Bing Cashback is a Microsoft program that rewards users for shopping through the Bing search engine. They have partnered with hundreds of online retailers to offer up-to 30% off entire purchases (cashback percentages depends on the individual store).

The program is pretty simple, but you will need a Microsoft Live account to begin. If you don’t have one, sign up here – it’s FREE.

Go to Bing.com and search for the product you want to buy.

The results of your search are denoted with retailers that offer cashback. If no cashback results are returned, the product may not be eligible for Bing cashback.

Selecting any of the cashback links will prompt you for your Live credentials before shopping.

Alternatively, you can browse the list of cashback stores and shop through the link that Microsoft provides. Either way, this enable a cookie in your browser that allows Mircosoft to know you are eligible for cashback and how much to credit your account.

Every eligible cashback purchase will receive a confirmation email. Cashback activity is logged through a Live account. Cashback can be redeemed in the form of a chack, direct deposit, Paypal or Amazon payment, in about 60 days after your purchase (the waiting period varies by store) and with at least $5 in your cashback account.

For the longest times, I have been frustrated for not being able to use my Google Voice number as my Skype outgoing ID. Not anymore, Google is no longer blocking Skype’s verification SMS and all is good with the world again.

To set you Google Voice as your Skype caller ID, you will need to navigate to “Caller ID” panel in your Skype’s Account portal.

Select your desire country and enter the number you would like to use as your Skype caller ID.

Once completed, Skype will send a verification code to your Google Voice number in the form of an SMS. Enter that code into the Skype’s verification page and your caller identification will be activated in 24 hours.

With Netflix’s introduction of instant streaming on the Mac, I had to install Microsoft Silverlight 2 in order for it to work. The install was very straight forward on my macbook, but I came across some minor complications when performing the same install on my hackintosh (MSI Wind). Because Silverlight 2 verifies your processor before install, it was registering my hackintosh as a non-intel device (PPC) and refuse to install. To install Silverlight 2 on older PowerPC or non Apple hardware (OSX running on Windows hardware), you simply have remove the CPU check in the installation package.

To do this:

1. Download Silverlight 2 from Microsoft Website
2. Mount the Silverlight 2 DMG file by double click it
3. Right-click on the .pkg file and choose “Show Package Contents”
   
4. Navigate to: Contents > Resources
5. In Resources, locate the file “InstallationCheck” and trash it
   

Now that the CPU check has been removed, rerun the Silverlight modified .pkg and it should install without any complications.

The iPhone Dev Team has released PwnageTool 2.0. This jailbreaks iPhones/iPod Touches running firmware 2.0 to support non-App Store third-party application. The first-generation iPhones can also be unlocked, but the iPhone 3G cannot be unlocked or used with BootNeuter.

I tested this and the Pwanage Tool is flawless. Everything has worked for me so far and I provided an outline of what I did to get my iPhone 1st Gen unlocked and jailbroken with the 2.0 firmware.

Warning: Jailbreak / Unlock at your own risk. I will take no responsibility what so ever for what may occur before, during, after the Pwnaing process. I tried it myself and was successful. Please proceed with caution.

To Jailbreak and Unlock a first-generation iPhone:

1. Upgraded to Itunes 7.7
2. Download the Boot Loader ( bl39.bin and bl46.bin)
3. Download the Pwnage Tool 2.0.1
4. Open iTunes 7.7 and connected the iPhone. When the iPhone is detected iTunes will ask you to upgrade your firmware, select the download only and disconnect iPhone after the download starts.
5. Open the Pwnage Tool
   1. Select expert mode
   2. Chose iPhone 1st Gen / iPod Touch
   3. Browse for the 2.0 firmware
   4. Browse for the boot loader
   5. Further customize the third party installer, custom boot / dfu screen, etc and select build (Optional). This will create a custom ipws for you to restore your phone from in iTunes
   6. When the custom ipws file is created, the Pwanage Tool will instruct you on how to put your iPhone into dfu mod. Follow the on screen instruction , dock your phone, and close the Pwanage Tool.
   7. Once your phone is in dfu mode and docked, iTunes will not recognize your iPhone and will ask you to restore. Select “alt” and the restore button, browse for your the custom ipw file you created with the Pwanage Tool and sit back and relax.
   8. Once iTunes successfully restores your iPhone, it will reboot and bootneutral will opened automatically. First, it neutral the boot and then flashed the baseband.
   9. Your iPhone 1st Gen / iPod Touch is Jailbroken and Unlocked