Windows Mobile 6.1 Firmware – Sprint Mogul

I updated my phone with a developer version of the firmware.  The production release was issued 8.6.2008 and the link below matches the exact rev I have installed on my phone.

I found the following benefits of the firmware:

• NO SYSTEM RESETS.  None, since the firmware update.
• Device certs for ActiveSync support (future requirement for my company for security)
• Longer battery life (this is more qualitative, but it is noticeably better)
• Text messages conversations are threaded
• Eliminated occasional problems I had answering calls when phone locked
• Java updated – Google Mail application works
• GPS application support enabled – works with Google Maps real time
• Did I mention NO SYSTEM RESETS?

There are probably some other issues, but these are ones I know off the top of my head.

Also, I had a local problem with ActiveSync that I resolved with help from Sandy Dahri.  Details on link below .  The root cause appears to be a beta release of Microsoft Desktop Search 4.0.

Windows Mobile 6.1 for Mogul - Sprint

http://www.htc.com/us/SupportDownloadList.aspx?p_id=75&cat=all

ActiveSync problem fix

http://www.paulbegley.com/2008/07/office-2007-and-activesync-45-problems.htm

Technorati Tags: HTC,Sprint,Microsoft,mobile,firmware,ActiveSync

END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD

Sarah is taking the HP TX1110US laptop back to school in August.  Last week she mentioned that the system was mysteriously shutting down after about an hour or so.  I tried to ignore the problem, but I wanted to image the system before I installed XP.

I reset the System configuration so it would not automatically restart.  An hour later, the BOSD shows the event END_OF_NT_EVALUATION_PERIOD. 

This can’t be a Good Thing.  I Google (yes, it’s a verb).  Don’t find much, but I dug around TechNet and found that this can be generated if you installed a beta of Windows Vista SP1.  Crap.  Yeah, I did that, and never updated (well, I thought I updated…).

I uninstalled SP1, restarted (three step count down to complete the uninstall).  After restart, I used Vista Windows Update and painfully re-installed the pre-SP1 fixes, SP1, post-SP1, and just for good measure the latest security fixes as well as some HP specific hardware driver updates.

NOW the system is up and running.  I will image (Acronis is my friend), and install XP (yes, a legit license I have from my IBM Z-Pro workstations which are now running Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows 2008 Server.

Technorati Tags: Vista,backup,BSOD

Office 2007 and ActiveSync 4.5 Problems

ActiveSync stopped doing a bi-directional synchronization with my Sprint HTC Mogul a few weeks ago (naturally before I went on vacation). 

I never discovered the root cause of the problem, but it may have been a combination of Microsoft Desktop Search 4.0 beta, my Outlook profile, and my being very busy and not sorting out the problem when I noticed the synch stopped working.

Around the same time, Outlook generated an error on opening that stated it was not the default Mail Client, even though the option was properly set.

Problem: ActiveSync would not synchronize Outlook with my HTC Mogul.  Period.  End of story.  Not even thinking considering it.  ActiveSync would connect properly, display the proper count for Contact items (934!), the count would jump to 100/934, then complete and go to Calendar without any Contacts being copied.

I reset the phone, still no joy.

Finally, Sandy suggested I delete the contents of \Windows\Messaging on the device. 

This worked!

Resolving the default client error was resolved by a re-install of Office 2007.  All my settings were saved, including my Outlook Profiles, it was just inconvenient.

I also upgraded the HTC Mogul to Windows Mobile 6.1 (Developers build downloaded from third party site, not HTC or Sprint).  It’s a very nice upgrade and I’ll post after I have it running for a few weeks.

 

Technorati Tags: Microsoft,Office,ActiveSync

Olympus W-10 Voice Album Software

I just went on a search of the Internet to find software for my Olympus W-10 digital recorder and camera.  I found some rip-off usb-drivers.com download site that requires you to register for dozens of what appear to be SPAM sources.  BTW - I registered Karl Rove at whitehouse.gov and that appeared to work, but even then I got into a circular loop and never got to the driver download.

Anyhow, to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else, I found my original driver CD and Zipped all the files so everyone can have them.

BTW - these are not available on any Olympus support site, and I realize this device is at least 8 years old, so I'm posting them for general consumption and will contact Olympus.

Olympus Voice Album W-10 Software

Technorati Tags: software,hardware,drivers,download

Vista SP1 Install

I am in the process of installing Vista SP1 on my HP AMD laptop.  The process is rather tedious, but you run a CMD script which updates your registry.  The update preps your system so you receive up to four hotfixes which are prerequisites for Vista SP1.  I applied two out of three required a restart.  I restarted after the third and my system was able to see the SP1 update when I forced a Windows Update check.

The download was ~300 Meg, and it was 'stuck' at 95% for the better part of an hour. 

After the download, you walk through an SP1 install wizard.  After the update is applied, you restart the system.  It restarts in character mode and applies 66,829 file updates which display on the top of the screen.  The last update is a registry update and the system automatically restarts into graphics mode.

After the restart, it updates the system in three stages, the progress is displayed as the Stage number and the percent complete for the stage.  The last phase took about 30-35 minutes and at this point, the update has taken several hours...

I was one of the many people who experienced the joy of the Vista "unauthorized change" feature and I'm not happy.

I'm not sure what happened, I install *lots* of beta, Microsoft, and third party software on all my systems.  I know what I am doing - aside from an engineering degree, I have been an MCSE since 1996 and MCT since 1998, teaching server and client operating systems.

Currently, my system is still unusable.  I will work on it later today and re-install an operating system if I am unsuccessful in fixing the Vista SP1 upgrade.  I may just choose to upgrade to Windows XP Professional, using an unused license I already own.  I am NOT happy.

Technorati Tags: Vista,SP1,XP,operating systems,Windows,Microsoft

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

RSS Web 2.0 Suite for Individuals - NewsGator

I paid for FeedDemon and I use the mobile client as well. It's a great product and I am lost without it, but the thing that is not pointed out in the press releases is that Newsgator has a great subscription model. You also have to consider the Newsgator applications (FeedDemon, etc) as part of a larger system.

You subscribe to Newsgator, this central subscription on the Newsgator server. Client software can then be installed on laptop, desktop, mobile clients and your view of the central subscription can be managed depending on your client needs. With your subscription, your client (mobile, web, and Feeddemon) will synch with the central server, so if you read a bunch of feeds at work, flagged some for follow-up or saved them to a Clippings folder, when you log in at home, they are already marked as read, or flagged into your Clippings folder.

For me, this is well worth the subscription, not only from a time savings, which is huge in my case, but because review of the Clippings let's me rapidly review lots of feeds and distill and manage the good stuff.

Feedstation is another application that is linked to Feeddemon. It can be configured to automatically download multimedia content of RSS feeds (typically, but not limited to audio podcasts) onto my primary workstation where I sync it with my Zune (I know your a Mac guy, but I *really* like the Zune with 2.3 rev firmware - I can synch podcasts wirelessly and have FM radio for working out on my bicycle trainer (Christmas gift to Dad) at home).

Technorati Tags: RSS,synchronization,tools

High Achiever, Gifted Learner, CreativeThinker

High Achiever, Gifted Learner, CreativeThinker

Interesting article. I have seen many parents get upset when their child is not placed in a gifted class. I think everyone learns differently, and although grades are important, we believe the better approach is to work with the kids until they really understand the material and the grades will come.

It was only after I completed college (ten years total) and after I taught my first Microsoft class (Windows 95, and it was a disaster...) that I revisited the entire process of learning material so I understood at a systemic level. Only after I had this level of understanding, was I able to teach others effectively.

We have three daughters, each of whom learn in a very different fashion. I think learning is also evolutionary and as individuals mature, the way they learn can, and should, change.

Joel Oleson's Blog SharePoint Land : 7 Years of SharePoint - a History Lesson

Joel Oleson's Blog SharePoint Land : 7 Years of SharePoint - a History Lesson

Sharepoint is a great tool. I am doing a deep dive on SharePoint after joining Unisys, but I have used it in limited capacities for the past four years and it's an awesome tool, particularly when you use Web Parts and MOSS Search. For me, Search is the key - a product can have all the features in the world, but if I can't find what I need, when I need it, it's worthless.

This is an interesting article by one of the SharePoint team members that gives you some background into the origins of the product and product components.

Audiograbber - MP3 conversion utility

Audiograbber  is my preferred MP3 conversion utility.  It does an awesome job, it will auto generate a directory hierarchy based on the artist name and album name and you can customize the MP3 name based on track, title, etc.  It supports Ogg Vorbis, MP3 and other output formats.

I like to use the LAME (LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder) add-in for MP3 support.  After searching Google, it appears that the ad-driven freeware sites are getting too high up in the Google Search order.  For reference I recommend searching sourceforge.net for open source solutions before you go to an ad site.

Technorati Tags: mp3,LAME,CD,music,sourceforge

Zune for Christmas

Originally, I saw the re-furb and brown 30 Gb original Zunes on sale, but I waited a bit too long.  Then while I was on my road trip to pickup Sarah from Tech, I found a white, refurb Zune at buy.com for $109, so I jumped.

I could not be happier.  Initializing the Zune, it automatically installed the latest client on my desktop and upgraded the firmware to the 2.3 release.

During the initial setup, I pointed it to existing folders for my audio, video, and podcast folders.  The synch was pretty quick and after it sucked up everything, I still had 19Gb free.  The only

The only problem I had was synching NPR podcasts. By comparing file MP3 ID tags on files that synched correctly and the NPR files, I determined the Zune filters based on the Genre tag.  Genre = Podcast to synch to Zune. I updated using a Sourceforge MP3 tag editor massid3lib.  It worked like a charm.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/massid3lib

Technorati Tags: MP3,Zune,Microsoft,Sourceforge,podcast

Windows XP Memory Leak - NOT SP3

UPDATE:  I had a comment asking about problem resolution.  The memory leak was resolved by updating the Dell Wireless 1370 WLAN driver (reference below).  The updated version of the driver is an 89 Meg download: http://ftp.us.dell.com/network/R174291.exe

=========================================

After removing SP3, my memory leak issue re-surfaced.  I used Process Explorer, configured it to display Page Faults, Private Bytes, and Virtual Size, and I found the culprit.  The Dell Wireless driver had something like 8MM page faults. 

This process (BCMWLTRY.EXE) was visible from Task Manager, but I overlooked it.  Killing the process from Process Explorer, it re-spawned, and immediately started spewing page faults.  The new drivers was issued 18 Dec 2007, details are below and it's available for download from Dell Support.

 

Title      : Network:Dell Wireless 1370 WLAN MiniPCI Card, Wireless 1390 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1395 WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1470 Dual-Band WLAN miniPCI Card, Wireless 1490 Dual-Band WLAN MiniCard, Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card, Wireless 1505 Draft 802.11n WLAN Mini-Card Desktops Driver
Version    : A17
OEM Name   : Dell
OEM Ver    : 4.170.25.12
Computers  : Dimension - DXP061, DXC061;
Inspiron - 1520, 1720, 1420, 1521, 1721;
Inspiron Desktop - 530, 530S, 531, 531S;
Latitude - D430, ATG D630, D530, D531, XT, D631, D620, D630, D830, D420, D620, D520;
OptiPlex - 745, 320, 740, 755, 330;
Precision - M2300, T7400, T5400, M6300, M4300, 390, 690, 490, M65, M90, M60, M70, M20;
Vostro Desktop - 200, 400;
Vostro Notebook - 1000, 1500, 1700;
XPS - MXP061, MXG061, XPS 720, M1730, 420, M1330
Oses       : Windows XP Home Edition, Windows XP Media Center Edition, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC EditionWindows XP x64 Professional Client

Technorati Tags: Dell,wireless,drivers,download

Microsoft Update - 714 Meg

Wow - this may be a record update for my systems.  The largest offender is Office 2007 SP1, which is 619 Meg in size.  The other updates include:

• Windows XP - four security updates
• Windows XP - DST update for multiple countries
• IE7 - Cumulative Security update
• Windows Live Writer update
• .Net Framework 3.0 SP1
• .Net Framework 2.0 SP1

32 bit Windows memory support

This subject has come up on several occasions, so I'm posting a note with several references on the topic.

Basically, 32-bit Windows desktop operating systems (XP, Vista) will not address more than 3 GB of installed memory.  You can add the /3GB switch to your BOOT.INI file, but hardware constraints, including your video card and BIOS will limit how much RAM above 3GB is available for the operating system. 

NOTE:  This is particularly an issue for high end video cards because the amount of video RAM is deducted from the 4GB theoretical limit for 32 bit operating systems, so even if you have 4GB installed, a 512 Meg video card could reduce your available ram to under 3GB.

Microsoft MSDN article: Memory Limits for Windows Releases

Microsoft MSDN article: 4-Gigabyte Tuning

Dude, Where's My 4 Gigabytes of RAM? - this article includes a nice Intel map of the 32 bit address space memory allocation details.

Gadwin Systems, Inc. - Print Screen

Gadwin PrintScreen is an easy to use utility that allows you to capture any portion of the screen, save it to a file, copy it to Windows clipboard, print it or e-mail it to a recipient of your choice.

Another All Microsoft All The Time post.  I left the full link for Gadwin Systems because they deserve the kudos for a great screen capture program.  This isn't a Microsoft specific application, but it fills a niche for my day-to-day work.

I have Gadwin PrintScreen configured to use the Print Screen key and by default I pick a rectangular portion of my screen and it is captured to the clipboard.  Optionally, you can define a default directory and file name template (like ProjectName$1.jpg) and default format (BMP, JPG, etc).

The automatic file capture is awesome when documenting a project and it beats using Alt-Shift-PrintScreen and dumping it to Word.

Highly Recommended.

 

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