CommsBlog

UPDATED on 18th Jan – Someone (somehow) managed to attack this page….

Dear Avid Reader,

Here we are once again with one of my ‘real world’ hack’s… This one gets used almost every day!

In my modest home in Latchingdon, Essex – England, I have a ‘Bar in the Garden’. This ‘Bar’ is approx 25′ x 18′ and has an indoor BBQ, Gas Heating and a Bar Counter with cupboards, fridges and glass shelves.

Clearly I needed to think carefully about the entertainment system!

My key requirements were:-

• Music, TV & Internet

Now the Music would obviously come from my huge MP3 collection (and even bigger CD collection), TV would come from Satellite TV via a dish on the side of the bar.

After messing about with Windows Media Edition, I decided on using Media Portal (www.team-mediaportal.com)  which is a fantastic open-source Media Center application. Not only does it provide the usual DVD/MP3/Pictures interface, but also supports TV Cards, EPG and even a TiVO-style recording facility.

All the sound hardware was derived from old HiFi amplifiers and surround-sound systems, and the TV was a £150 HD Ready no-name from Comets.

The app plays nice with Hauppauge TV / Remote combination cards, and has a very configurable interface (with skinning capabilities).

At the other end of my bar, I have the Guitar stuff – As you can see below, I’ve set up a 2nd LCD panel (using a TV Interface board I purchased off eBay), add a £20 DVD player from Tesco and you have a play-along-with-the-music system!

You can still play a blackjack hand blackjack hand or two even with Ubuntu, as long as you use the blackjack odds charts, casino blackjack strategy, and Blackjack Tip guides from CasinoBonus.org!

Click on the Pic to see a bigger version

Hi All,

Well I went and got myself an Asus Eee PC the other day. What a fantastic piece of kit… but I have to say I didn’t like the OS much. You either have a ‘fisher price’ Xandros Linux desktop, or a Xandros KDE based one… Personally (and I am new to linux) I prefer Ubuntu’s Gnome-based layout.

Now in theory, this shouldn’t be too hard, but in order to make sure that this all works properly, I spent a great deal of time researching the process at EeeUser.com and various other sites.

This is my ‘How to’

1. Reboot your Eee PC and ensure that the boot sequence is set to ATAPI CD Rom as the first choice.
2. Plug in a USB CD Caddy and insert your Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon Live CD (Download Here)
3. Once booted, click on Applications, Terminal and type gconf-editor
4. Browse to apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options and uncheck constrain_y (Full details Here) – This allows you to move any window up beyond the height of the screen, which is very much needed during this install.
5. Double Click on the “Install” Icon on the Desktop. Any time a window doesn’t fit, hold down the Alt key and drag the window off the top of the screen so you can see the buttons.
6. Go through all the normal bits until you get to the Partitioning. Select manual and delete all the existing partitions. Create one partition of 4001Mb that is EXT2 and has a mount point of “/” – Ignore any “swap partition” warnings.
7. Complete Install (answering any obvious questions accordingly)
8. Reboot (after removing the CD)
9. Redo Step 4 again (it gets lost in the install)
10. Acknowledge the Athos “Restricted Driver” message
11. Minimise Disk Writes (All obtained from Eeeuser.com) by doing the following:-
    1. Adding the following to /etc/fstab tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults,noatime 0 0
    2. Repeat for /tmp, /var/lock, /var/run and /var/tmp
    3. Set defaults,noatime 0 2 on the main ext2 partition (See HERE for more details) to prevent excessive wear and tear on your SSD
    4. If you ignored me and added a swap partition as well, then edit the /etc/sysctl.conf and add a line at the end that says vm.swappiness=0 this will tell the OS to use RAM in preference to Swap files.
    5. Go into Add/Remove, and remove the pointless applications that are taking up room on your little 4Gb SSD… I removed the following:-
12. 1. Most of the games (Really…How often are you actually going to play these?)
    2. F-spot Photo Manager (I user Flikr, so not needed)
    3. OnBoard (on-screen keyboard… not needed as we have one!)
    4. Orca (I can see just fine thank you…)
    5. Xsane (Nope… no scanners or faxes plugged into my Eee)
13. Get your GMAIL all set up (Samsung tips here apply equally well… http://www.internet-tools.co.uk/blog/index.php?s=gmail)

Ok. So we have a working Eee PC running Ubuntu, but there are a few things ‘Broken’…. Battery Indicator, Wireless Lan, Webcam, Power Buttons, Lid sensor, Skype…..

Go the the Eeeuser.com site HERE to fix these issues (far to long to cut’n'paste here) and pn Samiux’s Blog HERE

But things I did fix from the Eeeuser site were:-

• Wireless network (via ndiswrapper method)
• Suspend/Resume/Power Down issues
• Webcam support (you have to enable it in the BIOS for Ubuntu to see it – it will reboot twice once enabled)

Click on the Pic to see a bigger version

The next thing was to make sure that everything took up as little space as possible. These were the steps I took:-

• Installed the ‘Littlefox’ theme into FireFox (takes up much less screen real-estate)
• Went into Appearance Preferences and set:-
  • All the fonts to 8pt
  • Icons to “Icon Only” (no text)
• Adjusted mouse sensitivity (wasn’t detecting my touchpad-taps very well)
• Set both status bars to 19 pixels in height
• Added my networked HP printer (I use a wireless gateway adapter connected to the Ethernet port on the OfficeJet)

Then I added some goodies…

• Enabled all the repositories in System, Administration, Software Sources
• Updated everything by going into System, Administration, Update Manager
• Installed all the BlueTooth stuff (so I can beam from my Samsung to the Eee PC)
• Installed Camorama (Web Cam Capture and Test App)
• Installed v2 of Skype (it has webcam support under linux)

And thats it…. all working, and I am in fact completing this blog entry on my Eee PC with Ubuntu!

Click on the Pic to see a bigger version

27th November – NOTE: When installing the ndiswrapper, make sure you place the ndis folder that you downloaded from the cd/website somewhere sensible! I deleted the folder (thinking that ndiswrapper would copy the relevant files somewhere) and spent 2 hours trying to get my wireless lan working again

29th November – Added some screenshots of it in action.

30th November – Firstly… sorry if you haven’t been able to view this blog… Fasthosts cobbled my MySQL server Secondly… I have had a minor problem (irritating, more than an issue) where the Eee PC will randomly reboot during the initial boot sequence. Essentially it gets ‘stuck’ about 20% through the first Ubuntu progress bar, and then reboots just fine. Haven’t sussed what it is yet, but it only happened after I enabled the Webcam in the BIOS…

Hi gang,

I have a new list of goodies for your Samsung i600 – the only thing I can’t seem to solve yet is the WM5 Bluetooth DUN issue. For those of you who are unaware, Microsoft (in their infinite wisdom) have removed DUN [dial-up networking] from the Bluetooth Stack. The net effect of this is that things like TomTom can no longer access the phone as a data modem for traffic downloads etc… Really bloody annoying….

Anyway, some more top tips and software for you:-

More Codes

*#1546792*# – this code provide access to the Network & Call Settings – This allows you to switch off 3G functionality, which will considerably increase battery life if you don’t use your phone for data. Once in the menu, select 3, then 5 and then change to GSM

Ringtones from Storage Card

If you want to store all your ringtones on your memory card in order to save space, you can make it show them automatically by placing them in the \Storage Card\My Documents folder.

Software

Registry Editing – Something we have to do from time-to-time in order to hack our little phones… well here is a nice free one for you; Total Commander [link]

Screen Capture – This freeware application from Iliumsoft lets you capture your screens so that you can show them in your blog [link]

Customising the Main Screen (Cardwheel Theme)

First, copy the following files from the Samsung and save them (make a backup copy as well!!!!!) – All are located in the \Windows folder on the Phone; background_320x240.bmp, center_tile.png, top1.png, top2.png, low1.png, low2.png, low3.png

[photopress:sshot001.jpg,full,centered]

Edit all the images, based on these rules;

Transparencies figure a lot in this template – use a decent editor like Photoshop or PaintShopPro 9/10

background_320x240.bmp – This is the main background when the screen is first drawn.

top2.png – First menu bar (Where it says ‘Now Playing’)
top1.png – Second menu bar (Where it says ‘Favourite Contacts’)
Both of these have different degrees of transparency set in the Alpha channels… Don’t mess with this! (Keep it the same on any new image)

center_tile.png – Main Card Area (Where is shows ‘Gmail’ and icons)
Ensure that this is a solid image (no Transparency) with hi-contrast to make the text show.

low1.png – 1st lower menu Bar (‘appointments’)
low2.png - 2nd lower menu Bar (‘profiles’)
low3.png – 3rd lower Bar – visible when card wheel scrolls
Again, both these images have transparency set in the alpha channels, which should stay the same on any edited image.

Once you have edited your images, change the theme, copy the files over the top of the originals (back them up first!) and then change the theme back to Card Wheel.

[photopress:samsung_i600.jpg,thumb,pp_image] [photopress:samsung_sgh_i600.jpg,thumb,pp_image] 

Specification: Samsung SGH-i600 is a HSDPA/Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE Class 10/WiFi Windows Mobile 5 smartphone and with a  QWERTY keyboard, 1.3 Megapixel camera/camcorder, Music player, Bluetooth, Micro SD slot, 218MB ROM and 64MB RAM – Samsung Spec Sheet: [Link]

Official Samsung SGH-i600 User Manual – [Link] – PDF 2.2MB

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Hello again.It seems my ‘hacks’ for the i600 are going down a treat, so I thought I would list a few more for everyone…In the UK, the Samsung SGH-i600 (Called the ‘Blackjack’ in the USA) is only provided via Orange. Unfortunately this means that it has the horrible Orange branding [crippleware], and is only running Windows Mobile 5.

The Samsung site allows you to upgrade from WM5 to Windows Mobile 6 via this link: http://www.samsungmobile.com/promotion/i600/index.jspUnfortunately… the UK is not listed (to to Orange… Grrrr…), but if you are from one of the following countries, you can slide on over there and grab some WM6 (well… WM5.2 in new clothes!); Belgium, Bulgaria, Demark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Ukraine.

Apparently, you can override your i600 to another country + language (make sure it’s one you can read!) and then download the appropriate update, get WM6 and then change the country settings back. This is all controlled by the service menu by dialling *#1546792*# and then using the preconfig password *#81230*# – THIS WILL WIPE YOUR PHONE so don’t do this without making a full backup first! Full instructions over at vowe.net; http://vowe.net/archives/008792.html

Keyboard Shortcuts (For the European Model)

Function	Details
Task Manager	Hold Down the [Home] button to show the task manager
Quick Links	Hold in the [Jog Dial] to brings up a editable list of Shortcuts
Quicklist	Pressing the power button brings up the quicklist (Change to Silent etc…)
Voice Assist	Press and hold the “volume up” button on the left side of the phone, near the top to bring up the voice recorder
Custom	You can set the Back button on the side to open whatever app you want when held for a few seconds (by default is ‘Camera’)
Quick “KeyLock”	Hold down the [End] Key for a few seconds
Quick “Silent Mode”	Hold down then ‘#’ key to toggle Silent mode.
Numeric in TXT	Quickly enter numbers without changing input mode by holding down the according button for a couple of seconds
Page Up/Down in IE	When browsing the internet using Internet Explorer Mobile Edition, use T and V to scroll Page Up / Down

I have found lots of information and hacks here: http://i607.org/ the SGH-i607 is the USA version, but many of the ‘hacks’ work on the European version of this phone

Hidden Applications

Whilst rooting around in the \Windows folder on my phone, I found a series of applications that don’t normally show on the menu. Here is a list of the more interesting ones I found. If you want to use them on a frequent basis, use the ActiveSync explorer to right-click-drag and create a shortcut in the \Start Menu folder for any of these apps.

EXE Name	Details
CamTest_Int, CamTest_Ext	Turns on and shows the Internal (front) or External (rear) cameras. Interestingly, this takes <1sec to initialise, so why does the camera app take so long to load!?
cprog	Appears to show the last call details
instmsgr	MSN Instant Messenger (You could setup a quick shortcut to this instead of having to go through the Internet / MSN / Messenger route…
MySimMessage	Shows SMS Messages that are on the SIM (as opposed to on the Phone)
Playsound	MP£ Test app that allows you to test the Speaker, Earpiece and Headset – Handy for checking your Bluetooth headsets etc
RTCViewer	Shows the internal RTC (Real Time Clock)
SoundTest	Haven’t quite worked this one out… it appears to be a more advanced version of PlaySound
wrlsmgr	Wireless Manager – Top Tip: Set a shortcut to startmenu, then assign to a speed dial (Press Menu when the icon is selected, then choose ’1 – Menu Shortcut’) – I’ve set mine as speedfial 9, so I just hold down the ’9′ key for a couple of second to bring up the Wireless manager
TestMode	Hidden App: You need to create a shortcut to the Start Menu to access this, or use something like Resco File Explorer to see it. This shows *lots* of Engineer stuff (3G, UTMS, GSM Cell Info etc), and appears to let you do (possibly) damaging things to your phone. Only use this if you know what you are doing!

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NES Emulation

I found most of this information on i607.org’s NES Page [Link], but here is the simple guide for the UK Version of the Samsung SGH-i600

1. Download Pocket Nester Plus – http://mobile.surrealnetworks.com/Dash%20Applications/SN%20PocketNesterPlus%20D.cab
2. Download either All the ROM’s as a 40Mb CAB File (http://surrealnetworks.net/NES%20ROMs/393NESROMS.cab), or the ’50 Classics’ as a 10Mb CAB File (http://surrealnetworks.net/NES%20ROMs/50%20NES%20Classics.cab) or individual games [HERE]
3. Install Pocket Nester
4. Install the ROMS (to your Memory card!)
5. Install the Pocket Nester Update [Pocket Nester Update] by copying the .exe over the top of the one in the \Program Files\PocketNester (You only need this if you already have an older version)
6. Open the game, go into Preferences and tick “Associate .NES Files”, also set up all the keys (Try to make them memorable!)
7. The Open ROM option does not work unless you install tgetfile.dll… this is time-limited, so I suggest just browsing to the ROM Folder and select the Game you want. Nester will automatically load. The ROM’s should be located in \Storage Card\My Documents\ROMs

When playing a game, if you can’t seem to get it to exit, hold down the HOME key, this will bring up the menu.

Hi all,

Well as you may (or may not!) know, I am a gadget-freak! I *love* new toys, and my latest in a long line of mobile phones is the Samsung SGH-i600

First of all, here are a few things to note about this phone:-

• It runs Windows Mobile Edition 5 or 6 (but comes with WM5 in the UK under Orange PCS)
• It is similar but not exactly the same as the USA “Blackjack” version.
• It features GSM, EDGE, WiFi and 3G (Well… the European version anyway….)
• It is quite ‘hackable’ if you have the time (and like me, *hate* the ‘Orange’ branding!)

The phone itself was the usual “Free” upgrade from Orange, but (like almost all phones I have got from them) was crippled with the horrible, slow, nasty (are you getting the picture yet?) ‘Orange’ branding.

In order to get all the sexy features like “Card Wheel” home screen, you have to flash your phone with a better version of software. This will also work for ‘Bricked’ phones (dead because the wrong firmware applied etc…)

[photopress:Home_screen.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:home_screen_setup.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Now this procedure isn’t for the faint-of-heart. You will lose *all* settings, address book….. basically like doing a ‘factory reset’ on the phone. But in turn you will have a fully-featured phone *without* carrier placed menu restrictions or branding. It will also lose all your SMS/WAP/MMS settings, so make a note of them first, or refer to this excellent site that shows them all for each carrier: http://www.filesaveas.com

At this point, I will just say:-

This information is provided as-is and without warranty. Anyone using this information does so at their own risk, and I will not be held responsible for any damage caused directly or indirectly by this information. It is produced as a ‘guide’ for information purposes only. If you ‘Brick’ your phone, it’s your fault! – NOTE: I have only tested this on a UK Orange Branded SGH-i600

Now…. due to copyrights etc, I will not post any links or files in this blog, but I will tell you what to look for. This guide is an abridged version of something I found by Volker Weber on vowe.net - The instructions there were for upgrade to Version 6 of Windows Mobile, but I never went that far. Once I removed the branding, WM5 was fine and dandy for me. I will also say (and this should be taken as anecedotal) that my phone has been a lot more stable (no lock-ups) since I loaded this firmware.

You will need:-

• Samsung Data Link Cable (should have come with the phone)
• “Blackjack” modem driver (different from the one on the CD that came with the phone) – This is also known as the “Samsung Composite USB Driver 4.34″
• A suitable “Flash” file

Now the driver and “Flash” file can be found together in a RAR file called “Firmware_i600_XXGD1.rar” the XX indicates that it is not tied to a particular country. You can get this from various places, but the one I have also has a .txt file in the RAR called NO Brand.txt – if you find that one, it worked perfectly for me.

1. Install the Samsung Drivers
2. Disable ActiveSync (you can un-check the “Allow USB connections” in Connection Settings)
3. Put the Phone into ‘special mode’
   1. Turn phone off.
   2. Turn phone on whilst holding the Right Soft-key and the Back/Cancel key on the side#
   3. If you have done this correctly, the phone will show something like “* USB Downloader Open 1.1″
4. Install the update – Warning: Takes a very long time. Be patient.
5. If doesn’t appear to work. Retry from Step 2.
6. Re-enable ActiveSync (after the phone has rebooted)

Hurrah – you should have a de-branded Windows Mobile 5 working on your Samsung i600 now, and should see some nice home-screen themes etc.

 Of course, the next thing you need to do is make it a bit more useful.

Mobile Office

This version of office is available for Windows Mobile 6 only. However… A few clever souls de-packaged it, and re-packaged it for WM5. Search the usual torrent locations for Office.WM6.WCE.BY – nuff said?

Instant Messaging

Ok – tried lots of them, the best of the best are:-

• Fring – Free application
• Agile Messenger – Commercial

Gmail

Gmail is so easy to set up on your Samsung.

1. Enable POP3 in your Gmail account settings.
2. Go into Messaging on the Samsung and add a new account.
3. Set up the screens as shown here

[photopress:gmail_1.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:gmail_2.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:gmail_3.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

[photopress:gmail_4.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:gmail_5.jpg,thumb,pp_image][photopress:gmail_6.jpg,thumb,pp_image]

Note: If you retrieve your mail from another PC, it magically disappears off your phone next time you sync. It is also advisabled NOT to use the auto-download unless you are on an unlimited data plan, or connected via WiFi all the time.

Other useful tools

WiFiFoFum2 – This allows to to ‘Scan’ for local WiFi networks (a bit like NetStumbler, but works!)

zaTelnetSP5 – Allows you to ‘Telnet’ into a host (pretty good actually!)

BTCrawler – Lets you BlueJack (to a certain degree anyway….)

SKTools – Excellent app for ‘cleaning’ your Mobile Windows OS and Registry. Commercial App.

Tips and Tricks

T9 Dictionary – Press the “*” key in SMS mode, and you can select T9 in the list. More useful on this with a full QWERTY keyboard than any other phone I’ve used bizarrely…

Task Manager – Press and hold either the “Home” key.

Shortcut Menu – Press and hold the navi-wheel in, you can select an existing shortcut, or “edit” to add/delete them.

Hidden Codes

I take no responsibility for the use of these codes. They are provided for information only.

*#1546792*#  – Service Menu

From here you can check software / hardware / firmware versions, get the MAC address for your WiFi adapter etc.

*#81230*# – Passcode for “Pre-configuration” (apparently you can change country/carrier here – DOES A FACTORY RESET AND WIPES ALL INFO!)

*#06# – Show IMEI Number (works on almost any phone)