CCNA® Certified!

Well, it sure has been a long path to get here, but I’m so incredibly glad I took the path that I did. Without the help of the Cisco Networking Academy, and John Koss, I’m not sure I would have been so prepared to take the CCNA exam.

There’s not much more to say at this point, except my hard copy of my certification is in the mail, and I eagerly await receiving it of course!

Now I have one class left to complete (in progress) before I get my degree as well.

Guide: Gimmie My Old Facebook Back!

CHANGE FACEBOOK BACK TO NORMAL!… Oh man… Oh Man…

So Facebook recently changed its home page around a bit. Most users are used to seeing everybody’s updates on their friends list, and in reverse-chronological order (newest up top). This latest update defaulted Facebook to use their new “News Feed” mode, which wasn’t live, wasn’t in chronological order, and included only a few friends. There were outcries over this.

Alot of users quickly realized that they can change the view to the “Live Feed” mode, and this solved alot of users issues. However over time many have realized that this view does not include everybody on their friends list. Some users have remedied this by switching to the “Status Updates” page, but this page is not an ideal solution, since it does not include applications, links, videos, etc…

Here’s a detailed guide on how to change that Live Feed view to include EVERYBODY on your friends list, essentially turning it back into what Facebook was like before all this nonsense.

1. Be sure you’re starting off in the News Feed view, if you’re not there yet, please go there now.

2. From here, try scrolling to the bottom until you get the option to load older stories, on the right of the link to load older stories, you should see a button called “Edit Options”? DON’T CLICK IT, we’re just checking to see if it’s THERE… IF YOU HAVE IT, proceed to step 4.

3. For those of you without the Edit Options button, you have to hide somebody/something (person or application) from your news feed. Find an application you don’t care about (like Farmville…) and hover over that news story, on the right of it, you should see a Hide option pop up. PS, if you really care about this person/application, you can always un-hide it after these steps…

4. Once you see the Edit Options button, scroll all the way back to the top, and click on the “View Live Feed” button.

5. Scroll to the bottom and click on the Edit Options button.

6. Change the number of friends to 9999 (or whatever your preference is) and save it.

7. Refresh Facebook, and be sure you’re on the Live Feed view, and everything should be up to par with what you’d expect.

OPTIONAL – 8. This is entirely optional, and only for those who had to hide something they want to still see. Go back to the NEWS FEED view, and go to edit options, here you have the ability to add them back to the feeds. Save, and switch back to live feed and you’re done.

Cydia Essentials

This post is mostly for Jacob Wolfrum… because he can’t seem to keep the list of good stuff I give him… douche.

If anybody’s reading this that isn’t aware, Cydia is what is generally installed on jailbroken iPhones, and allows you to get unofficial applications not sanctioned by Apple on your device… I won’t go into it much more than that, because if you didn’t know what it is, you wont be using this list anyhow.

First this is first, go into Cydia and manage your sources, add this.

http://cydia.hackulo.us/

Now, in alphabetical order, here’s my list of Cydia essentials.

AppSync – Will be called AppSync for OS 3.X, depending on what iPhone OS you’re running. This allows you to sync any pirated copies of apps back into and from your iTunes installation.

CyDelete – CyDelete allows you to delete “unofficial” apps just like you would a normal one, by holding your finger over it, and then tapping the “x” in the corner. Comes in very handy.

Cyntact – $1.00, but well worth it. This will show your contacts photos next to their names in your address book, and favorites list. It integrates with apps that pull up your contacts list too.

Emoji – Enables the option to turn on the Japanese Emoji keyboard. These are the high-quality iPhone smiles, and can even be sent to, and received by non-jailbroken iPhone users!

Five Icon Dock – Why wouldn’t you want to have five icons down there? It’s a much better utilization of your dock, you get to add that one extra thing you always wish you could. I use: Contacts, Messages, Phone, E-Mail, iPod.

Installous – This is where you get official app store apps without paying for them. I’m not endorsing this in any way, just letting people know it’s out there.

Lock Calendar – This puts your upcoming calendar appointments on your lock screen… Coupled with Google Sync this is amazing. I have my Google Calendar sync wirelessly (via push) to my phone, and all events show up on my lock screen. This means I never really have to go into my Calendar app unless I need to add a new event on the go.

MakeItMine – This allows you to customize what your carrier logo says. Get rid of the AT&T or anything else you might have up there, and put a personal touch on your phone, or use this to completely blank out your carrier logo if you think it just takes up space.

MobileTerminal – This allows you to enter command ON your phone, without needing to SSH into it. You can really use this for alot of things if you know what you’re doing.

OpenSSH – Well, this is the quintessential iPhone jailbroken app. It allows you to SSH into your phone, and SCP files to/from it.

PrivaCy – Adds an option in your Settings app to keep your iPhone data private. Alot of apps are sending “anonymous” usage statistics back to the mothership, use this to opt out.

SBSettings – With a finger swipe across the top bar (with the time) you’ll get access to alot of power-user features. My favorites have to be the ability to hide my unused icons, but still keep the apps useable via spotlight, the ability to kill processes, and the “free memory” button.

Scrobbl – A Last FM scrobbler that will scrobble tracks as you listen to them over Edge/3G. A must have for any Last FM user.

StatusNotifier – This will give you status bar (top bar) alerts of new messages, emails, voicemails, and others. Extremely well done.

Veency – A VNC SERVER for the iPhone… This allows one to control their phone with their mouse and keyboard. I use it while at work for checking SMS messages and whatnot.

Winterboard – The only way to theme your iPhone. Here’s the custom theme I’ve put together over a few months.

Now I’m sure there’s alot more apps out there, but these are my essential ones. I try alot more Cydia apps all the time, but generally don’t stick to them like I do the list above.

If you’ve found anything thats essential to you, please share in the comments!