One drop. Five minutes in a pocket with your keys. Three months of regular use. This is all it takes for an iPhone's backplate to go from a mirror-like shine to a scratched-to-hell eyesore. Here's how to fix it.

MacRumors forum member Shenaniganz08 salvaged an iPhone 3G from eBay, sanding, buffing and polishing it back from the brink of a life in a case, which would be dumb, because cases are dumb. (I mean, not really, but that's kind of the premise of this whole process, right? Anyway.) Here's what you need:

• Sandpaper 320(or 500),800,1000,1500,2000,2500,3000 grit
• 3M Rubbing compound
• Machine Polisher ( Power Drill or small buffer)
• Microfibers
• Sticky tack and or tape

What's great about this is that you don't need to buy almost anything. Half the stuff you need—the microfibers, the polishing disc and the rubbing compound—is included in a $15 3M headlight restoration kit , and you can use just about any crappy household drill for the buffing stage.

In any case, the results are stunning, and the documentation meticulous, so if you've got a few hours, a few bucks and an iPhone that looks like a piece of shitty sea glass, why not? [Macrumors via Gadget Lab]

Windows/Mac: Unfortunately the iPhone and iPod touch lack the ability older iPods had to run in Disk Mode. That's where iPhone Explorer steps in, allowing you manually manage files on your device, or just use it as a flash drive, without jailbreaking.

iPhone browser is a lightweight application that has an easy drag-and-drop interface that lets you browse the contents on your iPhone. You can manually transfer your photos, music or movies from your device back to your computer, or just add files to the iPhone and fill up the unused space as extra storage. There's even an image preview for transferring photos. The best part about the whole thing, though, is that you don't need to jailbreak to use it. If you do have a jailbroken device, though, iPhone Explorer becomes even more useful—It can access the root of jailbroken phones and browse the files inside, with no need for complicated SSH setups.

The only issue I had was that multiple selection didn't work so well—whether I was trying to transfer files to or from my iPod touch, doing it one file at a time worked much better than trying to do more. So if you need to transfer large batches of files, you may be better off putting them in a folder beforehand to avoid crashes.

iPhone Explorer is a free download for Windows and Mac OS X 1.5+, requires iTunes 8 or 9 to use.

AT&T has been dragging its feet on data tethering for months now, so if you're fed up waiting for official support and desperate to tether your iPhone's internet connection, weblog MobileCrunch details how to do it on the latest iPhone OS.

The multi-step process isn't all that difficult, but you'll want to set aside a little bit of time. In the brief overview, enabling tethering works like so:

1. Jailbreak your iPhone with blackra1n (available for Windows and Mac).
2. Unlock your phone with blacksn0w—which you can do through the blackra1n icon on your iPhone post-jailbreak.
3. Install a custom IPCC file via mobile Safari.
4. Turn on tethering in your iPhone settings.

The MobileCrunch post walks through each step in excellent detail, so if you're eager to tackle tethering, it's a great guide for accomplishing that. Keep in mind that jailbreaking isn't all that encouraged by Apple, but if anything were to go wrong, you can simply restore your phone and be just fine. (Trust me, I've done it a lot over the past few years.) Also, we can't make any promises should AT&T decide to get all upset over your tethering, but so far we haven't had any problems.

Apple has just pushed out an update for all iPhone generations in the form of iPhone OS 3.1.2. Don't expect any major feature updates in this 241MB download, but do expect a few fixes to some annoying problems, most notably:

• Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone not to wake from sleep
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular services until restart
• Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video stream

Now if only I could get an update that "Resolves issue where your stupid phone thinks headphones are plugged in all the time, even when they're not, so you can finally answer calls without a headset plugged in" I'd be a very happy human being. To get your update on, plug in your iPhone and click on Check for Updates in iTunes. Jailbreakers: You'll probably want to wait on this one. [via Gizmodo]

Filed under: Toys/Games

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