i have had a few gadgets, mobiles and electronic stuff in my time, but to this day have not heard such a stupid thing as if i leave my phone untill the battery goes flat, I LOSE ALL MY DATA??!! this has alreeady happened to me after 1 nite i forgot to put the damn thing on charge, somebody should tell the makers of O2 XDA that some people have a life that does not revolve around constantly checking if your damn phone is about to wipe out all your data everyday!...also I cant seem to switch the damn thing off, by that i mean, there are times when you dont want people to call you, so you switch off your phone the normal way, by pressing the off button, was this too hard to incorporate????!!!!
...phew, feel a little better now, thanx guys.
i was worried about the Switching it off thing aswell at first.
Awnser is "Turn Wireless off" tap on the signal meter and the option is there.
also about saveing battery life, remember to allways press the power button on top when your not useing it
and to stop all sound, mute it
thing to remember is..
its a PDA with a phone built in.
not
a Phone with a PDA built in.
there is a diffrence as i say to ppl who tell me "man why d'you want a phone like a brick"
p.s. back up all data to your pc now n then
battery life never been a problem to me so far
and i can leave it days without a recharge.
anyway, it switches itself off as a failsafe if power gets too low.
obviously you need to go back to an organizer on paper. :lol:
The XDA /MDA is more a computer that a phone.. :shock:
Over 23 years of computing an ppl still think backup up is not needed.... :roll:
Hey dont knock rai. Its peeps like him that keep us IT'ers in a job :lol:
stryker said:
Hey dont knock rai. Its peeps like him that keep us IT'ers in a job :lol:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL!! :lol:
granted that the XDA is more a computer than a phone, but i dont lose all my software and my documents if my laptops battery goes flat.
im not aking to have the wheel re-invented (honest), just expect a simple "OFF" switch to "switch off" the device and to have my data and contacts still there, should i sacrilegiously forget to charge it.
rai, there is an option to write your contacts and other data to ROM, thus preventing loss of contact and appointments or all data if you have enough space.
rai said:
granted that the XDA is more a computer than a phone, but i dont lose all my software and my documents if my laptops battery goes flat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ypu would if you had i lightweight laptop w/o harddive and everything stored in memory. :roll: And that's what the PPC is...
Ok, granted, you have got a SD card, so you can store data on 'disk' if wanted. I have everything synced, on SD backup, or on the SD card.
Worstcase scenario is i may have to wait until i get home to resore all data...
Practical: Just plug it to power in your car and and home at night, and you'll probably even forget it works on a battery that could go flat :lol:
Perhaps the only solution fro PDA is this :
"Toshiba announced that it created a hard drive the size of a coin targetted for the mobile phone sector. The drive can hold as much as 3GB of information and will start shipping in 2005.
Related Link: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20031215/ap_on_hi_te/toshiba_tiny_disk"
but unfortunately we have to wait till 2005 :lol:
hi Johan, how does it work in a SE p800, does that have a HD?
It's one of the fundamental differences between Symbian and pocketPC - Symbian specifies that the devices main memory should not loose its contents when powered down fully. WinCE takes the other approach.
A few years ago, WinCE was probably the best way to do things, as non volatile RAM (or rather RAM that needed /very/ little power to maintain state) was slow and expensive - it was one of the bug bears of the 9210 that it had too little RAM, and the whole system was heavily underclocked - down to 56MHz if my memory serves me right.
Nowadays, this type of memory is a bit cheaper, and certainly more performant (remember this is not your regular flash memory we're talking about - that would be just too slow and incapable of the write cycle demands). This means that Symbian devices now have comparable performance to the WinCE, yet WinCe is still burndened with the loss of memory on power out.
One thing I'd like to see is an automatic "hibernate" feature added to the core OS. When power drops below say 1%, all open programs are closed, the remaining critical RAM contents copied off to flash storage, and the device won't wake up again until it's charged. It'd mean that device manufacturers would have to provide enough built in spare space on the flash ROM for this, but the current situation of manually backing up the critical data with the *flashman utilities is a poor substitute.
I know several people who refuse use PPC/WinCE because of the total data loss on power out, but as with so may WinCE problems, it could be fixed quite easily with a bit of thought on Microsoft's part.
Thinking about this for a moment, it would probably be relatively easy to create a third party app to do something along these lines - we can get the battery power level, we can 'unprotect' the spare ROM space, compress and dump the critical files to it along with a 'reawaken mode' flag, and we could have a little app that runs on startup and does the reverse if the flag is present, followed by an automatic soft-reset so that all drivers etc can reload cleanly. The only tricky part is making sure that there's anough space available for the main data for contacts/diary/registry/etc plus any additionally installed programs - these could be prioritised by the user if there's some that are more critical than others.
All that sounds a little complicated for rai.
He could simply copy his contacts and save it onto the extended_ROM using a basic txt document, or save it on his SIM, which is what we all should do anyway. :lol:
Or...
he could go the long way and copy the actual file for contacts and the calendar, then paste it into a secure folder in the extended_ROM, and if ever the problem does occur again, copy and paste it again.
Either way, let this be a lesson to you all: WinCE gives you all the programs Symbian users can only dream about, but there are drawbacks - you've got to be just a little bit more responsible with their devices. Like one chap here said: It's NOT a phone.
I'm sure I've seen a prog that does automated backups to the SD card. So there is an ideal, non user intervention solution.
Also when the backpack comes out you could get a nice CF Flash micro disk. That brings all the joys of your laptop with mechanical hard drive..... hhhhm mechanicaaaallll.
oh here it is, the answer to your problems. Automated backup and low battery backup
http://www.spritesoftware.com/ppc/products.html
rai the reason your laptop's batt is soo big is related to the fact that it use a harddisk because harddisks are full of moving parts which spin at a pretty fast pase
this cost batt juice
so if the xda or p800/900 had a harddisk you would not have much time to put in your data before the batt was flat
Pocket Backup Plus from Sprite Software, like stricker said , is the solution to all these problems ... use it and ....keep cool ! :wink:
Thanks for the link, didn't know about this program (as I always back up to PC anyway). OEMs should buy it and stick it preconfigured into their roms.
I've seen that backup prog recommended by others and in interest of doing as I preach I installed it. However I found an issue.... may just be affecting me tho. See the other thread I started, "spritesoftware backup package".
XDA2 backup and restore
I use sprite's backup program and backup every day to my PC. I copy this backup and of course the program to an sd card, and my webserver. That way I can be reasonably safe. Mine went flat today, but used one of those emergency chargers(takes AA batts), and was back in business in a few mins.
Related
Hello everybody; Sorry for this silly question, but it seems i cannot fully power off my smartphone in order to have it full charge the battery whithout the phone being on. By this i mean the smartphone totaly powered off and not only having deactivated the radio section of the phone which deals with the mobile phone section of the appliance and the bluetooth ; When i press on the power button, the only thing that happens is that the display switches off and not the smartphone; I was accustomed to a real switch off on my other smartphone P900 withj symbian UIQ 7.0
Have i missed something or is this condition a feature /bug of the phone or microsoft windows mobile 2003?
Thanking you all in advance for any input i remain
Arnaud
Hi, I'm new here. Just known XDA II for two weeks.
About ur question, I think it's not a bug but rather a feature. U can turn off the phone by click the phone icon at the top bar.
I would hate it if I can't power off the pda without the phone is on.
'cause when I sleep I really don't need the pda section. :wink:
Hi
Yes, you missed something...
A "real" power-down is similar to a hard-reset, and believe me, you won't do a hard-reset if it is not totally necessary.
The XDA unpackes the program files at powerup into its sdrams and keeps the data in the sdrams when it is switch off. Of course this sdrams need power to keep the data.
Otherwise, you can still remove the battery :wink:
But, I agree, it would be interessting to know how long the battery lastest when the phone is switch off.
regards,
actually, you CAN remove the battery
after all, the battery IS removable.... and intended to be replaced.
But then your PPC will be on the "backup battery" and 30 minutes
later you will lose all your data. too bad.
The fact is, not only you absolutely cannot turn this thing off,
if you're down to 5% power and will be awhile before you
plug it for more power,
YOU BETTER TURN IT OFF AND TURN THE PHONE OFF
if you somehoe run down the battery to zero with a phone call,
you will have a hard reset in 30 minutes ....
this is all the result of the STUPID MS DECISION, long time ago,
not to put all the critical data/install/whatever in FLASH / SD card.
this is all the result of the STUPID MS DECISION, long time ago,
not to put all the critical data/install/whatever in FLASH / SD card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wasn't a bad decision for the time - memory that kept its contents without power was very expensive, and very slow. It's still not great. Symbian went the no-power memory route, and the earlier devices (Nokia 9200 series) were crippled by it (CPU underclocked to 56MHz to cope with the memory, and too little memory to do everything people wanted).
Don't forget, you can't just use regular flash memory - it's still too slow, and will wear out with too many write cycles, however a good feature would be a 'hibernate' mode that dumps the static ram to flash ram, and restores on power up. Sort of like the *FlashMan utilities, but actually useful.
Hey all, im a newbie here and have just got my xda 2 on o2,
now iv read in the user manual it says when setting up for the first time it asks for corporate set up or personal ?
which is the best one to go for ?
and what are the main differences between the two ?
also its says that if the phone battery dies all the software that is not standard will be lost ? :x
any way around this ?
oh yea and one more thing....is there a room on irc dedicated to the xda ?
hope you guys can help
cheers
Welcome to the wonderful world of the XDA2!
When I first bought mine in November I asked the same question and didn't get a single answer. I still don't really know what the answer is, but I've tried both options after a hard reset and I don't think it makes any difference, although like I say, nobody has told me for sure.
Choose personal setup, I would say. Corporate is probably for IT managers who are doing something special with a fleet of XDA2s for their company.
On the XDA2 the battery (and backup) are required to maintain the contents of the system memory - all of your day-to-day usage, installed programs, files and info is stored in volatile memory, i.e. it needs battery power to maintain the contents. If the batteries both go completely flat your machine will reset completely, and when you charge it, it'll be like a brand new machine again.
This is one major weakness of the XDA2-type machines, and is done this way to maximise battery life while the phone is in use, I think. In practise it means you'll need to charge up your XDA2 at least once every two days or so in average use. It's also a very good reason to keep your files and contents regularly backed up onto a PC.
Dunno about the IRC thing.
Hope this all helps.
cheerz ben, as uv prolly noticed i also got no answer :shock:
but i went ahead n did it as personal user neways i think il learn more if i jus mess about with the fone, same way i did with my amstrad way back when, never broke that so lets hope i dnt break this..
after a long hard search on dalnet/efnet/n every other *net. only found a few sites, a few good ones there for help.
doesnt seem to be much dare i say "w a r e z" floating about for this fone, dnt knw whether this is good or bad, but seem to be able to find alot for other types of fones... one thing i did find was the nokia 6600 has ALOT of software available that can do absoloutly almost anything, frm putting in ur call plan and it working out ur fone bill for u before u get it frm ur service provider, to using it as remote control for ur tv!
lets hope the xda 2 can offer alot more(and easily available) user target programs such as these...
:roll:
I have an O2 XDA2. I just took the phone out of my jacket pocket to find that it wanted me to calibrate the screen. It went on to take me through the whole set-up wizard and then I found that all my data and installed programs had been lost
I'm guessing the phone decided it wanted to reset itself!
Does anyone have any idea why this might have happened so I can avoid it happening again?
The phone had plenty of battery power (approx 80%). It had plenty of space space (approx 28MB). I hadn't recently installed any software although I did uninstall Pocket Money on the weekend. I also created an IMAP email account then but I've had no problem with the phone since then until now.
Any ideas? Thanks very much
would prob be a good idear if you stated the rom version you are using
Sorry, It's 1.60.00 WWE
I have never upgraded it as I haven't the first idea how or what the implications are.
the latest officail rom is 1.72
if you get that from their site you will not get warrenty issues
when i used 1.66 i had lockups from time to time
after i got 1.72
i havent had any issues
I don't really feel comfortable upgrading it as I haven't the first idea what to do.
How do you normally reset a device? Is it something I could have done by accident?
there is a little hole in the buttom of it in the right corner if you press that using something thin like the stylus while you press the on button
then it hardreset
but there is software which let you do it as well
the upgrade is really pretty simpel
Thanks very much. I know the reset button, I use that every now and again. There's no way I could have pressed it and the on switch by accident given tha the phone was in an otherwise empty jacket pocket.
Oh well, I guess my phone just had enough of life. I'll look into upgrading the ROM when I feel a bit more adventurous
Fabulous...My phone has again decided to reset itself out of the blue.
I have no idea why it does this but it's a pain in the rear. Has anyone seen this before? Does anyone know if there's anything I can do to prevent it? (other than upgrading to the Universal when it comes out!!)
And it's happened again...seems to happen approximately once a month.
Has this spontaneous hard reset issue not happened to anyone else?
I suffered this audacious curse only to find that by removing my 1gig sd card remedied the problem.
I'm wondering if the sd card draws too much power/resources or whether I have a dodgy sd card.
Either way, without it I'm flying. I pop it in when I need to use my TomTom and as it's on charge in the car cradle it doesnt matter about resource usage etc.
So, try removing your sd card and see what goes
SD cards seem to be causing all sorts of problems. I kept getting the eternal spinning timer when copy, paste or deleting files, if the card was inserted. Did a soft reset today to be met with the calibration screen as from a hard reset. Such fun isnt it. :roll:
Hi Guys
Thanks very much for your comments. Unfortunately it isn't the cause as I have had my SD slot empty for a while now (my SD card is in my new car radio/MP3 player )
I'm starting to think that after 15 months my XDA2 has decided that it's had enough of the world. My colleague told me that it's seeking revenge as it's heard me salivate over its younger sister (the Universal).
As you say having the phone hard reset itself is a whole lot of fun!
I have the Sprite Back Up programe so all is not lost - it creates an exe file on the SD card that you locate and select thus restoring everything just how it was before it was lost
one can also just have activesync do an inc backup at each sync
and if the device hardresets one can connect as guest and restore the backup from ones normal profile
The nice thing about the Sprite software is that you can restore when you're out and about unlike the active sync method which means you need your pc close by
I am a complete newbie and I am going to be spending the next 6 months in southern Laos. I need to use my HD as my primary internet communications device. I know that GPRs signal there is good and Edge services have just begun to reach the area I will be in.
Does anybody have any good recommendations or suggestions of programs that are stable they would load to the HD before going?
If I completely screw my device up what do I do? does clearing the memory take care of everything like it does on an iPhone? Is it possible to brick the HD easily?
I will be using the HD as a stand alone internet device as well as tethering. I will also use it to try to show the locals I little bit of tech. I know as stupid as I sound now you could question what I could even teach them.
Even so some of these people haven't seen a computer before. So some very basic stuff will go a long ways. I wish somebody better was going to go do this. I am not perfect for the task at hand but will try my best.
What sort of things would you do if you couldn't get more than GPRS if things went wrong? Are there any programs that could be used for educational purposes on this device? Bear in mind there are no projectors or anything else of that nature.
I have a Windows PC and a Mac to use and around a TB between internal and external storage. I am not even sure of what I am asking for here but what would you bring if you wanted to try to show people some basic things.
Some of the things I do include small slide shows (wghich sometimes do to no constant source of electricity can't be done on the laptops) for children which can be done on the HD or my iPhone. I also design buildings so people get a picture of what they are building and have helped draw out a bridge that spans the Mekong.
I forgot to add that there is only electricity there 3 hours a day if that adds some perspective. If this is the wrong place to ask for help then I am sorry.
I know my questions are a bit unusual but I am trying to make sure I am not missing some thing obvious. Is there something you would bring in addition to the items I mentioned. What am I forgetting?
I've never heard of Laos but I assume from your description that it is somewhere in Yorkshire, right? If so then I suspect that the HD will be so far removed from the locals' normal frame of reference that it'll only confuse them. You'd be better off trying to introduce something more basic and useful like running water or nylon.
Interesting situation though. I didn't realise the UK carriers had signal in such remote and backward places.
Just keep a backup of your contacts/messages etc with some backup tools you can find around, if anything goes wrong you can simply reset the device to its ex-factory settings.
For the other questions.. since I still haven't get my HD I don't have a clue yet
For battery issue, if the electricity supply is limited, I recommend you to turn off the mobile at night and try to make minimum usage of the phone since such a big screen, fast processor, loads of functions will drain the battery quickly with intensive usage.
By the way, Laos is a country in Asia.
Greets from China.
Maddie
Ryaniuk,
I suggest that you buy along a few spare battery and have them charged up during the hours when the generators are up, so that you are able to swap them in to last the whole days. Of course it should also take care of the situation when there is unexpected failure of generators, etc.
Also, not sure if GPS could be of use to you. The most popular GPS software in Asia is MapKing. Not sure they have a Laos map, but I'd check if I'm you. If you are going to a remote village, I'd look for some traking type GPS software to ensure I can get around, and get out if needed. Bring with you all your spare batteries.
One of the areas you might find important in such an environement is access to news. Make sure you're happy with the RSS features. If not, install a third party software that you could be happy with before going.
I'd also install a paint program ( or just use Notes that come with the HD) , in case you need to get a local to scribble some local words that you critically need (e.g., where is the toilet?, can you take me to...etc). I assume the standard keyboard may not be able to enter local language, that's why a good paint program on the HD with stylus would come in very handy.
If you need to write any report, do any planning etc, I suggest you get SoftMaker, which gives you exactly the same desktop functinalities on your HD, without having to use your notebook.
Then, come to mobile phone signal. Well, we do not know if you 'll have 3G coverage. However this would only affect your speed. It should still allow you to keep contact with the rest of the world via email, surf internet to keep with with things etc.
As for program, you should try to download the cab files of all your program and save them into your storage card before hand. Make sure that your registry value is set to NOT delete these cab files after installation. This is to allow you to reinstall these third party software in the event that you need to do a hard reset. I do not know your need to recommend any software to you, unless you let us know what you intend to do with your device.
There is no way you can brick your device by a hard reset. You will brick it only if you try to flash your device with a wrong ROM without first do a CID unlock of HD. Check under the section on hard spl once in a while to see if this unlocking tool is available.
Not sure of your mission in Laos. Is that related to education? Some years ago, I donated some old notebook to a missionary in one of these Indochina countries. He was actually there to create a written language for a minority tribe. He tried to teach the local some computers, and charged them a nominal 10 to 20 cents fee (to cover electricity etc), to let them learn to type. Eventually his aim was to create a local langauge Bible for them. Not sure how far he's achieved by now. In his case, he did need lots of computer, as it was also a way to build relationship with the locals. People were in awe with such a thing.
As for children, I recommend some paint program or similar, some simple children game if they have not been exposed to computer before.
I salute you for volunteering your time to good cause. Hope my suggestions helps, and let me know if I can be of any further help.
Cheers.
P/S Just curious. Did'nt you return your HD? Are you getting it again?
Hi guys i wasnt quite sure where to put this thread but finnaly decided this forum was fine. I am sorta a newbie but have been reading loads. I think this website is awesome and i will probably donate!! Anyways i have been having a problem with my phone . It is a T mobile MDA Vario Uk IPL 1.06 and SPL 1.06 and WM5, OS 5.1.70 (if that matters)it died, i went to the tmobile shop they sent it to thier place but it came back unfixed. Anyway to make a long story short i turned out to be the charger but now a week back i have got it up and running again!! But when it freezes as it does everynow and then i have no choice but to take the battery out. When i turn it back on the date and time has gone back to November 2005! It does not do this when i turn it off by holding down the power switch. It also loses some tasks i have made . But wierdly not all the tasks. For example i had 4 tasks i took the battery out , when i restarted it the date went back to 2005 and only 1 task remained!. Is there some other way to put it of that i dont know about when it is frozen? Or am i just doomed to keep changing the date!
Thnak you very much for your replies and your time in advance.
Are you trying to soft reset the phone first? Are you trying to turn the phone all the way off? Removing the battery should be a last resort approach.
Here's the deal...
You can stave off a lot of these kind of memory/freezing problems in the future by loading some kind of RAM indicator (QuickMenu has a built-in one, can manage running programs, and gives you a Windows desktop-style start menu for programs instead of the dumb folder avalanche) to let you know you have too many programs running, and you need to do a soft reset every once in a while, or at least hibernate it periodically (you can do this from QuickMenu), just to jog it clean. It would also be wise for you to load a temporary file cleaner to clear out your temp files every once in a while...you'd be shocked how much crap piles up under the OS when you're not looking.
Lastly, since you might end up really losing some important data, I'd recommend getting DotFred's PIM backup tool and loading it on an SD card in your phone, and configure it to back up your phone regularly (like once a day at 2 am, for example). As long as the phone's left on, it'll do that for you, and if your phone really craps the bed, at least you'll have your contacts, meetings, and other info safe and sound.
Also, in the future, please add the info on your phone to your sig, so you don't have to repeat yourself 8,000 times, and you might want to try more descriptive titles for your topics than "Hey," unless you like being ignored...
Thank you Myrddin Wyllt but what did you mean by hibernating it ? do you mean just pushing the on/off button quickly so the screen goes of? oh yeah and thank you for all the advice on this forum i shal procede to do that now! Thnak you again
Yep i have done that now
upgrade your OS to at least WM6.
When I got my phone it had WM5 on it, and it used to lock up or spontaneously soft reset at least once a day, even though I soft reset it regularly. Since I upgraded to WM6 I no longer have these lockup problems.
thank you i was thinking about upgrading but wasnt sure! About the battery thing i just found out about the little hole on the side. I think this solves the problem . But about upgrading will it make my phone slower or take up precious memory or something? And the big question which one?? Also some apps i would like to have require .net framework 2.0. I tried installing it on my phone on the storage card , i had about 50mb free but it still said there is not enough space and told me to clear up space and start again! will upgrading my rom also solve this problem? Is WM6 just like WM5 what are the differences i am a beit of a newbie here! You might have to treat me like a child on this one!
Also i was wondering out of the 47.4mb internal memory of the MDA Vario how much is used by the system and how much crap have i got on? Also if i use "clear storage" then will it also get rid of programs i have installed on my memory card and i have unlocked my phone. Will it re-lock it and return the old crappy t-mobile themes?? (i have spb moble shell atm)
Thank you in advance!