Reburning phone (AKA Being on the Bleeding edge)

April 28, 2007 2:28 PM

Curse and Blessing

It is true that knowing about technology in this technological age can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand since you know about technology you understand that it's really not that difficult to do it yourself and thus have more control over your environment. Plus you can save a lot of money not getting taken, etc. On the other hand however you have a tendency of wanting the latest and greatest and be on the bleeding edge. This is a story of the later.

As you know I have a PPC-6700 phone which allows me to join the cell phone generation. I, of course, being a tech guy, needed the one with all the bells and whistle. Oddly enough one would think that many of the more mundane but advertised functionality would work out of the box and be fairly reliable. Such is not the case. So it's off to the web to join up the appropriate forum to get more info, patches, tips, tweaks and the like. I chose, for better or worse, PDAPhoneHome. A lot of people go there but there's so much, and so many neophytes with bad information, that it's difficult to get good information.

In any event, and to my surprise, WinCE based phones are not exactly that much different than early versions of Windows, complete with registry with all of it's warts and problems, and tons of similar software, all viaing for your buck, all doing similar things and most doing it badly at best.
The big deal there is called a "ROM" which is another name for the "OS" and, as typical with Microsoft, an OS is not an OS but is an OS with a bunch of things that are not really, or should not be part of the OS. There's adware and bloatware. Add to this the carriers like Sprint, Verison, et. al., all trying to "customize" the "experience" for their "customer" with such great programs like "GetGood" and "The Sprint Store", etc.

In any event, here's what I do in order to reburn my phone which needs to be done as the software seems to develop "habits" over time like not alerting me as to upcoming events, Suddenly not ringing the phone, just being sluggish, hangs or starting to behave differently like taking a call on the BlueTooth headset but not stopping the media player when the call is being answered.

Install ROM

Currently I'm trying a 3.5 based ROM or AKU (not sure what AKU stands for in this context). First one need to download on. I've set up an area under my Software share for PPC stuff, including ROMs, programs I use, ring tones and "Today Screens". I've learned, as I need to reinstall these things over and over, to organize this.

Once you have a ROM you run the installation process. First you need to get your phone in "Bootloader" mode. This means, on my phone, that you hold down the power and voice record buttons at the same time while you perform a soft reset. Now here's the tricky part: The screen appears to be black but if you look really carefully you'll notice it says "Serial". You'll probably have to look at it in the light and move the phone from side to side. Why the secretly displayed with no backlight screen is beyond me.

Now your "run the ROM" and it'll instruct you basically to hit next over and over again until it finishes. There'll be copious warnings about not to interrupt the process. Ominous for sure but what will happen if you do interrupt the process. Answer: Nothing. You'll need to start again. Big deal - it's not like you're that far along at this point anyway!

After the installation it'll tell you to cold boot your phone but it'll probably tell you the wrong way to do it. For example, the "Kirvin AKU 3.5 NoJunk" I'm trying to use right now says to hold down the power button and the reset button at the same time and that'll do a cold boot. The problem is that that doesn't do a cold boot on my phone! I need to hold down both the left and right menu buttons (the ones with "-" on them) and select the reset button (with the stylus).

And cold boot is what you want to do. That'll effectively wipe out the internal card and install all the apps from the ROM. Failure to do that and you may run out of space on the ROM!

After rebooting invariably Sprint gets involved and installs all of it's junk as it customizes your phone. I have a trick of using Total Commander to open the "extended rom" and installing all of the junk a second time but not installing the special package which effectively removes all of the uninstall options for the junk in the Remove Programs area. Then you can just go into Remove Programs and use their uninstall packages!

Reinstalling Apps

Before reinstalling applications check that the phone actually works. One version would make calls but when in a call there was no "Call Status" button and thus you couldn't get to the number pad to say "Hit 1 to continue" or anything! Also check that the Contacts and Calendar programs work. This new 3.5 bare bones ROM seems to work. BTW This ROM has a skin to the phone that I really like. It's a black/greyish background with good green/red highlighting on the Talk and End buttons.
Now it's time to install the apps I use. These include:

• Pocket Player: I like this media player a lot better than WMP. WMP has this annoying habit of skipping when playing over my bluetooth headset which is not acceptable. Installed on the internal card to minimize problems Additionally the DLL gen_wmhost.dll needs to be copied from my Software area -> \Program Files\Conduits\Pocket Player.


• SPB Pocket Plus: Adds nice stuff to the Today screen - to me sorta like TrueLaunchBar. Installed on the internal card to minimize problems



• SPB Backup: One really should backup - I do! You should too. The problem here is that although I backup to the storage card I'd like to automatically sync these backup images over to my backup share. How do you automatically do that?



• SPB Time: Nice clocks - integrates into the Today screen nicely



• Total Commander: Nice utility - already on my storage card - I tend to run it from there..



• FinchSync: Synchronizes Thunderbird Address Books and Sunbird Calendars to your PPC phone!



• Pocket Quicken: Allows me to enter receipts while on the road



• Google Maps: The best mapping software

Add Today Screens and Ring Tones

Additionally I copy the following non-applications directly from my Software share to the Windows folder on the PPC:

• Today Screens -> Windows Folder
• Ring Tones -> Windows\Rings

Configure Ring Tones/Phone

Go to Start: Settings: Phone and set ring tone. Select More tab and set Automatic Pick up to Headset after 3 rings

Set Today Screen

Go to Start: Settings: Today. Select a Today screen. Tap on Items and:

• Uncheck
1. Date
2. Owner Info
3. Wireless
4. Get Biz Conn
5. Action Info



• Order items on Today Screen:
1. Device Lock



2. Spb Time



3. Pocket Plus



4. Calendar



5. Messaging

Now configure Spb Time by tapping and holding and selecting Options. Toggle on Hide Icon and OK.

Configure Spb Plus. Generally I have 3 tabs: Main, System and Games. Main has:

• Pocket Player


• Pocket Quicken



• FinchSync



• File Explorer



• Remote Display

System has:

• Theme Loop


• System Reset



• ActiveSync



• Total Commander (on the storage card)



• Google Maps

Games has:

• Bubble Breaker


• Solitare



• Blackjack



• Tetris

Configure ActiveSync

Configure ActiveSync to synchronize:

• Contacts


• Calendar



• Email



• Tasks



• Notes



• Favorites



• Media



• Pocket Quicken

Configure Email:

• Start Messaging


• Select Menu: Tools: New Account
• Select IMAP as email provider, Next



• Email Address: Andrew@DeFaria.com



• Your Name: Andrew DeFaria



• User Name: andrew



• Password: <Standard Password>



• Toggle on Save Password, Next



• Change to IMAP



• Name: Home, Next



• Incoming mail: defaria.com



• Outgoing mail: defaria.com



• Domain: <blank>



• Opions: Next
• Only display messages from the last 7 days, Next



• Select Get full copy of messages, Finish



• Get messages now? Yes

Set Owner Information

Set up owner information as some apps (Pocket Player) require it to register.

Apps Config

Pocket Player

After setting owner information use the Pocket Player keygen to generate the key. Use the key to register Pocket Player. Next start Pocket Player and select Menu: More: Options. Then:

• Select Playback then set File Caching to 1024


• Toggle on Crossfading to 4 seconds



• Select VIs and set Cycle Colors to Slow



• Select DSP then Multi-DSP with Bass Boost and Stereo Wide



• Select Plugins then Conduits WM Plugin Adapter: Configure: Configure WM plugins to load then Yes and Yes again then OK



• Select Advanced and double click on Save Playlists Location changing it to \StorageCard\Playlists



• Toggle off Show notification icon



• Exit player and restart

Also go to Settings: Buttons and change the IE button to start Pocket Player and the Record button to envoke Voice Command

Cleanup

In order to clean up the junk I do the following:

• Start up File Explorer and go to My Device. Delete the following:
• ConnMgr



• My Documents
• Business



• Calls



• My Sounds (and any other My folders)



• Video



• Various playlists that Pocket Player installed (we use our own)



• Remove crap from Startup Menu. Go into \Windows\Start Menu and Remove
• Calendar (we have buttons for this on the Today Screen



• Contacts (we have buttons for this on the Today Screen



• Phone (we get this by hitting the dial button)



• Messaging



• Windows Media (We use Pocket Player)



• Rename:
• Running Programs -> Tasks



• Internet Explorer -> IE

Eliminate Bloatware

Start Total Commander and go to \Extended_ROM. Install various bloatware but do not install the package Disable_RemoreProgram.sa.CAB which removes the uninstalls from remove programs. Then go to Remove Programs and remove stuff like GetGood and the Sprint Store. All of these install on the internal card thus reinstalling them should overwrite the same area but now you can remove them from the Remove Programs!
From Total Commander install:

• AudioSample.sa.CAB


• Fetch.CAB



• GetGL.CAB



• Getmail.ppc2003.ARMV4Rel.sprint.CAB



• sprint_software_store.CAB



• WTLAudiblePlayerPocketPC.arm.CAB

From Settings: System: Remove Programs remove:

• Audible, Inc. AudiblePlayer


• PocketX Sprint Software Store



• Good Technology GetGood



• Action Engine Action Info

Configure Pocket Quicken

Start Pocket Quicken and:

• Enter activation code



• Set up preferred accounts



• Turn off displaying of hidden accounts

Spb Backup

Configure scheduled backups. Start Spb Backup and:

• Select Scheduled Backup, Next


• Toggle on Enable scheduled backups



• Set time for Midnight



• Toggle on Backup only on AC power



• Backup folder is \Storage Card\Backups\, Next



• Toggle on Storage Card then options. Toggle off Backups, FilesToBeDeleted, Music and Video, OK then Next



• Tap Next again then Finish

Registry Tweaks

The following registry tweaks seem to help:

• HKLM\Services\ScreenRotate\ShowIcon -> 0

Need to soft reset