Nitesh's Blog

Transferring Thunderbird/Firefox profile to MAC OSX Lion

2011-12-04T14:34:00.000-05:00

A novice user of 11.6 " Mac Book Air and a survivor of couple hard drive crashes on Toshiba Portege, i was faced with the challenge to migrate all my emails, profile settings etc from Windows 7 to Mac OSX Lion. Tried several websites and no help. Thought of trying something and it worked like a charm..

So if you are struggling to transfer your mail account settings and locally stored emails from Win thunderbird to Mac thunderbird, below is the step by step guide.

Thunderbird installed on Mac OS, installs in the following directory - /Users//Library/Thunderbird/profiles. If you want to explore the directory, try MAC + SHIFT + G and type in the complete path. Finder doesn't show certain directories.
This is where the thunderbird profile is stored. Copy the profile from the windows machine and paste it in the profiles folder on MAC.
Rename the existing folder to profile.orig and change the new profile you copied to the profile name created by thunderbird which you just renamed above without the .orig.
Go to thunderbird in offline mode and all your account settings etc will be available in MAC.
Now you can change the local folder to the folder where you wanna store the downloaded emails by going to Tools -> Account Settings --> Local Folder or you can keep the existing one. Close thunderbird.
Copy all the locally stored email files from windows machine over to the local folder identified in step 5.
Restart thunderbird in offline mode and you will have all your emails available for viewing.
You can restart in online mode and start using thunderbird for managing your emails.

You can follow the same profile copy approach for firefox. So far i am happy with Safari as my preferred browser but if you have VMWare for WIN7 you can use the same approach to copy the profiles and you will have the entire data set with saved passwords etc.

How to Fix "Itunes cannot read the contents of the iphone"

2011-05-25T14:00:00.000-04:00

You might be faced with this situation at times when you have a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch. You might have played around with some CYDIA apps, most notably the apps which try to modify the contents of iTunes Database File. One of those apps is MewSeek which lets you add the songs to the iTunes library directly from your iPhone/iPod Touch. Well sometimes it corrupts the following two files iTunesDB and iTunesCDB.

You will get the following message on iTunes “Itunes cannot read the contents of the iphone. Go to the summary tab in IPhone preferences and click restore to restore this iphone to factory settings”.

If you didn’t Jailbreak and you are in this situation, you have no choice but to do a full system restore on your iDevice and rely on a backup. But if you have jailbroken your iDevice, you can use iPhoneBrowser or iFunBox to explore the contents and fix it yourself without doing a restore. You might have to copy your songs/ringtones/videos back again but you still have everything else. The Songs etc are there on the device its just that the DB files are corrupted. So using iPhoneBrowser or iFunBox navigate to the following directory

/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control

Now within the above directory you will find two more directories

Music

Under Music, delete the following directory - itunes_db_checked

iTunes

Under iTunes, delete the following two files - iTunesDB and iTunesCDB

Disconnect the iDevice and reconnect. iTunes will detect it fine and you may or may not have your media. Try the option below which might help with just reusing the backed up DB files. You can also use iPhoneBackupExtractor to get the same DB files and see if they help.

FYI - You may try copying the iTunesDB and iTunesCDB from tmp folder back to iTunes directory to see if your songs/ringtones/videos come back

This is all you need to get your iDevice back in shape without a restore.

Interesting Pic - Godfather

2010-12-03T10:53:00.001-05:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Change iPhone/iPod iTunes Backup Directory from default C Drive

2010-12-03T10:19:00.002-05:00

If you have portable external storage (1TB) or plus, why would you waste precious C (OS Partition) space with backups etc. Apple thinks that we shouldn't be allowed to change the backup directory.. Dunno why?? if you can change the directory where all music etc is stored, why not the backups.. There is a quick and easy way to do this though. Esp with Win Vista, Win 7. All you need to do is create a SYMLINK for the backup directory using standard MS utility "MKLINK". Below are the steps.

Make sure iTunes us not running.
You will need ADMINISTRATOR access to your computer. Open START and in the search type CMD. Right Click on the CMD.EXE and click "Run as administrator"
You will see the command prompt pop up. Change the directory to the iTunes Backup Directory which on WINDOWS 7 is "C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\MobileSync"
Cut the entire backup directory and paste it on your portable external drive. Say "H:\iPhone\backup". Make sure that there are no spaces etc in the new directory name on the portable drive.
After the cut/paste is complete, in the Command Prompt Window, type the following command "mklink /D backup H:\iPhone\backup"
This will create a symlink called backup in the iTunes backup directory pointing to your portable drive directory.
Open iTunes and connect your iPhone or iPod Touch and perform a backup. All the data will be stored on the portable drive from now on. You can still click on the backup SYMLINK created on your C drive to access the backup.

How to Verify if an Email Address Is Real or Fake and Find the Person Behind an Email Address

2010-11-23T16:02:00.001-05:00

Below are two posts which will help you narrow down the search for a fake email. One is a LifeHacker post and the other one is by the author Amit Agarwal on his website..

How to Verify if an Email Address Is Real or Fake

Find the Person Behind an Email Address

Vodafone/Airtel India Free iPhone Tethering & Internet access

2010-10-11T22:53:00.006-04:00

Well i had to figure this one out cauz it was giving be a lot of grief. It was easy but i somehow didn't put 2 n 2 together for couple days. I think it should work on all cell operators which let you access internet via the phone. I am using it on the iPhone with a Vodafone Sim. Earlier there used to be a hack which will let you access the internet free of cost but i think both vodafone & airtel have patched those holes. Vodafone India offers a 2 GB plan for ₹ 95. If you have an unlocked phone you must have TetherMe from CYDIA or MyWi. Also if the APN Editing is enabled you can directly enter the settings below our use the iPhoneConfiguration utility to create a ".mobileconfig" file with the APN settings and connect your iPhone and install the mobileconfig profile. The settings are below. Now all you need to do is to enable tethering on iPhone and connect it to your PC. After connecting go to the proxy settings of your browser on your computer and enter the following in the proxy address & port

Proxy Address - 10.10.1.100
Port - 9401

The only catch though is that you will only be able to access WEB. VPN, IMAP, POP etc i.e. anything other than Web might have a problem because its blocked by Vodafone/Airtel unless you subscribe to the VMC i.e VM Connect for all that and for that you will have to pay extra which is rediculous.. However i must say that if you have a SSL VPN system like CISCO AnyConnect, that will work with this setup. Also all other protocols will work once you are into VPN. You will have to change the Proxy to your work proxy for everything else to work once in VPN.

Below is the XML generated by iPhoneConfiguration utility as a .mobileconfig. You can copy paste the XML and rename the file to a .mobileconfig and install on your iPhone as well.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PayloadContent</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>PayloadContent</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>DefaultsData</key>
<dict>
<key>apns</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>apn</key>
<string>portalnmms</string>
<key>proxy</key>
<string>10.10.1.100</string>
<key>proxyPort</key>
<integer>9401</integer>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
<key>DefaultsDomainName</key>
<string>com.apple.managedCarrier</string>
</dict>
</array>
<key>PayloadDescription</key>
<string>Provides customization of carrier Access Point Name.</string>
<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
<string>Advanced Settings</string>
<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
<string>vodafone.apn.in.apn1</string>
<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
<string>Vodafone</string>
<key>PayloadType</key>
<string>com.apple.apn.managed</string>
<key>PayloadUUID</key>
<string>CF9B2C59-5EC1-42D5-93FC-5B4999599946</string>
<key>PayloadVersion</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>
</array>
<key>PayloadDescription</key>
<string>Vodafone India APN</string>
<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
<string>Vodafone IN</string>
<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
<string>vodafone.apn.in</string>
<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
<string>Vodafone</string>
<key>PayloadRemovalDisallowed</key>
<false/>
<key>PayloadType</key>
<string>Configuration</string>
<key>PayloadUUID</key>
<string>45D0FE6C-94C1-44CD-9863-E366CDB4B02F</string>
<key>PayloadVersion</key>
<integer>1</integer>
</dict>
</plist>

Jailbreak iOS 4.1 on all iDevices using GeoHot's BootRom Exploit LimeRa1n !

2010-10-11T22:40:00.002-04:00

GeoHot has caused quite a stir among the JB community by releasing his pwn4life exploit which JBs all iDevices to date. He released it well before Chronic Dev-team could release Shatter exploit which would only JB iPhone4. Still the unlock is not available but hopefully someone is working on the next release of UltraSn0w which will unlock the 4.1 bootrom and the new baseband 05.14.02. Users candownload LimeRa1n from the following website which is the untethered version due to some amazing work by Comex the guru of userland JB (the infamous jailbreakme.com)

LimeRa1n by GeoHot & Comex

GeoHot has registered another domain which is prompting rumors about a possible unlock solution for all iPhones. Its codenamed LimeSn0w

Enable Multitasking & Wallpaper on iPod Touch 2G & iPhone 3G with iOS4 !!

2010-08-02T15:53:00.005-04:00

With iOS UserLand JB out and all thanks to COMEX & Dev Team, you can now manually modify plist file to enable MultiTasking & WallPaper on iPod Touch 2G & iPhone 3G.

Links for JB are below

Comex JailBreakMe
ModMyI Mirror Link

Now all you need is iPhoneBrowser and go to the following directory

"/System/Library/CoreService/SpringBoard.app/"

Save the N72AP.plist on your computer. Download PList File Editor free from iPodRobot website

PList File Editor

Install PList File Editor and open the N72AP.plist file and add the following key/value pairs

For Multitasking Add the following

<key>multitasking</key>
<true>

For Wallpaper Add the following

<key>homescreen-wallpaper</key>
</true>

Save the changes to the .plist file and upload it on the iPod Touch or iPhone via iPhoneBrowser in the same directory i.e. "/System/Library/CoreService/SpringBoard.app/"

Restart iPhone/iPod Touch and you will have both feature.

To Check the WallPaper navigate to Settings > Wallpaper and you will get an option of setting the wallpaper for homescreen & lock screen

To Check Multi Tasking, double press the HOME Button and it will show all the apps which are currently in background. You can click each app (press & hold HOME) and it will let you kill that app. By default and app that is closed goes into background.

Restore Selectively to iPhone instead of a Backup Restore using iTunes

2010-07-08T10:31:00.003-04:00

Most of the times when you restore, you may not want to restore to a backup which may have had apps, and other junk which you don't want. All you want is selective stuff like Address Bood, SMS, Book Marks etc. Well Apple gave you no way to achieve this. Either you get everything or nothing. This is a big nuisance when you don't want everything esp any app that caused your phone to crash or not boot at all. Well now there is a way. Follow the steps below and you will be all set.. All of the steps below require the iPhone/iPod Touch to be JB.

Download iPhoneBackupExtractor from This Link. You can either buy this software of use the trial version which will let you extract certain files manually. Just google for a Full version if you can't live with the trial version.
This software will identify all the backups you have from iTunes and will let you selectively open a specific backup and extract certain files like AddressBook.sqlitedb & AddressBookImages.sqlitedb or sms.db.
This software will save these files on your computer
Now open iPhoneBrowser. You can download it from This Link
For AddressBook go to /var/mobile/Library/AddressBook and copy the addressbook files saved using iPhoneBackupExtractor. For SMS go to /var/mobile/Library/SMS and copy the SMS files saved using iPhoneBackupExtractor.
Sometimes you might have an issue syncing contacts using iTunes and Google Contacts, use OPENSSH in iPhone using CYDIA, get the iPhone/iPod Touch on WiFi and SSH into the phone using PUTTY from your computer and do a CHMOD 0777 on the addressbook files.

Hope this helps

Oracle Forms Display Issue with Laptop on Battery..

2010-07-02T11:27:00.002-04:00

This turned out to be a simple fix. Everytime i used to unplug the power from my laptop, oracle applications (11i, R12) both used to act abnormally. if you clicked on a Form or a menu or Function, the refresh was not correct. It was as if you didn't even perform the action. If you did an ALT-TAB and switch back and forth from another application to Oracle Apps, it would then refresh. I struggled and thought may be it was something to do with the Power Settings etc.. But no, it just turned out to be the Refresh Rate of the monitor/laptop screen. Just make it to 60Hz and you will be all set without any issues.

VISTA/Windows 7

Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display\Screen Resolution

Click on Advanced Settings > Monitor

Change the Screen Refresh Rate to 60Hz instead of default 40 Hz.

Record Live Streams & Radio on iPhone/iPod Touch !!

2010-05-20T12:52:00.003-04:00

Another useful tool for a heavily protected OS. If you want to record live streams, radio or any stream or even podcast on iPhone, you can now do that using Pocket Tunes. Pocket Tunes now comes bundled with all codecs for almost all formats for all streams. You can add your custom URLs even if the standard search doesn't find the URL or radio station you are looking for. For you to download the recording (which is saved as a .AAC file) you obviously need to jailbreak and just use iPhoneBrowser and navigate to /var/mobile/Applications/Documents/PtRecordings. Below are the links to PocketTunes & iPhoneBrowser.

On a side note PocketTunes has this new AACPlus codec which i have still not managed to get because the link via the app to itunes is broken or maybe iTunes is no longer carrying the codec. if anyone finds it please let me/us know..

PocketTunes iPhone APP

iPhoneBrowser

AT&T Tethering finally working on iPhone 3GS 3.1.3 Latest Bootrom..

2010-05-15T11:17:00.005-04:00

As usual this was another one which took forever to find. After the Spirit Jailbreak for iPhone OS 3.1.3 was out, everyone started searching for the tethering options. The SinFull "Enable Tethering" via Cydia didn't work anymore since they were compatible only with 3.1.2. The only option was to go via MyWi App available on CYDIA. The new feature on MyWi is to enable tether via WiFi as well as USB. Now MyWi also has an option called "Auto Fix Tethering". Try that and it will bring back the Tether Option under Settings > General > Network and will enable it by default. Now you don't even have to start MyWi to have tethering. You can download MyWi from Sinfuliphone Repo after adding it to CYDIA.

Sinfuliphone Repo

iPhone or iPod Touch 3.1.3 Jaibreak via Spirit Userland Jailbrak is Available !!!!!

2010-05-02T23:21:00.002-04:00

iPhone or iPod Touch 3.1.3 Jaibreak via Spirit Userland Jailbrak is Available !!!!! Download it from Comex Website correctly named as SPIRITJB.COM

Best Free Media Converter - Any Format to Any Format of Audio, Video & Images

2010-04-03T15:25:00.002-04:00

Stumbled across yet another great find. I have always struggled to convert media from one format to another. There are professional paid softwares out there which can do this but none of them do everything in one. Also most of them are a big resource CPU, MEMORY, IO hog. I found this Free Software called FormatFactory and its just amazing. It will let you convert from any media file format to any one you desire. Its especially great if you have mobile devices that play certain formats or if you don't have all the codecs on your computer, this piece of software can be of great help. Check it out and post your reviews of what you think.

Format Factory Download Link

Download iPhone Visual Voicemail to computer

2010-03-11T15:19:00.002-05:00

I think Lifehacker had a post about the same but for those who didn't find it, i am just posting it. You need to jaibreak your iPhone and then download iPhoneBrowser and go to the following Directory "/private/var/mobile/Library/Voicemail". Copy the .AMR files to your computer and you are all set...

MS Exchange Calendar on Thunderbird with Lightning

2010-02-15T17:20:00.006-05:00

Finally figured out how to integrate the Microsoft Exchange Calendar with Thunderbird using the Lightning Add-on. There is no clean way to do this but whatever i am going to mention below at least works and lets you treat the Exchange Calendar as a CalDAV Server, so you can very well imagine what all you can do with it.

Download DAVMail Gateway from this LINK. DAVMail is a sourceforge project which basically uses the OWA to get all the data you need i.e. Mail (SMTP/POP), LDAP and most important, the proprietary Calendar Data
Install DAVMail and what it will do is basically install a server on your computer which will interact with the Exchange Server and manage creation of new events, accept events and the whole 9 yards.
All you need to do is provide the OWA (Outlook Web Access) URL to the settings page and it will ask you for outlook Username & password.
Here is a Link from the Wiki page on DAVMail for Step by Step guidance for Thundebird Setups.

How To Play StreamTheWorld Radio Streams on SONOS, Windows Media Player or any media Player

2010-01-24T10:46:00.022-05:00

Guys this was a tricky one and took a lot of time to figure out. I'm on Windows 7 and use a widget call MiniRadio. Its a nice add-on where you can configure all your online streams in a playlist fashion. Almost a month ago, some of the streams which were either .wmp or .asx or .m3u stopped playing. Finally figured out that the radio stations migrated to this new "StreamTheWorld" service. This messed up everything for a lot of stations because you cannot play them on any media player because first of all, the streams are all encrypted in the Flash Player which is proprietary stuff by stream the world. So now you can't get the direct http address of the stream which you can just try in WMP or VLC or as a matter of fact any media player. Also it affects all players like SONOS who reply on the HTTP URL. So for n00bies the flash URL looks something like below..

http://player.streamtheworld.com/liveplayer.php?CALLSIGN=ARNCITY

This is for City 101.6 Fm Streaming out of Dubai..Good channel and i hated to let it go and me having to open the flash player to listen to it..

For them to play you will have to download some unique useless flash media players or directly stream from radiotime or stations website as another browser popup. It was a nuance and thought that there should be some way to find out the actual url of the stream. I tried several URL snooping, flash downloading tools but nothing worked.

Then while i was playing around with WunderRadio app on iPhone, i saw that most of these streams allowed "play in background" feature on WunderRadio. Now what that does is, it opens up the stream in Safari and its an HTML page since iPhone doesn't support Flash.. Good for us right.. yeah at-least in this scenario :-).. Now what i did was i copied the URL WunderRadio opened in Safari sent myself and email so that i can open the URL in FireFox on my Laptop.

The URL looks like this

http://wunderradio.wunderground.com/support/wunderradio/web_play.php?version=1.9&device=iPhone&skin=bluesunset&wuiId=rt:14329

This link is for Radio City 101.6 streaming out of Dubai. For other Streams, all you need to do is find the last numbers in the URL (which in my case are 96716) for your stream and do as below.

There is now an easier way to get the RT Number for the station by just using FIREFOX.

Based on Rich's comment, i went ahead and looked up the station on RADIOTIME's website

RadioTime Website

Hover your mouse over the URL of the station and below in FIREFOX you will see something like

http://radiotime.com/station/s_18760/KFH-FM_987.aspx

The number following s_ is the RT Number. Use that number and replace it in the following URL and you guys can get the URL yourself without asking me for it :-)

Now when you open the link on firefox, you will get an alert to install missing plugin. FireFox cannot find the plugin so don't worry.
All you do is Right Click on the page and click "View Page Info". Go to the "Media" tab and you will find and ADDRESS of type "EMBED".
Click on the Address and below you will see the Location which you can copy.
Copy the URL and again paste it in FireFox. It will look like this "http://wunderradio.wunderground.com/support/wunderradio/m3u/m3umaker.m3u?action=m3u&wuiId=rt:14329"
When you open the above URL, Firefox will ask you to save the file "m3umaker.m3u". Save it on your desktop and open it in Notepad. You will see the HTTP or whatever protocol for the stream.
For the Radio City 101.6 Streaming out of Dubai the URLs are below..
http://208.92.52.50:80/ARNCITYAACCMP3
http://208.92.52.50:3690/ARNCITYAACCMP3
http://208.92.52.50:443/ARNCITYAACCMP3
Now the next challenge is how to play encrypted ACC on Media Player or on Windows. These streams will play fine using iTunes but for me it was more about how to get this working with my MiniRadio gadget which is an extension of the Windows Media Player.
Figured out that there is a plugin for Windows Media Player to play these kind of streams. Its a free plugin by a company called ORBAN which you can download here "http://www.orban.com/plugin/".
If you can't find the plugin anymore, download it from my rapidshare link below
ORBAN RapidShare Link
Download the essential codec pack from "http://www.free-codecs.com/K_lite_codec_pack_download.htm" followed by the ORBAN plugin and you will be able to play the AAC and AAC PLUS streams directly in Windows Media Player..
Now For Windows Media Player to play the AAC & AAC+ streams using the Orban Plugin, you will need to change the protocol from HTTP to ICYX.. So for the HTTP URLs above, the Windows Media Player link would be something like this "icyx://208.92.52.50:80/ARNCITYAACCMP3"

So finally i have my MiniRadio gadget playing the AAC and AAC+ streams which StreamTheWorld stations are playing.. I hope this will be helpful for people who are searching for the same. This is a big deal for people who own players like SONOS etc which need a HTTP url because they can't play flash. Let me know if anyone has any issues and i'll see if i can help out with the URL stream... Cheers and happy listening..

PS : Note to all users who have followed the steps above and the .m3u file from RadioTime's website says "Stream Not Supported". This means that StreamTheWorld or the Radio Station has blocked the access. I'll continue to find another way, till then you will have to use the flash based player for all those streams.

The new way to play the non supported streams is mentioned below

Download the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack from the following link "K-Lite Mega Codec Pack"
This codec will install a FLV/SWF/Flash Player plugin for the Windows Media Player.
Now Go to the Radio Time Website and find the radio station you want to listen to
Click on the LISTEN link. You can also go the the station website and do the same.
Make sure you are doing this in FIREFOX.
Also make sure you have No-SCRIPT plugin installed and is set to block flash streams
Now when you click on the LISTEN link, a new window pops up with blocked SWF/FLV player.
Right Click on the FLASH/SWF blocked link and click "Copy Link Location". This will copy the swf/flv/flash URL
No go to Windows Media player of your favourite Windows 7, Windows Vista Gadget and press CTRL+U to play a URL and paste the URL. The Stream will play seamlessly without any issues. You can try the same for all other streams as well.

For users requesting the stream for Radio Asia 1269 AM, the URL is mentioned below

http://www.radioasiauae.com/new/radioasia/radioasia_am/user/live/Player_AM1.swf

PS : A new comment by ViRuS has given some excellent information on how to still get the PLS file when the none of the methods described above work.

Get the Call Sign for the Stream. For City 101.6 Fm Dubai, its ARNCITY.
Use the following URL http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/ and replace the call sign after pls/. So the final URl will look like http://provisioning.streamtheworld.com/pls/ARNCITY.pls.
Open it in Firefox and it will ask you to download the ARNCITY.pls to your computer.
Download the file and open it in notepad and you will have the actual stream URLs. use anyone in windows media player or any media player and you are all set..

Cheers to ViRuS for finding this out.

Happy Streaming & Listening guys..

Copy & Backup SMS, Address Book, Contacts from iPhone, iPod Touch To Your Computer !!!!

2009-12-08T19:47:00.005-05:00

As always, struggled through this one too. Just couldn't figure out how to get all the data from iPhone to my PC and manage it or save it on my PC in case. After all the research and googling i found out that all this important information on iPhone or iPod Touch is stored as a SQLITE Database. So i found out where all these files were, got a SQLite Database Viewer and there you have it, your own data backup tool. Below are the steps for anyone who needs step by step details.

Get iPhonebrowser from google code projects. Link is here iPhonebrowser
You will have to Jailbreak your phone so user blackra1n
This works on a non-jailbroken iPhone as well.
If iPhonebrowser doesn't detect your phone as jailbroken, try the AFC2 fix mentioned here
Download SQLite Database Viewer from Sourceforge Link
Now connect your Jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch to your Windows PC.
Start iPhonebrowser and navigate to /var/mobile/Library directory.
For SMS Database go to the SMS folder and copy sms.db to your PC
For Address Book or your Contacts, go to AddressBook directory and copy AddressBook.sqlitedb to your PC
Now open SQLite Database Viewer and open the sms.db file. Click on Browse Data Tab and change the Table Name to message. You will see all your messages in a tabular format.
Select all the rows using Shift key and your mouse and click FILE > EXPORT > Table as CSV.
This will save all the data in the table to a CSV file which you can open in XL.
Similarly open the AddressBook.sqlitedb. This file is a little complicated and will require a little bit of SQL knowledge. All you need to do is write a SQL query to join ABMultiValue and ABPerson tables. A sample query is given below which you can execute on the EXECUTE SQL Tab and similarly Export the Data which the query returns. "select * from ABMultiValue"
The other option is export the data from ABMultiValue and ABPerson tables as csv and open in XL and using XL macros generate a consolidated file for all your contacts.

This to me was the easiest way to backup and keep a PC copy of all your iPhone data and you don't need anyone's help. Hope this helps..

Solution - "AVG firewall cannot start because an error has occurred in communication with a driver"

2009-10-19T23:54:00.002-04:00

For those who use AVG Antivirus and have recently upgraded from 8.5 to 9.0, some of you might be seeing errors with the AVG Firewall. The Error would say the following "AVG firewall cannot start because an error has occurred in communication with a driver".

AVG is a great antivirus, anti spyware, firewall etc all in one. Its light weight and not as cumbersome as some of its competitors like Symantec and Mcfee etc. The above error only occurs if you have upgraded from 8.5 and you have kept the user settings and firewall profiles. Version 9.0 has only 3 seeded Firewall Profiles "Directly Connected To Internet", "Computer In Domain" and "Small home or office network". Previous version 8.5 had a couple more like "Standalone Computer" etc. I had the same problem. Every time i uninstalled, i kept the user settings and with the new version i restored the old profiles and settings. When i did a clean uninstall of 8.5 and ran the free utility from AVG website "avgremover.exe", it cleaned up all my previous settings. After that i did a clean install of 9.0 and let it select the best possible profile in the wizard mode.

I have not had the problem since then.. Hopefully this will be helpful for others who have the same problem..

Getting rid of EISA OEM Partitions from Most Laptops (Lenovo, Toshiba, DELL, HP etc)

2009-10-15T09:37:00.006-04:00

I guess my blog is all about sharing the stuff which i have struggled through and finally found solutions or fixes. This is another one. Recently upgraded a Lenovo laptop from VISTA to WINDOWS 7. Like any other OEM, this one came with a 13 GB partition which was pretty much useless after my upgrade and was using up valuable Laptop Hard Drive capacity. Had a terrible experience with my Toshiba when i upgraded to Windows 7 and had my Boot Sectors royally screwed (which is going to be another post), so didn't wanna take any chances with this one. Firs of all the Lenovo 3000 Y410 came with this QuickKey Recover which was using this EISA (OEM) partition. Also since this hidden partition was a part of the primary partition any playing around would have messed up the Boot Loader. After enough googling i couldn't find a decent post which would outline the process correctly. So i tried something after being absolutely sure that it will work. Below are the details.

Windows 7 (and even Vista) comes with this neat utility to make this Repair Disk. Just go to the System Options in control Panel and buy a CD and create a REPAIR DISK as the first step. This is just in case there is some problem after the changes are made to the primary EISA OEM partition.
Now you can either use the standard DISKPART utility provided by Microsoft or use what i did, ACRONIS DISK DIRECTOR SUITE.
Using DISKPART, make sure that the Partition and Volume is marked ACTIVE always since its the primary partition. If you mess this up, you will get "Missing Operating System" error every time you start your computer and nothing will be able to restore your computer. The only thing that will work is the Original Windows 7 CD with Command Prompt option and using DISKPART on it to make partition and volumes active.
Using Acronis Disk Director or DISKPART, select the EISA OEM partition and Format it to NTFS with Automatic sector size of 4KB. The partition will be formatted and Windows 7 will take 31MB which cannot be merged or extended to any other partition. You will find posts on google telling you to DELETE the partition first and then FORMAT. Don't do that. Just FORMAT will work followed by a RESIZE.
Now using Acronis or DISKPART, resize the partition (C or D) on your drive to reclaim the space from this freed up partition. If using Acronis, don't forget to COMMIT. This will ask you to restart your computer and let ACRONIS do its job.

After this you will have the entire EISA OEM partition (sans 31 MB) added back to available storage on your laptop.

AT&T Windows Mobile Phones & Internet Connection Sharing (Working on BlackJack II)

2009-09-11T16:02:00.006-04:00

With Windows Mobile 6.1 and even with WinMo 6, Internet Connection Sharing using a mobile phone and 3G network, surfing the internet where ever there is a cell phone connection, couldn't be easier. The carriers how ever try to bind you to there data plans for tethering etc but atleast for AT&T, below is the process to use the 3G connection on your computer. I am mentioning two different ways below. One uses the seeded Microsoft Internet Connection Sharing application and the other one uses the phone as a modem for dialup and uses the 3G connection without using your anytime minutes etc. I have tried both the option on my BlackJack II without issues. So this approach works on any phone which has Internet Connection Sharing app or you can find the Modem Drivers for your Phone.

Internet Connection Sharing

Download the CeRegEditor from http://ceregeditor.mdsoft.pl/
Connect your phone to your computer in ActiveSync mode and Unlock the Registry using the tool mentioned above. I have another post on this blog on how to use the tool.
Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\InternetSharing\settings and make it NULL. If CeRegEditor doesn't take a null, enter one blank space and it will automatically take it as NULL value.
You can do the same thing using Resco Registry Editor on the phone if it will let you do it without giving you permission issues or without reverting it back to what it was. In my case it was set to "AT&T ISP" for which you need to signup for an additional tethering plan with AT&T.. What a rip off.. i must say..
Next you have to unlock the GPRS profiles already setup on your phone by the carrier.
Search my blog for "UAPMgr" and you will find any article on how to unlock the GPRS Profiles.
Once Unlocked modify the "MEdia Net" & "AT&T ISP" settings by making the access point as "wap.congular", user name as "WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM" and password as "CINGULAR1".
Reboot the phone.
Once the above steps are done, make sure that the USB Connection Settings are set to ACTIVESYNC and not MODEM or MASS STORAGE.
You might have to restart the phone and then again connect to your computer.
Once the ActiveSync partnership is setup, open the "Internet Connection Sharing" application on the Phone.
Select the "PC Connection" as "USB" and "Network Connection" as "MEdia Net" and press the Connect Button on the left soft key. You will see that the computer basically sets up a new dialup kind of network connection and automatically connect to the internet.
Just open up a browser and make sure your proxy settings are correct and you will be able to connect to the internet without any issues.

Using Cell Phone As A Modem And Setting Up A New Dial-Up Connection

Follow steps 5, 6 & 7 as above to setup the GPRS profiles correctly.
Download the Modem Drivers for your phone and setup the Phone USB Connection Settings as "MODEM" and not "ACTIVESYNC" or "MASS STORAGE". When you change this to modem, you might get a warning about activesync will not work, but you can ignore that as long as you don't wanna sync your phone while you access internet on your computer.
Now connect your phone to the computer and you will see that your computer will try to install the modem drivers for your phone. instead of wasting time and having Microsoft find the best driver, point it to the downloaded drivers and let it setup your Phone as a Modem.
Now go to your network settings and create a New Dial Up connection with the following options
Phone number to dial is *99#, User Name & Password for AT&T are the same as mentioned in step 7 above.
Make sure that the Dial Up Connection is setup to use your Phone Modem and not the Internal PC modem if you have one.
Now press DIAL and you will see a window showing the status of the connection like "Registering On The Network". Once connected, the dial-up networking will minimize to your system tray and you are now connected to the internet and can use your browser and other applications to connect to the internet.

Utility To Get Instant GPS Coverage on Mobile Phone (Windows Mobile)

2009-07-18T12:12:00.003-04:00

Well i found this utility "GPSTest.exe" on the Samsung Blackjack II and it makes all your GPS applications like Google Maps, Windows Live Search or Bing, Garmin Mobile XT, to instantly get a connection with the GPS satellites. So no more waiting while you are driving to get a signal. All you do is start this application on windows mobile device and do a Menu > Start and this utility will find the GPS Satellites, Lat/Long and couple other parameters. All this utility does is activate the GPS Receiver in the phone, instead of the application doing it and waiting. Now i get a GPS signal in less than 5 seconds on Google Maps, Bing or Garmin.

The Utility is under Windows folder and is called "GPSTest.exe". You can make a shortcut in your Start Menu so that its easily accessible. Once you do a Menu > Start, it will activate the GPS Receiver and once it finds the satellite, you can do Menu > Stop and start the applications you want.

To Actually improve the speed, you can also play with the Menu > Options > GPS settings and set the "Operating Type" to "Stand-alone". It worked on my Samsung Blackjack II. Try playing with other options "MS Based" or "Assisted"

Oracle 11i Applications Working on IE8, Firefox 3.5 & VISTA and Windows 7

2009-07-13T15:37:00.024-04:00

This one is a biggie..It took me forever to fix this one and so many hit and trials that at one point i just gave up and used a remote desktop connection to a XP machine with IE6 and Firefox. What you need to do is below and please follow the exact steps for this to work. I got this to work on latest Firefox 3.5 and IE8 and that too on VISTA. It also works on the current Windows 7 RTM both Firefox and IE8. When you upgrade to Windows 7 from VISTA using the upgrade process, it migrates all programs etc so it worked for me on Windows 7 as well, no issues.

Install JInitiator version "1.3.1.21". I can give provide the executable if needed.
Make sure that your Java Version is "1.5.0 (build 1.5.0_13-b05)". I have not tried the latest version. I can probably provide the oajse2.exe.
In Firefox change the following Settings (Uncheck Enable Java)
In IE8 Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> "Enable third-party browser extensions" (UNCHECK)
Replace the JVM.DLL in "JInitiator 1.3.1.21\bin\hotspot" directory with the JVM.DLL in "Java\jre1.5.0_13\bin\client".
Restart both Firefox and IE8.
The 11i Apps work via the regular login as well as "dev60cgi/f60cgi" URL.
I have uploaded both Java JRE and Jinitiator on Rapidshare. Below are the links
One more thing to note. I was also able to work with both 11.5.10 and 12.1.1 with IE8. All you need is to install the latest oajse and make sure that under Security options, change the mode to CUSTOM and DISABLE "Enable XSS Filter" option.

Java JRE - http://rapidshare.com/files/278239402/oaj2se.exe
Jinitiator - http://rapidshare.com/files/278241098/oajinit.exe

TCPMP Media Player Windows Media Audio Plugin For Smartphones & PDAs

2009-07-11T09:49:00.004-04:00

For all those who installed the recompiled version of TCPMP on Windows Mobile 6.1 for both Smartphone and PDA may encounter an error while playing videos or just audio in the WMA format. I am posting the link below for the WMA decoder which just needs to be placed under the windows directory on the phone and TCPMP restarted.

Special thanks to a post on XDA by krishan2207.

WMA Plugin for TCPMP Media Player

Yahoo Mail IMAP/POP3 & Hotmail/Live Mail IMAP/POP3 Working Setup on PDA

2009-07-11T09:27:00.005-04:00

For those who are interested in getting there emails on there PDA or even Thunderbird, below is the hack.. Yahoo will still not allow Thunderbird or Exchange to use these settings sometimes.. maybe they have a way of identifying whether a request came in from a PC or a PDA/Smartphone but it works flawlessly (esp on smartphone/pda)

Yahoo IMAP Server Setup on Smartphone/PDA (Windows Mobile 6.0 & Windows Mobile 6.1)

Go to "Messaging" on your phone and click Setup Email.
Type in your mail id but make sure that the domain name for now is something other than yahoo.com. We will come back later and change it. If you type in your yahoo user id and @yahoo.com, system will automatically try to find the setup which you don't want so just type in something like @yaho.com and select INTERNET EMAIL.
Enter your name and the account name.
Incoming mail server - imap.mail.yahoo.com and select type as IMAP4
Enter your user id as complete "abc@yahoo.com" and this time use the correct domain as YAHOO.COM.
Enter and Save your password
Outgoing mail server - smtp.mobile.mail.yahoo.com and select both "outgoing server requires auth" and "use the same name and password for sending email"
In the Advanced setting make sure that SSL settings are UNCHECKED.
Select the Send/Receive schedule and the message format & download settings according to your liking and click Finish.
Now you will see Yahoo Account in the list of your mail accounts. Go into TOOLS -> OPTIONS -> ACCOUNT SETTINGS -> EDIT ACCOUNT SETUPS to change the email address with the correct domain i.e. yahoo.com and click next till you see Finish.
There you have it, Yahoo Mail setup successfully on your Smartphone or PDA.
You can try the same incoming & outgoing servers on Thunderbird or Outlook and see if it will work. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't but it works flawlessly on the handheld device.

Windows Live or Hotmail POP3 Server Setup on Smartphone/PDA (Windows Mobile 6.0 & Windows Mobile 6.1)

The setup is similar to above and you need to make sure that the Domain Name in starting email address is something other than "HOTMAIL.COM" to start with and you can change it later once the setups are complete otherwise Windows Mobile will never let you setup the account. Below are the incoming POP3 and outgoing smtp server settings for Hotmail. They should also work for Live mail.

Incoming mail server - pop3.live.com and select type as POP3
Outgoing mail server - smtp.live.com and select both "outgoing server requires auth" and "use the same name and password for sending email"
In the Advanced setting make sure that SSL settings are CHECKED.
There you have it, Windows Hotmail or LiveMail setup successfully on your Smartphone or PDA.
These settings work flawlessly on the PC as well using Thunderbird o

Lifehacker... An awsome website for the geeks n Tech Savy ppl...

2009-07-01T17:30:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to share that LifeHacker is just an awesome website for a lot of new cool tech stuff..

Lifehacker RSS Feed

Thunderbird / Firefox Profile Migration From One Computer To Another

2009-06-14T09:31:00.003-04:00

One of the best things about Mozilla projects is that they ensure smooth, hassle free migration of all your data from one computer to another. Its as simple as copying over the entire profile directory to the new computer's profile directory. You have to do it once for XP and Twice for Vista.

XP Instructions

Go to the /Document & Settings/User Id/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles
There will be a weird looking folder under profile. Copy all the contents and paste them in the new weird looking folder in the new machine (same path) and restart FIREFOX.
Similarly for Thunderbird, make sure your local file storage and the folder structure for your mail accounts match in both the old and the new machine. Copy over all the mbox and msf files to the same folder structure on the new machine.
Now go to /Document & Settings/User Id/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles
There will be a weird looking folder under profile. Copy all the contents and paste them in the new weird looking folder in the new machine (same path) and restart Thunderbird.
Sometimes Thunderbird may or may not pickup the Mbox and MSF files. Just make sure tha you go to your account settings and check the "Local Directory" under the "Server Settings" and make sure it points to the correct folder.

VISTA Instructions

Exactly the same way as above, except for the fact that you have to copy the contents to two different places for both FireFox and Thunderbird.
FireFox folder paths are /Users/User Id/AppData/Local/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles and /Users/User Id/AppData/Roaming/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles
Thunderbird folder paths are /Users/User Id/AppData/Thunderbird/Firefox/Profiles and /Users/User Id/AppData/Roaming/Thunderbird/Profiles.

And there you have it, everything from saved passwords, cookies, bookmarks, mail settings everything is all setup on the new machine. No hassles of doing import export process...

BSNL Broadband Account Management Portal..

2009-04-30T18:11:00.003-04:00

I have seen a lot of people struggle with the correct portal address to manage the broadband usage and manage passwords. Below is the link. Use your "Portal ID" which is different from the Broadband Usage ID. The password is the same as the password for your Broadband access which you got at the time of Signup.

BSNL - Boradband Account Management

Update:

The new portal for BSNL Data Management is below

BSNL Portal

How to delete Exchange Server (Outlook Mail) account on Windows Mobile

2009-04-25T08:36:00.003-04:00

If you have created an Outlook Mail account on a windows mobile device and for whatever reason its not working for you and you just want to get rid of it, MS doesn't provide a clean way of deleting the account via the "Manage Accounts" in the email setup. Below is the convoluted way of doing it and MS might think its correct because according to them, a mail account of type Exchange Server is meant for ActiveSync only..

Go to Active Sync settings on your phone.
Click on Menu > Options.
You will See "Exchange Server" account alongwith the "Windows PC" account listed with the folders which are being synced.
Just navigate to the "Exchange Server" account and again click Menu > Delete.
It will ask you for conformation that it will delete all the sync data. Click YES and there you have it. The non working Exchange Server Account is gone from your list of valid accounts.

I am also trying to setup my corporate Exchange Server on my Blackjack II. Will post once successful. Some of the corporate accounts don't expose the IMAP service on exchange and may be a little tricky...

Adding sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools for non standard websites (OfficeLive)

2009-04-18T10:13:00.004-04:00

Well this is another oen of those good finds.. if you have an OfficeLive Website and haven't been able to regsiter yoru website on Google Webmaster, try my post below. Once your website is verified, the next step is to add the SiteMap to Google Webmaster. I am mentioning the Trick below.

Using Office Live Site Designer creates a new page using "Site Map" template. Such as mysitemap.aspx.
Go to http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ , enter the url without www, Such as http://mydomain.com/mysitemap.aspx and Download un-compressed XML Sitemap.
Save the file sitemap.xml. You can rename it as you want. Upload the sitemap.xml to Documents Gallery on OfficeLive.
Add the sitemap xml file on Search Engine.

http://mydomain.com%5CDocuments%5Csitemap.xml

DON'T put www before your domain and remember to change last "/" to "%5C"

Google Webmaster Site verification for ASP, ASPX, XHTML websites (MS Office Live Websites)

2009-04-17T18:46:00.006-04:00

I had tough time verifying my Microsoft OfficeLive Websites on Google Webmaster Tools because standards say that the main page should be an HTML. Well guess what MS uses ASP and ASPX and other providers user XHTML etc. Below is the trick to allow Google Webmaster Site verification for atleast MS OfficeLive Websites.

Sign Up for Google Webmaster tools.
Add your site and choose the meta validation method.
Copy the Google meta verification code into notepad or any text editor. meta name="verify-v1" content="YOUR CODE"
Copy the code below into into the same notepad or text editor. %22%20%2F%3E%3Cmeta name=%22verify-v1%22 content=%22YOUR CODE
Simply replace the ID in the code with your id from the code from Google. If your ID contains "+", replace the + with %2B. %22%20%2F%3E%3Cmeta name=%22verify-v1%22 content=%22rCLLGGTVdEiGe+DXLHKLCD670B8f99LfK/Ax6s=
Copy the finished code, and to your home page (default.aspx), open page properties, and paste the code into the keywords text box after any keywords! Make sure the whole code is pasted, since the keyword box has a character limit and if you have to many keywords and some or all of the code might not get pasted in, shouldn't have to worry, if you do, you might want to go over the list of keywords since you really shouldn't have that many.
Go back to Google Webmaster tools and verify.

Note:

If it doesn't work, view your page, make sure there is no code showing at the top. Also right click on the page, view source, and look at the meta tags (near the top).

meta name="verify-v1" content="rCLLGGTVdEiGe+DXLHKLCD670B8f 99LfK/Ax6s="

Best Lo-Fi, Ambient, World, Lounge, Chillout music mp3 Downloads

2009-04-17T12:33:00.003-04:00

I stumbled upon this website who has good collection of Lounge / Chillout music and releases latest albums pretty quickly.. and no its not torrents.. its instant download of full length albums.. So if you like Lo-Fi, Ambient, World, Lounge, Chillout music.. its the best place to get it.. The website is in Russian so just use the Google Translator.. The Albumart actually tells you about the album.. Have Fun !!!

Best Lo-Fi, Ambient, World, Lounge, Chillout music mp3 Downloads

Access Internet on iPod Touch via WiFi using your computer/laptop

2009-03-19T22:47:00.003-04:00

Life is much better after the drawback of not having 3G in ipod touch is gone. If you can have your computer/Laptop connect to LAN or WiFI using Boingo or iPass or even 3G on your other Windows Mobile :-) phone, you can use that same connection on iPod Touch. So if you need your Weather App or Stocks app or any APP that uses the internet, to update automatically, you need to read what i have in store for you.. Microsoft working for Apple is how i would put it.. XP or Vista you can setup the Ad-Hoc WiFi network on your computer/laptop and share it with your existing Internet connection and there you have it.. a fully wireless internet on iPod Touch. I will post the detailed instructions below hopefully by tommorow..

So here you go..

1. Create an AD-HOC Wireless network on your laptop by going to Control Panel > Network Connections > Wireless Network Connections > Properties > Wireless Networks Tab. Click On ADD, give a SSID, check "Connect Even if this network is not broadcasting", make the network authentication "Open" and you can make Data Encryption as "Disabled" or WEP. I have not had great success with WEP or WPA. Check the "This is a computer-to-computer (ad hoc) network" and save it.

2. Now go to the LAN Adapter and click properties. Click on "Advanced" Tab and under "Internet Connection Sharing" check "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection" checkbox. Select the "Wireless Network Connection" from the drop down and click OK.

3. Now try and connect to the ad-hoc wireless network created on your laptop from your laptop. It will try to connect but then just say not-connected.

4. Go to your iPod Touch > Settings > Wireless. Wait for couple and you will see your ad hoc network. Connect and let it use DHCP

There you have it, full internet connectivity on your iPod touch via the LAN network..

QuickFreedom - Jailbreak iPod Touch 2G

2009-03-19T22:41:00.002-04:00

I may be late in posting this but iPod touch 2G finally got its jailbreak last week and it works flawlessly.. Redsn0w did most of the initial work and Dan at QuickFreedom finally provided the un-tethered version of it. QuickFreedom comes with CYDIA and then you can install INSTALLOUS and other cool things.. Enjoy the freedom. Link to QuickFeeedom is below..

QuickFreedom

"Always Always I Think Of You" - Kabhi Kabhi - By Dal Dil Vog

2009-02-26T18:26:00.005-05:00

I had been looking for this song "Always Always" (English version of famous Kabhi Kabhi) and finally found the video. Its a beautiful song with Dal (short for Daljeet) in the video before and now.. Below is the link for youtube video..

"Always Always I Think Of You - Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Main Khayal Aata Hai"

Below is the Link to download the MP3 for all those fans out there..

Always Always I Think Of You (Kabhi Kabhi Mere Dil Main) mp3

DVD-A (DVD Audio and not AUDIO DVD) creation without professional tools.

2009-02-19T11:40:00.004-05:00

I thought i would share with you a fantastic free way of creating DVD-A from your digital audio files (mp3, wma etc). I have used it for past 3 years and i guess only people who own ACURA's know about it. Once of the Great Online Forums on Cars is ACURAZINE and ADOBEMAN did a fantastic job in creating a VC++ App using all the freeware tools available. Below is the link to the post.

DVD-A Creation using ADOBEMAN GUI Tool

Please go through this article and it will give you a lot of tips about DVD-A creation. I tried all the prefessional tools like CIRLINCA and other but none helped. Nothing can be as simple as converting all digital audio files to WAV files at 44000Hz and just burning them to a DVD-A ISO image. The free GUI tool from ADOBEMAN does the conversion as well, just make sure that your mp3 etc meet the req for conversion to correct WAV files for the image. Also when you install the Software, make sure that the Installation Folder and the TEMP folder are on seperate DRIVES else it will take forever to create the ISO. The first pass at ISO creation is fast but the next part is tricky since it actually rewrites the SECTOR read by all DVD-A players and bypasses the protection. The AUDIO Quality is excellent and you can burn almost 90 songs on One DVD. This is for people who don't have the MP3 players in there cars or at home and have DVD-A players.

Working Fring for Windows Mobile for those who have problems with the Latest Version Crashing (Version 3.24.3.157)

2009-02-11T08:48:00.006-05:00

This is for all those users who have problems with the latest Windows Mobile FRING and can't seem to figure out why it crashes or automatically closes while the old version used to remain signed on all the time and worked with an installation on the Storage Card instead of phone memory. I am a BlackJack II user and i have tried everything that is out there and nothing helps with the new version. Below is the link to the CAB File.

Updated Rapidshare link is below

FRING 3.24.3.157 for Windows Mobile

Best Registry Editor For Windows Mobile & CE Devices - Allows Registry UNLOCK !!

2009-02-08T09:14:00.002-05:00

As usual, Sunday morning and nothing better to do.. i was on my usual hunt for nice applications available for Windows Mobile. I stumbled upon an excellent Registry Editor for Windows Mobile and CE Devices. The Best thing about this registry editor is that it lets you UNLOCK the registry so that you can modify anything in the registry. The next best thing is that it lets you update the registry via your computer since it uses Active Sync to load the device registry. Below is the link for download and a couple screenshots to highlight the UNLOCK Feature.

CeRegEditor Download Page

VNC Via BSNL ADSL ITI WiFi Modem

2009-02-02T17:54:00.002-05:00

It took me forever to configure VNC Port Forwarding via the ITI WiFi Modem BSNL is offering. Some of it was my mistake but it was sure a pain to test.

1. Setup a DYNDNS account so that you can have the BSNL Modem/Router Dynamic IP mapped to a hostname. Under My Services => Host Services, register a Domain and specify the current IP assigned to your Modem.
2. Download the DYNDNS Software Updater to your computer and you can have it to run as a service or manually Run it everytime you reboot the modem or the IP Changes.
3. Setup the Port Forwarding on the Modem for ULTRA VNC as specified in this link - BSNL ITI DNA-A211-1
4. Now the important Stuff. If you have Symantec or any AntiVirus running besure to do the following:

Symantec 360 or Antivirus comes with a prebuilt Firewall. Create Exceptions in the Firewall for UltraVNC for TCP/UDP ports of 5900, 5800 & 5500 for both inbound and outbound.
If you are just using Windows Firewall or any other Antivirus you will have to find a way to configure the exception and enable the Firewall to allow this traffic.

5. Now the Testing Process.

Make Sure that you have DYNDNS updater running.
Start the Ultra VNC server on the Host Machine and change the password in admin settings of VNC.
Now even if you have two computers on the same BSNL network, you cannot try this test. You will have to be on a different network to actually test whether VNC works or not.
Start the Ultra VNC viewer on your machine (connected to a different network)
Make sure that the DYNDNS host name can be pinged. Type in the DYNDNS Host Name mapped to your router in the VNC Host window and click CONNECT. Enter the password and wait.
The Host Machine which is running the VNC Server will get a Antivirus/FIREWALL prompt to all the incoming connection.
Click Accept on the HOST Machine and there you have it. FULL VNC Access to the Host Machine.

BSNL Broadband Setup (Even Corporate VPN Access) - Step By Step Instructions

2008-12-24T12:34:00.008-05:00

As usual, i had to struggle through this one too. Setting up BSNL broadband for my pals in India was a nightmare. No Documentation, no setup documents and no CUSTOMER SERVICE at all. Two technicians come and setup the phone line. Then couple days later two more come and give you the BSNL userid and password alongwith portal id without telling you what to do with them. No fault of there bu they are not even trained to do anything. Then through your contacts and people who you know who use BSNL broadband, you atleats try to setup and see if it will work but no luck.. After spending couple of days on internert googling instructions and issues people have faced, i finally figured it out and its setup and running. Below are some of the key things that are more than enough for you to setup BSNL Broadband.

My Modem is the TYPE IV Modem from ITI (WiFi enabled)

PPPOE (configured on the MODEM directly) is the way to go with ADSL setup of broadband. You will find several posts online talking about using the BRIDGE connection but take my word for it and using PPPOE is better and simpler and works with devices which have no way of dailing a seperate PPPOE connection from the device like WiFi enabled phones, iPod Touch etc.

Power up the modem and scan for wireless on your computer. You should find "ITI" SSID being broadcast by the modem. If not just use an ethernet cable and connect it directly to your computer.

Your Ethernet connection/Wireless Connection most probably will connect but will show "Limited Connectivity". Don't worry.

Just go to the network settings of the Ethernet or Wireless and under "Internet Protocol TCP/IP" properties you will have to manually specify the following details and repair your connection if system doesn't do it automatically.

The "Limited Connectivity" status on the network connection will go away with above setup.
Now open your browser and type in "http://192.168.1.1/main.html".
Go to "Advanced Setup > WAN"
On the Right pane you will most probably see a service "ppoe_0_35". If not click the ADD Button. If the service exists click the EDIT Button.
Just Specify VPI/VCI from 0 to 35 and select all the default settings on clicking next. When you are on the USER-PASSWORD page enter your BSNL User ID and PASSWORD.
Click the Final NEXT and SAVE followed by a SAVE/REBOOT.
The Modem will reboot. Don't touch anything till the modem reboots and the screen will automatically refresh with the new setting.
Try repairing the network connection and then open any webpage now from the browser. It should work now.
I have tried corporate CISCO VPNs and they also work with this setup.
This setup avoids setting up a PPPOE dialer from your computer and will allow you to use the conection from any handheld device as well.

I hope this post will help many who are stuck the same way i was. Send me a message if you are stuck and my post doesn't help..

iPod Restore Firmware Downloads (Any iPod - Even the Latest Touch)

2008-12-02T22:05:00.004-05:00

I was struggling to restore my iPod touch 2nd Gen to its 2.1 without having iTunes tell me that the only option i had was to upgrade to 2.2. I did a lot of googling and then stumbled across a website that has genuine Apple download links. Just select your ipod and it will actually fetch it from APPLE's server. Below is the Link... Enjoy :-)

Felixbruns iPod Firmware Restore Links

How To Install Windows Mobile Pocket-PC Applications on Smartphone

2008-11-22T13:30:00.003-05:00

Well to start with, PocketPC Windows Mobile Professional and Smartphone Windows Mobile Standard have a lot in common and most of the applications designed for PocketPC will run on Smartphones as well. There might be navigability issues because of the inherent assumption of a TOUCH vs NON-TOUCH device. Some of the PPC apps will fail to install on SMARTPHONES. Below is the workaround which works and i have tested it several times.

1st Approach

If you have a PocketPC lying somewhere which you don't use at all, this is time to bring it back to life. Install the PPC app on it, connect to your computer and copy the installed directory over. Now connect your SmartPhone to your computer and copy the "copied app folder" to your smartphone. Try executing the EXE on smartphone now and it will work except for the layout etc..

Try the SPHelper application which will let you simulate a CROSSHAIR (meant for touchscreen apps)

SPHELPER Application Link

2nd Approach

If you are not lucky to get hold of a PPC try the following approach. Open the CAB file using Winzip or any zip extraction utility. Extract all the files in the CAB to a folder. The Files will have funky last characters but don't worry. 99% of the CAB files will have a "_setup.xml". This file will tell you the exact name of the installed file and the corresponding funky extension file in the CAB. Use the XML to rename all the extracted files on your computer and copy them over to the SmartPhone.

Sometimes the XML is not present. In that case extract the contents of the Smartphone Version of CAB to a seperate Folder and see if it has the XML file. If not Just extract all the files and try to compare the filenames in the folder containing the PPC files. Most of the times, it will give you a rogh idea as to what file is the EXE file and what are the DLLs. GOOGLE the missing files and you will find some hits for sure...

I have done this with several apps and it works.. :-)

Edit Read-Only Network Settings on BlackJack II

2008-11-15T15:36:00.005-05:00

Blackjack II WM 6.1 comes with a unique application which will let you unlock the GPRS and Network Streaming settings. No more registry editing. The Application is "UAMgr.exe" and can be found under Windows folder. You might have to enable show hidden files and show rom files to see the application. Also you can create a shortcut for the same for easy access. Once you click it following image will show up. Click Menu -> Tool -> Unlock RadOnly. It will give you a snapshot of all the network connections unlocked.

Subsidy Unlock Samsung Blackjack II

2008-10-19T08:35:00.004-04:00

When you travel internationally its always better to get your cellphone unlocked so that if needed you can use the foreign SIM Card with your phone. It was a pain indeed to get the UNLOCK code from ATnT and since there are no calculators out there at least for SAMSUNG, that was the only way i had to get this done. Anyway long story short, i was finally able to get the unlock code and below are the steps to unlock it once you have the code.

ATnT will say to power off the phone and remove the SIM card. THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS, atleast with the new BlackJack II. If you remove the SIM Card there is no way for the system to UNLOCK itself. Either you enter another SIM card or keep the existing ATnT inside and follow the steps below.

1. Power off the Phone (Required if Using a different SIM)
2. Remove the SIM Card (Required if Using a different SIM)
3. Enter #7465625*638*
4. Enter Network Control Key (8 digits Unlock Code received from Cingular)
5. Press "OK" Softkey (not the Send or OK hard key i.e. the KEY Next to the HOME sign key)
6. Successfully unlock Network Status

Finally its unlocked.. Iust waiting for a differnt carrier SIM to check it out..

Please run this program from the Administrator account so it can set up your license. Once the license is set up, you can run it from any account ??

2008-08-10T08:23:00.002-04:00

The reason for XP/VISTA behaving like this with certain programs is because the Registry setting for License no longer has correct permissions. Below is the fix.

1. From an Administrator account, run RegEdit.exe.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Licenses.
3. Right-click on that key in the left pane (the one that shows folders) and select "Permissions".
4. Use the Remove button to remove all users and groups from the permissions box.
5. Then click the Add button and in the "Enter the object names to select" box, type "Everyone" (without the quotes), then click the Check Names button.
6. The Everyone you just typed should become underlined, if the system recognizes it.
7. Click OK to return to the main permissions dialog; you'll now see only one entry, for the Everyone group.
8. Below it, select the box for "Full Control - Allow", which should also turn on Read - Allow. Then hit the OK button to finish it.

Run the Troubled program and you should be all set :-)

Bluetooth File Transfer in Windows Mobile !

2008-05-30T01:30:00.005-04:00

Thanks to Howard Forums... MS Bluetooth Stack doesn't provide a separate service or button for enabling Bluetooth File Transfer service. Its tied to the "Receive All incoming Beams"option under BEAM settings which might be confused for Infrared only.. Enable all incoming beams and wuhooo..u can receive files via bluetooth.. Original Thread on Howards Forum is below...

YouTube Player on Smartphones and PocketPC !

2008-05-08T23:10:00.007-04:00

Well after a long search.. ZBOP on TREOCENTRAL has finally hacked his way into playing Youtube and any other FLV format hosting sites, on Windows Mobile Smartphones and PocketPC. The hack works perfectly even with an option of saving the video.. The two cab files install TCPMP and FLV capture and a shortcut HTML page to all the links.. Check out the website belwo for all the details

Youtube Player On Windows Mobile

Youtube now supports Windows Media PLayer on Mobile. Accessing youtube via the following link Youtube Mobile. All videos are using rtsp protocol now.. so enjoy..

Doordarshan TV Serial Featuring a Song - Heart Of Stone.....

2008-03-15T17:49:00.002-04:00

Almost 15+ years ago.. Doordarshan aired an International Series on sophisticated Computer Hacking.. and it had this amazing song "Heart Of Stone".. I googled it and couldn't find any valuable reference to it.. There are some fans like me who are out there searching for it.. Found couple of posts searching for the same song.. below are some of them.. no credible source that can point to either the song or the series... I hope someone will find this post and actually help us fans out..

Molon-Labey's Blogspot Entry

My Search Finally has ended.. Thanks to Manish Gupta (link). He has been able to find the Singer, the serial and a preview mp3.

Domain - Hearts of stone

The MP3 preview of it is HERE.

Thanks Google, IMDB, Tradebits and Manish... :-)