My sound problems have persisted on my phone. They seem totally random. It occasionally won't give me any voice when I pick up a phonecall or try to call, no ring, I can't hear the other person, and they can't hear me. A soft reboot solves the problem, but then it will randomly come back.
After reading up in the forums, this is a very common problem. And it's definitely conflicting software, each ROM file is most compatible with a specific Radio file. And mine turned out to still be mismatched from when I tried to unlock it. I had the latest official AT&T Windows Mobile 6.1 Kaiser ROM, but not the Radio file that matched best with it. If anyone else is having a similar problem, you can check the chart here to see if your files match up correctly. Since mine did not, I went to the HTC download site and grabbed the full reload file with the current ROM, Radio and installer, and started over Flashing my phone, reloading me contacts, and customizing my phone again. At the HTC site I also picked up the backlight fix file (the backlight turns off after 10 seconds in the original software). So far so good!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
PointUI
Is it pronounced like "pointeeuwie" or "point you eye"? Who knows, who cares, but it's a very cool application that makes Windows Mobile devices more finger friendly. You can't quite throw your stylus away, but PointUI has a nice, easy to use, simple interface that's iPod-like. They are very close to releasing Version 2.0 of this great freeware software over at pointui.com, but I downloaded and installed version 1.5 today just play around with it.
Here's a preview of the 2.0 version:
If you can't wait a few days like me, you can download a copy of PointUI 1.5 here. Here it is running on my Tilt:
Here's a preview of the 2.0 version:
If you can't wait a few days like me, you can download a copy of PointUI 1.5 here. Here it is running on my Tilt:
Reloading My Contacts
Since my phone was now wiped of all previous settings and info, I needed to reload My Contacts and begin to personalize it. I'd previously saved all my contacts/friends numbers through Microsoft ActiveSync. I opened it and it thought I was connecting a brand new phone to it, so I had to go through the set up before it would sync with it and reload all my friend’s numbers and information. The process was quite quick and it even loaded the photos associated with my friends... sweet!
At this point I'm ready to rock with a streamlined version of the official ROM. There are a lot of tweaks, themes, software, etc. out there to load on a Windows Mobile phone... what first?
At this point I'm ready to rock with a streamlined version of the official ROM. There are a lot of tweaks, themes, software, etc. out there to load on a Windows Mobile phone... what first?
Manually Adding AT&T Data Connection Info
This step is only necessary if you have an AT&T phone and buy the extra data plan. Since I stopped the AT&T software and settings from loading, I needed to manually added data connection info to surf the Web. To do this go to:
Start >Settings>Connections>Connections. Add new modem connection, select GRPS/3G,
User Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
It's possible there may be another setting or two to do if it doesn't work for you, but this was all I needed to do.
Start >Settings>Connections>Connections. Add new modem connection, select GRPS/3G,
User Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
It's possible there may be another setting or two to do if it doesn't work for you, but this was all I needed to do.
Removing AT&T's Bloatware
AT&T adds on top of HTC’s WM 6.1 ROM a bunch of added junk. It's a bunch of AT&T programs, trial software, and games. Reading around in the forums, it sounds like their added junk can slow down the phone's performance fairly significantly. Booooo!
So, here are the steps to remove it. First, back up your phone's contacts through ActiveSync and save any photos or files you want, this will completely clear your phone and reload the software. Make sure your battery has at least a 50% charge and the phone isn't connected to your computer.
Then, go to Start >Settings>System>Clear storage, type 1234 and OK as it prompts you to, the phone then clears and reloads in anywhere from 3-10 minutes. You then set up the phone like the first time, tapping around the screen. Hit “skip” on the two tips. Then it will say to tap screen to use phone. Stop for a second at this point.
Get your stylus ready to push the Soft Reset button by the USB port. There is about a one second window between when the phone loads up and when an AT&T software loader pop up starts. You need to Soft Reset the phone in that second. Tap the screen with your finger, see the main phone screen, then hit the soft reset button with your stylus before the AT&T pop up comes. If you’re late it’s no biggie, you will just have to go through the set up again and try to time it better... it took me two tries. When you time it right, it will soft reboot and not load all the additional AT&T software.
Here’s a longer account of how to do this with a video, only for some reason the guy pulls the battery out instead of doing a Soft Reset to stop the ATT&T software from loading. The Soft Reset is much easier.
So, here are the steps to remove it. First, back up your phone's contacts through ActiveSync and save any photos or files you want, this will completely clear your phone and reload the software. Make sure your battery has at least a 50% charge and the phone isn't connected to your computer.
Then, go to Start >Settings>System>Clear storage, type 1234 and OK as it prompts you to, the phone then clears and reloads in anywhere from 3-10 minutes. You then set up the phone like the first time, tapping around the screen. Hit “skip” on the two tips. Then it will say to tap screen to use phone. Stop for a second at this point.
Get your stylus ready to push the Soft Reset button by the USB port. There is about a one second window between when the phone loads up and when an AT&T software loader pop up starts. You need to Soft Reset the phone in that second. Tap the screen with your finger, see the main phone screen, then hit the soft reset button with your stylus before the AT&T pop up comes. If you’re late it’s no biggie, you will just have to go through the set up again and try to time it better... it took me two tries. When you time it right, it will soft reboot and not load all the additional AT&T software.
Here’s a longer account of how to do this with a video, only for some reason the guy pulls the battery out instead of doing a Soft Reset to stop the ATT&T software from loading. The Soft Reset is much easier.
My New Tilt and First Attempts at Tweaking
So... my new Tilt/Kaiser arrived. After less than 24 hours playing with it, I was hot to start tweaking it. I installed a few different things, but then decided before I got too far, I should unlock the SIM and CID, one makes it region free/unlocked, the other opens it to flashing a hacked ROM on the phone. The unlocking seemed to go fine using KaiserUnlocker... but it had a bad side effect, it disabled my ability to hear or talk during phone calls. Woops! That's more than a minor problem.
From reading online forums I found a lot of people had this problem when tweaking the Tilt. Phew, at least my phone wasn't defective. So, following this guide, I stripped everything I’d loaded back off to make it factory fresh again. It worked like charm, I could make phone calls again. But, I now had a boring non custom phone. This was yesterday.
I decided to skip unlocking the phone or using a cooked/hacked ROM, basically to take a less intensive approach, at least at first, to tweaking my phone.
From reading online forums I found a lot of people had this problem when tweaking the Tilt. Phew, at least my phone wasn't defective. So, following this guide, I stripped everything I’d loaded back off to make it factory fresh again. It worked like charm, I could make phone calls again. But, I now had a boring non custom phone. This was yesterday.
I decided to skip unlocking the phone or using a cooked/hacked ROM, basically to take a less intensive approach, at least at first, to tweaking my phone.
Background on my experience with tweaking/hacking HTC phones
On my older HTC Wizard/AT&T 8125, I ran a custom (AKA hacked) Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM. Originally I ran the AT&T WM 5.0 ROM that came with it, but when WM 6.0 came out, AT&T decided they didn't want to support this older phone with upgraded software. But it was still a great phone with wireless, a slide out keyboard, Web access, MP3 player and more. So I began snooping around Web forums and found a huge loose network of people that absolutely love HTC phones and hacking and tweaking them. The programmers and hackers at xda-developers.com, in particular, have spent countless hours improving HTC phones with altered, updated and new software, as well as providing wonderful support, software, instructions and encouragement for anyone willing to tinker with their phone.
So after reading for a few hours, I dove in. I ripped everything off my Wizard, loaded a very basic set up with unlocked CID, then loaded a hacked Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM. It worked flawlessly and I loved the new ROM, it was streamlined, had a cool dark theme, and had some additional software I found useful. When I was finally able to upgrade my phone with AT&T again, I weighed my options... I could get a cool looking iPhone like everyone and their brother had and buy all my apps through the iTunes store, or I could resist the trend and go with another HTC smartphone and have a much wider variety of apps and software I could add to it. I decided pretty quickly to go with HTC, then chose a refurbed Tilt since it was only $99, as opposed to the newer Fuse which was $299.
So after reading for a few hours, I dove in. I ripped everything off my Wizard, loaded a very basic set up with unlocked CID, then loaded a hacked Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM. It worked flawlessly and I loved the new ROM, it was streamlined, had a cool dark theme, and had some additional software I found useful. When I was finally able to upgrade my phone with AT&T again, I weighed my options... I could get a cool looking iPhone like everyone and their brother had and buy all my apps through the iTunes store, or I could resist the trend and go with another HTC smartphone and have a much wider variety of apps and software I could add to it. I decided pretty quickly to go with HTC, then chose a refurbed Tilt since it was only $99, as opposed to the newer Fuse which was $299.
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