CommsBlog

Avid Reader,

Yes… Can you believe it… I’ve changed phone again!

I’ve left the good ship Apple, and hoisting my Jolly Roger, jumped aboard the frigate Android.

My first impressions of Andriod (2.1) is that it is more powerful than iOS4, but perhaps not as polished. Clearly there are much better ways of doing certain things, and maybe Apple’s iOS (or iPhone itself for that matter…) are not as powerful, but you have to hand it to the guys down in Cupertino, they sure know how to give something ‘form’. That said, the Andriod OS provides a lot more flexability that iOS, and there are certain aspects of it which clearly surpass iOS.

At this stage I would say that I am 50/50 as to which is better, and I will be holding out my judgment until the Froyo update appears for my Samsung (next month I hope!)

Anyway, after wrestling with Android, these are my Tips ‘n Tricks to help you along your way…

Contacts & Calendar Syncronisation

Well forget doing a straightforward Contact Sync… it’s not going to happen with Outlook, at least not directly. The Samsung software is s**t, and there is no standard Andriod<->Outlook tool our there for free [Feel free to correct me if you know different! Ed.]

What I did was this:-

• Exported all my contacts from Outlook to a CSV file.
• Wiped my GMail contacts.
• Imported (using their standard tool) the CSV file.
• Android then auto-syncs the contacts.

Calendar syncing on the other hand is straightforward; Use the ‘Google Calendar Sync’ applet from Google (free) and that’s it! Android will sync back and forth with no issues.

Keyboard

After a little acclimatisation, I’ve found that the ‘Swype’ keyboard works really well. Just press and hold on any text input box to change the ‘Input Method’ to Swype. The tutorials (available by pressing the Swype button on the keyboard) really helped me a lot.

Desktop (or Winterboard for you iPhone users!)

Android has some nice features, some of which I think may be unique to the desktop on the Samsung version of 2.1, namely the ability to create folders, but not just folder that contain apps, but folders that (for instance) contain recently received files over Bluetooth, or Favourite contacts. In addition, you can add ‘widgets’ to the desktop (e.g. Facebook status, Twitter, Weather etc)

Global Search

This is acheived by pressing and holding the left-hand context menu. You can exclude/include search areas within the settings pages (e.g. Hide Twitter contacts)

Navigation & Augmented Reality

Make sure you download the latest ‘Google Maps’ and ‘Wikitude’, the former now has turn-by-turn (complete with Street View integration!), and the latter lets you use your phone to find, for instance, a local ATM by holding your phone up and layering the information over the camera’s view. Google Goggles is also very interesting and uses the camera to provide information & translations (e.g. point at a foreign road sign!)

Secret Codes (not tested by me…)

*#*#4636#*#* for battery and other general setttings like GSM/CDMA

*#*#8255#*#* for Gtalk service monitor

*#*#7780#*#* for factory data reset

*#*#34971539#*#* for information about phone camera (be very careful hitting options here)

*#*#7594#*#* change the “Power” button action in your phone.

*#*#197328640#*#* service mode

*#197238640# service mode

*#0*# testing mode

*#06# view IMEI number

*#1234# display phones current firmware

*#*#1472365#*#* gps test

*#0011# network mode/cell info/power info hidden menu

*#*#0*#*#* screen test menu

Rooting your Device (for Android 2.1)

• update (this is the zip file you will need)

1. First, install the correct drivers for the Galaxy S onto your computer.
2. Connect your Galaxy S to your computer, and mount the internal storage drive.
   • It’s easiest to find out which is which by taking out the ‘external’ Micro SD card under the cover (if installed), that way only one  drive will appear when you mount the device.
   • To mount, pull down your notification bar and select the “USB connected” notification, then tap Mount.
3. Place the file (link above) into the Internal storage.
4. Now you want to get into the recovery mode.
   • Turn off your Galaxy, and hold down Volume Up and Home keys while pressing power.
   • Hold all three until you get the opening image, and then release the Power key, but keep the other two held until you end up in recovery mode.
   • To navigate, use the volume up and down to move the highlighted area, and the Power button to select.
5. Select Reinstall Packages, and hit the power button.
6. The file will install, allow it to do so and reboot.
7. Once the Galaxy is rebooted, you should notice the SuperUser application in the app drawer. You’ve got root access, and the SuperUser applet will always pop up to ask if you want to permit an app to have root.

Once you have root, you can get some more interesting apps from the Marketplace – for instance, a screen capture app (yes… I know its built into iOS…) which works without having to use the SDK.

Rooting 2.2 (Froyo)

Simply visit here:-

http://www.addictivetips.com/mobile/how-to-root-and-unroot-samsung-galaxy-s-i9000-with-a-single-click/

Rooting 2.2 + Speed Fix (Froyo + Speed Fix)

This is a *really* good site, complete with a (non-megashare style) download link!

http://hemorrdroids.net/froyo-with-new-speed-fix/

Avid reader,

You will of course know how difficult it has been for the humble 3GS iPhone user to JailBreak his/her phone. Well finally a group of elite hackers and coders have put together a ‘userland’ Jailbreak.

‘userland’ means simply – point and click… no complex restore processes; just plug your phone in and press ‘Jailbreak’

You can download it at http://spiritjb.com/

I’m off now to download all those Cydia goodies that I miss )

UPDATE – July 2010

This has now of course been superseded by www.JailbreakMe.com – this site doesn’t even require you to connect your iPhone to a PC, just simply visit the URL from Safari on the phone itself. Once complete, run all the Cydia updates, reboot and then you can install Ultrasn0w to allow full unlocking (at present up to 4.0.1 firmware) to any carrier.

Hi All,

I’ve been playing with my iPhone, and have discovered that a lot of the GSM codes that work on your average Nokia, also seem to work on the iPhone – but with more detail

I’ve compiled a list of these below (and yes… blatently borrowed the information from various other websites!) – I haven’t checked all of these codes, but most seem to work as described.

Note: (Call) means press the ‘Call’ button after entering the code shown…

General Codes

*3001#12345#* (Call). Enter Field Mode – This shows many things useful to a telephone mast engineer, but you will find that you probably will only be interested in the top-left number that shows the dB signal strength you are getting to the local mast.

*#06# Displays your IMEI (Note: This is common to all GSM phones) – The IMEI is the unique id for your mobile phone, and is used by the network to identify you in conjunction with your SIM card – In the UK, the networks can ‘block’ a phone based on this, and it is now illegal (I believe) to modify or duplicate an IMEI.

*#30# (Call). Calling line presentation check.

*#76# (Call). Check whether the connected line presentation is enabled or not.

*#5005*7672# (Call).  Displays the SMSC (SMS Centre Gateway) Number.

*#5005*5264# (Call).  Displays the Language setting and tells you the “actual language” (e.g: ‘en’).

Call Forwarding / Divert (for each call type, e.g. Voice, Data, etc):

*#21# (Call).  Setting interrogation for call forwards (enabled / disabled)

*#43# (Call).  Shows if ‘Call Waiting’ is enabled
*#61# (Call).  Check the destination number for call forwarding on ‘Unanswered’
*#62# (Call).  Check the destination number for call forwarding on ‘No Service’

*#67# (Call).  Check the destination number for call forwarding on ‘Busy’

To Set Call forwarding manually:-

DIVERT ALL
ON: **21*XXXXXXXXXX# (Call) (XXXXXXXXX = Destination Phone Number)
OFF:##21# (Call)

DIVERT IF BUSY
ON: **67*XXXXXXXXXX# (Call)
OFF:##67# (Call)

DIVERT IF SWITCHED OFF (or ‘No Signal > 20mins’)
ON: **62*XXXXXXXXXX# (Call)
OFF:##62# (Call)

DIVERT IF NO ANSWER
ON: **61*XXXXXXXXXX# (Call)
OFF:##61# (Call)

Call Barring/Blocking:

*#33# (Call). Check for call control bars.

For Pre-pay / PAYG phones (these seem to be AT&T specific, but give them a go!):

*777# (Call). Account balance.

*225# (Call). Bill Balance.

*646# (Call). Check minutes.

*3282# (Call). View wireless data usage statistics (also *data#).
*225# (Call). Check the bill balance on your AT&T account (also *bll#).
*729# (Call). Makes a call to AT&T to pay your wireless bill.

*639# (Call). Show upgrade eligibility (also *new#)

That’s all folks!

Paul

This quick guide will explain how to install MAME (Multi Arcade Machine Emulator) onto your Jailbroken iPhone

Ok, before we begin, you need to check that you have the following configured:-

• iPhone (Jailbroken) with Cydia installed
• A PC (or Mac) with a SFTP (SSH Secure FTP) client (FileZilla is a nice ‘free’ client)
• A copy of the ROMs you want to play
• A fair idea of how to use Cydia, SFTP, SSH etc…

Step 1.

Install Mame4iPhone, simply search on Cydia for ‘Mame’ (from the ZodTTD repository) and it will be the 2nd or 3rd item down the list.

Step 2.

Install “WhatIP” from Cydia (this app will tell you what IP address your iPhone is using)

Step 3.

Go back to the iPhone home screen, and tap on the WhatIP icon. You should see something like this:-

Step 4.

SFTP into your iPhone – The default username / password is “root” and “alpine”  [As a side note, its a good idea to change this!]

Place the ROM’s into the following folder: /var/mobile/Media/ROMs/MAME/roms

Step 5.

Play !!!!

Hi Avid Reader,

As you probably know by now, I’m a VB programmer. I’ve spent many year using VB6, and am now (under duress) having to migrate to VB.NET.

The purpose of this article is to show you some cool hint’s, tip’s, trick’s and bug-fixes that I’ve found along the way. I’ll be updating this Blog entry as time moves forward, so stay tuned to this one!

List View Flickers

This is just plain stupid. The standard ListView control (as part of the Common Control Library 6) invalidates the entire control each time a new item is added – e.g. lvInfo.Items.Add(“Hello World”)

This can be fixed using a little bit of Windows ‘SendMessage’ tweaking;

' Place at the top of the Form Class

Declare Auto Function SendMessage Lib "user32.dll" (ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, _
 ByVal msg As Integer, _
 ByVal wParam As IntPtr, _
 ByVal lParam As IntPtr) As IntPtr

 Const LVM_FIRST = &H1000
 Const LVM_SETEXTENDEDLISTVIEWSTYLE = (LVM_FIRST + 54)
 Const LVM_GETEXTENDEDLISTVIEWSTYLE = (LVM_FIRST + 55)
 Const LVS_EX_DOUBLEBUFFER = &H10000
 Const LVS_EX_BORDERSELECT = &H8000

' Place in the Form_Load event

 Dim styles As Long
 styles = SendMessage(lvInfo.Handle, LVM_GETEXTENDEDLISTVIEWSTYLE, 0, 0&)
 styles = styles Or LVS_EX_DOUBLEBUFFER Or LVS_EX_BORDERSELECT
 Call SendMessage(lvInfo.Handle, LVM_SETEXTENDEDLISTVIEWSTYLE, 0, styles)

This fix gives you a nice, smooth update each time.

The next fix is “How to keep the last item entered into a ListView visible…”

lv = myFormName.lvInfo.Items.Add("My Information to Show")
lv.EnsureVisible()

Simple, but effective!

Getting the App.Path in VB.NET

Another simple one (when you know it!) :-

Dim AppPath As String = Application.StartupPath()

Reading and Writing INI Files

Microsoft wants us to abandon INI Files and use XML instead. Whilst this may seem logical, its not always the simplest way of doing something (which sums VB.NET up really….) – This Class will give you a simple way of reading and writing INI Files.

Public Class IniFile
 ' API functions
 Private Declare Ansi Function GetPrivateProfileString _
 Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "GetPrivateProfileStringA" _
 (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, _
 ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpDefault As String, _
 ByVal lpReturnedString As System.Text.StringBuilder, _
 ByVal nSize As Integer, ByVal lpFileName As String) _
 As Integer
 Private Declare Ansi Function WritePrivateProfileString _
 Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "WritePrivateProfileStringA" _
 (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, _
 ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpString As String, _
 ByVal lpFileName As String) As Integer
 Private Declare Ansi Function GetPrivateProfileInt _
 Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "GetPrivateProfileIntA" _
 (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, _
 ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal nDefault As Integer, _
 ByVal lpFileName As String) As Integer
 Private Declare Ansi Function FlushPrivateProfileString _
 Lib "kernel32.dll" Alias "WritePrivateProfileStringA" _
 (ByVal lpApplicationName As Integer, _
 ByVal lpKeyName As Integer, ByVal lpString As Integer, _
 ByVal lpFileName As String) As Integer
 Dim strFilename As String

 ' Constructor, accepting a filename
 Public Sub New(ByVal Filename As String)
 strFilename = Filename
 End Sub

 ' Read-only filename property
 ReadOnly Property FileName() As String
 Get
 Return strFilename
 End Get
 End Property

 Public Function GetString(ByVal Section As String, _
 ByVal Key As String, ByVal [Default] As String) As String
 ' Returns a string from your INI file
 Dim intCharCount As Integer
 Dim objResult As New System.Text.StringBuilder(256)
 intCharCount = GetPrivateProfileString(Section, Key, _
 [Default], objResult, objResult.Capacity, strFilename)
 If intCharCount > 0 Then GetString = _
 Left(objResult.ToString, intCharCount)
 End Function

 Public Function GetInteger(ByVal Section As String, _
 ByVal Key As String, ByVal [Default] As Integer) As Integer
 ' Returns an integer from your INI file
 Return GetPrivateProfileInt(Section, Key, _
 [Default], strFilename)
 End Function

 Public Sub WriteString(ByVal Section As String, _
 ByVal Key As String, ByVal Value As String)
 ' Writes a string to your INI file
 WritePrivateProfileString(Section, Key, Value, strFilename)
 Flush()
 End Sub

 Public Sub WriteInteger(ByVal Section As String, _
 ByVal Key As String, ByVal Value As Integer)
 ' Writes an integer to your INI file
 WriteString(Section, Key, CStr(Value))
 Flush()
 End Sub

 Private Sub Flush()
 ' Stores all the cached changes to your INI file
 FlushPrivateProfileString(0, 0, 0, strFilename)
 End Sub

 End Class

 

This can be used in the following manner:-

 Dim settings As New IniFile(Application.StartupPath & "\My_INI_File.ini")
 gCustName = settings.GetString("General", "CustName", "Not Registered")
 gCustSerial = settings.GetString("General", "CustSerial", "")