Category Archives: SmartPhones

Your Smartphone. What if you lose it? [Security]

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Ever thought of that scenario? Not yet? Better start thinking about it now. If you work for a large corporation you might already be backed up by an enterprise level security system, but if you are not, then it’s time to get something in place to protect your information.

Work/Personal email, text messaging, sensitive documents, Facebook, Twitter, personal banking applications; you name them. An stranger can get access to them very easily (with banking application might be trickier, but at least they can try).

I use two products to protect my Android based phone in the case it gets lost or stolen.

  1. Protector, an application that allows to setup a pin to access certain applications (fully configurable). This is very useful when you want to lend your smartphone to a friend for them to search but not allow them to open your email inbox for example.
  2. Lookoput (available for Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry). Protects your phone from viruses and backs up your information to their systems (calls, sms, etc). If you pay you get the premium options to locate, remote lock and remote wipe. These last 3 are the most important features for me.
Lookout

Lookout

There are several other products out there you can try yourself.

Good Luck!

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.