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Nino
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In response to my earlier post on How to hard-reset your HTC Wizard, some folks wrote me to ask why, if they can use the ‘Clear Storage’ method of performing a hard-reset, would they ever consider contorting their fingers and then make sure they hit the right buttons in the correct order in a sort of Merlin*-esque game.
The answer, gentle reader, is simple – what do you do if the device won’t boot correctly?
Case in point:
Earlier this month I drove downtown for a Microsoft / Avanade event. After I parked my car, I picked up my device and noticed that 1) it had rebooted on its own and 2) it was stuck on the Qtek screen (actions that were a bit disconcerting and not good, respectively). It might be a good thing to note that the last thing I had done before I left my house was to install Spb Pocket Plus as I had recently hard-reset my device after I was particularly naughty with some experimentations and gotten it into a ‘bad place’.
First instinct was, of course, to try the obvious – soft-reset it. Nope. Soft-reset it a few more times. Nope (..as if). A quick moment of desperation creeped in and the next thing I knew, I heard myself eliciting some soft pleading-type noises rather unbecoming of a six-foot-four, two-hundred-forty pound man. Since I had just ‘re-built’ my device and I was away from my computer, I was trying to avoid a hard-reset since I didn’t have any of my apps on my mini-SD card. No such luck.
I had no choice but to perform a hard-reset (using the hardware buttons) and see what happened. Thankfully, my device popped back to life without issue. While I was re-installing my applications later that evening, I started doing some research on Spb Pocket Plus (since it was the last app I installed before my device got itself in a bind) and I found this pinned thread over at MoDaCo. What I thought was particularly curious was that I had previously installed Spb Pocket Plus without incident. So, when I installed it this time, I un-checked ‘Safe Mode’ and have not had any issues since.
-Nino
*my sister had one of these.. ‘Mindbender’ was my favorite game. For those who want to re-live the olden days, check out this virtual Merlin
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Nino
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Last TMM post of 2005… Happy New Year! :-)
If you have not yet signed up for the Dayton-Cincinnati Code Camp on January 21,2006.... do it now!
Software / Hardware
Development
In Other News . . .
- HTC now has a US website (via msmobiles.com)
- Check out this BetaNews piece on T-Mobile 2006 expansion plans (more 850MHz action!) All I want (ok, one thing) from T-Mobile is an EDGE vs GPRS coverage map. Decent customer service would be another (I don't know which is worse, their in-store or on-the-phone customer service).. [sigh].
-Nino
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Nino
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Mike Hall posted earlier this month that the Mobile and Embedded Developers Conference 2006 Call for Papers is now open. The MEDC 2006 Call for Papers site.
Even if you are not interested in presenting, mark your calendars:
MEDC 2006: May 8 - May 11, 2006, The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV
I went to the first two MDC events (2003,2004), then missed MEDC 2005, but I will *not* be missing MEDC 2006. I've been filling my piggy-bank for a while already - see you there!
-Nino
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Nino
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Earlier this month (December 2005), some Avanade folks got together and started The Software Lifecycle Blog. Check it out. You can bet that I am subscribed.
Lucky me, I’ve gotten to work with some of these guys - pretty smart fellows whom I have a lot of respect for. Oh, and as the disclaimer says, they speak not for Avanade, but for themselves.
-Nino
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Nino
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I had to hard-reset (not the first time) my Qtek 9100 today (I was futzing with system stuff and I zigged when I should have zagged), so I thought I would blog about it for those searching for an option other than 'Clear Storage'.
Option 1:
Start > Settings > Clear Storage (then enter in the number it requests and tap 'YES')
Option 2:
Hold down the Comm Manager button(top left) and Voice Command button(top right) buttons while performing a soft-reset (depress the reset button using the stylus); after you depress the soft-reset button, [contintue to hold the two side buttons] hold down the navigation pad for ~4 seconds until you are prompted on screen [you can release the side buttons now]. Press the Send (Talk) button (i.e. the left telephony button) - or whichever button your system prompts you for.
FWIW, I have seen unsubstantiated claims that Option 2 is a 'more thorough' hard-reset than Option 1...
-Nino
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Nino
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Like Bluetooth? Want to show the world? Get yourself some Bluetooth swag. I kinda like this cap.
-Nino
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Nino
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I just noticed today that the mainstream support for SQL CE 2.0 (formally known as SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition 2.0) will be retired as of December 31, 2005.
I think the easiest way to bring it up is to head to the Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search page and enter in the formal name of the product (see above). You should see something like :
|
General Availability Date |
Mainstream Support Retired |
Extended Support Retired |
Service Pack Retired |
Notes |
| SQL Server 2000 Windows CE Edition 2.0 |
12/16/2002 |
12/31/2005 |
12/31/2007 |
Not Applicable |
Here is the link to the main Microsoft Support Lifecycle page (you should actually read this page first)
-Nino
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Nino
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It's official! I'm going to be presenting at the Dayton-Cincinnati Code Camp on Saturday, January 21, 2006 along with many other excellent presenters.
Check out the finalized schedule. Register at the Microsoft Events site.
See you there!
-Nino
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Nino
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I want.
Pretty-please, Santa? I know i’ll have to wait until after Chirstmas, but I’ve been a good boy this year (and I didn’t even ask for a XBOX 360). So, whaddaya say ? Give me a gift voucher for it?
-Nino
Now playing: Johnny Cash - Ring Of Fire
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Nino
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It's Wednesday already? How'd that happen?!?!
Hrm... tried Office 12 Beta1 on my home box (sans VM) ...it looks pretty and stuff, but I couldn't get Outlook to create a new mail message without crashing no matter how I tried. [sigh] it's Beta; back to Office11. I'll whip up a WinXP VM and try it there.
Software / Hardware
Development
In Other News . . .
- Some humor at Intel (via TinyScreenfuls)
- Visto smacks Microsoft upside the head with a lawsuit over Microsoft DirectPush Technology (then jumps in bed with NTP). Read.
- A news.com piece ponders if US carriers (i.e. non-GSM carriers Sprint and Verizon) will switch to GSM My take – maybe, but it will a long time (at least five years, maybe ten). Verizon, particularly, has a very large subscriber base (>49M) and to change all of them over to GSM phones will take significant effort (and cost) - and don’t forget plenty of complaining by consumers.
Now playing: Kings of Leon - King Of The Rodeo
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Nino
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For those wondering, The Mobile Minute (and my sanity) took a bit of a break last week. I spent the better part of the week tending to my wife (recovering from a septoplasty[1]) and to a bunch of things around the house that were going on (poor scheduling on our part). Of course, my [work] productivity plummeted (sorry, guys). She got her stents out on Friday (the surgery was Monday) and is doing better, although still in some pain (her Vicodin consumption is nearly nil now).
My work queue is back to a nominal state (I put in some serious weekend hours) and my wife and I are healthy (after a few months of illnesses). I’m back to being hip-deep in WiX (and going to be for a while) and looking forward to Friday (12/23), when the sessions for the Dayton-Cincinnati Code Camp will be announced (I submitted four session abstracts and think that two of them have a pretty good chance).
oh yeah..one of my 'friends' told me that my blog photo makes me look like a serial killer. Thanks, man. I'll get a new, friendlier pic up soon.
-Nino
[1]For the curious, her doctor did not use packing; he used soft silcone stents.
Now playing: Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane
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Nino
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On Saturday I was fixing stuffed pork chops for our main course and thought about changing it up a bit so I took a moment to peruse the usual suspects (Epicurious, FoodTV, et al) for some ideas but didn’t find anything to tickle my fancy. I hit Google and one of the links I got back was Cooking For Engineers. Some interesting things there; give it a gander.
For more of the ‘why’ of cooking er, food science, check out Alton Brown. I really enjoy his entertaining and educational show on FoodTV. My co-worker and friend Chuck gives a quick review of Alton’s first book - check it out.
Update (2005-12-20): Matt Phillips (who I'd really like to work with more) has recommended that I look at Harold McGee. Thanks, Matt! (..and speaking of, Matt knows a thing or three about this sort of thing)
-Nino
Now playing: Heartless Bastards - The Will Song
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Nino
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Gmail Mobile has recently launched – just point your mobile browser to http://m.gmail.com
Here are some screen shots using Internet Explorer Mobile on a Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC:
The login screen:
My Inbox:
Here's my take:
1) Finally, Google gives us an official Gmail mobile web interface - Yeah!
2) Finally, Google gives us an official Gmail mobile web interface - and they missed the boat.
To elaborate on #2: I think that the interface is a bit clunky and is rather scroll-intensive. All of the 'control' links (i.e. delete, refresh, etc) are at the bottom of the page; I find it annoying to have to scroll to the bottom of the page to do anything (the control links are also at the bottom of the page when viewing an individual e-mail as well). Furthermore, what I find completely aggravating is that in order to delete an e-mail I have to open it. That's just crazy, Google. Hotmail has you beat on a mobile web interface. Hands-down.
For now, I'll stick to Gmail Pocket (and yes, you can hit that link from your desktop).
-Nino
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Nino
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In reponse to my query "Does the blog post link (URL) style matter?" I received a whopping three responses (as of 20051218T23:48). hoo-boy!
Personally, I like option C presented by one of the respondants: http://nino.net/blogs/nino/OutlookDosAndDonts.aspx (which is a dasBlog-ish style, IMO). However, I'm not certain I can make CS1.1 grok that sort of URL formatting in a very short period of time, so, for now, I'll go with option B (http://nino.net/blogs/nino/archive/2005/12/15/OutlookDosAndDonts.aspx), which I was leaning towards originally. I think that having a textual name for the individual post may help folks better identify what the post was about rather then having a post with a numeric identifier..we'll see.
From a posting perspective this creates an issue as BlogJet* does not support, AFAICT, naming a post when posting to CS. So, I'll just need to copy the HTML generated from BlogJet into the CS web interface... oh well.
-Nino
*v1.6.1 recently released with support for MSN Spaces
Now playing: Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot