Windows Phone 8, Sky Drive and getting your photos back !

I've a nice new Windows Phone 8 Nokia 920. Another family member has a Windows Phone 7.5 Nokia 800.

In both cases the most convenient way of interacting with files on the phone on a day to day basis is Sky Drive. The Windows Phone 8 device will mount like a USB drive, the Windows Phone 7.5 device needs "Zune". The last thing I wanted to install was another iTunes like program on my Windows 7 desktop.

So... from a quick Google it appeared possible to map Sky Drive as a drive under Windows 7 but not massively easy.

I tried the "recommended method" which (summarised from the Microsoft website) is:

1. Right-click Computer.
2. Select Map Network Drive from the resulting menu.
3. Use the Drive dropdown to select the desired Drive letter.
4. In the Folder textbox, input
\\docs.live.net@SSL\your_skydrive_id_number\^2Documents
 Where your_skydrive_id_number is the ID number you copied back in step 2. This will map the drive to your My Documents folder on SkyDrive.
To map the drive to your Public folder, use
\\docs.live.net@SSL\your_skydrive_number\^2Public
5. Click the Finish button.
6. After a few seconds, Windows will ask you for your credentials, input your SkyDrive username and password, click the Remember my credentials checkbox and click the OK button.

The skydrive ID is a long random number like 0009FEEE3C3DF71D

This didn't work for me.

What did work was the following (lifted from a comment on the Microsoft Website):

Go into your SkyDrive online.  If needed create a dummy Excel document on the PC and upload it to SkyDrive. Select the Excel document you have uploaded and click the "Open in Excel" Link to the left. 

Once it's open in Excel, click on the Windows button on the top right and put your mouse on the most recent document opened.  It will show a web address, like https://d.docs.live.net/yourIDhere/^.Documents - write this down. 

(the yourIDhere is replaced by the long random number as above)

Go to the Windows button on the bottom left of your computer, right click "My Computer" and click "map network drive".  Then click the link that says "Connect to a website where you can store your documents and pictures" then click "next", then select a Custom Network, and "next".  At the next screen type in the address you wrote down. 

You're done, it shows up as a folder under My Computer!! 

It's much faster than Mapping an actual drive!

Bluetooth tethering an iPad to a Sony Phone (k530)

I'm getting older and so I fancied moving up from an iPod touch to an iPad Mini.

Most use will be at home but occasionally I'll take it away from home. Then I'll need some sort of Internet connection.

The cheapest version of the iPad mini is WiFi only but it will tether (via WiFi or Bluetooth to an iPhone - if your carrier supports it), however the carriers and Apple saw a way of getting more money from the customer and so this tends to be a "premium" feature at extra cost.

However, in the darker corners of the Internet, there have been suggestions that you can tether to other devices, I tried this with my Sony Ericsson k530i (a "featurephone" which is about 5 years old).

It works !

How I did it is as follows.

1) I turned on Bluetooth on the Sony phone.
2) I turned off WiFi on the iPad.
3) I paired the iPad and the phone (from the iPad).
4) Once this seems set up I needed to put the iPad to sleep (I suspect to clear the network from looking at the WiFi).
5) I woke up the iPad and opened Safari.
6) I set the iPad as "authorised" to connect to the Internet on the Sony phone (this avoids frequent connection messages).
7) It all seems to work.

Hope this helps. If you do find this of use then please leave a comment.

Yahoo settings for yahoo.co.uk e-mail addresses

To get my Yahoo (yahoo.co.uk) mail to work on k9 mail on the Android it didn't have the right settings.

It took a bit of Googling and experiment to find


smtp.mail.yahoo.com
SSL Port 465

imap.mail.yahoo.com
SSL Port 993

These also worked with my Windows 8 laptop when the default settings didn't.

k-9 Mail and Windows Live Mail

It's not used a great deal, but I have a Windows Live mail account and a slightly aging Android 2.1 phone (the Orange San Francisco).

While the Orange San Francisco is not my primary device it is useful for some purposes and reading e-mail is one I use it for.

Getting the Windows Live mail settings right in k-9 mail were a bit of a challenge.

I have a live.co.uk address but after a bit of experiment I found the following.

1) Windows Live mail doesn't seem to support IMAP
2) Windows Live mail doesn't seem to support the version of WebDav that k-9 does

so.....

it's POP3 then.

The settings that worked were

Fetching mail

Incoming server settings

e.mail.address@live.co.uk
password
pop3.live.com
SSL (if available)
PLAIN
995

Sending mail

Outgoing server settings

smtp.live.com
TLS(always)
587
(require sign in - ticked)
AUTOMATIC
e.mail.address@live.co.uk
password