Broken phone

So the samsung link is done for.  Won't keep a charge, but worst of all it won't even turn on while plugged into the wall.  Now I'm working on unlocking an iPhone 3GS I acquired from my Pa, and it's not going smoothly.  Of course my girlfriend is all worried about if I'll ever get a phone working again, she tries to hide it from me, which is nice of her, but I can still tell it bugs her that I don't have a phone right now.  I ordered one of those i-SmartSIM SIM unlockers from dealextreme.com, but that could take months to get here.  In the meantime, I have to find an unlocked phone, or unlock one, which is why I'm messing around with this iPhone.  I've got everything installed properly (I think) but it still says no service and the carrier button is missing in settings.  When I remove the SIM card, nothing happens (which is weird), and when I put the SIM card back in nothing happens (which is weirder).  I'm not sure what's going on exactly but I'm going to re-try uploading the 6.15 baseband, and maybe that'll get the whole thing working smoothly again.