Techy odds and ends

While people will often be dismissive and give answers like "of course not, you idiot", there's more to it than at first sight. Before an answer can be given for this question, you need to ask yourself who is providing the WiFi. There are three possibilities here: 1) You! This is probably the only case that most people think of when they're giving a dismissive answer. In this setup, you're using a wireless router or a wireless access point to distribute your home broadband internet among several devices such as your desktop computer, laptop, possibly a wireless VoIP phone, and your WiFi-enabled mobile phone. In this instance, your mobile phone is just another device connected to your wireless home network. Any data usage is already paid for in your broadband internet bill. While we all know that mobile network operators would love to bill you even just for thinking about using the phone, they have no way of knowing that you're using your own wireless network a...

Yep. It works fine (thanks to Juhis for the invite)! Spotify is a subscription-based streaming music network. I'll not go into all the details of what they offer here, you can read about that on their site: www.spotify.com , but I will add a little to their instructions on getting their application working under Linux, more specifically for the variant of Linux I've been working with for the past week or so, Ubuntu Linux 9.10, aka "Karmic Koala". There are only versions of the Spotify application for MacOS 10.4 or later, or Microsoft Windows XP or later, but the fine folks at Spotify also point out that it will work on a Linux system using the WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator) Microsoft Windows Compatibility layer. See this FAQ entry on Spotify's site. The instructions given there are for a generic Debian setup. Ubuntu is indeed based on Debian, but there are a few things built in to it that make life easier for users. The first thing we're going to do differen...

This is an area where there's a huge amount of confusion. With any luck this article will clear a certain amount of it up. Broadly speaking, there are two types of each model of phone. It's actually far more complicated than that with regional variants, promotional offers etc., but let's keep it simple for the moment. On the one hand, you have the phone as it was originally designed by Nokia and containing Nokia's firmware. On the other hand you have phones that are distributed not directly by Nokia or their retailers but by mobile network operators. In the latter case, the firmware installed in these phones is modified by the network operator to include their logo, links to their services and a few custom features and settings. Occasionally, network operators will also deactivate features of the original phone that they don't want you using. AT&T come straight to mind with their paid-for voice dialling service − the phone already has such a feature built in but...

Older mobile phones would store received text messages on your SIM card rather than in their own (very limited) memory. Service messages sent to you by your mobile provider are also stored on the SIM card, even today. Modern phones store inbound text messages in their own (significantly more capacious than their predecessors') memory or even, in some cases, on a removable memory card (miniSD or microSD most of the time). Nokia phones based on S60v3 with feature pack 2 and later (N78, N96, 5800 XpressMusic, N97 etc.) detect messages on the SIM card and, if they find any, alert the user to their presence by displaying a flashing envelope on the screen. The only way to get rid of it is to delete the messages on the SIM card. To achieve this: Menu > Messaging > Options > SIM messages Select all the messages visible here: Options > Mark/unmark > Mark all Then delete them by pressing the "C" key for phones that have it (keypad-operated phones) or by tapping ...

A problem frequently seen on the Nokia Support Discussion forums relates to people who have just had to reset their phones or who have just updated their firmware. Upon restarting the phone, they are faced with a problem in that their language has disappeared! Actually, the problem goes much deeper than that. The language disappearing is merely the visible part of willful deceit on the part of some rogue retailers. Nokia phones are sold all over the world. It is unreasonable to expect them all to "speak" all the languages of the world, so, depending on which part of the world each individual batch of phones is intended for, it will have a particular set of languages installed. For example, phones sold in Western Europe have English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and sometimes Dutch languages installed. Those sold in Nokia's home country, Finland, have English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. I'm going to use the examples of Malaysia and Arabic ...

Clearly, there's alot of confusion out there as to what all these codes do, what they protect, how to get them and how to manage them. I'd like to clear that confusion up a litle bit with this article. The first thing you have to bear in mind is that your SIM card is actually the property of your network operator. SIM stands for "Subscriber Information Module". Stored in it is information that identifies you as the user of the phone in which the SIM is installed, and which ties that phone to your mobile phone number. Proof of this is if you swap SIMs with another phone and call your number it's the other phone that will ring, and if you place a call with your phone it's the other phone's owner who will be billed! The PIN, or "Personal Identification Number" is a 4-digit code (well, actually, some phones allow up to 8 digits but it is nearly always 4 digits), stored in encrypted form in the SIM and which protects your SIM from unauthorised use. Th...

In Europe, the overwhelming majority of mobile phones in circulation are phones that were supplied to the users with a contract or pay-as-you-go SIM, up to 90% in the UK and probably similar figures elsewhere in Europe. In the Far-East, however, things are the other way round. Most people buy their phones directly from the manufacturer's outlets or from third-party retailers and get just the line and communications from the mobile network operator. The aim of this small article is to outline the pros and cons of each method so that you can make an informed choice based on budget and on your thirst for a regular technology fix. Initial cost: This is about the only area where a contract phone wins hands down. Many operators will have huge flashy signs all over the place touting a "free" phone with the contract. Of course, the phone isn't free at all, you're paying for it over the duration of your contract, but you have no initial expense over the cost of your contra...