store/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Google Android/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/android-logo-sq.png" width="135" height="135" Google's answer to Apple's proprietary iPhone hardware and software came in the form of their very own touch mobile phone operating system, Android, which launched this past October. Unlike the iPhone, this new mobile platform is open source and will run on various handsets going forward. Right now Android's first release is only available on the HTC G1 handset; you can see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/5064117/a-hands+on-first-look-at-google-android"hands-on first look at Google Android running on the G1 here/a. As an iPhone user frustrated by limited apps, crashiness, and lack of copy and paste, Android is like a breath of fresh air. Even though the mobile OS is still very new, its open-source nature has led to hundreds of new apps. See our pick of a href="http://lifehacker.com/5075332/best-android-apps-to-boost-your-mobile-productivity-so-far"best Android apps to boost your mobile productivity/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Digsby/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/digsby-logo_01.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" One of the few software apps on this list that's not open source or made by a ginormous company, new instant messenger client Digsby took chatters by storm with its ability to a href="http://lifehacker.com/354345/consolidate-im-email-and-social-networking-with-digsby"consolidate your IM, email, and social networking in one place/a. Even though the Digsby beta only went public in February, by April it was already a href="http://lifehacker.com/375391/five-best-instant-messengers"one of our readers' top five favorite instant messaging tools/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"XBMC and Forks/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/xbmc-logo-sq_01.png" width="135" height="135" We were really late to the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) party when we showed up last year and a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/transform-your-classic-xbox-into-a-killer-media-center-299809.php"installed it on our old classic Xbox/a, but since then we've been hooked on this rich, open-source media center. Luckily, just because those old black boxes are becoming obselete doesn't mean the XBMC software project has died off. Just the opposite: XBMC has forked into several neat branches that run on various hardware platforms so you can enjoy the same media center goodness without hacking an old Xbox. Check out a few launches from various factions of XBMC developers this past year that have warmed our hearts:/p ul lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5051874/xbmc-atlantis-beta-1-released-for-all-platforms"XBMC 'Atlantis' Beta 1 Released for All Platforms/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/5095241/plex-7-adds-itunes-and-iphoto-support-and-more"Plex 7 for Mac Adds iTunes and iPhoto Support and More/a/li lia href="http://lifehacker.com/396382/boxee-is-xbmc-with-newer-look-and-social-flair"Boxee Is XBMC with Newer Look and Social Flair/a/li /ul br clear="all" h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Ubuntu Hardy Heron/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/hardyheron-logo.png" width="135" height="135" align="right" class="right" Another year, another Ubuntu release, and they just keep getting better. Seriously, you have to love the free, open source operating system that manages a new major release on a yearly basismdash;something Apple and Microsoft, companies you pay hundreds of dollars to for the privilege of using their software, don't pull off. If you've tried Linux on your desktop before and killed the partition in frustration, only to slink back to Windows, it's time to give it another go. This year's flavor, a href="http://lifehacker.com/383769/hardy-heron-makes-linux-worth-another-look"version 8.04 Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look/a.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Gmail Labs, Gadgets, and Themes/h3 pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_thumb160x_smallish_smallish_smallish_smallish_gmailenvelope.png" width="135" height="135" Our favorite web application on the internet, Gmail, continues to burn down barns and rip up the competition with continual iteration and feature adds. This year, Gmail added a "Labs" section to your account, a safe way for power users to enable "experimental" power features to their email while keeping everyone else's safe from harm. Truthfully, when I a href="http://lifehacker.com/395211/gmail-gets-13-experimental-new-features"attended the Google press event announcing Gmail Labs/a back in June, I had my doubts about whether or not the featureset would ever expand beyond the initial 13, and if it would go beyond eye-candy games like Snakey to, you know, actually useful stuff. Turns out it did. Six months later, a href="http://lifehacker.com/5052060/what-gmail-labs-features-do-you-have-enabled"ten more Gmail Labs features/a are available in your account, including a super-useful Gadgets feature that lets third parties embed their apps into your inbox. (Like a href="http://lifehacker.com/5101139/bitly-offers-in+gmail-url-shortening-gadget"Bit.ly/a or a href="http://lifehacker.com/5084502/add-your-basecamp-projects-to-gmail"Basecamp/a.) Later, Gmail launched a href="http://lifehacker.com/5093536/gmail-updates-its-look-adds-themes"themes/a as well as a href="http://lifehacker.com/5100649/gmail-google-desktop-gadget-now-available"a Google Desktop gadget/a. In the midst of all this, the Gmail security team took the time a href="http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2008/11/gmail-security-and-recent-phishing.html"to respond to a breach/a that several users had experienced and blogged about online. Clearly there's someone home at Gmail; this is a rapidly-evolving product that any webapp developer should use as an example on how to iterate quickly.br clear="all"/p h3 style="font-size: 120%; margin-top: 20px;"Honorable Mentions/h3 pMaking best-of-year lists is always difficult because you risk leaving off really deserving items. At least two that go in our honorable mentions bin are the a href="http://lifehacker.com/5042312/ubiquity-prototype-offers-a-natural-language-web-command-line"Firefox keyboard interface prototype Ubiquity/a, and photo-sharing site a href="http://lifehacker.com/377598/flickr-adds-video"Flickr's launch of short video clips/a in April./p pNow, you tell us which one of these apps impressed you the most in the year two thousand and eight./p pscript type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/1160637.js" /scriptnoscripta href="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1160637/"Which new or improved app impressed you the most in 2008?/abr span style="font-size:9px;"( a href="http://www.polldaddy.com"polls/a)/span/noscript/p pIf you can't get enough of best-of lists, hop into the time machine and see our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-new-and-improved-apps-of-2007-332617.php"top 10 new and improved apps of 2007/a, and our a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/best-of-2006/geek-to-live--the-best-apps-of-2006-221920.php"best apps of 2006/a and of a href="http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-to-live/geek-to-live-best-apps-of-2005-144388.php"2005/a./p pAnything you would have included on this list that we left out? Tell us about it in the comments./p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=c25b27e9cc47fec6e2837e6756c1da79" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=cDx19c1S"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=ZTEOZvTR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=6Kfin5AZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=6Kfin5AZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=Sg3nuEAr"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=Sg3nuEAr" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/TRlejqKX0-0" height="1" width="1"/

Background Info:
Phone: Iphone 3G firmware 2.1 Jailbroken (but not unlocked)
OS: Windows XP
Software: Itunes 7.7 and Itunes 8.0 (latest)

Story:

My phone crashed when I tried taking a call while the phone was charging. When I picked up the phone, I yanked it a little too hard (damn cords are too short) and the usb connection was half-pulled out while at the same time, I managed to slide the answer bar all the way to the screen, resulting in the phone crashing.

I pressed power + home to shut off the phone and hopefully turn it back on. It wouldn't turn back on.

So I went home and tried to put it in DFU mode. Itunes 7.7 was able to detect it I downloaded the firmware 2.1 (even though 2.2 has been out for a few days, I didn't want to update yet). I hit shift-restore and selected the firmware, and after a minute or two when itunes is trying to prepare the Iphone for restore, it gives me an error message of 1601.

I tried Itunes 8.0 and restore with the firmware. Same result
I tried Itunes 8.0 and restore with the new firmware 2.2. Same result
I even tried Itunes 7.7 and restore with the new firmware 2.2. Still same results.

I noticed that just before it says "Preparing Iphone for restore" I hear the USB disconnection sound each time, so I figure I would disconnect the phone while it is preparing for the restore, reconnect it and go through the steps to put the Iphone in DFU.

This time it gave me the error of 1600. For all the same combination above as well. I have restarted my computer each uninstallation of Itunes (I followed through with removing even programs like "bonjour", "apple mobile update", etc.

Has anyone had this problem before? How did you solve it? I'm trying really hard not to blame the person who called, but y'know, anger and frustration overpowers logic. TIA.