If you haven't jailbroken your iPhone or iPad yet, you will need to do that first. See my posts on Jailbreaking the iPhone or Jailbreaking the iPad.

Ok, now that your device is all jailbroken, let's get started with Installous...

• Open up your Cydia app
• Tap on Manage in the bottom tab

• Choose Sources
• Now tap on the Edit, then Add buttons on your navigation bar
• Enter http://cydia.hackulo.us into the URL field

• Press Done in the navigation bar
• Tap on Search tab at the bottom menu
• Type in Installous into the search bar

• Now install the App
• Voila! Instant gratification!

Now install AppSync...

• Open up Cydia again
• Tap Manage tab on the bottom
• Tap Sources on the screen
• Tap Edit and then Add buttons on your navigation bar
• Tap on Search tab on the bottom
• Type AppSync into the search bar
• NOTE: You will want to install the proper version of this on your device. For iPad, it's 3.2 and iPhones it's most likely 4.0 or 3.1.*

You will need this to downgrade and re-jailbreak your iPad in case you accidentally upgrade to a new firmware

• Download the latest version of Firmware Umbrella here
• If you have Windows, you will download the latest version of AutoSHSH instead. (I have a Mac so the instructions will be for Firmware Umbrella but it's pretty much the same for AutoSHSH)
• Run Firmware Umbrella.
• Plug in your iPad into your computer via USB
• Check that it's detecting your device and firmware correctly. If not, click on the Advanced Options checkbox to correct it.
• Press Save My SHSH
• Once it is done saving, the Save My SHSH button will be reenabled again
• Firmware Umbrella will save the SHSH blog file to your filesystem. The path to the file is copied to your clipboard. Paste it into a text file and keep in case you need it in the future.

Next Up, Userland Spirit Jailbreak

• Download the latest version of Spirit jailbreak for Mac or PC
• Run Spirit application with your iPad still attached

• Press Jailbreak
• Spirit will restart your iPad. Once it completes restarting, you iPad is jailbroken

• You can now unplug your iPad from your computer and quit Spirit
• Cydia will be installed onto your iPad

You are now all set to go. Easy Peasy!

For now, there is not shell access to your iPad so you can't change your ssh password just yet so disable ssh and only enable it when you're using it.

To fully take advantage for your new jailbroken iPad, you will want to install Installous and AppSync. See my instructions here.

iBook seems pretty good so far. Although the note taking functionality seems to be a little bit flaky to me right now. Will have to play around with it some more.

Netflix.. eh. Not so impressed with it. The app itself is pretty much a UIWebView of the website which doesn't always suite the iPad format and seems a bit sluggish to me. I do like that you can stream Instant Views to it, which comes in handy when you have to share your TV (come on - you know what I mean).

Weatherbug.. hmmm. That's a tough one. The interface seems to be really cool, but it keeps saying it's going to rain in San Francisco on Tuesday and Wednesday. Really? It sure looks sunny and 75-80 degrees to me.

I am a little bit disappointed that I can't charge my iPad through the USB hub of my Dell monitor and have to plug it directly into my Macbook. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Anyway, can't wait to play around with it some more. First stop, jailbreaking. Will try it out tonight and let you know how it goes...

Update: see my instructions on how to Jailbreak the iPad

I came across IX Web Hosting as well which is worth mentioning and got good customer reviews. Coming from a developer background, having ssh access was a must for me. When talking to IX Web Hosting service, they did not have ssh access for their customers. Instead, they had some type of web based terminal that you can use. If you only need light administration and will mostly be using cPanel then I think they should work for you as well. For me, I decided against using them because of the lack of real ssh access. One thing that IX offers that the other two do not is windows hosting.

When it came down to service offerings between BlueHost and HostGator, they were pretty similar. I did find some differences that should be noted.

Below is a summary of features that I was looking at and my findings. If you want a more detailed description each line item, you can continue on below. Also, if you have other features that you looked at that you think would be helpful to other people, just leave me a comment and I can update this post.

Domain Hosting:

• For both, they advertise unlimited number of domain hosting for free. Well, free here is relatively. In general, these hosting services have a concept of a primary domain and everything else is considered add-on domain. Your primary domain registration is free. Both advertise that you can host unlimited amount of domains on your account. However, if you want to add additional domains, you pay a nominal registration fee for each.
• As a note, on BlueHost I migrated my existing domain over. I was told that if I want to register another domain under the same account, I would still have to pay the registration fee even though my primary domain was already registered. You essentially lost your free registration if you migrate an existing domain over as your primary account. I would assume it's the same for HostGator.

SSH Access:

• As I mentioned before this was a must-have for me since I come from a UNIX background and I like to know what's going on on my servers. Both service providers allow you ssh access. I cannot speak much about HostGator, but on BlueHost you get 1 ssh account login per account you sign up for. Username is generated by default. I believe they take the first 8 characters of your primary domain name. I would assume that HostGator does something similar. BTW, ssh access is not turned on by default. You have to submit a ticket for BlueHost to have this enabled. This involves you emailing them a copy of your ID for verifications. It's a quick process though. From the time I submitted the ticket, they enabled this for me within the hour.

Databases:

• BlueHost supported MySQL as well as Postgres, whereas HostGator only supports MySQL. I use Postgres at work and I have a Redmine instance using Postgres database at home so I was leaning towards a hosting service that supports both. However, this was not a deal breaker for me either way since most Open Source software out there supports both of these databases. For both services, you can create your databases through cPanel and use phpAdmin to administer the databases.

Drupal:

• Both offered the latest version of Drupal. Installation is pretty much one click using Simple Scripts in your cPanel. From talking to their customer service, they will support Drupal 7.0 as soon as it comes out.

WordPress:

• Again, there was no discernible differences here. Both support the latest version and installations is done through cPanel.

Source Control:

• Being a developer, source control is a big deal for me. Before I had OpenVPN set up and subversion/git repositories running at home so I can access my source code from anywhere. I was hoping to be able to host these by whatever hosting provider that I choose. From speaking with their customer representatives and poking around the forums, this what I gathered.
• BlueHost doesn't officially support repository hosting - this means that their customer support will not be able to help you with setting this up. However, they do no discourage it either. There are plenty of posts out there with instructions on how to set up your SVN and Git repositories out there.
  • I have only tried setting up SVN, and it's pretty easy. One thing to note is that since you won't have control over the apache server, I have only found people getting svn+ssh working.
  • This might be an issue for you if you have multiple developers working in your repo since everyone will have to use the same ssh account to access your repository.
• As for HostGator, their customer service agent told me that you are not allowed to run repository servers in your accounts. However, you can feel free to run the client so you can pull source code from a repository hosted elsewhere.

Dedicated IP/Private SSL Certificates:

• Cost for dedicated IP is slightly different between the two. It's generally an additional fee of anywhere between $2 to $2.50 more per month if you want this.
• Private SSL certificates require dedicated IP. You generally pay an additional fee per year to get the SSL certificate - something between $45 to $150 a year depending on what options you choose. HostGator's prices varied more since they have more options. I believe in both cases, you will be getting a certificate from Comodo.
• HostGator has a business account which includes 1 free dedicated IP as well as 1 free private SSL certificate for your account.
• When it comes to dedicated IP's and SSL certificates, there are some differences in the hosting services that are worth mentioning.
  • On BlueHost, you can get dedicated IP and private SSL certificates only on your primary domain. You do not have the option of getting these on non-primary domains. I would assume you might have to sign up for a different account entirely if you need it for multiple sites.

  • HostGator is a little bit more flexible, I've been told that you can get these on any of the domains that are hosted by your account. Again, if you have their business account, you get the first dedicated IP and SSL cert for free, but will have to pay extra on any other domains that you might be hosting.
  • For the most part, it's not going to affect the average user, but if you are planning on hosting multiple domains and know you will need SSL for both, it's definitely something to consider.
• You can check out specifics about their pricing on their sites: BlueHost and HostGator.

Ultimately, I chose BlueHost since they were a little bit cheaper and I don't quite need multiple dedicated IPs and SSL certificates just yet and I like having the option to host my repositories even though I will most likely using an on-line svn or git service for this. Although, I think either one would be great candidates if you are looking.

And just as a last minute disclaimer, it's always a good idea to double check with their customer support before signing up for an account since their services and policies may have changed since I talked to them. Both offer 30 day money back guarantee but who want's to go through the hassle, right?

I suspect if everything goes well the actual upgrading part will take you less than an hour. Fulling restoring and syncing your music/apps back to your phone is another story - now this depends on how much stuff you have on your phone. I am certainly not recommending that you jailbreak or upgrade to iOS4 but for those of you that are interested, I hope you will find this helpful.

Warning:

• I have an iPhone 3GS and a Macbook running Snow Leopard 10.6.3, so these instructions may or may not work for you.
• Links provided below are not official releases from DevTool
• If you are using a Macbook, it's probably a good idea for you to connect it to your power adapter. You don't want your Macbook shutting down while you do this.
• As usual, follow these instructions at your own risk. Jailbreaking gone wrong can wreak havoc on your phone or at least put it out of commission for a while.

Pre-requisites:

• You must have a pwned iPhone to being with (if you do not, then you should use Pwnage Tool to jailbreak your phone before upgrading to iOS4 - from what I've been reading 3.1.2 is recommended)
• I would suggest you sync and back up your iPhone before installing iTunes 9.3 beta. As part of the upgrade, you will have to restore from an the jailbroken iOS4 image which will wipe out all of your user data until you restore from a backup
• If you don't have an iPhone Developer Account, you can sign up for one for free. You only have to pay $99 fee if you want to publish apps. If you don't want to do this, you should be able to find iOS4 8A293 build (as well as 3.1.2 restore images) and iTunes 9.2 beta from some torrent sites. I also found this link with URL's for you to download iPhone restore images if you don't want to sign up for a developer account.
• Download and install iTunes 9.2 beta from Apple iPhone Developer Center
• Download iPhone iOS4 GM (8A293 build) from Apple iPhone Developer Center. Double click on the dmg file and drag iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Restore.ipsw to your Downloads directory
• Download and install Pwnage Tool 3.1.5 into Applications folder
• Download iPhone 3GS 4 GM Bundle. Unzip and rename it to iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293.bundle
• Download data.tar and save into your Downloads directory

Setting up Pwnage Tool for iOS4

• Right click on Pwnage Tool.app and click on "Show Package Contents"
• Got to Contents -> Resources -> FirmwareBundles
• Drag iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293.bundle into this directory, it should look something like this:
• 

Update Cydia in Pwnage Tool

• Open up a terminal
• cd ~/Applications/Pwnage\ Tool.app/Contents/Resources/CustomPackages/CydiaInstaller.bundle/files
• tar -xPvf ~/Downloads/data.tar

Created your Jailbroken iOS4 Restore Image

• We will now create a jailbroken iOS4 restore image. If you need to Jailbreak your iPhone 3.1.2, you should be able to follow the same steps but use the 3.1.2 restore image to create a jailbroken image
• NOTE: If you are upgrading from an already Pwnage jailbroken iPhone to iOS4, you should have iTunes 9.2 beta installed by this point. I initially created my restore image without installing iTunes 9.2 and kept getting 1600 error from iTunes when I tried to restore to iOS4
• Open up Pwanage Tool
• Using Simple mode should do for most users
• Select iPhone 3GS
• Press the right arrow to continue
• Select iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293
• If you do not see iOS4 here, you can switch to Expert mode and use the browser to select iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Restore.ipsw
• Answer the next couple question. For me, I have AT&T so it was Yes for both
• The process should take about 10 to 15 minutes and you will end up with iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Custom_Restore.ipsw. I renamed mine to iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Pwnagetool_Restore.ipsw so I won't forget how I created this image.
• NOTE: If you answer No when Pwnage asks you if your phone has been jailbroken before, it will try to put your phone in recovery mode for you. However, I found that if your phone is connected via a USB hub to your computer, Pwnage Tool has trouble recognizing your phone. It's best if you connect your iPhone cable directly to your computer.

Alright, it's time to pgrading your iPhone to iOS4 using iTunes

• Open up iTunes 9.2
• Connect your iPhone via USB
• Click on your iPhone under Devices on the left of iTunes
• Put your phone in recovery mode if you did not ask Pwnage to do that for you already. Here's a good link on how to how to put iPhone in recovery mode.
• Press down alt-cmd and click Restore
• Use the browser and choose iPhone2,1_4.0_8A293_Pwnagetool_Restore.ipsw
• Your upgrade should be under way
• Once it's done restoring the iOS4 image, it will restart your phone.
• You can now restore a backup of your iPhone to restore all of your contact, calendar, music, apps, etc.

To fully take advantage for your new jailbroken iPad, you will want to install Installous and AppSync. See my instructions here.

To give credit where credit is due, here are the original links that I looked at:

• http://www.ihackintosh.com/2010/06/jailbreak-iphone-3gs-ios-4-gm-with-pwnage-tool/
• http://www.iphoneheat.com/2010/06/appsync-4-mobileinstallation-patch-ios-4-jailbreak/

Update 7-22-2010

Here is a link on how to jailbreak your phone using pwnagetool for 4.0.1

• http://www.ihackintosh.com/2010/07/jailbreak-iphone-3gs-ios-4-0-1-with-pwnage-tool-unofficial/