I have had a hankering for a smart (or at least smarter than my Sony Ericsson k530) phone for a while.
I had been looking at the Nokia 5800 but that was persistantly sticking around the £200 mark on PAYG or unlocked.
I liked the iPhone but the cost was too high for something I might well loose.
Recently the cheap Android phone from ZTE (the blade) as sold as an own brand by Orange has been getting good recommendations so I went to have a look in a shop.
It isn't the swishest piece of consumer electronics I have ever held but it looked fine as a phone switched off.
When turned on the screen resolution and display quality is very good.
The touch screen operation is well up to the standard of my iPod Touch and it works well.
On WiFi (the fairest test) it is at least the equal of the iPod Touch in terms of browsing the internet.
Out and about on the mobile metwork performance is more variable.
I've experienced various strange "hangs" in appplications but I think this is lack of connection.
I'm considering getting the unit unlocked from Orange and trying a "3" SIM in it as from the experience of other phones "3" seem to be a bit better round my way.
The other factor is the cost of PAYG data on the network.
"3" used to be the best for this but others now seem as good or better. See another post for more details.
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Friday, 3 September 2010
Recovering a Buffalo Link station
I bought a secondhand Network Attached Storage unit recently.
I have another identical unit which has been fantastic.
This one "played dead" and when reset booted into "Engineering Mode" or "Emergency Mode".
I could find the device on the network (indirectly by the address given by the DHCP table on the router) and it would respond to a ping but that was it.
When trying the web browser interface using the now known IP address nothing happened and the browser timed out and when I installed the "navigator" software on a PC it found it but said it was in "engineering mode".
After more Googling I found a "firmware update" program from Buffalo ( LSUpdater.exe ).
The instructions I found at " http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/The_LinkStation_firmware_flasher " were very useful in applying it.
After changing the web interface language from Japanese to English (!) all seems to be well.
If you are thinking of buying a NAS don't let this put you off. I suspect the one I bought was the victim of a misguided (and unsuccesful)attempt to delete data on it before selling it.
My current one has been great and I've high hopes for this new one as well.
I have another identical unit which has been fantastic.
This one "played dead" and when reset booted into "Engineering Mode" or "Emergency Mode".
I could find the device on the network (indirectly by the address given by the DHCP table on the router) and it would respond to a ping but that was it.
When trying the web browser interface using the now known IP address nothing happened and the browser timed out and when I installed the "navigator" software on a PC it found it but said it was in "engineering mode".
After more Googling I found a "firmware update" program from Buffalo ( LSUpdater.exe ).
The instructions I found at " http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/The_LinkStation_firmware_flasher " were very useful in applying it.
After changing the web interface language from Japanese to English (!) all seems to be well.
If you are thinking of buying a NAS don't let this put you off. I suspect the one I bought was the victim of a misguided (and unsuccesful)attempt to delete data on it before selling it.
My current one has been great and I've high hopes for this new one as well.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Pocket Tunes
There are many many applications for the iPod Touch/iPhone and generally I've found that free applications are fine.
I use the iPod Touch for listening to Internet radio and I'm fussy about radio applications.
The best free one I found was Fstream but that could have had a few better features.
I have Pocket Tunes on my Palm Lifedrive and that is excellent given the constraints of the hardware.
So I invested in Pocket Tunes for the iPod touch. This was £4 well spent. It records, has an extensive list of stations and works well.
I use the iPod Touch for listening to Internet radio and I'm fussy about radio applications.
The best free one I found was Fstream but that could have had a few better features.
I have Pocket Tunes on my Palm Lifedrive and that is excellent given the constraints of the hardware.
So I invested in Pocket Tunes for the iPod touch. This was £4 well spent. It records, has an extensive list of stations and works well.
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Page_Fault_in_nonpaged_area 0x00000050
I often find myself undertaking computer support for family members.
One has an Acer desktop PC with Windows XP on it.
It is a typical "casual user" PC and runs AVG free antivirus.
I had a phonecall saying that it wouldn't turn off.
I recommended holding the button and it turned off.
When turned on again it would get to the account selection page (or perhaps half way through loading the account and starting up) then crash and reboot.
Safe mode didn't help (or work) and nothing would make the machine complete booting up.
Turning off the automatic reboot on error got a Blue Screen Of Death to appear which said
"Page_Fault_in_nonpaged_area" "0x00000050"
This provided something to work on.
Googling suggested hardware faults, viruses and a few other things.
I have a Bart PE CD and booting the machine up with that worked OK.
Hardware tests using utilities on that CD all checked out OK and it was perfectly stable on Bart PE.
I then came across a very helpful hint in a forum which pointed me at a conflict between AVG and the Acer E-Lock Management utility.
I booted using Bart PE, found "eLock2FSCTLDriver.sys" in C:\WINDOWS\system32\eLock2FSCTLDriver.sys and renamed it and a similarly named file to have an underscore in front of them.
Having done that the PC booted (Hooray !) and I uninstalled AVG. I then uninstalled every useless and pointless Acer utility for good measure.
The machine now starts up fine.
I put on Microsoft Security essentials instead of AVG. I use this on a machine at home which had another AVG issue.
Hopefully this will help someone else.
One has an Acer desktop PC with Windows XP on it.
It is a typical "casual user" PC and runs AVG free antivirus.
I had a phonecall saying that it wouldn't turn off.
I recommended holding the button and it turned off.
When turned on again it would get to the account selection page (or perhaps half way through loading the account and starting up) then crash and reboot.
Safe mode didn't help (or work) and nothing would make the machine complete booting up.
Turning off the automatic reboot on error got a Blue Screen Of Death to appear which said
"Page_Fault_in_nonpaged_area" "0x00000050"
This provided something to work on.
Googling suggested hardware faults, viruses and a few other things.
I have a Bart PE CD and booting the machine up with that worked OK.
Hardware tests using utilities on that CD all checked out OK and it was perfectly stable on Bart PE.
I then came across a very helpful hint in a forum which pointed me at a conflict between AVG and the Acer E-Lock Management utility.
I booted using Bart PE, found "eLock2FSCTLDriver.sys" in C:\WINDOWS\system32\eLock2FSCTLDriver.sys and renamed it and a similarly named file to have an underscore in front of them.
Having done that the PC booted (Hooray !) and I uninstalled AVG. I then uninstalled every useless and pointless Acer utility for good measure.
The machine now starts up fine.
I put on Microsoft Security essentials instead of AVG. I use this on a machine at home which had another AVG issue.
Hopefully this will help someone else.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
A bit of trouble updating an iPod Touch to iOS 4.0
I had my doubts about the wisdom of updating the firmware of my iPod Touch to 4.0 from 3.1.3 and in retrospect I was right.
It all seemed to be going well at first but what was probably intended to be the final stage crashed when doing the restore of my content.
None of the music was there but the apps were. However none of the added apps worked.
A re-sync got the music back but still no working apps. The music was in it's full 256kb/s glory not the 128kb/s AAC+ which I had previously squashed it to.
Perhaps this was part of the trouble, the previous back up didn't fit in my 8GB iPod Touch with a film I had on it.
I followed the advice on the Apple website about de-authorising and re-authorising. I then deleted, re-downloaded and synced the apps.
Finally, in desparation I reset the iPod Touch. Then, after re-syncing it all worked. It also came up with a new background on the home screen.
Others might have had more trouble getting their touch to work again.
It all seemed to be going well at first but what was probably intended to be the final stage crashed when doing the restore of my content.
None of the music was there but the apps were. However none of the added apps worked.
A re-sync got the music back but still no working apps. The music was in it's full 256kb/s glory not the 128kb/s AAC+ which I had previously squashed it to.
Perhaps this was part of the trouble, the previous back up didn't fit in my 8GB iPod Touch with a film I had on it.
I followed the advice on the Apple website about de-authorising and re-authorising. I then deleted, re-downloaded and synced the apps.
Finally, in desparation I reset the iPod Touch. Then, after re-syncing it all worked. It also came up with a new background on the home screen.
Others might have had more trouble getting their touch to work again.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
send.vodafone.net
Not only is the 3 SMTP server a bit hit and miss but send.vodafone.net seems to be a black hole.
Perhaps my e-mails will appear.
Back to the search for a very cheap or free SMTP server supplier.
Perhaps my e-mails will appear.
Back to the search for a very cheap or free SMTP server supplier.
More Bluetooth DUN trouble
I was in a relatively remote part of the UK for the weekend and neither 3 or their roaming partner had any coverage to offer me.
Vodafone could manage a GSM signal so I tried to get the Bluetooth DUN working to the Vodafone working again.
Eventually I did (but I didn't know why) and a bit of Googleing on "cdgcont" lead me to this excellent explanation of different phones and their use of the context definition.
http://the.taoofmac.com/space/HOWTO/Setup/3G
The differences between Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones listed were particularly enlightening.
Vodafone could manage a GSM signal so I tried to get the Bluetooth DUN working to the Vodafone working again.
Eventually I did (but I didn't know why) and a bit of Googleing on "cdgcont" lead me to this excellent explanation of different phones and their use of the context definition.
http://the.taoofmac.com/space/HOWTO/Setup/3G
The differences between Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones listed were particularly enlightening.
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