Category Archives: SmartPhones

Wi-Fi Hotspot [HTC G2]

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After sending the OTA upgrades, TMobile enabled 3 nice features: WiFi Calling, USB Tethering and WiFi HotSpot. The HTC G2 can be used as a wireless router and be able to accept connections from any device that connects to Open and WPA2-PSK Wi-Fi networks.

Portable WiFi Hotspot

Portable WiFi Hotspot

Portable WiFi Hotspot Configuration

Portable WiFi Hotspot Configuration

Just follow the steps:

  1. On the Android phone, press Home, press Menu, and touch Settings to open the Settings application.
  2. Touch Wireless & networks > Tethering & portable hotspot.
  3. Check Portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
  4. Check Portable Wi-Fi hotspot Settings
  5. Configure the Netword SSID, Security and Save
  6. Your phone is now a Wireless Router using the Available HSPA+ network.

It seems that T-Mobile isn’t charging extra for this feature yet, but will throttle if bandwidth usage goes over 5 GB within a month.

USB Tethering [HTC G2]

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After ensuring that WiFi calling worked properly I went ahead and researched about USB tethering for my G2. I have tried PDA Net before, but I wanted to use a “native” solution provided by T-Mobile. It is really easy.

USB Tethering

  1. You are likely to need drivers, so download it from here and decompress into a folder.
  2. Use the USB cable that came with your phone to connect your phone to your computer.
  3. On the Android phone, press Home, press Menu, and touch Settings to open the Settings application.
  4. Touch Wireless & networks > Tethering & portable hotspot.
  5. Check USB tethering.
  6. When asked for drivers, point the the one you just downloaded.
  7. You should be able to connect to the internet at this point.

If your phone is connected to the Internet through WiFi, the tethered computer will use your phone as a gateway, using wireless internet instead of the available HSPA+ network. This is good for computers that do not have a wireless connection and not able to connect to the internet.

Speed Tests:

Tethering using 3G Network (No HSPA+ available)

Tethering using 3G Network (No HSPA+ available)

Tethering using Wi-Fi and local Internet Service Provider

Tethering using Wi-Fi and local Internet Service Provider

WiFi Calling Feature Does Not Work Properly With Bluetooth Enabled And No Headset [HTC G2]

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T-Mobile started to roll out OTA radio upgrades and Wifi Calling in the past couple of days. Mine was updated yesterday and I was really exited to try it. At first it did not work and left for work. Then came back to try it again and it did;  I even got a couple of calls at night with no issues. Today calls dropped to the point that was almost unusable. I researched online and found out two cases of users having the same exact issue and pointing Bluetooth as the culprit. They were right. As soon as I disabled Bluetooth, WiFi calling just worked beautifully. It is a bug that T-Mobile will need to patch quickly.

Now, what does WiFi calling means for your plan and phone:

  1. It will use the alloted minutes for your current plan, for the bucket you are currently on: Peak, Nights, Weekends or MyFavs. I double checked today and ensured that all calls made were recorded as “Weekend”.
  2. You might be able to use it overseas and avoid ridiculous roaming charges. You just need a decent WiFi connection.
  3. Your phone is likely to use more battery as WiFi will be on all the time. So keep a spare charger or MiscroUSB cable handy.

I have also read that tethering was going to be part of this OTA update. I have not found the option yet, but will comment about it as soon as I do. Right now I am focused on ensuring that WiFi is flawless while in my house which has really bad reception spots, including my home office.

Enjoy your G2.

SD Card unexpectedly removed [Android]

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Today while I was trying to take a picture of my son wearing his costume with my new HTC G2, got the error message “SD Card unexpectedly removed”. I asked myself: how is that possible if the card is inside and even behind the battery.

Before I continued trying, decided to turn off the phone, extract the card, clean the contacts and try again. Everything went well until 20 minutes later; I got the same error again.

I performed the process again, this time thoroughly cleaning the pins on both the G2 and the SD card. I was able to record my son’s parade and even upload to YouTube, but yet again the error message came up once more.

Searched on Google, called a friend and even called T-Mobile to see if there was any known issue. Didn’t get too much help so I went ahead and performed a CheckDisk with repairs (while plugged in to the USB port of my PC). I thought it was fixed after it, but minutes later, again the issue reoccurred.

I decided to use a MicroSD adapter, plugged into my computer, tried to save whatever I could from the latest pictures and videos I took (luckily it was just 2 weeks worth) and formatted it like 3 times. I did not choose a quick format option just to ensure that all blocks get touched.

All good? No. Seems that the card is bad. Called T-Mobile, called, HTC, there are no replacement cards for the HTC G2 yet. What? It is a universal card! But no, HTC says that I need to call when they get stock parts for the HTC G2.

I guess I am out of luck on this one. I will need to buy another card.

Luckily, all the previous contents were safely backed up to the cloud.

Figuring out Android internals

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My first task was to change the ringtone to music I used to have in my Windows phone. A simple search let me to a guide with this information:

Music/ – Media scanner classifies all media found here as user music.
Podcasts/ – Media scanner classifies all media found here as a podcast.
Ringtones/ – Media scanner classifies all media found here as a ringtone.
Alarms/ – Media scanner classifies all media found here as an alarm sound.
Notifications/ – Media scanner classifies all media found here as a notification sound.
Pictures/ – All photos (excluding those taken with the camera).
Movies/ – All movies (excluding those taken with the camcorder).
Download/ – Miscellaneous downloads.

These are under the media folder located in the microSD card. As soon as the Android phone is plugged to a PC, a USB Mass Storage device is detected and drivers are installed.

My second task was to have the ability to browse the storage card within Android (kind of File Explorer on Windows Phone). I found Astro file manager and installed it.

My third task was to find applications I used often in other environments and install them into the device. TweetDeck, Foursquare, Skyfire, Retro Radio and Google Reader came to mind. Facebbok and Twitter apps came pre-installed.

Fourth task. Figure out why is my device losing signal in my house. This is ironic because I used to laugh at the iPhone 4 when all the articles of bad reception popped up a week after it was launched. Several sites started posting funny pics about it. Well it is just bad luck as my Windows Phone has better reception. I figured out spots where I can leave it and let it get some signal.

The situation prompt me to ask a question on Twitter. 2 mentions came back quickly pointing out about WiFi calling. This is why Twitter is so awesome!

So my fifth task was to research about Wifi Calling and try to make it work. Well this wasn’t as trivial, as I needed to follow these steps:

  1. Download the Android SDK and install
  2. Install USB drivers – but seems that this method did not work properly in my machine
  3. Download proper X64 USB drivers
  4. Download the T-Mobile Wifi-Calling App
  5. Plug in the G2 to my PC
  6. Enable usb debugging option in the device
  7. Open the Device Manager, find out the new device that has no drivers and update it with the ones you just downloaded
  8. Open the command prompt window and change the folder to “tools” under the android SDK folder
  9. Issue adb commands:
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Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Oscar>cd C:\Users\Oscar\Downloads\android sdk\tools

C:\Users\Oscar\Downloads\android sdk\tools>adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached
HT09XR207992    device

C:\Users\Oscar\Downloads\android sdk\tools>adb devices
List of devices attached
HT09XR207992    device

C:\Users\Oscar\Downloads\android sdk\tools>adb install WiFiCalling.apk
2565 KB/s (3478662 bytes in 1.324s)
        pkg: /data/local/tmp/WiFiCalling.apk
Success

C:\Users\Oscar\Downloads\android sdk\tools>

I installed the Wi-Fi application but seems that T-Mobile has not enabled it on their end. I will wait and post as soon as I get any success using it.

Enjoy your [soon to be] Android phone.