When the iPhone Dev Team announced on April 1st that their team was being dismantled, and their intellectual property was being swallowed down the gullet of some fat-cat enemy of the people, Some sites took the bait (albeit with a small dose of skepticism).

Now that the fog that is April Fools Day has lifted, the iPhone Dev Team has revealed that, like Hilary Clinton (and Rocky), they are not going to abandon their mission. In fact, just to show that they are good sports, they gave Engadget a hands-on walkthrough of their new Pwnage tool, which will let you load any firmware you want on your iPhone, including patched firmware not signed by Apple (bring on the Linux!). The video is available here.

Update: The Pwnage tool is now officially available from the iPhone Dev Team; though, for now, the tool is Mac only.

You may have noticed that we've done a little spring cleaning with our commenting system lately. Sure, it may almost be winter, but that's beside the point. The point is that leaving a comment on Download Squad posts has never been easier or more fun.

Here's how it works. If you've never left a comment before, just click on the comment link at the bottom of a post, and enter your name and email address in the "New Users" section. Then go ahead and leave your comment. We'll send you an email for verification purposes.

We'll also enter your information into Blogsmith, the beast that runs Download Squad, Engadget, and other Weblogs Inc blogs. If you've left comments on any of our sites over the past few months, you probably already have an account. All you have to do is click on your name in any comment you post and you'll see a page with all of your comments. You can login to edit your profile, add a URL, or upload a picture that will show up next to all of your posts.

The rise and rise of blogging as an online phenomenon has relied heavily on the ability of social nature of blogs - as each blog links into one another or as larger blogs link to and report on stories breaking on smaller specialist blogs. But while linking and references may be the lifeblood of blogging, there's a submerged undercurrent of blogs and Web sites looking to get something for nothing, sailing the high seas of the Blogosphere with a view to plundering hard working Blogs for what they can in order to build up page views and Google page rankings.

We at the Download Squad noticed this recently when one of our readers not only decided to cut and paste one of our posts into their blog but, also linked to his blog from the comments section original Download Squad post. While we're flattered at the attention, and impressed at the initiative it was still a little rude. All of a sudden we realized that it had all the hallmarks of a Blog Pirate, a fly by night operation that swoops in, cutlasses blazing, to lift off a treasure trove of stolen blog posts to their Google adsense infested pirate lair Web site.

When we started to look into the phenomenon of Blog Piracy, it was like sailing through the blue waters of the Caribbean circa the 17th century - suddenly the Blog Pirates were absolutely everywhere. Googling recent posts from Download Squad likewise turns up a host of blog pirates, such as the so called Software Online Guide (which looks more like a homage site to Download Squad than an actual blog) these folks are cutting and pasting for fun and profit, but probably without that much of either.

Looking across the waves at our sister site Engadget, it didn't take very long at all to come up with a host of Blog Pirates that had ruthlessly plundered its wares. Take for example the recent story 'Microsoft envisions invasive approach to targeted advertising' the story was reproduced word for word plus images and 'file under' references on both http://news.techvine.org/ and http://www.blogjunkies.com/, the only thing that was missing was any mention of either Engadget, or Darren Murph – the guy that actually wrote the post to begin with.

Blog Piracy can take a number of forms: sites such as TopWebStuffs try to look like to have an RSS reader interface to transplant entire Download Squad articles onto their 'aggregation' site, except unlike an RSS reader, you only get what they give you, not what you subscribed to read. Other sites such as kods.net seem to be set up to plunder anything that comes through on an RSS feed.

Don't get us wrong, we're always keen to see our work being linked to or quoted, but m'hearties it would be fine to be sure to see some of those tharr golden links in exchange for all of our hard sailing.

Gen Y, a term sometimes used for those 20-35 years old, are old enough to be (some of) our kids but more importantly make up our next generation of clients. This generation, defined more by popular culture than by age, is an Internet-hungry and online-casual bunch. Currently, there are about 76 million of them in the U.S., not a bad market slice.

They communicated first via Instant Message and made the sport popular. After webcams were affordable, dating sites emerged. By the time YouTube opened up the face-to-face world, research as we knew it had changed permanently. Then social sites like MySpace, and Facebook blew onto the virtual landscape. Television is becoming secondary to seeing what you want when you want it (this is the ongoing theme) and BitTorrent (among others) is the way to find preferred media, not TV Guide.

If your business is looking for its next generation of customers, what kind of online presence do you need to attract and keep the techno-oriented Y'ers who spend big bucks online? Although neither exhaustive nor scientific (my sample was everyone I know under 35), here is a list of popular places where young folks come together online. If you market, you should consider these sites.

Download Squad and its cousins – people want to know what's out there as soon as it's launched. DLS not only tells you what's there but also make it easy to find plus they let you know if it's worthwhile. With so much information out there, DLS and its cousin sites offer today's specials so you don't have to bother with the entire menu.

Gmail, Google News Reader, Google Docs – free online services by King Google are the prime haunt of many 20-35 year olds. Make sure you know how they work so when you build apps on your site you try to mimic the look and feel. When they want world news, they often use the links at the top of the pages.

The News Empire – the business-oriented target group seems to enjoy CNN's plethora of sites including cnn.com for news, cnnsi.com for sports, and the new CNN video area. They find news at their local paper's site as well as at the major news sites including The NY Times, WaPo, Google and Yahoo!.

Things Technical – if the users are geeky (a term I use with respect), they're likely to grab the most current news available from sites like Slashdot, Digg, Techmeme, Engadget and Reddit. Never heard of them? Each is a field-leader and they all use a blog-like or RSS-like updating system. Ease of use and consistent uptime can be more important than design. (A site is successful when its name becomes a verb, like, "Google that..." or "My review was slashdotted...")

Sharing Socially – social networking sites are more than just a "what's new" news item. Facebook and MySpace connect this international generation like virtual glue. Many users consider these sites to be their homepages and include links to other sites they want to visit (like Twitter, Google Reader, Pownce, their favorite blogs) right from those pages.

Photo Share – Got a shelf full of quaint photo albums? Today's shelves are online on a Flickr, Picasa or other photo site's servers. With the rapid availability of fast bandwidth, pictures go online instantaneously and can circle the globe in less than a morning. Others can comment and you can share all the photos you upload from your digital camera or more likely from your phone. In the olden days, we taught people how to attach a photo to an email. Today, we read the Flickr feed to see a picture that might interest us.

It's All in the RSS – most everyone who leans toward the technical has an RSS reader, whether it's Google or FeedDemon or others. The younger online group gets the feed for whatever interests them and checks that feed several times a day. It's neater and cleaner than browsing all over the Web and they get what they want when they want it (the ongoing theme) and have time to read it. If you don't yet have an RSS feed, what are you waiting for?

Share, Share, Share – the definition of social sites is sharing. We share not only photos and text but also we expect sharing in return. It's almost as if the Web has come full circle. From the olden days of the early 1990s to the mid-first decade of this millennium, the Web has evolved from open and free (when I started) to pay-as-you-go (when they expected you to pay to get news) and has grown into freely shared spaces that are your own. The mantra of sites is "Twitter/Pownce - Digg - Flickr" for the younger and clued-in audience.

Whether you consider this generation of Internet users to be egocentric and instantaneous gratifiers or open-minded and savvy, the proof of the online pudding is in the feed. Click a few links and see how they are coming to the knowledge that will make them – or keep them – from becoming your future customers.

If your fav site was omitted, please add it in the comments. You'd be surprised how many great sites we find out simply by asking others who are slightly more geeky than we are.

Looks like our hopes for the development of the highly anticipated, and much rumored Google Phone have been stomped out. Richard Kimber, a managing director of sales and operations in Google's South-East Asia office, says that Google will not be entering the crowded handset market, but Google is obviously investing in the software side of things through partnerships with existing handset makers.

Software is key to Google, and equipment manufacturing is far from Google's business plan, as Vint Cerf had relayed earlier this month. As our friends over at Engadget point out, neither Vint or Richard have come out and flat out denied a mobile device is in the works, so who knows what the future can hold.

With this news out, I suppose everything will be ok, the world will go on, and Apple will have to look elsewhere for a worthy battle against the iPhone.

Our friends at Engadget got a sneak peak at a new Samsung Ultra Messaging device, set to go on sale soon in the Asian markets. What makes this noteworthy is that the device is obviously running a version of Windows Mobile (check out the telltale soft buttons on the bottom, not to mention the Windows logo), but this is most definitely not Windows Mobile 6. Or if it is, it's one heck of a plugin that makes Spb's impressive Mobile Shell look like child's play.

The best way I can describe the new interface is a cross between Windows Mobile and Windows Media Center. Rather than tapping on the screen or clicking on buttons to go through a series of full menus for each program, you can choose programs by scrolling.

You can zip through your email, contacts, appointments, and music programs very fluidly. As the application comes into focus, you can flip between submenus, all from your devices main menu. I'm going to assume you can then open programs in full screen mode in order to do things that take up more screen real estate, like checking your email. No word on how long we'll have to wait to see this new interface in the Western hemisphere.

In order to get the full effect, check out the video on Engadget.

Text Link Ads is providing an interesting utility that will allow you to index your blog's importance in some specific categories versus other blogs in the same space, called the Blog Juice Calculator. You can also compare your site's relative importance to the top performers. For example, Download Squad gets a very respectable 8.4 in the Computers / Technology category, which puts us about tied with Robert Scoble's blog, and slightly trailing the likes of TechCrunch, LifeHacker, and of course Engadget.

Google Juice is currently calculated based on information from Technorati, Alexa, Bloglines and Links - it's not clear where the Links metric comes from. Of course, knowing that Alexa numbers can be very skewed considering that they're based on statistics gathered by an Internet Explorer toolbar, it's probably not reasonable to consider the Blog Juice Calculator to be the final word in terms of ranking blogs. In fact, Technorati is probably the most widely accepted authority in that regard. But it's fun to play with, and you get this cool little badge for your site, if you happen to get a ranking that you're not too embarrassed to publicize.

Engadget reveals that Wal-Mart has seemingly leaked Microsoft Zune pricing at $284. That isn't a bad price for Microsoft's highly hyped mp3 player. You never know until the whole thing is released. We'll see if the price is around the supposed $284 when it comes out, but I hope it is, because that is very reasonable, especially from Microsoft. I gotta say now I am torn. I like the idea of Zune, its larger screen and nice simple design, but I don't know how the whole "sharing" idea and possible legal trouble sits with me. I also like the Sansa e280 as well and I can play all my music on it without so much trouble since the Sansa is a proven device. It is really a toss up right now. Sansa it seems is going after Real's wide-eyed delusions of grandeur. The Sansa of course doesn't have a 30GB drive behind it, but an 8GB. What do you think, is Zune worth it at the price?

TiVos are smart little pieces of hardware, but by design can only play TiVo-encoded video files, which is a shame. But if you've ever wanted to do more with your TiVo, you can. Will O'Brien over at our sister site Engadget has penned a great how-to on making your TiVo serve up video files from any networked computer. The keystone of the tutorial is TivoServer, open source software that masquerades as a TiVo and even re-encodes your videos to a TiVo-friendly format on the fly. TivoServer is made for Linux, but will also run on Mac OS X or Windows under Cygwin.

Will O'Brien over at our sister site Engadget has written a great guide to backing up your blog. It's a Linux-centric view of getting a secure, automated backup system set up that will preserve not only your posts, comments, etc., but also all of your blog's files, including themes, media, etc. Will recommends you have the following before attempting his method:

• A webhost with SSH (secure shell) access
• A machine to backup to (we prefer Linux or FreeBSD, but you can use Windows with cygwin if you must)
• Internet/network access between the two machines
• ssh, rsync and cron installed on the backup machine

Just like iTunes did for file sharing music, Warner Bros. is going to start selling movies and TV online. While this is clearly an effort to legitimize the whole download yer entertainment thing, what's interesting is the use of BitTorrent as the tech behind the downloads. I don't think it's unusual though, as BitTorrent's technological solution to moving packets around is quite clever. It's a perfect tech for moving large files at high speeds, as would be needed. Besides, the prevailing theory has been if you offer a way for people to use BitTorrent (or any download system) legally, they'd use it. I'll admit I just don't bother looking for stuff on torrent sites just for the extra hassle it entails. Now what was that about the next version of OS X using BitTorrent? Hm...

[Via TechMeme]

Your MacBook Pro has a built-in tilt sensor and camera. Since using Apple products for their intended purpose (like, say, running Mac OS X), here's a cool way to repurpose those features: iAlertU is theft alarm software that monitors your MacBook's camera and tilt sensor and, if it thinks your laptop is being manhandled while you've stepped away to grab another latte, sounds a loud alarm. Currently iAlertU is in beta, and Evan Blass over at Engadget says that it's not perfect, but actually works pretty much as advertised. You can see a video of it iAlertU in action at YouTube. The arming and disarming sound effects are pretty cute.

Over at Engadget, Ross Rubin's "Switched On" article has an interesting analysis: Adobe has a unique opportunity to stomp Microsoft in the e-book sector. Ask anyone who's tried using ebooks of all flavors, be it a PDF crammed onto a Palm device, or a dedicated piece of hardware using an even more proprietary format (Sony I'm looking in your direction), and they'll likely tell you that the experience is either terrible or just bearable. However, as Rubin suggests, electronic ink devices are beginning to make real market headway, so Adobe could target these devices, implement their own tools into the workflow, and thus corner the e-book market. An interesting analysis, and I'm inclined to agree. Besides, who doesn't love PDF's? Come on Adobe, learn from Microsoft and strongarm those manufacturers into using only your technology. You can brand approved devices with the "Reads fer sure" logo!

I am both delighted and alarmed by the winners of Engadget's birthday cake contest. In case you hadn't heard, Engadget has been celebrating its 2nd birthday and ran a contest for the prize was a really sweet Alienware PC. The challenge was to bake the coolest gadget-themed birthday cake. I knew they'd get a lot of entries, but I had no idea the lengths Engadget's crazy readers would go to. I don't want to spoil it for you, but the grand prize winner has a screen. That works. Now I'm hungry for cake.