Want to jailbreak and unlock but need to know how to tell what bootrom your iPhone 3GS is running? There are two numbers in your settings that will be a dead giveaway as to what bootrom your phone has. You’ll need to know how to determine your bootrom in certain situations if you want to achieve a software unlock.

1. Open up Settings

2. Tap on General

3. Go to About
4. If you scroll down a bit you’ll see your serial number and your model number.

You can use one of these two numbers to determine if you have an older or newer bootrom.

Model number method

The easiest of the two is the model number. If your model number begins with MC, you have a newer bootrom. As you can see above, my serial starts with an MB. I have an older bootrom.

Serial number method

Another way you can check is by looking at the 4th and 5th digits of your serial number. If it is lower than around week 35, your bootrom is older. I’d say the model number method is the most efficient but you can use both to determine your bootrom version.

If you have other jailbreak questions or run into issues, check out our jailbreak and unlock forums as well!

Daily Tips range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

According to a report by Ars Technica, Apple is going to announce a GarageBand type tool to aid in the creation of e-books at its New York education event this Thursday. The new tools will assist in the creation of interactive e-books especially in the education sector.

At the same time, however, authoring standards-compliant e-books (despite some promises to the contrary) is not as simple as running a Word document of a manuscript through a filter. The current state of software tools continues to frustrate authors and publishers alike, with several authors telling Ars that they wish Apple or some other vendor would make a simple app that makes the process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand. Our sources say Apple will announce such a tool on Thursday.

Source: Ars Technica

An iPhone Marimba alarm tone brought a total halt to a performance by the New York Philharmonic whilst playing Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. The orchestra conductor Alan Gilbert, stopped the performance but the Marimba tone kept on playing. After a few words from Mr. Gilbert, the owner of the iPhone finally managed to turn it off and the concert was resumed. The man responsible for the stoppage has since apologized and asked to remain anonymous.

Patron X said he had no idea he was the culprit. He said his company replaced his BlackBerry with an iPhone the day before the concert. He said he made sure to turn it off before the concert, not realizing that the alarm clock had accidentally been set and would sound even if the phone was in silent mode. “I didn’t even know phones came with alarms,” the man said.

Source: New York Times Image: WSJ

Apple is set to hold a sale across Asia to celebrate The Year of the Dragon.  The sale will start on January 6 and will last for one day only. As with all Apple sales, you will not know what the sale covers until it actually starts.

Customers in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines are eligible for Apple’s one-day sale, which the company is calling ‘Red Friday’, offering a range of accessories, gadgets and software — as well as some Apple Store exclusives.

Source: TNW

iPad users that use twitter.com in safari, instead of the downloadable iPad app, will be getting a new HTML5 web app in the next few weeks

Currently, iPad users who navigate to ‘twitter.com’ are greeted with the old iPhone layout, with an option to switch to the default desktop UI. However Twitter announced on the ‘Twitter Mobile’ twitter account that they have begun rolling out a new HTML5 based web UI specifically for the iPad, which should reach all users in the coming weeks.

We’ve launched our HTML5 version of twitter.com for iPad. It will be rolling out to device owners over the next week or so.

The screenshot above shows that the UI is similar to both the desktop design and the recently updated iPhone design.

I haven’t had the updated web app yet, but I’m interested to know if any of you have had a chance to play with it yet.

[9to5mac] [@TwitterMobile]

It seems that Google are slowly implementing a new UI for their web app. The update changes the ‘blue tabs’ at the top of the site to new ‘grey tabs’ with pull down icons. To change the type of search, they’ve updated it to include a drop down grid of all the different search types, and apps, instead of the old text list.

Interestingly, this UI update has only been updated on Web search, Video search, News and Blogs. The older ‘blue’ interface still appears on Image Search, Places, Shopping, Finance, Apps, iGoogle and Books. Google Apps, like GMail, Google Translate, Google Docs and Google Reader haven’t received any form of update either. YouTube has its own mobile web app, and Maps has recently been updated.

Do you like this update on the Google Web App? Do you use the Google Web App?

[Google Mobile]

RockMelt has released a free iPhone version of its popular desktop app, a social-network, orientated web browser, that integrates with your Facebook/Twitter accounts, to share sites with your friends/followers as you surf, or you can update your social network statuses directly from the app. RockMelt for iPhone, brings all of these to the iPhone.

Since RockMelt uses your Facebook login, the iPhone App offers real-time syncing for your bookmarks, RSS feeds or social networks, between your iPhone and other computer. As well as offering their new “View Later” feature, which allows you bookmark specific items, like sites or tweets which you can read on your computer.

Unfortunately, there is no iPad app, as of yet.

Are you a RockMelt user? Will the iPhone app be replacing your current iPhone browser? Check out screenshots and a video after the break.

[FREE - iTunes Link]

The iPod observer has a great shot of what could be the “back” of Apple’s 3G iPhone. With the inventory running low across the country, could this be the next iteration? Will we know soon?

The iPhone is going on a year old and it would make sense for there to be a product refresh soon. But we are not even to the 12-month anniversary yet. What does Steve Jobs have up his sleeve?

I think the black back looks great. It appears to be “soft touch” and not a painted aluminum. It also does not appear to be a Colorware painted iPhone either. Could their be other product enhancements such as a front facing camera too? I think we need a shot of the iPhone from the front to be sure…