Unfortunately, on my recent trip to Israel, the connector on my latest battery acquisition from eBay broke. That’s what happens when you get the cheap ones made in China. Either way, I did not have time to acquire something better before I left for this trip to San Diego.

I searched through my gadget stash and found an old Solio charger. While I wasn’t counting on it’s ability to get juice from the sun, it was able to receive a charge from USB. When fully charged, it was able to provide some extra juice to my iPhone. It certainly didn’t give the battery more than an extra 25-30% or so, but it was enough. It also fit in my pocket (albeit not comfortably) along with the iPhone.

I also took some other measures to conserve battery power as well: I dropped WiFi and Bluetooth. While there was plenty of WiFi around, I could not always use it nor did I necessarily want to. I only enabled it when I know I wanted to use it. That alone cut my battery drain to a fairly managable level.

The other thing: I forgot my iPhone’s AC adapter. This meant I need to plug into a Mac/PC to charge. It also meant that I was not able to easily charge my iPhone the night before I left San Diego. I had a very early morning flight and made the mistake of not leaving my MacBook turned on but not logged in. This meant my iPhone barely got a charge overnight.

The Solio came to my rescue again. I had wisely charged it the day before, so I was able to use it to provide a boost on the flight back to Seattle. The Solio did require some significant fiddling to get it to charge the iPhone without receiving the dreaded “charging with this accessory is not supported” message on my iPhone.

Meanwhile, I’m in the market for a mobile charging solution for my iPhone. Preferably something that will fit comfortably in my pocket with my iPhone 3GS, is durable, easily rechargable, but not insanely expensive. I realize that’s a bit much to ask, but any suggestions from the peanut gallery on this?

Comments

• 28 January 2010, bostonphoneguy writes: Duracell Instant USB charger or Mophie Juicepak Air are two solutions that I own.
• 28 January 2010, asd writes: PowerMonkey or PowerMonkey Explorer - https://powertraveller.com/
• 28 January 2010, Lonnie writes: MiLi Power Pack; and don't forget your AC adapter next time.
• 31 January 2010, Hamish MacEwan writes: This might fill the bill: http://www.powerstick.com/new/home.php Hamish

Related Posts

• Powerless in Port Orchard–Again
• Portable Mobile Charger for iPhone
• Google Reader, iPhone Edition, on my Nokia Nseries Handsets
• My Own Personal RSS Feeds Website
• Business Idea: iPhone + Global SIM == PROFIT

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

I’ve seen a number of news stories that says that Apple thinks people shouldn’t hack the baseband software in their iPhones because it can cause damage to the mobile phone network. If there was a simple way to unlock the iPhone people paid for without hacking the baseband, people wouldn’t be hacking the baseband. Make it dead simple like a Nokia–enter a code into the phone, boom, the device is unlocked.

People would not be as interested in jailbreaking iPhones, either, if there was some way for people to install apps that Apple does not approve of. The best app on a Nokia is something called Gravity. It is digitally signed, but frequently not by Symbian (who is owned by Nokia). Other platforms have this concept as well.

Both of these issues–and resulting bad PR–is entirely self-inflicted. Please consider changing your policies in these areas to more customer-friendly ones. Permit people to unlock their legitimately paid for iPhones and install applications of their own choosing.

Comments

• 30 July 2009, tom writes: the whole google voice thing really confuses me. how is an extra service that sits between you and your callers more of a 'duplication of a built in feature' than skype that actually allows the bypassing of the iphone 'calling' feature all together? i am a bit mixed about the 'jailbreaking.' on the one hand i wish i did not have to do it; on the other the hacker in me kind of like the challange and exclustivity of being a member of the 'jailbreak club.' as much as geeks and hackers love to dream of 'open devices' the reality as long as they are busy with hacks is that it does not matter since they will simply open up the closed devices. it is a bit ironic though that apple coumputer was founded by a couple homebrew computer club members who were in the bussiness of building and selling 'blue boxes' to hack the phone company before they went ligit, and is now the company with the most closed and locked down platform.
• 30 July 2009, Jason Harris writes: I have a jailbroken iPhone already - and immediately downloaded GV Mobile from Cydia when it was released. Great app - great extension/interface for Google Mobile.
• 30 July 2009, GV Mobile Moves to Cydia After Being Pushed from App Store : The New Dork Times writes: [...] Apple – Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies (phoneboy.com) [...]
• 31 July 2009, New Comm Biz » I dislike Apple but I’m really glad they’re around writes: [...] Apple – Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies (phoneboy.com) Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too. [...]

Related Posts

• Let it Ra1n, Let it Sn0w on my iPhone
• Sprint Becoming More Customer Focused?
• Wait, Doesn’t Cisco Have the iPhone Trademark?
• Cisco’s Trademark Case Against Apple “Silly”
• iPhone Is Taking Over? Please.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

This past week, I have primarily been using my Nokia 5800 XpressMusic as a way to listen to my podcasts. However, I have been using it without a SIM card. This is good, as it extends the battery life of my Nokia 5800 substantially, particularly when all I am using it for is browsing via WiFi and listening to podcasts.

The bad thing? Well, just about everything else. Some applications, such as Mail for Exchange, will not work when a SIM card is not inserted. An error similar to the one pictured on the right is shown. In other applications, you are asked to confirm whether or not a connection can be established in offline mode.

I understand why you might want to prompt in this manner. On an airplane, or in other areas where you must be “radio silent,” this kind of prompting is necessary. The current Offline profile should be maintained.

What we really need is a new Profile type. Called it SIMless. It would allow the WiFi and Bluetooth radios to be activated as if a SIM card were there without the stupid “Create connection in offline mode” prompts.

How about it, Nokia? Seems easy enough to do.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Maximising Battery Life on the Nokia 5800 (allaboutsymbian.com)
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Clone (ubergizmo.com)
• Nokia 5800 XpressMusic iSync Plugin (cellphone9.com)

Comments

• 27 April 2009, Ms. Jen writes: I second this call for a new SIMless mode!

Related Posts

• Proper Music Sync for Nokia Phones?
• Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants Know What Flight Mode Is
• Phones Are Toys Alright
• Truly Portable WiFi
• Business Cards and Badges

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

• NGX R65 HFA_40 SmartCenter on Secure Platform (SPLAT) installed in a VMware VM
• NGX R62 HFA_01 firewall installed on a Nokia IP260

Yes, I realize that R62 is going EOL in May. However, the IP260 is by far the quietest machine I have around here, and if I’m going to have it on all the time, I want it quiet. That’s another reason I went with a management station in a VM: the machine the VM runs on is relatively quiet.

To frame my experience properly, it’s probably worth reiterating some facts:

• At some point in my life, I was considered an expert on the Check Point VPN-1 product. Maintaining an FAQ and writing two books on the product gives people that impression, even today
• The last time I did anything serious with Check Point was back in the NG AI days, which is about where my second Check Point Firewall-1 book goes up to. In other words, roughly 5 years ago.
• I currently maintain the knowledge base for Nokia’s Security Appliance Business which, unsurprisingly, has a lot of Check Point-related stuff in it. Yes, I read a lot of stuff about the product even though I haven’t got a lot of recent, practical experience with the product.
• I have never, prior to the CPUG University class I took recently, even seen SPLAT, much less installed it on anything.

With these facts in mind, I created a blank VM and loaded up the SPLAT ISO. How hard can it be, I figure?

The initial load of SPLAT went ok, as did the initial configuration. However, compared to the newsystem script on IPSO, which runs during the initial configuration of a Nokia Appliance, the SPLAT sysconfig script is much more painful, just based on the number of keystrokes. To be fair, sysconfig lets you configure a few more things, but newsystem really focuses on getting you out of the initial configuration mode and on your way to either Voyager or clish to do the real configuration. In my mind, that’s a better way to go.

After I fetched licenses, installed them, and loaded HFA_4o into the SmartUpdate repository, I tried installing HFA_40 on the SPLAT box. No go. Can’t use SmartUpdate on yourself (duh) so off to install the HFA manually. A quick perusal of the release notes suggests I can install this via the SPLAT webui, which is analogous to Voyager on a Nokia box. In other words, a web-based configuration tool.

The first time I tried accessing the webui using Firefox 3.0, I was unceremoniously informed that I needed to disable popup blocking and prevented from logging in. After fixing that problem, I tried again. This time, I got a popup dialog that said:

Cannot connect to server. Make sure the device is up and running, and that you are allowed to login from this machine.

When I pressed Ok, I was presented with the WebUI login screen. Despite the fact I can log in via console and SSH ok, all users on the webui give me the following error:

Cannot login. Make sure the device is up and running, and that you are allowed to login from this machine.

A co-worker who spends way more time talking with Check Point Support than I do got a few techs on IM. They were scratching their heads. One of them eventually suggested I try a different browser, which sure enough worked. The latest version of Check Point shipping wasn’t tested on the latest Firefox? Clearly not! Nokia KB article written–first Check Point one I’ve authored in quite some time

Now, to install HFA_40. Since I already loaded the HFA into the SmartUpdate repository, I figure it has to be somewhere on the SPLAT box. Found it somewhere in /var/suroot, unpacked, installed, rebooted, and we’re on HFA_40. And the webui still doesn’t work with Firefox 3.0.

Meanwhile, installing SmartConsole NGX R65.4 (HFA_40) and expecting it to manage NGX R65 without HFA_40 installed was clearly faulty thinking on my part. Then again, how hard would it be to make this work on the development side? Seems like I need to install both sets of clients on my system to manage this box. With SmartDashboard up, I started creating my network objects and security policy.

Once I did that, I hooked up my IP260, which came fresh from the repair center. The nice thing about this is that it had all the base Check Point packages loaded and ready for activation in Voyager. Enable a couple of packages, and now off to cpconfig. A couple of questions:

• I know that IPSO has a proper pseudo-random number generator that gathers entropy from all the proper sources. We use it in our now defunct SSL VPN product. Why is it that I still have to feed Check Point VPN-1 a series of keystrokes for entropy when on every other platform, Check Point VPN-1 no longer asks this?
• How come we get asks the OS groups question on IPSO? This has no effect on IPSO and can’t be used. Why is this still a question?

VPN-1 is enabled on the IP260, SIC established, policy pushed, etc. Pushed R62 HFA_01 through SmartUpdate to the Nokia Appliance, worked like a charm. Other usual Check Point configuration from there.

One other thing. Not sure what caused it, but I noticed that my SmartCenter was loading a security policy! I poke around in the Check Point registry and determine yes, it did believe it was a firewall for some reason. Hack the registry, write another Nokia KB article, cprestart, and while the module doesn’t believe it’s a firewall any longer, it is still loading a default filter! One control_bootsec -r and a reboot later, the module was back to normal!

Needless to say, that took way longer than it should have. However, one thing I’ve learned over the years is that it is in those difficult times that you learn stuff, which in my case means a new KB article or two and possibly a blog posting

Comments

• 12 March 2009, Stephan writes: Hi, same Problem with the vpn-1 ve from vmware marketplace. Cannot download smartconsole, got an error "smart console cannot be downloaded ...." Sadly i wanted to try out this version, was able to install and configure but cannot get access to dashboard. greets Stephan

Related Posts

• Parallels Versus VMware Fusion: Why One Over The Other?
• Team Fusion: VMware Fusion, That Is
• VMware Fusion Goes 1.1.1, Gains Minor Usability Feature
• A Week With VMware Fusion for Mac
• VMware Fusion 1.1

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Image via Wikipedia

A while ago, I got a pair of headphones from Radius Products to review. They are these in-ear headsets that go deeper into the ear, sealing out noise, sound great! The problem I have is when I put the headphones in my pocket. After a while the earphone fittings simply fall off, either in my pocket or someplace else. Sometimes, they even come out in my ear. Sometimes, they simply get lost.

I have to assume this is a universal problem of sorts, i.e. it’s not specific to the unit I reviewed. However, I can’t easily find a way to replace the earphone fittings. You’d think someone would sell replacement earphone fittings. I found a couple of places, but they are somewhat expensive in comparison to their actual cost, which can’t be more than a few pennies! The fact there aren’t replacements in stores seems silly.

So what happens when you lose the earphone fitings for your deep in-ear headphones? Do you just buy new ones? Is there some reasonably inexpensive of a similar style that are more sturdy in this area?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Coosh Earphones Review
• Coosh Headphones: First Impressions
• Review: Jaybird JB-200 Bluetooth Headphones and Adapters
• Ultimate Cut-The-Crap In-Ear Headphone Battlemodo [Battlemodo]
• Product review – V-Moda Vibe Duo iPhone headphones
• Product review – Etymotic Research hf2 noise isolating headset
• Back to School: In-ear ‘phones

Related Posts

• Pot Doesn’t Make You Stupid
• MagicJack Latest Loser in Game of Telecom Arbitrage
• Started Atkins
• Is Convergence a Single Point of Failure?
• Atkins Day 3

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a