Database Users

Im Getting My Magician Tomorrow!

Hi Guys,
Been using this great site for a while now but im not a great poster! lol Ive bought a Magician and it will be arriving tomorrow and just wondered if there is anything that i should be looking out for?
For example, what mods do you recommend? I.E Bluetooth Fix (may not exsist but just gave example) I cant wait to get it as ive used a few before and been very impressed!
Also does anyone have a link for TomTom 5 Cracked? would be much appriciated! :lol:

Hi, welcome to XDA DEV and congratulations with your purchase! If you search this forum, you will find many fixes and mods that have been applied to speed up the magician (through registry edits), gain extra memory (BigStorage is a good one!), improve the BT stack, remove the Simlock etc etc. Just look in the Magician forums and you will find many tweaking hapiness there. Be sure to back-up first before applying any mod, since they might cause a hard reset and data loss. Please DON'T ask for illegal software here, there is enough of that to be found on the internet, but not in this community. We like to tweak and mod things, but intend to do nothing illegal here. If any software or hack here is illegal in your country, don't use it.
Have fun with your new Magician!

Thanks for the welcome Koksie! Ive been having a browse though and thought that maybe it would be good to get a Top 10 things to do to your magician?
Just thought it would be handy for people like me that are new to the magician.
Can someone explain what bigstore is please? Sounds great.
BTW it hasnt arrived yet its scheduled before 1pm though!

Do a search for BigStorage, it involves flashing your Rom with a custom made one you made yourself. You can use the ROM that came with it ( if it is a new one, you will get the latest ROM I presume) or with a newer one ( if yours is a second hand device and has an older version. 1.13 is the newest one at the moment. Check in your start-settings-device information) Since a flash removes all your data, the best thing is to do it before you put any programs and information on it. basically it deletes the Extended ROM ( where your provider puts all its settings) and merges it with the internal storage, adding 20 MB extra of ROm storage, in other words, another 20 MB extra of memory that will not be deleted in case of empty battery. Another advantage of 20 MB of extra ROM is that you save another 20 MB of RAM (by ebanling you installing aps to ROm instead of RAM), so your Magician will be much faster and less battery consuming. Search for BigStorage and the method (including backing -up the Extended ROM for later use) will be explained in detail in several threads.
Same goes for removing the Simlock or extending the BT profiles. Just search for the right terms and the methods will pop-up.
Other worthwile apps are DKToday, BT SwitchIt, tel-on-off, AEBPlus and MortButtons. Check these out, they are very usefull apps. Many registry tweaks are also posted, they help to speed up your magician, change behaviour of applications and settings etc. You are right that a top 10 would be helpful, but just searching the forum will help a lot. for regedits serach for "registry edit magiacian"and I am sure helpful threads will appear.

sorry for the idiot question but how do you install skins?

jaso2005 said:
sorry for the idiot question but how do you install skins?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Search for Wisbar Advance. It's the app that applies the skins. :wink:

You can find many skins on www.yorch.net, including instructions on how to install them. There are many other skin sources and progs on the market, some for free. Search and the shall find my man, google is thy friend!

This page is a useful read on hints and tips.
http://www.ppcsg.com/lofiversion/index.php/f20.html
And especially:
http://www.ppcsg.com/lofiversion/index.php/t50029.html
V
PS something you're bound to ask at some point, because everyone does, is how do you sort your contacts First Name, Last name?
Search against my userid. I've answered it a million times!

jaso2005 said:
Thanks for the welcome Koksie! Ive been having a browse though and thought that maybe it would be good to get a Top 10 things to do to your magician?
Just thought it would be handy for people like me that are new to the magician.
Can someone explain what bigstore is please? Sounds great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was in the same position as you are, as I recently switched from an XDAI (Wallaby) to the Magician.
Here are some things to consider and do.
1. You will definately fall in love with the device if you are a bit like me or the rest of the people here. You will want to use a long time, so before you go and use the device regularly, GET A SCREEN PROTECTOR. Even if it is just a cheap one to start with, protect the screen.
2. The regular Bluetooth stack is pretty unimpressive. It works OK, but does not offer a lot of options. If you are going to use BT get the CAB install that has just recenty popped up and is currently being discussed here. You can download in that thread, then you have a ton more options regarding BT.
3. The camera on my O2 branded device is crap (blue speckles in low light conditions). There is a fix out there to solve the problem a little bit. The ultimate solution is to install a updated camera software from T-Mobile devices which is more recent. I am still looking for a way to do this, have not dived into the topic completely.
4. If you are using your PPC device a lot, especially if you are using a large SD-Card for file storage one day or the other you will face the need of hooking up yur device to some friends computer to exchange some files. This is not easily done unless the other computer has ActiveSync running. To do this easily you can use Softick Card Export, which is a little tool that enables the Magician to act as a Mass Storage Device. When the program is enabled you just use your friendly USB cable to hook up to the other computer and your Magician is instantly connected without drivers (if it is a W2K+ or XP machine or something like this - Win98 will not work instantly).
5. Always carry a small USB cable with you. I love the possibility of charging my device whereever I find a USB port.
6. Software I will not leave home without:
- Wisbar Advance2 / Wisbar Advance Desktop plugin
- Total Commander
- Registry Editor of choice
- Memmaid
- Pockettools
- Sprite Backup
- Destinator PN (if you are going to use it as a GPS)
- Pocketmusic for mp3 playback
- Phonealarm plugin
- Some calendar plugin giving a good oversight of tasks and appointments
- eWallet (for keeping confidential info such as PINs etc. encrypted)
- Mobipocket Reader with a recent offline version of Wikipedia
- Pocketmechanic
- phonExt (better Dialer)
- RESCO Audio Recorder (allows mp3 recording)
- PhonePad chooser (customize the PhonePad design)
That should get you kind of started. Oh, wait, after I did the BigStorage hack I also replaced that butt-ugly O2 splash screen (screen displayed when you power on the device or do a soft/hard reset) with a selfmade one saying "hacked" and displaying the 18c3logo.

7. Get Pocket Zen Phone - it only costs €5 and allows you to have multiple profiles, flight, office, car, etc for different situations - just click the icon on the Today screen. Get it here: http://zendrui.free.fr/

TheBrit said:
7. Get Pocket Zen Phone - it only costs €5 and allows you to have multiple profiles, flight, office, car, etc for different situations - just click the icon on the Today screen. Get it here: http://zendrui.free.fr/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So does PhoneAlarm. I checked out PocketZenPhone, but decided I liked pA better. It's a matter of taste, I guess. Did you take a look at pA anyways?

This discussion is going on on another thread as well.
I use PA, it's got a lot of features that I like.
To be fair, I've not used PZP much because I didn't think that it did more then PA that was relevant to me.
I've set up PA with profiles on my Today screen, which seems to be what PZP is good for:
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
With my skin and my ToggleToday PA is an unobtrusive but valuable OS modification (at the top of the screen):
V

psych0t1c said:
TheBrit said:
7. Get Pocket Zen Phone - it only costs €5 and allows you to have multiple profiles, flight, office, car, etc for different situations - just click the icon on the Today screen. Get it here: http://zendrui.free.fr/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So does PhoneAlarm. I checked out PocketZenPhone, but decided I liked pA better. It's a matter of taste, I guess. Did you take a look at pA anyways?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, but PZP does exactly what I want.

contacts limited to 400

Hi all,
am having trouble with my jam.
my contacts database is limited to just 400 listings,
if i cross that, I get an error msg "Contacts Critically Low on Memory, needs to close"
after this "illegal" shutdown of contacts i lose some of my data.
if i keep the total no of listings below 400 i am safe.
plzzzzz help
*******************************************
imate jam
ROM: 1.12.00
extROM 1.12.128 WWE

could just be that you are running low on RAM space. RAM is used for both storage and program execution. You need ample space on both to keep the system running efficientl;y..at least 10MB free each portion.

hi,
thnx for ur reply.
i keep enuf RAM free.
i have moved every possible thing to my SD Card.
something else is wrong.
plz advise.

there was a case on the PPCSG forum where an Atom user had 3500 contacts and that took up 15MB of memory store so a few hundred contacts would take up a fair bit of RAM space. Even though currently you have ample RAM, the system says that you can only store up to 400 contacts for the system to function properly..anything more you will be driving the system to critical crash mode.

hi,
thnx for ur reply.
so, it seems i will have to stay put at 400. very tuff for me, seems i will have to migrate to another device sooner than anticipated.
many thnx again
bye

taatu: I'm really sorry, I only have about 100 contacts myself, but as I said on my Forum, I'm sure other guys on the board are syncing no problem with more than 400. Have you tried re flashing with a newer Rom?
I'm sure 400 is not the maximum though!
V

don't buy the Atom because you only get actual 22MB useable storage space ut of 128MB. The Prophet 818 Pro has 37MB useable storage and the Eten M600 has 78MB storage free.

hey guys,
many many thnx for ur replies.
this is a lovely place.
i did the re flashing, didnt help.
tc
bye

taatu said:
hey guys,
many many thnx for ur replies.
this is a lovely place.
i did the re flashing, didnt help.
tc
bye
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe you would like to consider the Big Storage or Unbranding. Without installing the ext. rom you would have more ram for the storage. I have more than 500 phone contacts thou not all have full details such as address, company, spouse & etc. I don't face this problem at all.
I always maintain 12Mb for storage & 20Mb for RAM.
Do a search & good luck.

I wish I knew 400 People :lol: :lol: :lol:

I'm not getying this memory problem. I just checked my contacts database: it's only 22K containing 186 records, most of the filled with address etc. Am I looking at the wrong thing or is this supposed 400 limit something completely different?
Cheers, M

hi,
thnx guys for ur inputs.
i think i better give "kanryu's" suggestion a shot. i usually am low on the RAM side cos i browse the net on my jam all the time. tried to change the location of IE storage but it still saves on phone, that sucks.
thnx again

taatu said:
hi,
thnx guys for ur inputs.
i usually am low on the RAM side cos i browse the net on my jam all the time. tried to change the location of IE storage but it still saves on phone, that sucks.
thnx again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, this one, I think I can help. I'm running 1.11WWE BS in my O2 Mini and my internet "junk" cache/cookies/history is in my Storage so it doesn't grow and eat up my Main Memory (have NOT tested pointing it to Storage Card, since I don't have Storage Card when wifi card is in anyway).
Proceed at your own risk, backup, blah..blah..:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Change to your desired path values for:
1. History - mine is set to \Storage\IETmp\History
2. Cookies - mine is set to \Storage\IETmp\Cookies
3. Cache - mine is set to \Storage\IETmp\Cache
HTH. Goodluck.
Oh, and clean up the existing folders in Main Memory once you have pointed them in another location to free up the space.

taatu: To help pinpoint the cause of the problem, could you go to the memory screen on your pda and post the info it says for free memory eg
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Can you try softresetting so that there are no other programs running in memory, make a note of the free memory as indicated in the picture, and then try syncing. If you're having memory problems, running out of storage and free memory might of course be the cause of your problems.
However, if you're saying it's always at exactly 400 contacts, is it the same contact, or any info you type in which causes the problem for the 400th contact?
V

the contacts limit of 400 applies only to him ...this is probably the limit the system has calculated based on current available RAM on his handheld..everyone's is different

Calendar is critically low on memory message
On my JAM about once every other day I get the error <Calendar is critically low on memory has needs to close to preserve integrity of data>. I also get this message with Contacts, but much less often.
I am very curious about this. I am using the BigStorage Mod and have all third party programs installed to Storage, none in the Main Memory at all. Even so Storage still reports 15.86 free which is about double the amount it would have without the BigStorage mod.
More importantly, as mentioned, I have NO programs installed in the Main Memory so it is all free for the PDA etc. I even use MemMaid to set my IE cache to store on my SD Card so not even that is using Main Memory (plus I very frequently empty the Cache anyway).
I also use Magic Button, so that Programs really close (not just Minimize) to keep as much memory available as possible at all times.
With the Memory slider set as close to the middle as possible, my device reports
Storage (As in RAM Storage): Allocated 27.70, in use 7.41, free 21.29
Program: Allocated 28.71, in use 11.09, free 17.62.
I have tried putting the memory slider in different positions. It did seem that adjusting it so that the amount of RAM availble for storage to double the amount set for programs seemed to reduce the occurance of the error maybe a little. e.g, balance free approx 26/13 in favor of storage. It did not eliminate the error though.
I am aware that some memory activities do not seem to report their impact in the memory control panel. For example, I check the memory allocation, open Calendar and Contacts and leave them open, check back on the memory allocation and the report remains unchanged.
I do have a lot of Contacts (about 2000) and a lot of Calendar entries (about 14000). But bear in mind, most of the time I can have both of these open if I choose without errors. The error pops up every day or so. Often Calendar is the only Program open at the time. (I generally only open one program at a time and close it completely before opening another.
In addition, I previously used an HP iPAQ h6315 which has no more available RAM, in fact I ended up with much less available, because I used to store all my third party programs in Main Memory at that time ( I hadn't figured out I could use ROM Storage for that purpose) I NEVER saw the error EVER on that device. The h6315 ran WM2003 as opposed to the JAM/Magician which runs WM2003E. I had just as many entries on the iPAQ and NEVER saw the error. :shock:
I am very baffled by this inconsistent error. I realize I have a lot of entries, but note that while the error appears relatively regular, it does not appear consistently. Plus I did not see this on the iPAQ, and I believe I am using much better memory management practices on my JAM/Magician.
I also this error on the JAM before I made the BigStorage mod or started using MagicButton (in fact it motivated me to try both those solutions, but it did not cure this issue. Because this did not occur on the iPAQ, I am inclined to think this is not due to the size of my databases in themselves, but is a device or WM2003SE specific memory management issue which they may be a tweak or fix of some kind available
:?: Any help or suggestions would be very much appreciated. I would also really like to know how much memory my Calendar and Contacts is really using... if anyone can please advise on that too it would be helpful.
Thanks in advance.

memory survey...

...just wondering if my memory usage seems normal or not. here's what i have running and the associated usage. please share your opinion. thanks in advance.
{
"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}

Seems about right to me. If you don't use the OEM Voice dial, you can remove the sddaemon shortcut from your startup folder. There's a known bug with it anyways when it creates duplicate notification on a soft reset.
You can also remove poutlook. I have taken that shortcut out of every PPC I have owned (going way back) with no ill effects.

i appreciate the response

looks right to me. I have spb diary, spb power plus, weather, and Resco File Explorer & Registry editor installed. I have also re-assigned my IE cache, history and cookies to my miniSD card. spb is installed on the card as well, and finally my email (synced email, not sms and mms as i can't figure out if you can move these) on the miniSD card. I have a little over 36MB free storage on main memory and typically 18-22MB free in program memory. no mem maid running.

Hi
lpasq to me your mem usage seems normal.
By the way at are you using to draw that cpu usage on your today?
Cheers

CPU Mem graph
Hi
lpsaq how did you display CPU and memory graph ?
I'm very interested about this.
Spb pocket+ ?
Thanks

Re: CPU Mem graph
elrigolo said:
Hi
lpsaq how did you display CPU and memory graph ?
I'm very interested about this.
Spb pocket+ ?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Could you give us a list of all the softwares and versions you have installed, love the theme too, where'd you pic that up?
-Newbie

This is what I've been looking for...I have the T-mobile USA MDA....I think I have some memory leak issues.
I have in Main Memory:
Agenda Fusion
SPB Diary
SPB Backup
Pocket Weather
MS Voice Command
MemMaid
WisbarAdvanced2
I have about 16mb main memory left and it bounces all over the place one minute 16, 10 minutes later 8mb then 10 meinutes later 12mb (I have run MemMaid to see running processes and there is nothing there...maybe bad install?)
Storage is at 12mb.
I don't think this is right. But this is my first PPC so I'm not sure if someone could help me out here I would appreciate it.
I am tempted to hard reset and not use customized Ext Rom, but there are some things I do want, but after looking at the EXT Rom file, I haven't a clue what is what and if I really need it.
thanks

tylerrbrown said:
Could you give us a list of all the softwares and versions you have installed, love the theme too, where'd you pic that up?
-Newbie
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fizz Traveller 2.2 /$$/
MemMaid 1.5 /$$/
PHM RegEdit ( extract from PHM Powertoys 0.18 ) /FREE/
PHM Traylnch ( extract from PHM Powertoys 0.18 ) /FREE/
PocketBreeze 5.0.12.2 /$$/
PPC Remote Desktop /FREE/
RhinoCapture 2.0 /$$/
RhinoStats 3.0 /$$/
SmartsKey 0.41 /FREE/
Spb ToPlay plug-in for Windows Mobile Media Player 10 /FREE/
Tweak 1.5 Skin for Windows Mobile Media Player 10 /$$/
wizSplash (spalsh changer) /FREE/
Zphone Reptile Phone Skins /FREE/
*Theme is homemade /FREE/

Can you give us the tsk file?!?!? I love it!

tylerrbrown said:
Can you give us the tsk file?!?!? I love it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i already deleted it but can rebuild it when i got free time to do so . check back.

Your memory usage is quite high, but it's to be expected when you have so much crap running.

Echilon said:
Your memory usage is quite high, but it's to be expected when you have so much crap running.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
finally... someone with expert knowledge! tell me yoda, what crap have i? i am willing to dump the poo. i kinda like fizz 'cause i'm wacky that way. same for breeze. the wmp plugin is about to go away any moment and the cpu/mem graph plugin is dumb. memmaid... well that one is heavy since i only run it for dup notifications.
gotta keep smartskey (thanks water) and phm traylnch is also a no brainer.
comments/advice?

tylerrbrown said:
Can you give us the tsk file?!?!? I love it!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my themes are here http://www.modaco.com/wizard_themes-t238175.html

I must have some sort of leak somewhere...
I have a Cingular 8125. I'm running SPB Pocket+, MS Voice Command, Smartskey, and Overclock. Startup list includes:
voice command.lnk
smartskey.lnk
omapclock.lnk
services.lnk
init_tray.lnk
checkautorun.lnk
capnotify.lnk
pmnotify.lnk
I have total commander installed on my miniSD. My program memory remaining after a reset is about 17MB. After running a few hours, and closing all apps, it drops to about 10.5 MB and stays around there. Any ideas as to what may be happening? I have a few tweaks in place, but nothing overboard. After removing all cache tweaks the most I have had remaining is 19 MB. I have no idea where all this memory is going. Any ideas?

Ok I'll ask the obvious question...
Why do you all care so much about having xxx memory remaining?? How does it help you to have 12MB of RAM sitting there not being used...does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside??
This stuff always cracks me up - as long as you are not running out of memory what do you care how much memory you are using. Sitting on top of 19MB of free RAM is not doing anybody any good.
I've used my Cingular 8125 and at times the available memory went down to around 4MB!!! That's right...scary stuff but guess what, nothing crashed, everything worked smoothly and later on it was back up to around 8-9mb.
Like I said, as long as you are not running out of memory what does it really matter?

ahh, because...
with 10 MB left, I can't run minimo without running out of memory as it uses at least 10 on this thing. Clear enough answer?

Re: ahh, because...
jonty12 said:
with 10 MB left, I can't run minimo without running out of memory as it uses at least 10 on this thing. Clear enough answer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are discussions throughout forum regarding "memory leak". you may want to search threads.

When a Geek cries.. My depression with my new Cigular 8125

Perhaps one of you can help guide me before I give up on what I thought would be the great love of my life, the Cingular 8125.I knew it might be underpowered, I new Cingular would screw with the OS a bit. But as a person addicted to the Audiovox 5600 I thought.
"Hey this will be great I will be upgrading from 2003 to mobile 5 plus getting a bigger screen QWERTY and WI-FI"
How foolish I feel right now. This thing is SO MUCH less of a phone than my 5600, although the call clarity seems even better and has better reception.
- It does not have the ability to easily check calendars and reference the contact while in a call nor is it easy to jump around during a call at all.
- I CAN NOT BELIVE they stopped supporting settings on contacts who's bright idea was that?
- All the conference call numbers that I have stored in my appointments do not have that fantastic autodial feature that my 5600 had
- Don't even get me started on the abomination that is ActiveSync 4.1 I could write down my new email faster than I can sync it
- The today screen is so much less configurable than home screens, my home screen was perfect but I can not use it.
Is all of this just an enormous oversight by MS with Mobile 5 or is this the Wizard? or for that matter is it Cingular? If so can I get this potentially perfect peice of hardware to run a more phone friendly ROM?
Thanks

Re: When a Geek cries.. My depression with my new Cigular 8
sharrisct25 said:
"Hey this will be great I will be upgrading from 2003 to mobile 5 plus getting a bigger screen QWERTY and WI-FI"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, you know it had a smaller screen, it's also a smaller device with a full keyboard. What do you expect? At least it's not a sqare 240 x 240 screen.
How foolish I feel right now. This thing is SO MUCH less of a phone than my 5600, although the call clarity seems even better and has better reception.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't speak for the 5600, but my K-JAM is a great phone and gets great reception.
- It does not have the ability to easily check calendars and reference the contact while in a call nor is it easy to jump around during a call at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As with all versions of the WM OS going back to the original PPC OS, you can add any functionality thru 3rd party PIMs, today screens, freeware, etc. Get yourself a good task manager or a Menu application. Navigation on my K-JAM with smartskey, gsPocketMagic, alt-tab, couldn't be easier.
- I CAN NOT BELIVE they stopped supporting settings on contacts who's bright idea was that?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
?????
- All the conference call numbers that I have stored in my appointments do not have that fantastic autodial feature that my 5600 had
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is speed dial on the phone pad. Heck you can even use the OEM voice dial. MS Voice command even better.
- Don't even get me started on the abomination that is ActiveSync 4.1 I could write down my new email faster than I can sync it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The first ever sync with the device is bad, subsequent syncs are nowhere near as slow. If you're syncing 100's of emails to the device, what do you expect?
- The today screen is so much less configurable than home screens, my home screen was perfect but I can not use it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huh? My Today screen has Pocket Plus, Pocket Breeze, Contact Breeze and Pocket Weather. I also have the lock button. I could also put on a control for Pocket Music and others. Your statement doesn't make sense.
Is all of this just an enormous oversight by MS with Mobile 5 or is this the Wizard? or for that matter is it Cingular? If so can I get this potentially perfect peice of hardware to run a more phone friendly ROM?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you referring to the AKU2 update? Once again, please be more specific.

I've got an 8125 and my wife has a 5600. I tried setting up her home page for easy access to the most used programs and files like i have on my 8125 but it is such a pain and nowhere near as functional as mine.. I guess it's what you're used to.

I have an MPx220 and the K-Jam. They both have their place.
The MPx220 is a great phone when you want a small phone that has actual phone buttons and a powerful contacts/calendar plus some additional stuff.
The K-Jam on the other hand is a complete PPC which isn't much larger than the MPx220 with WiFi. It doesn't use XML like the Smartphones, but is still configurable. They are different animals.
Personally, if something happened to my K-Jam, I'd pick up an 8125 in a second. Push email, real apps, full qwerty, etc. I'll always have a typical phone as a backup in instances where I don't want to risk damage to the PPC phone, but the K-Jam (Wizard variant) is my main device (and has been for almost 5 months) until something better comes along.
Give it some time. If you compare a BMW to a Mercedes, you will find they are both quality automobiles, but if you look for specifics, you'll find each has things the others don't.
-Mc

Ok I have calmed down a bit, still anoyed however
You were correct that alot of it took getting used to, after some playing I get ActiveSync to work reliably (although was more trouble than it should have been). I also added pocket breeze and that helped. I am still really troubled by a couple of items
I do not like having all my contacts on my phone, I have always maintained a subset of my 2000 plus contacts specifically for sync to my phone via categories. With my 5600 I could simply specifiy the categories I wanted on my phone and get that subset. this was a great feature and I am lost as to why they took it out of Mobile 2005.
I liked being able to layout my homesceen with real percision using the xml schema, can I do that with the Today screen?
I am very upset that I have lost the link to autodial phone numbers from appointments. I have like 10 conference calls a day and I am often mobile. All of the appointments have the conference call numbers in them and I used to be able to click them to dial the number. On my 8125 they are not linked, is there some tool or fix to make them linked having to swap back and forth to dial the numbers and codes is a real pain in the neck.
When you dial a contact is there a easy way to go "back" to the contact and dial another number? My 5600 did this great caus the call progress screen had a link to the persons contact and the calendar. A very good interface.
Overall I agree this device has the potential to be much better than my 5600, the problem seems to be that the OS has forgoten what I consider to be some key usuability features around the phone part of this device.
Any hints would be appreciated.

There is a good reason why there is still two devices using the WM software.
--------------------
Smartphones are first and foremost a phone with some limited PDA capabilities that go along with it
PPC Phones are first and foremost a PPC with some phone capabilities that go along with it.
--------------------
I like you transfered from the smartphone platform to the PPC platform when the 8125 became available but I knew that by taking this step the phone side was not going to be as functional as my old trusty SMT5600.
There are a lot of PPC utilities that make this transition easier. I would say the #1 add in you want to play with would be the Smarts Key add in that was developed by one of the members in this forum. It makes it much easier for one handed navigation especially when your on the phone.
I would also recommend installing the new ROM. If you look in my sig there is a link to a ROM package someone has modified and took out a lot of the extra crap that Cingular did to the ROM and also includes an updated Radio/Data Stack. After I did this upgrade and installed Smartskey and Microsoft Voice Commander I found the 8125 to be a much better tool.
If you need a phone first and foremost I would go with the 2125. It is a great device with a nicer screen (smaller still, but nicer) then the 8125. I got one for the owner to replace his SMT5600 and he says the reception and stability is like night and day.

i too, have yet to find the joy in owning/using my wizard (8125) as i had with my typhoon (smt5600). however, i do have a faraday (2125) too and am glad i do because i use it on weekends. the 8125 is not a great phone and the 2125 is a poor pda.
maybe they will have offspring
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Services.exe, gwes.exe and filesys.exe

I've looked around quite a lot for info on these files but i've had little success with it.
When my Wizard boots up, it has about 16MB of RAM left over. In less than 1 hour without any usage, it goes from 16MB to about 8MB and the phone starts crawling.
Using DotFreds Task Manager, I figured out that the files mentioned in the title grow from sizes of around 500 - 1000 KB at startup to about 4MB each. I use Oxios Hibernate as much as most people use refresh on their computers and inspite of that I can't do much to save RAM.
I've included screenshots with info from DotFreds Task Manager.
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Both of them have the exact same apps running with the exception of pMSN server which isnt running in the one with 16MB free. Both have Outlook and ActiveSync open in the background.
As you can see with very minimalistic usage, the memory consumtion has gone through the roof despite the fact that I continuously use Oxios Hibernate to free up memory.

One of the thing I don't really like about M$ is that they tend to have everything under their 'module' and there isn't any way of telling what is causing that particular 'module' to behave as such. For example, in WinXp, there are tons of this svchost.exe running at the background and they are allowed to access the net. And certainly, one day viruses will hijack these 'module' and it will be relatively impossible to detect.
Anyway, the filesys.exe behaviour is very interesting. Based on its name, I would presume that it does file system stuff. So, I wonder what could have made it blown up to such a massive size. What do you DO after you had the unit softreset? If you didn't do anything, I would suspect that the massive other applications might be the culprit, eg. anythings that read/write stuff? It would be helpful if you can list out the Today plugins that you have and, you seems to be usign WA2.

Mr. iPhone... thanks for that
Unlike most members here I hardly have memory resident programs installed.
Today Screen Plugins (This is all that I have set for my TODAY SCREEN)
1) BatteryStatus
2) Default Pocket Outlook Messaging Item
3) Today Agenda
Programs that run in the background
1) WA2
2) SPB Pocket Plus
(I have disabled all features of SPB Pocket Plus including the Today Screen Plugin, with the exception of the Buttons Feature and the Pocket IE Enhancements. I mainly keep this installed because I like the variety of button shortcuts it provides)
3) AE Button Plus
4) PaulyA.com Vista Black by JPL4 (Phone Dialer Skin)
5) Oxios Memory
6) MS VC 1.6
7) SOTI Pocket Controller
8) Saman SMS Delivery Reciept Fix
9) Shubaroo.com ContactFix (Not sure if this is a memory resident program)
Misc Programs that are not active until I start them
1) Resco Explorer
2) Total Commander
3) Opera
4) IM Plus 4.23
5) Macromedia Flash Player ActiveX (not sure as to whether this loads everytime a browser open or if it loads at boot)
6) Skype 2.1
7) z2 R2PC
8) SPB Insight
9) smashcasi RemoteAmp
10) TCPMP Core Player
11) Modaco NO DATA
12) Age of Empires
13) WM5torage
14) Bad sector's ID Transfer v1.00

You can't really do much about those files.
gwes.exe = graphics/windows (the graphic component of WinMob)
services.exe = drivers and stuff.
Filesys.exe = file system stuff (obviously!)
These are fundamental files to the OS. You can't normally disable them or kill them without damaging the OS behaviour. However, what they do is normally dictated by apps you run, drivers you start and other normal phone behaviour. I don't normally watch those files, as their activities are best left alone - consider everything else you're running on your phone though.
Wisbar and Voice Command are hefty apps. Try using a safe mode app and disabling all startup apps, and do a trial and error check of which apps use the most resources.
If you want to get your hands dirty, backup your registry and go through your driver registry and disable unnecessary drivers. I don't recommend that, but you know,
.
V

Thanks for that VJ.
It looks like WA2 and Voice command are using less than 300KB and 1000KB repectively. Tha't quite alright for me. The fact that the services.exe file takes up such a massive chunk of memory is unsettling. Isnt there anyway to have it unload modules and components that are not in use?

Not really. You could, but it's better to stop them from loading to begin with.
If you've got a task manager that will show you module usage (or access to remote tools in Visual Studio/EVC) then find out which modules are a bit elephantine and try to hack through the registry and disable them from loading. It's a very dangerous solution, so backup first.
V

I'm not at guru-level like some, but I have had similar problems in the past, and suggest checking some basics before elephant hunting!!
My experience is that filesys and gwes are the two system modules that absorb the effects of bad memory leaks... IOW, they themselves are not the problem, just the recipients of something else screwing up, which will usually be evidenced in dramatically increased size.
So, my first instinct would be that SOMETHING you have installed is playing badly.
My initial reaction/question is: (this is obvious, but... ) did you change anything recently? New ROM, new app versions, new app settings (e.g., change of OMAP Clock in BatteryStatus), registry tweaks, etc. ?
I use a very similar set of apps. Some thoughts:
* The first thing that jumps at me is Today Agenda, as I know that the recent versions have some instabilities with recent cooked ROMs.
* The second would be to check the interactions between SPB Pocket Plus and WA2 (as task manager) and AE Button Plus (for button assignment), as Pocket Plus doesn;t always play nicely with others, and also has some cooked ROM issues.
* The third would be SPB Insight, which, if running in the background, might be messing things up.
Good luck!

Thanks for that rpodos.
I dunno if it could be any of the things you've mentioned... then again, you never know.
I'm still using the stock rom from iMate
1) SPB Pocket Plus is completely disabled except for the PIE enhancements and the Buttons feature. Hence no conflict between task managers of WA2 and Pocketplus
2) Very rarely use SPB Insight... infact both the screenshots above were taken without an SPB Insight usage.
3) AE Button Plus and SPB Buttons.... hmm... I use the SPB Button Shortcuts in AE Button Plus.
4) Today Agenda... I'm using the latest version, but I only installed it like 2 days ago, and i've been having this same memory problem much before that.

After trying a lot of things that didnt really pan out, I was well on my way to a hard reset when I decided to find a few softwares to replace the SPB functionalities.
1) I got PIE Plus to replace SPB PIE Enhancements
2) Got MonoCube's SafeMode 2
3) PHM's PHM Keys for some of the direct system commands that could be assigned to Buttons to replace the SPB Pocket Plus Button Enhancements.
After I got all this, and was about to Hard Reset, I was just curious to see if the memory situation would imporve marginally by un-installing a few softwares especially Pocket Plus. I went into safe mode and removed the following
1) SPB Pocket Plus
2) PaulyA.com Vista Black by JPL4 (Phone Dialer Skin)
3) SPB Insight
4) Total Commander and
5) z2 R2PC
I restarted and what do you know... no more memory leak. My services.exe file hasn't gone beyond 138 KB.
Filesys.exe and GWES.exe are still at 1468kb and 1202kb, but I guess GWES is understandable since I am using WA2.
Other than that everything else is fine. I installed PIE Plus and it's awesome. I can't believe how incredibly fast it is and how many customizing options it has. I can't believe I used PIE without it all these days. It can do almost everything except give u access to sites like orkut. I guess you can have Opera around for that, but other than some occasional sites like that which could pose a problem, this one really takes the cake. Really fast... without OCing!!!
Definitely recommend that everybody should try it out atleast once.
Just search for "PIEPlus" on www.pocketgear.com
The latest version is 2.2
Anyways, just thought I'd let all of you know that everything is AOK.
In my opinion the memory leak was prolly between SPB Pocket Plus and the Vista Dialer Skin... that thing (Vista Dialer) really drained everything from the day I installed it. Just didn't realise how much till I saw my RAM get depleted by the minute till the wizard was down on its knees at 3MB free ram!!!!! Even opening my Windows folder used to take a millennium till I got rid of the Vista Dialer. Now it opens up in about 5 seconds as opposed to almost 8-12 seconds before.
Oh and lastly... I got between 17.5 MB to 19MB free RAM now with the same setup as before minus the few things I removed as mentioned above.

I think you can keep Total Commander, it is a crime not to have it
anyway, I'm having (running ones, i guess)
phoneAlarm
rlToday
dashBoard
Pocket Breeze
PaulyA.com skin
Has the same amount of free memory as you. I wonder what in my stuff that takes as much memory as the WA2 (pocket breeze? dashboard?). And i would have thought, AE Button Plus and MS VC ought to take more memory. Need to do some investigation this weekend.

Hey buddy, hows it goin?
LOL... yeah... Since I thought I was heading to a hard reset, I just pulled out a few things I wasn't using of late and that included Total Commander, not that it really contributed to the memory hole.
I had Pocket Plus installed from the day I last Hard Reseted and that was on the 15th of Dec 2006. Everything was actually fine. Somewhere mid January, I installed WA2 and even then things were quite alright. I had disabled all of Pocket Plus's features that interfered with WA2 such as Close Button. Somewhere around the same time, I installed the Vista Dialer and soon after that things started going down hill. I guess the memory hole started up because of some sort of incompatability somewhere between these 3 apps. Now that i've gotten rid of Pocket Plus and the Vista Dialer, it all seems fine. I think SPB Insight might have something to do with it as well since it has a service which loads during startup.

Sorry about the posts which are one after the other. Since what I'm mentioning here is a little different from the above, I thought it would be better to put it in a new post.
Just tried uninstalling some of the Today Items DLL's. Though I don't have anything on my Today Screen except for
1) Battery Status
2) Messaging
3) Today Agenda
it seems that the other items which you have the option of selecting for the Today Screen also load their DLL's whether you have enabled them or not.
I had Skype and a whole bunch of other stuff like Pocket MSN etc. I backed up the original settings in the registry and used the Today Plugin Un-Installer to unload the DLL's and remove the entries.
Stuff I've gotten rid off
1) Skype
2) Device Lock (don't really use it)
3) Wireless
4) Tasks
5) Calendar
6) Pocket MSN
After doing this I've gotten about another 500kb fre I think. So yeah.... I'm almost at 20MB free RAM now.

in order to release memory you can use htcAddicts (a quick search would be enough to find it)
it has a function to schedule "clean RAM" daily, every 3 or 6 hours, which might help
all the best