helpful stuff

HTC Desire Z, strange keyboard shortcuts

2011-09-13T14:19:00.000+01:00

So, latest HTC Desire Z update (to 2.3.3) seems to cause weird issues on the 'real' keyboard, and the behaviour is intermittent.

For example, you'll be typing an SMS, and when you press certain keys, other apps will open. Which is annoying. Curiously, rebooting the phone solves it, until a few days later and it'll start doing it again.

First off, it's not in the Settings->Keyboard shortcuts preferences!

Look in Settings->Applications, and choose 'Quick Launch'. A handful of shortcuts are defined - b, e, g and s - by default. You can clear the assigned ones by long press on the row. Solved...

Android must haves, July 2011

2011-07-13T18:12:00.003+01:00

Righty, time for a quick update on what's being used. All change since February.

In no particular order, and no links cos i'm lazy...

zeam - first thing to be added!
google+ - and we'll see how that goes
facebook - for the rest of the time, not liking new version, too much unclickable whitespace
gtasks - lovely, syncs with google tasks
flick note - also lovely, syncs with simplenote
advanced clock widget - since you can customise it
circle battery widget - for it is simple (although use previous mostly)
blue skies [live wallpaper] - nice and subtle effect, not too garish nor distracting
google goggles - for the occasional 2d barcode or price check
national trust - for the occasional 'what shall we do now?' moment (good work Martin!)
sms backup - the one by Christophe Studer, very nice - SMS into a gmail folder
wifi analyser - for rare occasions finding hotspots
free english dictionary - by oeri, which is most useful (top work Neil!)
google translate - helps with my french, a lot

Besides that, the normal handset core apps are good enough. I tend to change phones quite often, and can't be dealing with the hassle of changing too much everytime. So, gmail, native exchange capable mail client, calendar, native messaging, native browser, google maps (love this) - they all tend to be daily use. Replacing the stock apps for core functions is a bit of a faff just now to be honest - particularly as the native ones are very good indeed.

Other things I don't bother with - kindle, I just take my kindle... Ebay, well, can't be bothered. Games - on occasion, but bored of Angry Birds (and it's related Seasons, Rio) a while ago. Google Reader - same really. Nowadays, I prefer to keep things simple.

xp, excel and scroll lock

2011-06-02T16:05:00.000+01:00

I still don't know why it does this, but it does it rarely enough for me to forget how to fix it.

Excel decides scroll lock is on, and won't allow cursor navigation of cells. The little box on the bottom says "SCRL" in it.

The scroll lock key on the keyboard (with or without any combination of alt, ctrl, etc) does nothing.

Open up the on-screen keyboard, and click the 'virtual' scroll lock key.

Programs->Accessories->Accessibility->On-Screen Keyboard

Android must haves, Feb 2011 edition

2011-02-10T20:36:00.002Z

In alphabetical order...

Abduction - a firm favorite with the kids, mostly because it's got a broad range of difficulty levels, and since it's very nice
Android System Info (by ElectricSheep) - handy on occasion
Angry Birds / Seasons - I play this a fair bit, and it's very good - which goes without saying... [and the valentines update for 'seasons is good...]
Ansta - nice call log manager, simple interface to sort and slice call logs
Bubble Popper - for the kids, I can't stand it...
Circle Battery Widget (by Cedric Depoortere) - a circle with a number in it, which changes colours sometimes and tells you how much battery you have left, sorted
Ebay - official app, which is useful on occasion
Etherophone - wibbly wobbly noises to keep kids amused for 5 minutes
Free English Dictionary (by oeri technology) - nice & simple dictionary & thesaurus, written by my mate Neil
Google Chrome to Phone - handy on occasion, since I use chrome on home pc
Google Reader - official app, which gets weekly use, although sometimes it's a bit slow imho
[Google] Shopper - useful sometimes, nice to have image and voice search
Jewels - see Bubble Popper
Mahjong (by Magma Mobile) - I do like this, needs a large screen
Message Scroller - which I think I downloaded during a rather long and boring meeting so I could send rude messages across the room
mNote - which syncs nicely with SimpleNote; together they're absolutely essential for taking text notes (I gave up on Evernote a while back - too complex)
National Trust - written by my mate Martin - I do like this a lot, expect a lot of use over the summer
NinJump - kids like this too, all rather simple
Paper Toss - it's ok, one for the kids
Rocket Bunnies - kids like it, i'm not so sure... very professional game though
Slice it! - bit too complex for the kids, but professionally done, really well presented
SMS Backup (by Christophe Studer) - is the simplest, easiest and thus best SMS backup app i've found (essential imho, couldn't get Jan Berkel's SMS Backup+ to authenticate with Google...)
Street View on Google Maps - pretty much standard part of navigation toolkit
Tricorder - another old favourite that gets installed on new phones, handy for wifi
Zeam Launcher - it's very simple and I like this a lot, particularly removing apps without faffing in settings menu or with market

updated list here.

Motorola Phone Portal

2010-11-25T11:51:00.001Z

Ok, so this is weird, but a neat idea. I was browsing for a bit of software to connect the two, a data suite in the olde parlance.

Motorola Phone Portal - as opposed to Motorola Phone Tools - works differently. You connect up the phone, usb or wifi, and the android app gives you a URL to connect your browser too. That is, the phone runs it's own mini web server, from which you can browse & change things. See here.

Problem #1: the USB on my PC doesn't know it's a Motorola, so time for some drivers. Go and download the 4.7.1 driver with MotoConnect and install that. Search for USB and PC charging drivers, although that page doesn't say it supports android - it does.

How to make it work then:

install charging and pc drivers
plug in usb, wait for PC to sort itself out (ready?)
on android, change the usb connection mode to "Portal and tools"
on android, run the "Phone Portal" app
with luck, that app will give you a URL to connect to (and you'll see a notification in the status bar, "Moto Phone Portal Running on USB @ http://192.168.16.2:8080")
[optionally] unplug LAN cable so it's just PC & phone together
[if you're lucky] your default browser will automatically open the phone's page (i.e. fetched from http://192.168.16.2:8080)
view stuff... you need to run IE to operate File Manager, it basically kicks open a Windows Explorer window.

On second go, it happens a lot more smoothly and automatically. When you plug in, the USB mode is defaulted to portal and tools, the web server starts, the PC connects and browses to it. Easy.

I particularly like the phone reporting it's signal strength as "Awesome".

Motorola / Motoblur, Flipout and photo upload to Picasa

2010-10-25T19:04:00.000+01:00

Ok, so it's not exactly rocket science: you take a photo, and choose to either 'share' it or 'quick upload' it. This is on the Moto Flipout (sure my old Dext worked ok).

Try #1: choose "quick upload", which seems to use the Motoblur social thing to kind of proxy it out to Picassa (i.e. picasaweb). That doesn't seem to work, since it says there's no data connection available after rumbling away for a while. It lies. The forums suggest it's a size issue, which, if true, is stupid.

Try #2: try to share, then choose Picasa (I have a Picasa account setup). The goes through the motions of uploading - a nice red bar in the notification bar, but also fails. With no real error.

The way to make it work is to go in Galllery app, open Menu and choose 'More', then 'Settings'. In there is an item called "Quick Upload Album". Choose that, and choose email.

In the meantime, head over to Picasaweb and it's settings. In there, enable upload via email; where you need to give a secret word. It gives you a nice email address of the form user.name.secretwork@picasaweb.com Save the settings!

Go back to your phone, and add that address for the quick address album. All quick uploaded photos nicely appear in your picasaweb dropbox. Without comments, and without a choice of another album. And it probably sends via your default email account (i.e. probably not your google one). But, it works.

(the alternative of course is to 'share' via email, and you have to compose the email, but can choose the subject line to relate to the album. 'quick upload to email' is a one-click operation)

[sort it out eh Motorola? firmware update would be nice...]

Acer laptop / notebook not powering on...

2010-10-06T09:18:00.000+01:00

Kind of went and didn't like working. Screen backlight would come on, nothing else. Eeek.

Had a quick look (via another machine...) and easily found this, after searching for 'power' in the Acer support site.

Which sorted it. Who knew static electricity could be so sneaky?

Android Must-Haves, Sept 2010 edition

2010-09-20T22:38:00.003+01:00

Ok, so moving to the dark side, albeit temporarily I suspect. So, an update, in case I need to install a load of stuff again. Can I have 2.2 on Wildfire please?

This past few months, i've mostly been using:

Abduction - for the nippers; one of the earliest games i'd played which actually looked good and played well too.
ActionComplete - go sign up here - the web / android bit is what makes it (although, web is a bit slow updating imho...) But, better than Google Tasks... And uses Google sign in. Nice.
Dropbox - of course! It's on all my machines, so now on my phone, sorted... (go here)
ebay - for those odd occasions. Nice enough app for watchlist viewing, but searching is dreadful; same for big screen
Evernote - which is used on all machines and all browsers, so mobile access is perfect (go here)
Facebook - pretty much a no brainer, but android app has improved a lot in recent builds
Goggles - although I never use it...
Kindle - i'm still undecided on this, the idea is sound, and syncing to a (real) kindle is good; alas, I don't have one. So another ebook reader would probably do it just as well (see Aldiko)
Paintjoy - which is fun for the kids, I like some of the effects on it, and the 'replay' of you drawing is really cool (shame you can't save the replay, just the final image)
Prey - as anti-theft solution. Wish I had this when I lost the [HTC] Desire. Bah!
Shopper - perhaps i'm just a google junkie, but used once or twice
SMS Backup+ - which is great. It syncs all your SMSs in a gmail folder. Instant SMS backup. And free.
Talking Tom - for 5 minutes... (why is this still on my phone? oh yeh, kids...)
Tricorder - yay for geeky wifi scanning and useless other stuff too!
Voice Search - which seems to come built in more and more, but, don't bother imho; my fingers are more accurate than google's speech recognition (and I speak the Queen's English too doncha know..?)

That is all.

updated list here.

soft reset ipod nano

2010-09-17T20:26:00.000+01:00

And I always forget this, and my 2nd gen is playing up more and more... Grr..

As aide memoire;

Switch hold on, then off.
Hold Menu (up / 12 o'clock) & Select (centre / circle) keys.
For a long time. 5 or more seconds.
Apple logo appears, reboots.

Exporting Blogger blog

2010-06-10T22:16:00.000+01:00

Ok, so I wanted my blog in a 'sane' format, for complete offline re-edit, and no republish. That is, a whole bunch of content is in the blog and got there because it was easy. And now it's complete. Oh, and nicer (er, more appropriate) things like Evernote are around.

Anyway, I wanted to export it all. It's all text, no images.

Blogger export does a rather heavy atom / xml document, which to be honest isn't really usable. I thought about hacking up / reusing some java sax/dom nonsense, but i'm too lazy and it's too late.

One suggestion which like (and which works well enough) is:

view all the posts on one page,
e.g. goto http://yourblog.blogspot.com/search?max-results=100 (as appropriate)
use the browser's 'save as' function, I chose "text"
edit the file...

Worked ok for me, got a nice text file which needs a bit of a hack, but much much less than faffing with atom...

reflashing custom firmware on HTC dream / G1

2010-03-25T19:44:00.001Z

Ok, there's a lot of pages out there about how to do it, and cyanogen is perhaps the best (only?) place to start. And xda is, of course, rather handy - but too many cluttered threads imho...

Why? My G1 has been stuck on android 1.1, and as much as I like G1, I "needed" to have Evernote, Facebook and a couple of things that need 1.5+, and of course basic G1 doesn't have exchange sync. The cyanogen page details all the other goodies, a fair few are nice to haves too. So...

I'd recommend heading over the wiki, and following the instructions there - to the letter. It's 4 simple steps really:

downgrade - this takes you to a low level (ie hackable) version of android, that is, putting you in a position to do what you want
exploiting the loophole (what they call 'rooting' it) and then installing a custom recovery program (i.e. cm_recovery), which essentially allows you to install the 'proper' firmware image (i.e. the android bit)
installing the new (custom android) firmware image(s) - at least 3 of them
installing audio pack - the basic firmware image only has 1 or 2 ringtones...

What requires some digging is the following...

In step 1, when you're trying to downgrade to the hackable firmware, what you may find is that you get the mysterious error "00028002 not allowed" just after your G1 verifies the image.

[in a nutshell, format microsd card as FAT32, copy either RC7 (UK) or RC29 (US) image onto it, ensure it's called "DREAIMG.nbh", stick it in G1, hold camera and power button and off you go...]

The problem is the SD card isn't 'trusted', so the G1 rejects the firmware image. What you need to do is similar to how you create a pandora battery on a PSP. First things first, work out how to get the card's CID - either via the G1 (before you brick it), via the card in a Windows Mobile device and using QMAT (now PSAS, $$$) or some other black magic. (I suggest using G1 itself, but see here).

Then, head off to here with that CID and do as it says.

What you need to do is (using a hex editor) copy the bytes in the image you get via email over the first bytes of your SD card. (see here)

That makes your card 'magic', and in step #1, your G1 will quite happily work.

If you find out you're getting that weird error, and your G1 always returns to the rainbow screen (with error RUUNBH on top right), that magic card will sort you out...

Steps 2 & 3 are easy enough with cyanogen's instructions.

Step 4 requires a quick look here. Installing the HTC android dev kit comes in useful.

[edit]
Afterwards, noticed standard HTC headset (usb one) didn't work, but also killed all audio - requiring a reboot. Repeat steps 3 & 4 magically cured it...

Android apps list 2010 edition

2010-03-22T16:38:00.001Z

Spookily realised last post on this was March 23rd 2009, which is almost 1 year ago.

This year, i've mostly been using:

whichever exchange client comes with the phone - and they're all clunky (moto's is ok, se/// is pish, htc is ok, dataviz roadsync is ok too)
google maps - a lot. buzz enabled? meh...
facebook - while clunky sometimes (and tends to freeze on some posting), it's become my primary facebook interface
evernote - except it's not in marketplace on current phone... grrr. it's good.
etherial dialpad - fun, kids like it...
tricorder - fun fun fun... (and useful for wifi finding...)

That's probably it for essentials, not many I guess. Other stuff I like, and use sometimes:

beebPlayer - when i'm desperate for TV
compass - never sure why I bother though...
[google] finance - if I can't bother finding out how bad my portfolio is elsewhere
goggles - cos it's fun sometimes (works well too..)
[google] sky map - for entertaining the kids on occasion
linkedin - it's pish
last.fm - very nice indeed, but don't use it much
layar - dunno why I bother...
newsrob - but always forget to sync it up (very good though)
pkt auctions - for when I have ebay on the go
tv guide - nice, but seems slow

Can't say i've paid for anything yet, my phones tend to be rather spartan / utilitarian.

UPDATE: Sept 2010 right about here.

Windows XP rebuild, minor annoyances

2010-03-09T12:16:00.001Z

For me to remember for next time... to turn off all the sliding, popping, animating pish on the default UI, and set things back to 'normal'...

System Properties->Advanced; sort out all the other visual nonsense in Performance (click Settings)
Taskbar right click ->Properties; sort out all that stuff too (like grouping, hide inactive, etc..), including customising start menu
Usual stuff on control panel, but be sure to get Locale in Regional & Language panel for UK & French, and fix proxies in Internet Settings panel (if not done from IE)
Tools->Options from Windows Explorer, notably uncheck "Automatically search for network folders", "Launch folder windows in a separate process" and stuff about hidden/system files as needed.
office suite, Tools->Customise->Always show full menus (check box)
internet explorer, Tools->Internet Options->Advanced->Enable Personalised Favourites Menu (uncheck box), plus fix the ton of crap in there too
oh, and stinking autocorrect options...!
fix outlook so it looks normal, in Tools->Options mostly, making sure cached exchange mode is on (in accounts), fonts done, sig added, maybe find old dictionary/lookups?, spelling is set to something sane, reading pane works as expected, turn on enterprise vault pish too.
run firefox -profilemanager from cli to point to old profile
sort out synctoy and syncmycal
configure up google desktop
map network drives
move application caches to somewhere normal (Java, IE)
remember VPN client too..
er, that's it..?

USB NAS and Windows 7

2010-02-14T16:20:00.001Z

Ok, i've got one of those cheap little USB NAS devices, it's probably an Addonics or something, branded GigaNas or Sumvision but they all look the same, mine came with a CD with SyncQuick software (which I never used).

Edit: it looks identical to this WANSER-R thing - same colour too...

Anyway, besides the normal LAN IP setup - easy enough, my router handed out a nice IP - it needs a tweak in Windows 7 (and perhaps Vista).

The answer universally seems to be to heading off to Control Panel, Administation, Local Security Policy and then... oh, hang on - i've got Home Premium - it doesn't exist.

(the fix is to change the network settings such that lan manager authentication level is allowed to handle both LN & NTLM, and not just NTLMv2 which is the default. Also advised to drop the need for 128bit session security)

So without the security manager panel (secpol.msc), I need to open up regedit.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contrl\Lsa\LmCompatibilityLevel
and change it's value from 3 to 1. Exit, NAS starts to work.

(not sure about the lack of '128 bit' went but it seems to work now)

Vista, adding ram and weird wifi consequences....

2010-02-09T19:18:00.001Z

So, i'm being tech support for my mum, not a great hassle. She's got a relatively simple Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo machine, and it's ok. Bit slow, so I ordered another 1gb stick of RAM (from Crucial, as always). Windows Experience Index of 3.0.

Fitted it easily enough (tinkered with paging file), and seemed ok. Except wifi was dead. Completely dead as in "can't see any wifi hotspots".... Ok, so I know about Vista and AES, so was careful there on the router - nothing, deaf as a post. Other devices - even my phone! - could connect to wifi, so not router side... Assume I may have knocked wifi card when doing memory - nope, nothing there.

Take it home and try with my router. It works!! Haha, must be that crappy Asus router. Then, 2 days later, it stops working... I even booted Ubuntu from USB and that couldn't find wifi - it didn't exist...

Then noticed start up and shut down issues. It would only boot every other go, and would never shutdown properly... Curious. And this fault was pre-startup, before BIOS appeared... Hmmm... A Windows memory test reported no problems - so it seemed the stick was ok.

Now, I suppose it's not curious - you've added memory! you changed something and it went bad - take it out! Yes, obvious, but this is meant to be the 21st century - can memory clashing really be it...? Can bad memory really cause weird boot issues and knock out wifi?

Yes, it seems so. So, removed 2nd 1gb stick, and left it with 1gb original. Went to BIOS and reduced memory used for video card down to 64mb (from 256mb), on the basis that my mum doesn't play 3d games and the like... So, i'd rather give memory to Vista than graphics card. And - seems better.

And Windows Experience Index? Despite being a rather crude measure, it's now 3.1, RAM performance leaping from 4.2 to 4.3 thanks to higher allocation of memory. So, more memory is better, particularly if you give it to Vista, but not so much if it's bad sticks...

Rule number one though, if it goes bad - get rid of what you just changed... even if it makes no sense whatsover why it should be related.
(and yes, it needs getting rid of Vista)

Thomson TG585v7 wifi adsl router & Windows Vista

2009-11-30T22:16:00.000Z

Ok, so I got me a nice new laptop, and Acer 7735Z (I wanted something cheap-ish, with as large a screen as possible - for browsing, moves and maybe some freeciv. the 17" screen clinched it, vista didn't - it won't last long)

Anyway, I digress. The main problem I had was with getting Vista talking to perhaps the worst router i've ever ever had the misfortune to use; the Thomson TG585v7. Setup wifi easy enough, too few options to see what's actually happening, but nevertheless - Android/Moto Dext works, Dell D420 / XP works, old linux boxen with really old PCMCIA card works, so looking hopeful.

I'll spare the long winded explanations - suffice to say, it doesn't. Something about the passphrase being incorrect (er, no, copy & paste from wifi config screen - connected via LAN first, disconnect, try WLAN). I think the Thomson tries to be clever with WPS (button on the front seems disabled, at least on my Plusnet one) and Vista tries too - both of course failing.

There's a million and one posts about
a) Vista not liking WPA2/AES (use TKIP)
b) Thomson being pish (upgrade firmware if you can find it - mine was on 8.x.x.x, newer than most posts from years ago)
c) updating to latest Vista drivers (from Atheros)
d) avoiding Vista anyway (booted Ubuntu 9.10 from USB - very nice, waiting for Windows 7 upgrade disks before doing Ubuntu)
e) slinging it in the bin...

I couldn't be arsed with diagnosing it, and dug out an older - but slightly more trusted Siemens Gigaset SE572. I say trusted, it itself is truly nasty cheap pile of crap, but, after 5 minutes rejigging the DSL, it's up and working with WPA2, and everything works just right.

Moral of the story - don't waste your time with a Thomson 585.

ffmpegX & OS X 10.4 PPC

2009-09-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

Ok, ffmpegX is a fantastic tool. But it's a bit of a pig to install.

The instructions are fairly clear and are here. The ffmpeg dmg is easily done (it's here)

The mencoder and mplayer binaries were odd. You need this file.

I downloaded that zip file, but it wouldn't expand. BOMArchiveHelper kept saying that it was not possible, with a non-descript (-1) error. Double checking file sizes, I realised it wasn't complete. Now, I normally use Camino, so tried Firefox - same problem. Safari 4 seemed to download the whole 14.4mb - and it unzipped normally, with mencoder and mplayer binaries in the resulting directory.

The third mpeg2enc needed - be careful that the link on the download page is towards the Intel, not PPC. As a result, you'll get the binary as text - i.e. gibberish - on the webpage instead of a prompt to download. So, navigate 'upwards', and you'll end up here. Down the page, you'll see some text and a link for osx.cvs.tar.gz - so go get that (it's here in fact). That'll unzip/untar itself nicely to a directory called osx.cvs.

Now, I couldn't be bothered to copy ffmpegX to /Applications, so ran it from desktop. YMMV.

When it starts, it'll ask for locations of the three components, so browse for each with mencoder, mplayer both in same directory called ffmpegXbinaries20060307, and then mpeg2enc in the other directory called osx.cvs. Type password and press install. Sorted, choose file, choose options, and you're off...

The final problem comes when you start a job. It'll pop up and ask for the location of Progress.app. A quick google suggests you browse and choose the ffmpegX application itself.

And you're done.

Google Chrome, Google Desktop & corporate proxies

2009-08-25T12:26:00.000+01:00

So, my work internet proxy configuration (c/o Windows control panel..) doesn't allow localhost access. Which means Google Desktop doesn't work with Chrome, since Chrome uses the Windows internet configuration.

Solution#1 - simply update the Windows proxy configuration to ignore the automatic config (via PAC file) that work gives me, and manually configure the same proxy but add an exception for localhost. That works.

Then some BOFH decides to push out the proxy configuration (somehow - XP profile?) much more frequently than they were. Such that every hour or so, my lovely manual configuration of Chrome (ie the Windows one) is reset to use the automatic (no localhost!) proxy configuration.

Solution #2 - use Firefox as default browser, since this (in a sensible fashion) lets me manually set the proxy configuration just the way I like it.

Oh, and the Chrome command line switch (--proxy-server=proxy:port) doesn't work either - can't manage the exception for localhost, and thus Google Desktop.

Nokia N97 how-to, hard reset

2009-07-14T13:02:00.000+01:00

Ooh, no. Don't like that. Aah, nasty. Like using a handset 5 years ago. Where's my HTC Magic?

But, instructions for Nokia N97

take out of box, charge it up
start using it
become frustrated
become annoyed
hope it'll get better
realise it won't
type *#7370# on dialler
type in 12345 as lock code
be happy all data is removed...
send device back to dark hole from whence it came
use nicer phone

Mac blue screen on boot, OS X 10.4 on mac mini

2009-06-12T12:58:00.000+01:00

So, something stuffed up. Software update chimed in and did it's download (new itunes & security update) and asked the usual shutdown/restart. Knowing my wife was logged in - with perhaps unsaved work - I went to switch users and save it all off.

Except it didn't let me. So, did a log off, thinking I could login as her and save. Er, nope. Blue screen.

Power off, reboot. Er, nope again. Grey apple logo, spinner, blue screen. Sometimes spinner, sometime mouse pointer, sometimes none. No luck, even waiting for 20 minutes...

There's lots and lots of results if you google the problem. Nothing really worked. Booting install & repairing HD fixed some problems, but not the blue screen. Removing assorted files from the depths of /System and /Library didn't help. Booting off external firewire backup helped, but only to copy a couple of essential files to a (third) backup.

Solution: archive & install again... only took a few hours, and user data preserved. After a tense first reboot, software update required 100's of megs of updates (from 10.4 to 10.4.11, and assorted others). Still, fixed.

I'm glad I keep regular - bootable - backups!

Ubuntu netbook remix 9.04 & aspire one 110 / zg5

2009-04-23T18:21:00.000+01:00

I rather like this. Did a test dtive off a usb memory stick, boots quite quickly; no doubt faster from SSD...

What I liked most; it's the first distro that i've had - easily - my network printer (Samsung CLP-310), remote samba, and bluetooth working... The amount of hassle getting those three working on linpus lite is not believable. And yet Ubuntu NBR (beta!) works, just like that. Off the usb stick.

I'll wait til final release (tomorrow?) before I think i'll go for it...

Impressed...

Aspire One BIOS reflash, ramdisk on usb freedos boot

2009-04-23T17:32:00.000+01:00

First thing to do is a quick google for it, and you should find this very helpful page .

At time of writing, latest version is 3309, so go get that. I used the windows version of unetbootin, which makes life easy.

I'd used unetbootin to try out moblin and ubuntu nbr (jaunty) on me old aspire one, and it created the boot disks perfectly. But, this was flashing a previously downloaded img, not choosing a distro at the top.

I've got a set of 5 identical 2gb usb sticks (dane-elec, from 7dayshop about £15 for now, right here ) so I knew it wasn't the usb sticks.

Anyway, part of the reflash instructions are basically to create a FreeDOS boot stick, by choosing FreeDOS from unebootin, booting it, and using that DOS prompt to run the batch file that Acer gives you. Easy.

But... every time I went to boot the usb drive, it started, but gave an obscure "Could not load ramdisk image: /ubninit" Curious.

A whole bunch of googling came up with some crazy ideas, none of which worked. On the way, I discovered macles blog , which is very useful also, so gets a thumbs up. But still, no luck.

Then I thought; i'm running behind a VPN, which has a proxy connection out the internet. So, close all that down, and allow my XP machine to reach the internet raw, i.e. directly via my ADSL.

This time, unetbootin spent a good few minutes - with a nice progress bar - actually downloading FreeDOS. The memory stick had a few more files than before... And after all that, it booted, and I could run the firmware update. (for interest, bios reflash took about 5 minutes, although I wasn't timing it - it's really easy and you can see it progressing...)

So, unebootin isn't proxy aware; instead, it will fail the download, and create a partial usb image, which won't boot. Make sure you have direct internet connection before using it to download distros.

Java deployment cache, XP

2009-04-06T10:00:00.000+01:00

Default deployment cache is
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache\
which is right in the middle of my XP profile space...
So, every time I do something java-ish, it'll eat up loads of space, and I get XP profile warnings.
Change location in control panel / Java, to somewhere not in profile space. Delete old space using that panel too.
(to be honest, i'm sure it reset itself to Application Data when I wasn't looking...)

Phillips transcription kit LFH 7277 & mac OS X

2009-04-03T10:32:00.000+01:00

Found an old one on ebay, comes with USB foot pedal.

In fact, it's USB -> license dongle -> socket -> pedal via 3.5mm? jack & 3.5mm earphones.

Works a treat under XP with the supplied software, but not luck whatsoever getting it to work on the mac. Can't find any drivers.

Express Scribe is meant to be very good, and has lots of Mac transciption advice.

Windows XP and SDHC / SD high capacity - 4gb+ cards

2009-04-03T10:25:00.000+01:00

I guess most people would have had this KB update applied sometime in the past. Lurking on a corporate laptop means I miss this kind of stuff.

SDHC cards inserted don't mount, or files show up as gibberish if you don't have the right stuff.

Normal SD cards should work, so 2gb cards are fine.

For SDHC support, you'll need KB923293. That'll get you working up to 4gb.

Then, for larger than that, you'll need KB934428. Largest i've tried is a 16gb class 4, which now works very well indeed.

It's left as an exercise for the reader to find those patches...

Android must-have and nice-to-have

2009-03-23T15:12:00.002Z

I've had an android / g1 / htc dream for a little while now, and i've settled on the following 'keepers'. I've installed many, many more apps or games or utilities, but none of them have lasted as long as those below.

Used daily:

BatteryStatus (Monmonja) - so, it just displays "28%" or whatever in big letters. I like. I used Watts for a while, which helped me realise wifi just kills battery (and now remains mostly off)
KeePassDroid (Brian Pellin) - fantastic, since I use keepass on assorted computers already (i've long since abandoned SplashID)
Picassa Upload (Google) - fantastic - I had a similar thing on a SonyEricsson phone (in fact, it uploaded to blogger), but this is much nicer.
Shake Awake (Maplekey Company) - i'm on conference calls a lot, and this is really very helpful; quick wiggle and phone is awake. Sorted.
Text Edit (Paul Mach) - very useful for quick notes, often todo lists. Nice that it saves on memory card too.
ToggleWifi (Andrew Schwimmer) - used frequently, a must-have battery saver
Tricorder (Moonblink) - save the geeky star-trek ui (which I kind of like...), it's a nice way to track wifi hotspots, and to check GPS is actually working (google maps kind of hides the detail)

Used weekly:

My Tracks (My Tracks team) - this is sooo handy, I wish I had it when I was (more) in training.
Pkt Auctions (Bonfire Media, Inc.) - whenever i've got something to sell, or something to watch on ebay, this is brilliant. Searching ebay isn't worth the hassle.
Quickpedia (Next Mobile Web) - my preferred way to browse wikipedia (nicer than via browser or other apps) due to a nice clean interface
Sandblaster (Logan Hanks) - how can you not have a falling sand game?
Zombie, Run! (Peter Dolan) - makes a quick stroll to the shops much more fun. Scares the kids too.

Used less often:

aFileShare (mAPPNn Inc.) - used it once or twice, to find stuff
BetterBookmarks - the way to get nice favicon bookmarks on homescreen (instead of dull browser icon over and over again). it's one of those must-haves, but only when you want to add bookmarks to homescreen (ie not very often)
Cinema (Greg Millam) - although I haven't actually used it - can't get movies in right format!
Compass (Bill Basaraba) - nice, but rarely used. Maybe if I get lost with no mobile data signal...
Finance (Google) - mostly to track my employers share price, but it's not a daily kind of thing...
Mahjongg Solitaire (nitoware) - a really nice implementation, something to occupy 10 minutes on a bus
ShopSavvy (Big in Japan, Inc.) - on those rare occasions when i'm buying something kind of expensive, this is fantastic
SkyMap (Sky Map Team) - I really like this, but can't say I use it much. I find occasional views of the bright screen messes up my night vision...
Sodoku (genina.com) - not that i'm a fan, but it's nice to have it, for the odd 10 minutes here and there
Speedtest (Xtreme Labs) - handy to demonstrate HSDPA at work is faster than ADSL at home
ToggleBlu & ToggleGPS (Andrew Schwimmer) - installed alongside toggle wifi, but rarely used

I would add that Zombie, Run!, ShopSavvy, Skymap and Compass are probably my preferred 'show off android' apps, since they nicely blend features available (ie maps, gps, camera sensors) into something really new and interesting that i've not seen on other phones before. You'll also note that these apps are all lower down in my 'most used' lists... The dull stuff wins on true value-add.

UPDATE: Sept 2010 update here. One thing I noticed is that many of these things are now part of the core android, regardless of manufacturer (with some minor exceptions). That is, apps are now true additions to the OS, not partly making up for absences in the OS. Nice.

Sync google calendar & outlook

2009-02-23T13:26:00.000Z

So, the obvious choice is google's pc client, which is free. But, and it's a big but... it doesn't seem to work very well. I need to to get calendar onto an android phone... sending to google/cloud is a bonus too, so i've discounted the more direct android/exchange programs. I also only want calendar sync too, not email, etc.

The obvious issue with google's tool is that outlook calendar events that were not created by you are not synced. These would be events to which you've been invited by someone else (as organiser), and they obviously appear in your outlook calendar. I have a lot of these in my work calendar...

[a quick google search should find all this stuff...]

This has a relatively easy fix; add your outlook email address to google, authenticate it (usual 'click here if it's you' type thing) then use that email address as the login for the google pc client (with your normal google password, which is a bit weird).

I find this doesn't seem to work so well, odd things keep being missed. I've recently installed the free SyncMyCal instead. The free version only does 3 days, and is manual only (ie no timed sync) but it seems to work nicely. I'll give it a go for a few more days, and see if I shell out $25 (= £17) for it...

(I don't know if it's just me, but when you start some weird 3 way sync, eg outlook <> google <> phone something always goes wrong and you have to kind of tinker to make it work, at which point it's fine...)

Kodak Photo Printer PP300 & Mac OS X 10.4

2009-02-21T19:54:00.000Z

Bit weird this.

For starters, don't bother installing the EasyShare software - iPhoto is much better. In fact, ignore the CD that came with it altogether. (when you uninstall the EasyShare, it asks if you want to keep the printer driver, but it's a bit of a faff).

Instead, go download the driver from the Kodak site (easy enough to find, search for PP300).

Driver is about 11meg, as a dmg. Mount/open it, and run the installer. It recommends to keep the printer UNplugged.... It'll also need a restart, so do that.

Plug in printer, open System Prefs, and Print & Fax. Click on the + sign to add a new printer.

It'll have the photo printer in the list, BUT it won't find a driver in the "Print Using:" pull down...

Instead, click "More Printers..." button. At the top of that pop up is AppleTalk, choose that pull down, and at the bottom is "Kodak Printers", with printer 0029 at the top. Choose that....

Quite why you have to go through that fiasco is beyond me...

Palm OS PmTraceDatabase causing hotsync to fail...

2009-01-26T16:46:00.001Z

see here .

sorted.

Hard reset on Palm Centro

2009-01-22T11:37:00.000Z

I always forget this...

take off battery
hold red power button & insert battery
palm logo appears, and scroll bar creeps along... keep holding.
screen blanks, palm logo re-appears
let go of power button now!
reset instructions on screen, press up (yes, oui, ja, etc..)

bulk file renaming on Mac

2008-12-03T12:30:00.000Z

I had a great tool called 'Renamer4Mac' and it worked a treat. Then, I upgraded my mac, and lost it.

Since then, it seems the original owner has sold it (see here) and the new owners (linked from previous) are charging $26. Which to me, is rather steep. I paid less than that for Carbon Copy Cloner, which is infinitely more useful imho.

So, avoid download v3.x, and instead have v2.8.x instead, which is free.

install freeciv SDL client on Aspire One linpus

2008-11-14T09:16:00.000Z

Not sure why, but this was a hassle; how to run a workable freeciv on the AA1 linux version. First of all, make sure you haven't installed freeciv from the normal fedora repository; it will use the GTK client and it won't fit onscreen (it's 1024x768). Remove it. The easy way then...

(all commands as root / sudo)

head to www.freeciv.org, and look in the unofficial distributions (or go here )
choose the fedora 8 version (of 2.1 for now) c/o VJSchiavoni
ignore that completely... :-) although for investigative purposes, note that each rpm is stored on Andy Jamison's website / repository... [AJRepo]
... which is here .
then ignore that completely, since his "get the Repo RPM" (v1.4) download doesn't work... :-/ [404 file not found]
google for the rpm for "ajrepo noarch.rpm"; you'll probably find v2.2 here
click that, and the repository should install
run up a terminal (alt-ft, run terminal), and head to /etc/yum repos directory (whose name escapes me, but it's obvious - called yum.repo.d or somesuch)
ensure that the repo config file for ajrepo is enabled; edit the file and it will probably have enabled=0, so change that to a 1
run a quick sudo yum install freeciv-client-sdl
that will work out it needs server and all sorts of things... so say yes, it'll fetch it all, and install
for some reason (i'm sure there's logic somewhere) the client is installed in /etc/alternatives
run it, and be pleased... set it to 1024x768 to fit, and choose fullscreen ...
... then note that the full screen settings aren't sticky (restart of client is not fullscreen)
so head to user directory (ie just cd not as root) and edit the .civclientrc file (named something like that, again, it's obvious). It has a fullscreen=0, so change that to 1

In game, use fn + keys with blue numbers to move using numeric keypad...

Acer Aspire One

2008-10-07T08:55:00.003+01:00

I bought one of these recently, the 8gb ssd + 512k Linux version, £199 from PC World.

And I really like it, it turns on really quickly, attaches to wifi, and i'm browsing.

Recommended reading: first, El Reg's top 10 tips, then Aspire One Forum.

In a nutshell, I found the command line hackery more useful. Run a terminal and enable desktop menu, and add the livna repositories, install VLC. Install Skype.

I use a 4gb sd card in my work laptop, and use SyncToy to copy all my work documents to it regularly (so i've the originals on the hdd, and a copy on the sd). Then, if i'm away on business, I pop the sd card in my acer, and away I go. OpenOffice does a relatively good job at rendering my stuff, only issues seem to be some font choices in powerpoint, but not a showstopper. Also, too many OpenOffice documents slow things down rather a lot.

I also bought a 16gb sd card too (here, from ebuyer) which works a treat; placed in the permanent sd slot, it merges it quite nicely. I then copy films & music over from my external usb hdd easily enough. For some reason, it complains about space sometimes - not sure why. The 16gb card inherits your home directory, so i've a funny feeling it's some weirdness due to the merge (with nasty looking df nonsense if you look...)

Firefox 3 and mailto links

2008-09-02T11:37:00.002+01:00

Needs a little fix; see this page.

Editing the Windows XP 'Send To' menu

2008-09-01T12:50:00.001+01:00

Over time, this becomes filled with junk, old windows mobile shortcuts, old apps (Skype!) and so forth.

See this page.

2Gb SD card, part 2

2008-08-26T12:03:00.001+01:00

Back to this old chestnut, it's partitioned & formatted as 971Mb FAT 32 yet it's a 2Gb card.

Windows XP SP2 has a hard time partitioning these things... so go fetch HPUSBF. There's two versions, one dos, one windows (it has W in the exe name!), both of which are in the zip.

This works for USB drives, so put the SD card in a USB card reader. Note that this doesn't need to be SDHC for a 2Gb card, but would be for any larger (e.g. 4Gb+). It doesn't work in the inbuilt SD card slot in my Dell D420, hence need for adaptor.

XP picks this up as a USB drive, so run HPUSBF, and partition that as 2Gb as expected. Eject it, then stick SD in SD slot. Windows notices it's not formatted, so format it as 1.91Gb as you'd expect. Done.

OS X 'Open with...'

2008-07-18T12:16:00.001+01:00

"When opening up files in Finder, particularly documents or pictures, you may often want to use an application other than the default one. To do this, you simply Control-Click on the file and choose the application you want from under the “Open With” menu. Sometimes this list contains useless applications that you deleted long ago, which makes the very useful tool slower and less effective.

Getting rid of old applications from this automatically populate list is pretty simple, and is done by simply deleting a single file. This file is located in Home/Library/Preferences, and is called “com.apple.LaunchServices”. Simply locate this file and delete it, and the list should be fixed."

from MacTips.

Sony Ericsson's & application wallpapers

2008-07-16T12:34:00.003+01:00

Lots of latest Sony Ericsson phones allow you to run a midlet (ie j2me application) as the wallpaper.

The most useful - and free - one I found was the PIM wallpaper. It basically adds 'now & next' type functionality to the standby screen, which is fantastic.

Download it - via the phone - from www.sonyericsson.com/fun

Cleartype tuning & XP

2008-07-15T15:52:00.004+01:00

Goto Control Panel -> Display -> Appearance and find it in there, or...

goto http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/tune.aspx

Windows mobile & internet proxies

2008-05-19T09:00:00.004+01:00

Nasty bug, only really causing me hassle with WM 6.1...

I've got two connections on my phone, internet and work. Internet has no proxies, and connects straight to the Orange orangeinternet apn. Easy.

My work connection uses a private APN, but doesn't need proxies. It sync email, calendar, contacts and tasks over-the-air. But, the phone is also synced with my PC, to sync files, and SplashID.

However, when I sync with the PC, it knows I sync OTA, and doesn't touch those conduits. But it decides to add my corporate proxy (which my laptop needs for internet) to the proxy of the work section; thus, after an activesync with the PC, the work connection has "connects to Internet" ticked, and also "uses proxy" ticked, and set to the laptop proxy.

The consequence is that the internet browser (pocket IE, or Opera) fails since it can't find a proxy.

Solution (and a bad one at that): untick proxy on the work connection after each PC sync... bah .

Installing apps on SD card, for Palm

2008-04-29T13:24:00.001+01:00

Stick the prcs & associated bits in SDcard/Launcher directory, and they'll show up in the menu.

Some things won't run from SD though, so copy em to device.

And sometimes that doesn't work, so hotsync 'em instead. (if you can get that to work consistently)

Palm desktop, Hotsync & Centro

2008-04-25T14:36:00.003+01:00

Dug out my (early) Centro, and decided i'd use it again. Getting fed up with WM6 & 6.1 (too clunky).

So, needed to install the apps. Palm Desktop 6.2 seems latest, so grabbed that.

It complained about an old version of Palm desktop, and it couldn't find the .msi. This was an old issue (see previous...) so fixed that, and got new version in. (as an aside, got a new Dell D420, with corporate build on it. Usual fun & games with it half copying old laptop profile, which is why I think the old Palm desktop 'sort of' existed... needed to fix bluetooth too, although shortcut to control panel is dead - it opens in quickview... oh, and the old palm desktop reappeared in Start/All Programs too. nevertheless...)

Connected up hotsync to new bluetooth COM port (COM ports - this is the 21st century, sheesh...). Found laptop ok, paired up ok - a first really, maybe now we're in 2008 Windows bluetooth is working as i'd expect it to.

It took ages to sync the media, and I had to let it run otherwise it complained... After ~20 minutes (there were lots of photos on, well, somewhere)

Lesson learned: remove photos and large things before sync. Besides that, it was ok.

Canon Scanner 8000F, Mac OS X, Canoscan toolbox

2008-04-25T09:42:00.003+01:00

Right, to get this to work properly, Canon recommends using version 4.0.x (and not version 5).

Fine, download the drivers, and download the Canoscan toolbox version.

The trick to making it work - and not getting "no plug-ins found" or similar errors - is to install the toolbox in /Applications, but copy the contents of the driver directory (which is put any-old-where) into the toolbox's Plug-Ins directory.

Thus, when the toolbox starts, and you ask it to scan, it looks in the plug-ins directory for your particular scanner, finds it, and off it goes.

The version of toolbox works on PPC and intel macs (I tried on emac, and on new macbook).

Works ok. Slow, but it's an old scanner...

Windows mobile 6.1 & exchange activesync

2008-04-16T13:24:00.002+01:00

That is, when you sync your exchange over-the-air, via GPRS / 3G whatever...

For some reason - a bug no doubt - wm6.1 wouldn't sync and gave me error 0x8503001C. It seems a lot of people have this, and there's a lot of google results which suggest all manner of crazy solutions. This seemed to happen only with either email or calendar chosen.

Mine? don't sync with the webmail address (of the exchange server), use the 'proper' address for it. This, unfortunately, requires you to setup a specific work connection (i.e. a private APN, not the normal internet connection), which causes other hiccups. Saying that, it does work with direct push, which webmail address didn't.

SD card slot with Dell D420 & XP SP2, and SDHC

2008-04-16T13:17:00.002+01:00

Seems not to like it, and drivers from Dell are for SP1 or before.

Pop the SD card in, then goto device manager. It will show the card with a yellow question mark. So, uninstall it. Reboot, with the SD card in. Upon reboot, all will be well.

BUT, this only works with 'normal' SD cards; 4Gb or greater are SDHC spec. Google KB934428 and install that (reboot, and wait)

Oggsync, Exchange

2008-04-16T13:15:00.002+01:00

Usual routine is this; sync pocket pc with exchange OTA, then use oggsync to sync this to google calendar. (Yes, I could use google pc sync software, but I can't install it - corporate pc nonsense..)

Just upgraded phone. BEFORE running 2 way oggsync on the new phone REMOVE the google calendar, else oggsync will create duplicates of everything.

So, new phone - sync with exchange - remove google calendar - sync with oggsync first time.

Powerpoint, multiple/dual monitors

2008-01-31T15:53:00.001Z

Open up "Slide show"->"Set Up Show", and choose the display from the pull down in there.

It seems this is set on a per file basis... [yes, it is...]

Windows Mobile 6, sync tasks over the air...

2008-01-09T11:40:00.000Z

If you use your webmail server address for activesync (on a Windows Mobile 6 phone), it won't sync tasks.

You can use the 'proper' server address, which will - but, this means (at least I) need to set up the alternative private APN to connect to it. Since my current device is not 3G, it'll end up swapping APNs all the time, which is a pain (webmail can use the open internet connection).

Alternatively, get tasks synced via the PC / cable...

Outlook calendar events not syncing?

2008-01-09T11:29:00.000Z

Some recurrent events don't sync to the mobile.

Check the recurrence on them; the default is to have 'no end date', which basically means it repeats for 100 years (until 2100). And it won't sync.

Add an end date, or a number of repeats, then it will sync ok.

1.1 inch digital photo frame / keyring, Sitronix

2007-12-10T15:05:00.000Z

Little egg shaped 1 inch screen digital photo frame, about £13 from Amazon reseller, imported from somewhere unknown in China.

Works well, had a few hiccups with the sync software. It works on Windows only (bah) and I thought the issue was with drivers. Numerous installs, reinstalls, nothing. The frame kept saying "Loading END" but when disconnected, "No Photo!"

Solution: use a different USB port, the one connected to laptop dock didn't work. A direct USB port on the laptop worked perfectly.

HP LaserJet 4L & Mac OS X 10.3.9

2007-11-07T21:59:00.001Z

Ingredients:
1 old LaserJet 4L, the one without the mac goodies, just the parallel port, cost £0 from freecycle
1 parallel to usb cable, cost about £8 from ebuyer
1 copy of gutenprint (v5.0.1, cost £0, right here)
1 copy of usbtb (v1.0.15, cost £0, right here)

Recipe:

plug in printer to power, but not usb cable...
install Gutenprint on mac
plug in printer usb cable to mac
open printer setup (in Apps/Utilities) - remember to hold the ALT key when doing add printer, else you don't see the 'Advanced' menu
read Gutenprint howto document (a rather good pdf), follow instruction there.
be happy when printer is in printer list
be happier still when you print a page and it works beautifully (if a little slow... hey, it's a 10 year old printer!)

As for usbtb, seems great. I installed it after the above, and it detected the laserjet easily enough during the install, and sorted out the queues and whatnot. As an aside, it didn't like the deskjet 840c I have, but hey...

Does it make things go faster? hard to say, will need to play, and i've not reason to disbelieve 'em...

As for the cable, I did find a whole bunch of expensive looking ones, and spurious reports that these expensive ones have 'special' stuff. Whatever, my cheap £8 one works just fine thanks. See ebuyer, product code 130599.

[update Feb 09; as per comment below, not working on 10.4 - can't retest myself...]

Save Task Order - Outlook-Exchange 2003

2007-11-02T10:04:00.000Z

Save Task Order - Outlook-Exchange 2003

This was really annoying, basically every time you do a 'Save & Close' for an open task 'edit' window, it'd pop up with the annoying "Please save the task order by clicking Save Task Order blah blah" message, with an annoying sound effect too.

The Microsoft support site seems to be lying; it suggests creating a new tasks folder and copying all the old tasks, which does nothing.

Instead, the above link seems to have the fix, although i'm not sure which bit actually fixes.

Basically;
1 - "Customize [sic] Current View..."
2 - in "Filter..." disable all filters. I had complete=no in advanced.
3 - in "Other Settings..." un-check the "Allow in-cell editing"

Now, when you double click a task in the list, it opens. When you "save & close", it closes, no hassle.

I went back and enabled the filter (so I don't see completed tasks) and it didn't break anything. Then I went back and checked "allow in-cell" again, and that didn't break anything either. hmm.

wmiprvse.exe going crazy 99% CPU

2007-10-22T13:35:00.000+01:00

After you install SMS 2003 SP3, the Wmiprvse.exe process may generate high CPU usage on client computers during hardware-inventory operations

Install that...

Yet to see if it fixes issue, but others have told me that it does.

Ringtones: changing, adding and managing on your Treo smartphone

2007-10-22T09:23:00.000+01:00

Ringtones: changing, adding and managing on your Treo smartphone

Works on Centro too.

I used the file:/// [three slashes!] method, and you also need to escape out any spaces; "my ringtone.mid" would of course be "my%20ringtone.mid" in browser URL.

The folder can of course also be the SD card location; file:///mysdcard/ringtones/nice%20music.mid

Sorted.

Apart from the fact it doesn't support MP3, like any other phone on the planet.

Google Mail App & Treo / Centro

2007-10-18T12:57:00.000+01:00

Google Mail: Help Centre - Can I use the Google Mail application on my Treo?

This page pretty much explains it all - except for a few things.

So, instructions are:
1 - install JVM
2 - REBOOT!!!! it won't have the hooks from Blazer [browser] to JVM unless you do this (take the battery off)
3 - point browser (not JVM) at http://www.gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Palm-Treo_650.jad (or http://gmail.com/app/v1.0.0/en/gm-Generic-Advanced_MIDP2.jad - this generic version has rather dull default buttons, the Treo one has nicer buttons)
also, for now, gmail web browsing does link to 'faster gmail' at the top of the web version, which links to app download, but after the link it notes that Palm OS 5 isn't supported - i.e. you don't get link to java jad file
4 - browser will ask to SAVE it, do so
5 - have a look at JVM, it should be doing install stuff
6 - wait til it finishes, and change prefs of JVM

Done.

Annoyingly enough anyway, the URL form in the JVM install app doesn't let you type underscores (or other special characters probably) nor does it allow you to copy/paste into that form. The easiest way to get the URL onto the palm is to email it to yourself and click the link from the email...

Netgear DG834, Nintendo Wii, and error code 32004

2007-10-13T11:50:00.000+01:00

Windows Vista printing on Windows 98 printer

2007-10-11T09:21:00.000+01:00

So, file sharing sorted. Now printer sharing, such that mobile Vista laptop can print to fixed printer attached to Windows 98 machine.

As previously, all the firewall, IP and the IP was sorted.

On Win 98 box, go to printer, right click and choose er, Sharing. Enable it, but leave the password field empty! [more on that later]

On Vista, add a printer. It won't find it as a network printer, due to some weird bug (google it).

Instead, add it as a local printer, but create a new port for it. A tiny pop up asks for the port details, enter //remotemachinename/printername and it'll go off and think for a bit. Quite a long bit in fact. After a fashion, it'll say 'added printer, blah blah', then print a test page.

Go to the other room, wait some more while Win98 thinks for a bit, and out it comes. Ok, so it's not so bad, probably 20 - 30 seconds to start printing.

Regarding the passwords, for some reason, the Vista box doesn't have the ability to ask for the username nor passwords for printing (in the same way it does for file sharing), so leave it blank. It'll complain 'passwords don't match' otherwise.

Windows Vista sharing with Windows 98

2007-10-11T08:51:00.001+01:00

Problem: how to get lots of photos from an old win 98 desktop onto shiny new vista laptop, both wifi capable, with one nice router in between.

Ok, they talk IP fairly nicely over a home network, step 1 easy.

Secondly, enable sharing from Network control panel. Make the C drive shared, fairly easy too - apart from the password bit which seems odd. Keep the default access control (a tab in the sharing pane) to the first option, share level not object level.

Stick a simple password in there for full access. Enable remote administration, use the same password (although I probably won't use this). Most of the info comes from win 98's rather sparse help files (search "sharing") and it's got the links to control panel.

Vista now quite happily finds the machine in network [neighbourhood]. 98 box doesn't let me in, although strangely enough, my XP laptop quite happily browses after entering credentials (weird username, then simple password as above).

98 box has firewall, Sygate freebie one. Allow browsing from network neighbourhood and stop blocking stuff.

Try again, get a credentials prompt - and this is the tricky bit; it seems Vista expects everyone to know about usernames and passwords, but Win98 doesn't (it just has password).

On Vista, type in just password, empty username. Doesn't like it, tells you to add a username. Add a random username with correct password, it also rejects it. Submit it again, and it works. Odd, but working.

Windows XP, proxies and assorted madness

2007-09-20T16:06:00.000+01:00

XP not working on some sites, nor with some VB macros in excel, or causing havoc with java? But browsing quite happily is, as are other things?

Make sure your proxy is set properly - all those apps (and more) will access 'the web' via the system wide proxy, if it's not right, some apps will like it, others won't.

Nintendo DS & Wifi

2007-09-15T17:36:00.000+01:00

Wifi network is open, restricted by mac filter, and usually hidden (i.e. SSID not broadcast).

It's a UK Netgear DG834G with v31 firmware.

Unfortunately, Nintendo DS can't find hidden networks - broadcast SSID and it's ok.

For open networks, leave the WEP key empty (kind of obvious I suppose)

Using NetBeans IDE 5.5 - Configuring the IDE

2007-03-23T12:07:00.000Z

Using NetBeans IDE 5.5 - Configuring the IDE

Rule #1 with Windows XP: change the userdir parameter straightaway, the default is in profile space...!

Pass --userdir in the shortcut.

PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives | Your Digital Life, Anywhere™

2007-02-23T10:42:00.000Z

PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives | Your Digital Life, Anywhere™

Also works well, I installed the base client and added my own apps that I needed.

Sometimes seems to hang when installing - give it some time.

sipgate.co.uk - free phone service over your broadband link - voice over ip provider.

2007-02-23T10:41:00.000Z

sipgate.co.uk - free phone service over your broadband link - voice over ip provider.

Works well with Nokia E65 and a Netgear 834G router. Nice.

One possible fix for a non-visible external hard drive

2007-01-22T14:29:00.000Z

macosxhints.com - One possible fix for a non-visible external hard drive

One gem in the linked thread;

"... unplugging a machine for ten minutes resets the Firewire ports. It's an obscure troubleshooting procedure for flaky Firewire devices. It will work for more than just drives, scanners and whatnot will benefit as well."

Nice.

Treo, Versamail & Exchange Activesync - Smartphone resets or displays error message when checking email with VersaMail's Exchange ActiveSync

2007-01-17T11:26:00.000Z

Smartphone resets or displays error message when checking email with VersaMail's Exchange ActiveSync

Ok, so it says username and/or password is wrong, but the detailed error message is rather misleading when it talks of "Unauthorized content".

Not sure why it does this, I think the ActiveSync server password life is less than the XP domain password (they're synced here at work).

Solution: change XP password, and it updates both. Enter new one on Treo, fixed...

2Gb SD cards are far too awkward for their own good

2007-01-08T15:05:00.000Z

I received a nice 2Gb Kingston SD card for Christmas. Lovely.

Formatting it, then getting it to work with my various devices is a problem.

Canon Ixus i (the original 4MP version): formats FAT with 981Mb free. Not good.
Treo 680 formats FAT32 with 1.91Mb free, a good start...
Windows XP SP2 formats FAT 32 with 982Mb free, doesn't want to consider FAT. Says it's has 1.91Gb capacity, but only half free. No good.
Mac OS X 10.3.9 won't format it FAT or FAT32, and I need that to make it work in other devices (which like FAT).

So, format in Treo. Insert into XP, recognises full 1.91Gb, and reads/writes all ok. Mac doesn't like it. It'll mount usually, else it'll throw up errors in system.log if it won't, usually 'disk corrupt' kind of stuff. If it does mount, you get lots (and lots!) of write errors when copying to it.

Two things to check:
1 - that I can ignore the write errors, on assumption Mac is going too fast for card
2 - the card reader

I use a cheap 8-in-1 USB 1 thing. I'm suspicuous to be honest. It may well be the write errors can be ignored, and it's just going to take a lot of time. XP took 25 mins to copy a 700Mb video over...

I do have a card reader in a Western Digital 250Gb external firewire/usb drive, and that SD card reader ignores the card altogether. A 64Mb card lights up and mounts happily, the 2Gb card doesn't even give me a green light on insertion...

Lesson: stick with max. 1Gb SD cards.

Palm & J2ME

2006-11-28T16:15:00.000Z

Palm, Inc. - WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment for your Palm Device
Remember to install this on a Treo. And yes, you do have a Treo 650, really, you do.

Firefox Updated

2006-11-16T09:42:00.000Z

Firefox Updated

Add-ons/themes in use:

Generated: Thu Nov 16 2006 09:28:17 GMT+0000 (GMT Standard Time)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1) Gecko/20061010 Firefox/2.0

Build ID: 2006101023

Enabled Extensions: [16]

Adblock Filterset.G Updater 0.3.0.4

Adblock Plus 0.7.2.2

CookieCuller 1.3.1

del.icio.us 1.2

Download Statusbar 0.9.4.5

Favicon Picker 2 0.3.4.1

Fetch Text URL 1.6.1

Flashblock 1.5.2

FormFox 1.6

Google Bookmarks Button 0.3

Google Toolbar for Firefox 2.1.20060807W

IE Tab 1.2.0.20061113

MR Tech Local Install 5.3.1.1

NoScript 1.1.4.5.061030

Password Exporter 1.0.6

PDF Download 0.7.6

Disabled Extensions: [1]

Download Manager Tweak 0.7.1

Total Extensions: 17

Installed Themes: [4]

Azerty III 3.1.1

Firefox (default)

iFox 2.3.7

Mostly Crystal 2.0.0.6

Installed Plugins: (16)

ActiveTouch General Plugin Container

Adobe Acrobat

DivX Player Netscape Plugin

DivX® Web Player

Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 9

Microsoft® DRM

Mozilla Default Plug-in

PCMan's IE Tab Plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox

QuickTime Plug-in 7.1

RealJukebox NS Plugin

RealOne Player Version Plugin

RealPlayer(tm) G2 LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In (32-bit)

Shockwave Flash

Shockwave for Director

VLC multimedia plugin

Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

Palm Hotsync & Sony Ericsson data suite

2006-11-15T11:06:00.000Z

They don't work nicely together. Mostly problems with SE// suite taking control of COM ports and doing all manner of nasty things with bluetooth.

Advice: only have one installed. In my case, that meant removing the SE// software.

Palm Hotsync with a Treo works fine now. Except that little problem when it reverts back to COM1, and I manually have to set it to COM7 - which is the bluetooth server's port. Hmm.

Firefox toolbar customizations reset on startup - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

2006-10-13T12:22:00.000+01:00

Toolbar customizations reset on startup - MozillaZine Knowledge Base

This was really annoying, all my little changes kept vanishing.

For example, copy a del.icio.us 'button' to somewhere in a toolbar, then find it's vanished when I restart..

The page above fixed things back to normal.

ZoneAlarm & Activesync

2006-10-13T09:41:00.000+01:00

Any way to get ZoneAlarm *free* to play nice with ActiveSync 4.2? in ActiveSync

Just don't do it. Uninstall ZoneAlarm, install ActiveSync, rely on a decent hardware firewall...

Favicons & Firefox

2006-10-13T09:34:00.000+01:00

Favicon Picker 2 :: Mozilla Add-ons :: Add Features to Mozilla Software

That program does a grand job of fetching favicons, I like a lot.

If you manually need to get one, do this:
1 - right click on the page which has the favicon
2 - choose 'View Page Info'
3 - a popup appears called 'Page Info' beleive it or not...
4 - choose it's Media tab
5 - scroll through the top list of images until you see the favicon
6 - it will appear in the preview pane at the bottom
7 - click 'Save As...' to save it to disk.

Easy.

Standby Issues & XP

2006-10-05T12:31:00.000+01:00

Standby Issues

This page is really useful, and managed to solve a number of other issues while I was at it, particularly unsigned device drivers.

This tipped me off about my root cause, which appeared to be either:

- Sony Ericsson data suite not living nicely with Palm OS data suite
- infrared not working properly (COM ports...)

So, removing the SE/// suite, I can now standby and hibernate.

I still can't do IR...

Google updater and BITS / Windows XP

2006-09-21T09:22:00.000+01:00

Google Updater wouldn't run, since BITS was disabled.

It appears it was disabled in group policy.

However, looking here gave a solution...

Nintendo DS & Netgear DG834G

2006-08-29T21:51:00.000+01:00

Easy enough, it found the SSID easily enough, and i've got no WEP on.

However, I do have MAC filtering on. The error given - 51300 - is explained on the Nintendo Wifi site as a WEP problem.

It's not, it's because the MAC address of the DS isn't allowed. Find it on the DS, and copy into the routers settings under wireless page.

Router is set to b & g mode also...

Easy.

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

2006-08-10T12:05:00.000+01:00

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

Given up with DSL, far too much hassle...

Installed basic Debian 3.1 Sarge, all perfect.

No GUI, although i'm tempted to put gnome on there. First attempt required a lot of minute details on the graphics hardware, which i'd expected it would probe it...

Apache2 and Samba out of the box. Can't quite get a samba share to open up /var/www, may dig some more.

Post install addons of use:
- ntp and various sub-packages
- telnetd for local tinkering from mac
- maybe ssh or some variant

Happy...

Xubuntu - Xfce and Ubuntu Dynamite

2006-08-08T09:42:00.000+01:00

Xubuntu - Xfce and Ubuntu Dynamite

Just what I wanted, except I couldn't get it to install on my old machine (as per previous post).

Both live and alternate CDs give ACPI errors; easily solved with an acpi=off boot parameter..

Live CD whined about hardware detection during install boot (most others ok), popped up an (text gui form) error about X not detecting stuff, then dumped back to command line. But had that weird

root@host>
root@host>
root@host>

type staggering.

Alternate CD did better, realised it was a low memory machine (and said so) except sat there for at least several hours before doing nothing...

Back to DSL...

Damn Small Linux (DSL), 50 megabytes of penguin power

2006-08-08T09:36:00.000+01:00

Damn Small Linux (DSL), 50 megabytes of penguin power

... and it's the only small linux I can install - frugally, not from live CD.

Spec: P166, 64mb, 4gb HD, CD, floppy, 2 x USB - and the worst bit - no CD booting...

Both the DSL boot image, and also with smart boot manager.

Problem 1: DSL install CD doesn't seem to like it if the partition to install to isn't ext2. Since the box had Windows [95!] on it, it barfed and didn't seem to give me the partition tool; instead, it booted into CD mode happily enough, but that didn't give me cfdisk...

Soooo, dig out an old old Red Hat 7 CD, and install that. At least during the install you can partition. Once partitions written, reboot and try with DSL on nice ext2. Lovely.

Now I need to work out
a) how the file_install business works
b) install Samba

M600i sync with outlook

2006-07-12T09:59:00.000+01:00

Product support - - Sony Ericsson

This page doesn't really help so much, and most of the problems are with Intuwave's m-router software imho.

So, syncing with a Dell Latitude D4010 laptop, now with SP2 - the SE/// software needs SP2, so in that went...

The general sunny day scheme appears to be:
a) normal USB or Bluetooth [COM] ports exist
b) mRouter 'controls' those ports
c) mRouter then passes control to SE/// Sync Manager

mRouter has a number of config items in 'Advanced', which lets you choose which ports for it to keep an eye on.

First of all, USB. The phone has a USB setting that can be changed when it's not plugged in; either 'Phone Mode' or 'File Transfer'. File transfer mode basically makes it show up as a normal disk drive, although it doesn't seem to allow moving files...

I can't get it to do a sync in Phone Mode, even though mRouter is told to look at USB; in fact, it shows "MCCI (Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB)". It also shows "Palm" for my Treo...

Next step then Bluetooth - which is always always always a pain in the behind. The secret which I discovered was that the mRouter software doesn't recognise my standard Dell bluetooth driver (which is by Toshiba..).

This is evident when you use mRouter 'General Settings' tab, there's a 'Setup Wizard'. In my case, choosing this creates a popup, shows some general (misleading) text, and a 'Finish' button only. The documentation shows a 'Next'.

How to make it work then...
1) use your normal bluetooth software to discover your M600i
obviously turn on bluetooth, discoverable, etc. on the phone..
2) create a new connection but do it custom
3) in the popup, choose the serial connection
4) sort out whatever PINs and pairing are required
5) once paired, choose 'Detail' for the device
6) this will show whichever COM port is used for that serial service, in my case 40 (yes, 40...)
7) go back to mRouter, and select 'Advanced Settings' tab
8) choose the setup for 'Additional COM ports'
9) choose the port noted in step 6 (e.g. 40), the save/close
10) go back to bluetooth software, and 'connect' to the device
11) after a few seconds, it will connect up bluetooth serial
12) after a few more, the mRouter taskbar icon will go green (not red)
13) open the SE/// sync manager (the taskbar icon will probably still have the red cross/unconnected symbol)
14) wait, and it'll say 'Connected to XXXX'
15) choose sync

Repeat steps 10 to 15 every time you want to sync....

Netbeans and profile space

2006-06-29T09:30:00.000+01:00

Netbeans also decides, by default, to put it's state in the default user directory, which is in profile space.

Edit the /etc/neatbeans.conf file (it's in the Netbeans application directory, where it was installed). Change that to something nice.

I tried copying the old directory to the new location, and starting Netbeans - in the hope it would remember the settings, projects, etc. But no, it didn't. Created a new project importing old source...

Google Firefox extensions, profile space

2006-06-29T09:29:00.000+01:00

Google firefox extensions works nicely, it's great. Unfortunately, it creates a lot of log files 'browserstate-log' files. And it puts them in XP profile space....

This profile is capped on my system, so I get lots of nasty errors.

Solution - uninstall the extension, and the files vanish.

XP fonts, again...

2006-05-05T14:11:00.000+01:00

This time with Helvetica 55 Roman being mangled in Excel; solved by deleting Helvetica 56 Italic.

Think i'll have to do some digging on why this is being caused in the first place. I can understand font substitution when the required font is missing (and thus an alternative is used), but when the original font exists, then something is wrong. Hmm.

XP, Outlook & fonts

2006-04-18T09:42:00.000+01:00

More hassle.

Sometimes I get emails from people (in Outlook) that render awfully. The same people, about a handful of them. Everyone else, including me, is fine (we all use Arial). They use Helvetica 45 Light as a default font, and that makes the journey across to me. Except my Outlook decides to render this font on screen as italic. And it's a pig to read.

If I select a part of the italic text, Format->Font, it shows as 'Regular'. If I change it to 'Italic', the screen rendering doesn't change. If I change it back to 'Regular', it still doesn't change.

However, if I select the whole mail, then cycle the fonts as above it renders normally, in an upright 'regular' font way.

Solution: delete the Helvetica 46 Light Italic font from the Font widget in Control Panel. For some reason, Outlook prefers it to the 45 Light (non-italic), so deleting it forces it to match for the much more reasonable font - the one the email is written in.

DVZXLAddin.xla - Documents To Go again

2006-04-12T14:11:00.000+01:00

As with previous post, a previous install of Documents to Go seems to have copied itself all over my XP profile, so it's causing problems.

This time, DVZXLAddin.xla is the problem.

See Dataviz's page on how to cure....

DVZAddin.dll & DVZWAddin.dot

2006-03-24T11:44:00.000Z

Another profile problem this; my previous laptop had DataViz' Documents To Go suite on it, which came on the Treo 650 CD. I didn't really use it, so didn't intend to install it on my new box.

However, whenever I opened a Word document, it would complain about DVZAddin.dll.

The root cause is a .dot template file that was copied over from the profile, which referenced the dll which wasn't copied over...

Solution found here - basically find and delete the .dot file.

Installing Palm Desktop on Windows XP

2006-03-24T11:29:00.000Z

Next new laptop problem - Palm Desktop.

Numerous problems here.

Firstly, use the version on CD that came in the box with the device (a Treo 650 in my case).

If you use the one from Palms website, it won't contain the Media conduit. It mentions this clearly on their site. If you use the operator version from Palm PluggedIn, it won't contain the Outlook conduit(s).

Secondly, don't install that CD version over an old version.

It probably won't work, and give 'error 1714' or similar. Similarly, since this was a special build, the installer .msi files weren't available, so even a manual uninstall didn't work. See the palm support website for the fix, which basically involves downloading, installing and running a Windows Installer Clean Up program, which seems to compensate for the fact that the normal installer isn't very good.

Thirdly, install the Outlook conduit patch before you actually sync.

If you don't, you'll probably get a ton of duplicates and have to clean it all up manually (due to Outlooks lack of a cleanup, or in fact it's inability to create such a mess in the first place).

You'll also probably get a lot of errors in the hotsync log, starting with OLERR:0B-0004 and then a whole lot more - see this page. The proposal to use Outlooks detect & repair didn't seem to do much. See the palm support website on OLE errors, which suggests using the conduit update found here.

Fourthly, be wary of doing Bluetooth sync afterwards.

Always use the Wizard on the Treo to initiate the connection, the PC clients i've used are too stupid. After that - and i'm not sure if it was a glitch or what - but a post-sync look on my device indicated everything had been deleted.

I tend to use cable sync since it's faster, so cable synced, all ok again.

New Laptop, profile problems

2006-03-24T11:22:00.000Z

Got a new XP laptop which had a nice work build on it.

We use profiles to store, well, profile information. So this meant that when I turned on my new box, all my usefull settings copied over too. Perfect!

Unfortunately, it also copied over all manner of data relating to programs installed on my old box, which are now not on my new box.

First thing - run a cleanup (CCleaner then EasyCleaner are nice) to get rid of the old data before installing new apps.

XP, Outlook & incoming message digital signatures

2006-03-16T14:12:00.000Z

I started to get a let of emails that Outlook didn't like the look of. It's just In the sense that it complained it didn't know who signed them, and encouraged me to open it anyway.

All of these emails are from people in a closely related organisation, so I trust them. It's one of those commonplace organisational / IT snafus, where their IT group decide to faff about with their signatures, and not tell anyone else. Hooray for coordination.

The offending emails didn't open in the preview pane, I had to open a sub-window and choose 'View message', which is awkward.

From here, I found out the problem was that the signing was done ultimately from an unknown CA (they'd changed something...).

Solution:

by viewing the details of the message, and escalating the trust level, find the root (a whole lot of sub-windows are required for this...)
save this certificate to disk somewhere
open 'internet options' from control panel, and choose the 'content' tab
choose the 'Certificates...' button in the middle Certificates section
choose the 'Trusted Root Certification Authorities' tab
choose 'Import...'
browse to the cert file above, and choose it
accept the rather odd warning
close all windows
close then open Outlook
all messages appear as expected, but do have the signed 'rosetta' look about them

Removing non-necessary language packs

2006-03-14T09:46:00.000Z

Right, i'm always running short on disk space on my OS X 10.3 box.

Found this useful tool, Youpi Optimizer. This free tool removes all the extra language packs that clutter up the place in all apps it finds.

Quickly select the default langauge, and it will either choose the others to remove, or you can do it manually.

Saved me almost 1Gig of space. Perfect.

Treo 650 and Gmail

2006-03-08T16:24:00.000Z

Ok, Treo 600 does not natively support POP & SMTP with Gmail.

Treo 650 does, and config is easy. See the google document on the settings required.

Running the account wizard;

Choose Mail Service = 'Other' and Protocol = 'POP'.
Username and password is the full gmail stuff, inc. @gmail.com.
Email address is the same, with pop.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com as incoming/outgoing servers.
Basic setup is done, choose 'Advanced'
Incoming Server, use port 995, and select 'Use Secure Connection (SSL)', but not the other one ('Use Authentication (APOP)').
Outgoing Server, user port 587, and select both 'Use Secure Connection (SSL)' and 'Use authentication (ESMTP)'
The username/password dialogue should appear, and be populated with the username/password as above.

Click done, and everything is good.

Treo 0x400b and 0x7143 errors with GPRS

2006-02-13T09:56:00.000Z

I get these errors on occasion when trying to connect email or internet, which both use an internet GPRS connection. On Orange UK.

It's a glitch somewhere, if power cycling the radio doesn't help, do a soft reset.

Windows cleanup

2006-02-06T11:15:00.000Z

So my laptop is getting crufty, and I want some free stuff to sort it out.

I've sorted out my files, which are now sorted into an 'archive me' directory tree - for pictures, etc, and a 'don't bother' directory structure - for downloads, quick notes, etc.

Then, I got hold of WinDirStat (Windows only - I use WhatSize on the Mac) which nicely visualises where the crap is. Lots of archiving from outlook later, things look better. Cleaned up a good 5 or so gig.

Next step, have a look at this page which notes three apps that will help clean up the registry. They all did as advertised, with no ill effects. Can't say about positive effects but I feel better thinking my PC is clean.

And finally, have a look at SpyBot Search and Destroy which cleans up all manner of 'spyware', of assorted kinds.

Done.

3G data cards & their client apps

2006-01-19T13:42:00.000Z

I use an Orange UK 3G mobile office card (MOC). It comes with a rather natty client for the [Windows] PC which allows you to control it. However, i've never had much joy getting the Orange client application to work reliably. It's also got a strange way of abstracting actual network connections away from the user, so I don't really like it.

Instead of having to use that client, open up Network Connections. In here, you'll see a dial-up connection for each 'profile' that the client has created. There will probably be one called 'internet.3G-GPRS'. Double click on that to connect to it - and therefore the internet - directly, without having to use the Orange client software.

Off-line reader for Palm / Treo 650

2006-01-12T11:50:00.000Z

I just found Plucker, and I really like it. I was using Weasel on the Treo 650 but it crashed everytime an inbound call came in (and it's a hassle turning off the phone to read something).

Plucker installs and works 100% on Treo, and lets me read converted documents and do the AvantGo thing. Works nicely with Gutenburg content too.

I'm using the Windows desktop right now, and i'll probably install the Mac version too - cross fingers they work together with one client...

Oh, and it's free. Perfect.

Enabling iSync for Palm OS devices on Mac OS X

2005-12-31T12:59:00.000Z

This one confused me for a bit, but it's fairly obvious.

When the hotsync / palm desktop installs, it will have a whole bunch of conduits setup. Run Hotsync Manager, it should be enabled (from the 'Controls' tab) and the right connection should be enabled (from the Connection Settings tab).

First off, you need to see the conduit settings - which is not a button nor tab on that window, it's in the Hotsync menu - Conduit Settings (or command-J). That'll open up a window with a list of conduits present.

If you've had a previous version of hotsync installed, it'll have all the old conduits - eg you'll see duplicates. This is easy; it warns you of which ones to remove once you've done a sync.

However, while it has iSync Conduit with 'Next Hotsync Action' as "See Conduit Settings", it doesn't mean 'go have a look at iSync'; it actually means, press the (only) button 'Conduit Settings' and check the "Enable iSync for this Palm device". Then the device will appear in iSyncs line up.

If you don't do that, the device is not noticed by iSync, and will never start when you sync (it'll only do hotsync). When iSync does start, then it will use the settings defined for that device.

TMEEJM problem on shutdown/restart

2005-12-20T11:07:00.000Z

I've been plagued by this process hanging the XP shutdown sequence.

It's the Toshiba Mobile Extension - have a look in the control panel. It lets you control how the dock works. And since I have a dock, it's nice.

Goto Toshiba site, support and downloads section. It's got a rather nasty sequence of pull downs to choose your make, model, blah blah blah, but when it comes to choosing the component, choose Mobile Extension. Should be a version 3 or thereabouts.

When I installed this, it complained with lots of ominous error messages (the kind with red !'s and no text). Could have been because I chose upgrade. I ran the installer again (as new install), pressed yes every so often, seemed fine. No problems. Sorted.

bluetooth hotsync Treo 650 with Windows / Toshiba

2005-12-09T11:32:00.000Z

This was a real pain.

After reading numerous articles on what to do, I was still stuck. The basic setup is to run the setup wizard from the treo, and follow the steps.

That's it. The wizard essentially says, create a local COM port on the PC, enter that port in the HotSync application (Settings->Local tab), make sure the 'Local' port is ticked, off you go.

My laptop (a Tosh portege) has the Toshiba bluetooth software installed. Looking at the COM ports (via Control Panel->Bluetooth local COM) shows a load. My mistake was to tell the PC HotSync to use the COM port tagged as "LocalCOM-Client". What happens is that bluetooth connects, but HotSync on the PC never starts. Eventually, HotSync on the Treo times-out.

Tell HotSync to use the port assigned as "LocalCOM-Server[SerialPort(TOSHIBA LocalCOM)]" instead, and is starts and syncs perfectly.

Palm OS & SD card directory structure

2005-12-05T16:43:00.000Z

I had all manner of fun trying to install Frodo on my Treo. It's a Commodore 64 emulator, and a good one at that. The Frodo application itself is easy enough to install (via desktop), but I found it was easier to put the games (.d64) on the SD card myself (via care reader & normal file manager).

Put the games in Palm/Programs/Frodo/ directory, create it if need be. Most other apps seems to pick up stuff in the root directory. I tend to avoid the Palm/Backup and Palm/ directories.

The Frodo manual mentions this now.

The detail can be seen in the Palm programmers reference.

Treo 650, timezones & Outlook

2005-12-05T10:33:00.000Z

I've got an Orange Treo 650, latest build. I sync this with my Win XP laptop, with Outlook 2002. It's a work laptop, and I also use OneBridge to sync remotely - although this is for inbox only. The other conduits, contacts, notes, and notably calendar are synced locally via cable.

I was really pleased that Treo 650 supports timezones for calendar entries. I often have meetings or calls that are scheduled in CET (France), and since I live in GMT (London) it's nice to be able to put the invites in their original timezone.

However, it doesn't sync properly. Outlook doesn't understand timezones, and really snarfs up the synced calendar if you start entering timezones on the Treo.

I've now gone back to the Treo 600 way of doing it - simply convert all 'foreign' timezone meetings back to native GMT, and all is well..

Lesson learned: avoid mucking about with timezones on Treo 650.

One still odd behaviour, an Outlook calendar invite sent my someone in France will have it's start as a CET time, say 11am. Outlook will convert this to GMT for PC viewing, here 10 GMT. But when it syncs this, the Treo will get the proper time (11am), but the wrong timezone (CET). Worst of all, Treo suddenly thinks that that day is all CET, so other entries from me are wrong... bah.

Treo 650 dialling from calendar

2005-12-01T09:47:00.000Z

I have a lot of phone numbers attached to calendar entries, in the notes field. They're usually for conference calls and the like.

On my old Treo 600, I could simply cut the numbers, then paste them into the phone app, then dial. Easy, if a little awkward.

My Orange Treo 650 has a special 'homepage' application that acts as the default app when you press the green phone button. This app links to other apps, including dial pad. And worst of all, it doesn't let you paste numbers onto it; you must do that from the dial pad. And to get to dial pad, you need to navigate to it (about 4 key presses).

FieldPlus (just google for it) is a great, free application that solves this. Install it, and it'll add a new Preferences item for FieldPlus. Open that, and there's a pull down to select specific functionality. The important one is 'Center Action', choose "centre button does = 'single action'" and "single action = 'use selection'". Done.

Now, to dial from calendar, highlight the number (a double click), press shift, then press centre button. Treo dials the number. Lovely.

This also works in other apps, the prefs allow you to prevent this behaviour as you wish. FieldPlus also lets you do clever things with text selection, but i've never had problems with that, so don't use it.

One annoyance - in the call log, instead of the number being shown, it just says "Dial Number". Not such a great hassle compared to the hassle it saves.