A few days ago my iPhone started reporting a bogus unread SMS message, and there was no way to get rid of it -- I tried to re-read all SMS (tedious task) to no avail. My iPhone (firmware 2.2) is jailbroken, so I was able to solve the problem in this manner. Open a terminal on the iPhone, either directly with the Terminal app or via ssh from another machine, then enter this command:

$ cd /private/var/mobile/Library/SMS

In this directory you will find the file sms.db; now perform the following commands:

$ sqlite3 sms.db
$ update msg_group set unread_count = 0;
$ .exit
$ reboot

Your iPhone will reboot and the unread SMS count will now be correct. Note: it is better if you sign off from your cellular network before you attempt these steps, in case a new SMS arrives while you are editing the database.

I have noticed recently that the iPhone will not try to automatically correct your typing if you capitalize the first letter of the word that you are typing. So if you are typing the name of a road, for instance, it's worth making the effort to capitalize the initial letter, so it doesn't get "corrected" later on.

Note, however, that the iPhone will still correct the capitalized first word of a sentence, as it should be capitalized anyway.

If you've got a jailbroken iPhone (which, btw, is now possible with firmware 2.2), you can easily control it from your Mac (or PC) using VNC.

Being able to control your iPhone using VNC means:

1. Full keyboard support on your iPhone -- type fast, save drafts, save notes, copy-paste from computer to iPhone (in some apps, like Notes)
2. Access iPhone from any computer in any room on your local network
3. Be as lazy as possible; avoid reaching or moving to check text messages
4. Remote control iPhone's iPod when connected to your home stereo
5. I suppose you could port forward and access your phone from anywhere, but then, why wouldn't you be with your phone?

Installation is a breeze; open Cydia, search for and install Veency (thanks to author Jay "Saurik" Freeman), restart Springboard. Go into Settings, Wifi, click the blue arrow next to your network, note your IP address. To connect to your iPhone, you'll need a VNC client like the free Chicken of the VNC; the Mac's Screen Sharing app doesn't work for some reason.

In CVNC, setup a Connection Profile for your iPhone; make sure to map the middle and right click, also set Color to "thousands." Connect to your iPhone's IP address using the Connection Profile you just created (go to File » Open, instead of File » New to use a Connection Profile). Once connected, you click and drag just like using your finger (which is represented by a small cursor). Left click for clicking, middle click to lock screen (you can even drag-to-unlock), right click for home button.

You can set the middle button in Chicken of the VNC -- I use a double click of the command key. You can even "flick" the screen up and down if you time your click-drag-unclick properly, and double click the home button on the lock screen for your iPod control (or whatever you have double-click set to in Settings). If you need more details (including screenshots), you can find them in this blog post.

Do you have a network-enabled scanner or multifunction printer? (I have an HP Officejet 7410 AIO.) You might find you can use the device's web interface (try http://1.2.3.4, where 1.2.3.4 is the IP address of your device) to scan documents using the Web interface. Log on with Safari app on your iPhone or iPod Touch (make sure you disable pop-ups in Settings app, as my AIO scans documents into a pop-up and common pop-up blockers do not like this).

When your image is scanned in, hold your finger on the image, and save the image. In a minute, your newly scanned photo/document will be in your camera roll until you can get your device to a computer to offload the image. Just another step closer to having an iPhone/iTouch being a complete computer replacement!

[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]

The temperatures outside are dropping rapidly, and many of you will find your hands wrapped in thick gloves. And then suddenly, an important phone call drops in. Unless you've plugged in your earphones, or connected your Bluetooth headset to the iPhone, it will take quite a long time to get your hands free to slide the button to speak. So how to answer this important call quickly?

There are "alternative" ways to interact with your iPhone without having to uncover your fingers. For basic actions such as accepting a phone call or unlocking it to read a text message, you can use either your nose or, for some more precise gestures, your tongue. I know this isn't the most elegant way to operate your beloved iPhone, but in some cases, it needs to be quick and dirty...

For those of you finding this disgusting, but still don't want to run around with cold fingers, consider buying some fancy iPhone-enabled Dots Gloves. And for true lovers, you can act as if you were kissing your iPhone to speak to your friend!

[robg adds: I, um, haven't tested certain aspects of this one...and I have no intention of doing so! Still, the issue of winter + fingers in gloves + iPhone interaction is a relevant one for much of the world. In addition to the Dots Gloves linked above, Google found a number of interesting solutions to the problem, including gloves with flip-back tips, gloves without thumb or first finger tips, and Tavo gloves (warning: Flash-only site) that use a different material on the thumb and forefinger that apparently allows touchscreen interaction. If anyone has experience with iPhone-enabled gloves, feel free to post your thoughts...]

I'm a bit of an audiophile, and I like to have all my music in Lossless format. I keep a separate library of Lossless files on an external drive, while my internal drive contains my AAC/MP3 library.

I often want to add a Lossless version of a song to my iPhone, for use in my car or with better headphones. So what I did was copy the iTunes Library file from my AAC/MP3 library into my Lossless iTunes Library folder. The AAC/MP3 Library was synced to my iPhone with 'Manually Manage Music' checked.

I then opened the Lossless library by holding Option while opening iTunes. I selected my lossless folder. I then deleted all items from the library with iTunes, careful to make sure not to send the files to the trash. I then added all the music in my Lossless library.

Now I can add music from both libraries to my iPhone without a hitch. In theory you could do this with as many libraries as you wanted, as long as the original library file was synced to your iPhone.

I keep a number of reference documents on a server at work that would be very handy to have access to on my iPhone while at work. The server is Windows 2003, and the iPhone does not provide an easy way to access shared files by ftp or smb. I was thinking about using something like AirSharing, but the files are changing and edited by more than one person, making sync a bit of an issue.

I thought about enabling IIS directory browsing, but this proved too limiting. Eventually, I came across a (free) project called net2FTP, which is a web-based FTP client. Using net2ftp requires that you can host FTP on your file server, and a webserver with PHP (either on the same server, or somewhere else). I installed Filezilla and net2FTP on the server, set up the FTP server to share out the directories I needed, and made some adjustments to net2FTP. net2ftp even includes a "mobile" skin (which you can set as the default) to work better with the iPhone.

Now the directories are password protected, and I can browse them from the iPhone, loading PDFs, excel, or whatever else the iPhone can read. I locked net2ftp so it would only access the local server, and only accept connections from our internal network (since I'm using the iphone over wifi in the office) to make it more secure.

I have six mail accounts that I check on with my iPhone, and for months, I've moved read e-mails to the Trash. What I forgot was that the trash needs to be cleared periodically. I regained a couple of hundred megabytes of space by cleaning all the accounts.

To empty the Trash you must enter each account, then enter the Trash and tap Edit. You are then given the option to Delete All. Select Delete All, then confirm the Delete All. A simple tip, but one that may free up a fair bit of space on your iPhone.

Because the iPhone/iPod touch support multi-touch, here's a simple way to temporarily type in all caps: Hold one finger on Shift, and use another finger to type your word -- just as you would with a "real" keyboard.

[robg adds: While this may seem blatantly obvious to those who have adjusted to the world of multi-tap, I took a small survey -- OK, so it was me and the one other iPhone user I could find online at the time -- and discovered that 100% of the respondents hadn't used this method of temporarily typing in caps on their iPhones...so perhaps this will be useful to more than just the two of us.]

First, go to Settings » General » Keyboard » International Keyboards, click into the Japanese keyboard, and enable the QWERTY keyboard.

Next, open Notes, and start typing a note. Click the globe icon next to the Space Bar to switch to Japanese, and type a character. When you do, the Notes font will change from Marker Felt to Helvetica. Here's a demonstration video.

[robg adds: This works, and the note will remain in Helvetica even after closing and reopening Notes. You can even delete the Japanese character you typed -- once the font has changed, it won't change back.]