Vlad Hrybok's Tech Notes

By default iPhone 3G is configured to check emails only manually. To make it check email regularly the change in the settings needs to be made. Since I spent more time than I expected finding out how to make iPhone 3G check email periodically, I decided that it's worth a blog post. I was looking all over Settings | Email, Calendar and Contacts, where I thought the setting would be, and could not find it. Instead it turned out to be Settings | Fetch New Data. That what drives frequency of email checking.

(Updated 7/4/2008). Unlike Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, changing a motherboard on a machine running Windows Vista (in my case Vista Ultimate x64 with Service Pack 1) is not mentioned in the Microsoft Knowledge Base article addressing the MoBo upgrade. I tried a couple of approaches described below, but the bottom line is that the same process worked for Windows Vista, with one important difference: Vista upgrade process takes many hours. Waiting for that first reboot - the point where you replace the board - took close to two hours! And then it took a few more hours to complete the upgrade process. In the end the machine booted up and most of applications seem to be working fine.

Applications that didn't fare well are:

• Daemon Tools
  Symptoms: When system is booting, a cryptic error message is displayed, complaining about Windows version or something. Worse, an attempt to uninstall Daemon Tools failed. However, deleting the folder with Daemon Tools made the problem go away.
  Solution: Uninstall Daemon Tools before upgrading the system, and reinstall it after upgrade is complete.
  
  
• Windows Mobile Device Center
  Symptoms: Connecting a smartphone caused Windows Mobile Device Center to crash.
  Solution: Repair Vista installation again. After I ran an upgrade installation of Vista again (overnight, because it takes untold hours to complete), this problem went away. Please note that unlike XP, Vista does not have a separate Repair Installation option. You must run Upgrade installation (for that start installation from Windows) in order to repair existing Vista installation.
  
  
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Dataset Editor
  Symptoms: Opening and XSD schema or a Dataset in Design mode in VS 2008 resulted in opening the file either as a text, or as XML.
  Solution: Please check this post.
  

Now a little more about how the first upgrade attempt went down.

Having to watch the upgrade screen for hours in order to intercept the first rebooting is no fun, and ironically can be mitigated by the bug on the "Vista x64 with SP1" DVD, which makes a rebooting process always stop indefinitely waiting for user input. This bug is a mixed blessing, because you can go about your normal life while waiting for the first reboot while the existentially-named "Gathering Files" step of the Vista upgrade sequence is running, but after you have replaced the main board you want the upgrade process do its reboots without your involvement, and that's where the bug turns from being a help to being a hassle. Anyway, you would be wise to allocate half-day for the motherboard upgrade on the Vista system, and by all means back up your system before the upgrade.

Failed Mobo upgrade approaches included uninstalling board-specific drivers before turning the PC off and replacing the motherboard. It didn't work at all - machine went into reboot loop. Attempts to boot in the Safe Mode stopped at BTHidMgr.sys, which I later found could be related to having Nero's InCD installed. I don't have InCD, but I do have Daemon Tools, which incidentally is the only application that stopped working after the upgrade. I never tried to remove Daemon Tools before trying the Vista upgrade path, so the next time I would recommend trying the quick "uninstall drivers, uninstall Daemon Tools/InCD, Reboot" approach first. Only if that does not work, get the huge bag of popcorn and do Vista upgrade.

It used to be this way: you commit to a two-year contract with a wireless service and get locked, but deeply discounted or even free phone. With iPhone situation is beyond pale:

• You get what seems to be a full-price, but locked phone (from $300 to $600 depending on the model and the time you bought it);
• You get locked into two-year contract;
• And Apples feels free to brick your iPhone if you have installed 3rd party software or unlocked it.

While all this might be legal, this looks like one big mass-screwing of Apple/AT&T customers. I feel lucky iTunes refused to sync my iPhone with 64 bit Windows and I could return iPhone for the full refund. I was planning on unlocking the phone, but after I learned about modified iPhones turned into "iBricks" after the latest firmware upgrade, iPhone deal looks like one big sucker.

Update: This issue may have been fixed as of April 2008: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1426.

I spent approximately a week researching iPhone and everything related to it. Not a single time did I see anything that would suggest that iPhone does not sync with 64 bit version of Windows - not even on the back of the iPhone box, where system requirements are spelled out. So all the anticipation of playing with iPhone came down crashing when I put it in the cradle and got "Please connect iPhone to a computer running a 32-bit version of Windows XP (SP2) or Windows Vista." message:


This was the first Apple product I ever bought, and what a wonderful F-U I got. Apple is indeed not an engineering company, but a designer shop making cool-looking accessories - a Luis Vuitton of IT. The only thing remaining for Apple is to figure out that technology thing.

Quick Internet search established without a doubt that iPhone won't sync with x64 Windows systems and tech support rep confirmed that there is absolutely nothing they can do other that suggesting to install 32 bit operating system.

Anyway, the iPhone is going back. To be fair, Apple customer support was fast and helpful, and the rep who processed my return request waived restocking fee on the unit (I bought it from Apple online) and they promised to send prepaid FedEx shipping label.

I switched to Cingular from Verizon about a year ago because Cingular has GSM phones, and I want to use my phone when travelling to Europe. I got Cingular 3125 (a.k.a. HTC Star Trek, a.k.a. QTEK 8500), based on Windows SmartPhone WM5. The phone, of course, was locked by Cingular. Now the time came for me to take the phone abroad, and knowing that there are two ways of unlocking the phone: through the provider, or using 3rd party tools/services, I started with less risky - called Cingular.

I called Cingular (the new AT&T) help line and told the tech support lady that I was travelling to Europe and would like to have my phone unlocked. Without even asking me what country I am travelling to, she said that they will not unlock my phone and instead I would have to pay for their international roaming package.

Then I tried cellunlocks.com - one of the many services that claim to unlock the phone remotely. I paid $6.99, followed the instructions - only to receive the email stating that unlocking my phone was not possible, with no details about why, and that the full refund will be posted within 10 days. Eight days later there is still no refund, so you may want to stay away from this "service". UPDATE: Refund was finally posted two weeks after they stated they can't unlock the phone.

Then I called Cingular again, and this time I told the rep that I am travelling to Ukraine, that I will be using SIM card provided to me there, and that I would like to have my phone unlocked. This rep seemed more attentive. First, he made sure that my phone will work on Ukrainian networks. Then he said that they will unlock the phone. He made me pull IMEI ID and placed an unlock request with Cingular. Within hours I received the call from Cingular with the unlock code and unlock instructions - all I needed now is a SIM card from a foreign GSM service provider, because phone prompts for unlock code only when "non-naive" SIM card is inserted. Luckily, my relative visiting us here, had her SIM card with her. I popped it in, entered unlocked code and that was it.

I suspect that I was successful in my second attempt to unlock the phone through Cingular because they probably don't have roaming agreement with Ukrainian providers.

The bottom line is: If you want to have your provider unlock your GSM phone, tell them you are travelling to a country that does not have roaming agreement with your provider.

My Windows Mobile 5 based Cingular 3125 cellphone stopped syncing with Vista desktop quite some time ago. Synchronization error stated "ActiveSync encountered a problem on the desktop", which is weird since Vista has replaced ActiveSync with Sync Center and Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC). Checking error log on the device yielded reference to "Support Code 0x85010014", but no information on how to contact support. 

Quick brute force "google & fix" approach didn't work, so it was until now that I found time to find the solution. As many articles on Internet point out, Support Code 0x85010014 problem is related to syncing with Microsoft Office Outlook. In my case it was Outlook 2007 running on Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.

Despite legions of people experiencing this problem, it was surprisingly hard to find the workaround. The fix (first mentioned here) turned out to be simple: repair Microsoft Office installation by going to Control Panel -> Programs And Feature, selecting Microsoft Office 2007 and then clicking Change button on the toolbar.

I have Cingular 3125 windows smartphone. When I bought it I also got Kingston 1GB MicroSD flash card to stash my MP3 files on it. That didn't work well. The behavior was strange: all files and folders on the storage card were accessible immediately after phone was turned on, but some time later only folders in the storage card's root were shown by the phone's file explorer or Windows Media Player library - all other files and folders seemed missing until phone was powered down and then turned back on. I replaced the card with Sandisk, which worked fine - until something happened and all files on the card got corrupted or missing. I had to re-format the Sandisk card and I formatted it as FAT, a.k.a. FAT16. To my astonishment, it has started to behave just like my old Kingston card. I reformatted it again as FAT32 and it has started working fine! So here you go: format your storage card as FAT32 for using it in your Microsoft Windows Mobile Smartphone.

After deciding that PDAs are too large for everyday use, I anxiously waited for my cellphone contract to expire so I could get Cingular 3125 Windows SmartPhone. On paper it had everything I wanted: GSM, latest Windows Smartphone OS (which means I can write .NET programs for it), extension flash card, and synchronization with Outlook Email and Calendar. Describing my experience with the phone would be a full-fledged entry on its own, but I am not ready to talk about that right now. Today I'll write about synchronizing my windows smartphone with Vista.

The big news is that ActiveSync is no more. Unlike older versions of Windows on Vista external devices are synchronized using built-in ActiveSync replacement called Sync Center. Back on XP ActiveSync has rarely given me any issue with couple of iPAQ PDAs I owned for the last few years. Therefore Vista's Sync Center got me confused from the start because its tray icon  does never seem to be reflecting the reality: is shows syncing in progress while it has finished long time ago, or it claims that no devices are connected, while the phone is connected. I was trying to troubleshoot connection issues, when I almost by accident stumbled across Vista Mobile Device Device, where connection and synchronization status were displayed correctly. From that point forward I started ignoring Sync Center and would simply click my phone icon in the Sync Center to go straight to the Mobile Device Center.

Here's how the two look like when my phone is connected:
Exhibit A: Phone connected but Sync Center does not show that


Exhibit B: At the same time Windows Mobile Center sees my phone connected and correctly reports time of the last successful sync.

The Verdict: Skip Sync Center and use Mobile Device Center.