Simplifying IT, Amplifying Knowledge

Updating Lumia 630

I have tried some next step to install software to Lumia 630. The windows 8.1 mobile was absolutely 'bricked' in the way of installing software. I have tried all possibilities, read hundreds of articles and watched hours of youtube tutorials, but i was inable to make any installer of app working. So i have decided to try to update to Windows 10. After trying some semi-official command line tools to upgrade the phone, without any result, i have found some chinese tool on XDA developers forums, which finally worked.

alt text

After few tries and many hours of updating, the phone is finally running Windows 10. However it has changed almost nothing. The store does not work either. The end of support of Windows 8.1 store was announced in 2019, the Windows Mobile 10 store was silently closed at the end of 2023 without any announcement.

The only progress i have made by updating to Windows 10 is, that now i have the File Manageer app, which was not included in Windows 8.1, so now i can access the files, transfered from computer. Now i can see the .xap .appx and other installer files, i can open them, see the dialog for ...

Continue reading →

Worldwide BSOD

When I saw the article about "Worldwide IT Systems Problems", the first thing I thought was that this is just another buzzword headline for an article full of bullshit, as usual.

I didn't even want to read it, but after some time, when there were a lot of similar articles on different websites, I decided to read some of them.

I was really surprised that it looked relatively serious, but I was still not convinced. At first there was not much information, just some random "blackouts" of airports... Something that still seemed like captchphrases that we can see every day.

Later, when I finally saw some serious information and official statements about the untested update being sent to corporate machines, I finally believed that it was real.

The first thing I thought about was the comparison with the Y2K problem, and the funny fact that I think that Y2K was relatively funny, and not so serious, as there were mayor count of computers that were not facing the problems, this one came with no warning.

On the other hand, it was only a matter of time when something like this would happen. It is just a reminder of how much we depend on the internet ...

Continue reading →

Digital model railway

For couple of years i am thinking about digitalising my model railway. The standard digital equipment is much expensive, so i am working on my own technology, based on ESP8266 and ESP32.

As first prototype i have prepared a station module, quipped with servo motors for Railroad switches, and some street lamps, all controlled with single nodemcu (esp8266) board. For now, i controll it via USB to serial converter, but in the future there will be a data bus throught all modules, and controlled remotely.

This prototype worked well, switches ar switching, lights are shining, everything works well. Whe switches now looks much more realistic, compared to relay controled ones. The movement is smooth, and the moving mechanism is hidden underneath, so nothing is visible.

Next challenge was to create PCB, which will fit into the locomotives. There would be just couple of parts and the PCB should be as simple as possible. As processor there will be ESP32, because of its better capablity of WiFi connection. Also there will be h-bridge to controll the motor and some power module, to make 12V input to 3.3V output, to power the processor.

alt text

After first iteration, with bad wiring of some ...

Continue reading →

Canon battery grip

Few months ago i have received a Canon 400D with some lens. the body of camera worked well, and two of the lens worked also. One remaining len, unfortunately the best one, not worked. I have tried to service it, but with no result.

alt text

However i have now received the original BG-E3 battery grip for the 400D. I am still using the body as spare one, because it still takes very nice photo, and especially with long aperture it takes maybe better shots than my new 2000D camera.

I will charge both of my batteries and i will try, how long it will last. However even one battery is usually able to cover 2 days of intensive photographing, so i will possibly not use it much.

Although it is a nice piece of hardware, and I will keep it, and I will see, I will find it practical.

Continue reading →

Building NAS (part four)

I was doing some research and tuning on my TrueNAS instance and I have discovered that I am using a discontinued version of TrueNAS. I am tuning on "core", which is based on FreeBSD, but unfortunately the system has switched to Linux core, using the subname "scale".

So I decided to switch to the supported branch of this system, and discovered that there is an easy way to switch from core to scale, using the standard upgrade process, just by using the "manual" way, uploading the scale distribution file.

The process was automatic and went well. The only problem was that the "jails" services (virtual machines for applications) are discontinued, but fortunately I was only using them for testing, so I do not care that I lost them.

The system booted fine after the upgrade and was comparatively faster than before. All the data on the disk pool survived, so everything is almost perfect.

The only thing I am still working on is the VPN connection. I lost the Wiregueard configuration during the upgrade process. So I tried to re-configure it as the .conf file remained in the file system. After a few tries I got it working and everything seemed fine, even after ...

Continue reading →

Tungsten T3 - my first Palm

A few weeks ago I received a Tungsten T3 handheld. It came with a completely dead battery. I thought about leaving it as it was, as it works fine on the charger.

alt text alt text

Unfortunately, the charger is not a classic cable, but a dock. The connection is not very strong, so it happens quite often that you press too hard on the screen, lose contact in the dock and the device switches off due to lack of power.

I decided to replace the original battery with a LiPol one. After removing the covers, I discovered that the battery is connected by just two wires, so there is no 'control' pin or temperature reading from the unit. This made the replacement easier. I ordered the 550mAh battery that fits the space. The original battery was about 900mAh, but I think half of that is enough for collection purposes.

I just unsoldered the connector from the old battery and soldered it to the new one. Put the covers back on and the palm was up and running. One thing that did not work was the charging port. However, this was solved by simply pressing on the back cover, ...

Continue reading →

Another present, Nokia 630

Yesterday I received another piece for my collection. This time it was a Nokia 630 with Windows 8.1. It looks very good, with no scratches, even on the plastic back cover. So I was really happy after the first look. Unfortunately, I discovered a big problem after turning it on. The Microsoft Store is down and it seems hopeless to install the software any other way. I have read many articles and discussed with many people and found out that sideloading is theoretically possible by installing .appx files, but practically it is so hard and usually only one in twenty appx can be installed. So I need to do some more research. When I have enough time, I will try it. I might also try updating the built-in Windows 8.1 to Windows10, which should be a bit easier than sideloading apps, but we'll see.

I already have two Windows Mobile Nokia/Lumia phones, fortunately with some apps installed before the official store closed, but they are both on version 8.1, so there is at least a possibility that I will have one with 10, and hopefully I will be able to install some software/games on it.

Continue reading →

Received present - Sony Ericson W800i

Finally, I have a mobile phone that I have been dreaming about for years. When the phone was released, I got a K310i, which was a low-end phone with about 16MB of memory. That was enough for a couple of Java games and a few midi ring tones. Not much more than that.

alt text

The phone I got was the W800i. This is the top of the range model. It has about 35MB of internal memory, but fortunately it has a Memory Pro Duo card slot.

So I started looking for this old card. I found a user on the forum who promised me one, including the USB reader for the card. He managed to get his colleague, who was on a business trip, to bring it to me. I got it, but unfortunately I found out that I got the M2 card, which is the same technology but twice smaller. There is some reduction, but for the collection I prefer to have the original card. Currently I have found another man who is offering me a Pro DUO card, so I am waiting for a photo to be sure that I would get the correct card format.

While waiting for ...

Continue reading →

HP iPAQ 214

My collection of mobile devices has been expanded by the HP iPAQ 214. I got it in exchange from a fellow collector who deals more with old PCs.

The device arrived in its original packaging, including all accessories, installation CDs and all manuals. It even contained the original sleeve, which was still sealed in cellophane, and apparently had never been used.

Even the PDA itself shows virtually no signs of use. The only minor flaw is the calendar button, which goes a bit stiff, but the functionality doesn't mind at all.

So far there hasn't been much time for any deeper testing, but I have tried the pre-installed UFO and also Age of Empires, the first version of which has been ported directly to Windows Mobile

AoE in particular is absolutely brilliant and brings back a lot of memories of my youth when I used to play this game on PC. I currently have an archive of the software for this device on my computer, so when I get some time I'll boot up one of the collection laptops to run ActiveSync on so I can use it to download new software to the device

I was ...

Continue reading →

Building NAS (part three)

I decided to upgrade the server's RAM from 4GB to something more useful. I ordered two second hand low profile 8GB modules with ECC, which is better suited to the ZFS file system. Swapping was really easy, except for the one stuck connector in the motherboard, which was a pain to unplug. However, the server booted on the first try and detected all 16GB of RAM, even though the server is only supposed to be able to detect 8GB.

The second thing I wanted to try was to mount the 2TB USB hard drive with movies and shows so that I could share them across devices and play them on every TV in the house without having to carry the drive around. However, I discovered that there is no way to share an NTFS drive with TrueNAS as it can only work with ZFS. So one of the solutions was to back up the media to the hard drive, reformat it, copy the data back and use it as a hard drive, but then I would lose the ability to take it anywhere and connect it to any device.

So my solution is maybe to use my Raspberry with recalbox to run the ...

Continue reading →

×