« Posts tagged Android

Rogers MMS APN Settings for CyanogenMOD 7

May 16, 2011 / posted in Android, Troubleshooting / 11 Comments

I tried firing off an MMS from my Nexus One this morning to a friend only to have it hang on ‘Sending…’ with no network activity. The short version of it is the APN settings for Rogers that are built-in to CyanogenMOD 7 are incorrect. Here’s what you need.

For Data/Text:

Name: Rogers
APN: rogers-core-appl1.apn
Proxy: <Not Set>
Port: <Not Set>
Username: <Not Set>
Password: <Not Set>
Server: <Not Set>
MMSC: <Not Set>
MMS proxy: <Not Set>
MMS port: <Not Set>
MMC: 302 (might be different – is auto-set by your SIM card)
MNC: 720 (might be 72 – is auto0set by your SIM card)
Authentication type: <Not Set>
APN type: <Not Set>
APN protocol: IPv4

For MMS (edit the bottom entry in the APN list called ‘Rogers MMS‘):

Name: Rogers MMS
APN: media.com
Proxy: <Not Set>
Port: <Not Set>
Username: media
Password: mda01
Server: 172.25.0.107
MMSC: http://mms.gprs.rogers.com (IMPORTANT: in the default settings, this is listed as grps rather than gprs – make sure to correct this!)
MMS proxy: 10.128.1.69
MMS port: 80
MMC: 302 (might be different – is auto-set by your SIM card)
MNC: 720 (might be 72 – is auto0set by your SIM card)
Authentication type: <Not Set>
APN type: mms
APN protocol: IPv4

And that should be it. Make sure that the first ‘Rogers’ entry is selected, and your MMS messages should now send correctly.

Android-Ipsum

January 14, 2011 / posted in Android / 2 Comments

Threw this together this evening because of a thread I saw on 4Chan (Not-Safe-For-Anywhere). The Android logo is owned by Google and I make no claim to creating it. Lorem Ipsum is, well, Lorem Ipsum.

Android-Ipsum

An HTC DoA: Part 5

August 30, 2010 / posted in Android, Google, Rants, Support / No Comments

Continued from Part 4 (read from the beginning).

I took a trip to the UK at the beginning of the month, and when I returned on the 13th immediately checked my credit card statement. I wasn’t surprised to see that the refund still hadn’t been processed (now past the 14-business-day cut-off mark for credit card refunds). I called HTC yet again, and after a bit of hold time was given some good-ish news.

The agent confirmed that yes, HTC’s warehouse had received my phone and they had accepted it. However, someone at said-warehouse hadn’t closed the ticket in their system which prevented the refund from being processed. I was promised that the ticket would once again be escalated and that the escalations team would get the warehouse to close the ticket and things would get moving again.

I asked if HTC would compensate me for the interest accrued on my credit card from having this charge sitting on it for nearly two months, but was told they wouldn’t do anything. It was worth asking about, though.

So, on Tuesday the 17th I once again checked my credit card statement and there it was! A line item showing a credit for the DoA Nexus One. Although I wasn’t happy with the time it took to deal with the issue, and the interest charges that built up from it, I was ready to put the issue to bed.

And then I got the following email from HTC:

Dear Laslow,

Thank you for using HTC Customer Service. We want to make your next visit even better and would like your feedback. If you haven’t already done so please help us improve by taking a quick survey on your experience using HTC Customer Service.

Get Started

Thank you very much for your time. Be sure to visit us online at http://www.htc.com to read the latest announcements and check out our newly released products.

We are unable to receive replies to this email account. Please visit us at http://www.htc.com if you have any questions or need further assistance.

Sincerely,

HTC

I couldn’t pass it up. I filled out the survey and was completely honest about the experience I had with trying to get a refund for a DoA unit and how ridiculous that I had to choose that route in the first place, rather than having the option to simply get a new, non-refurbished replacement like American customers. I submitted it, and then completely forgot about it.

This morning, while I was off rebuilding a borked IPCop box, HTC left me a voice mail message that went something like this:

Good morning Mr. Laslow. My name <redacted> from HTC, and I’m just calling to follow up on your return. I am very, very sorry that it took so long to process your refund. I’m also very sorry that you received a DoA unit in the first place. If you need any further assistance with this, please call us at 866-449-8358. Once again, we appreciate your business and are very sorry about this whole thing.

I was stunned; I never expected to hear back from HTC at all. I’m not, however, surprised by the fact that they simply apologized rather than offering some form of compensation (be it an accessory, a t-shirt, anything really). Regardless, I’m happy that this is over and I can finally end the tale of an HTC DoA.

Wish: Preload Map Data on Maps App for Android

August 5, 2010 / posted in Android, Google / No Comments

While driving back from the Scottish Highlands to the South of England, I noticed something annoying about the Maps application for Android – when you pick out a route via the ‘Directions’ feature, all is well and good until you enter an area with no cell reception. At this point, you’re screwed.

I know it’s impossible to expect Google to preload hundreds of megabytes of map data on to your phone (you know, those pesky storage restrictions and all), but how about this: after Maps provides the directions for your route in text form, and you click ‘Show on map’, Maps could pop up an option (this could also be a configurable setting) asking if you want to preload map data.

Maps Mock-up

My crappy mock-up of the prompt made on my netbook with a trackpad.

If you choose yes, it downloads the map data from Google’s servers for the planned route and caches it to your SD card. If existing map data is present that overlaps, it uses that after checking to make sure it’s up-to-date.

Probably a long shot that something like this could ever be implemented, but it would make life for those using their Android device as a Sat Nav so much easier, especially if you’re going on a long trip.

An HTC DoA: Part 4

July 13, 2010 / posted in Android, Google, Hardware, Support, Troubleshooting / No Comments

Continued from Part 3.

So the unthinkable has happened – I actually received the shipping label from HTC yesterday! I immediately boxed up the phone and dropped it at a nearby FedEx box, and then proceeded to hammer the F5 key on the FedEx tracking screen.

Also to my surprise was the fact that the shipping label was for Priority Overnight shipping, and that the package reached its destination at 7:45am (PST) this morning! I’ll update this post later on when HTC contacts me regarding my refund.

Update (07/16/2010): Still no contact from HTC. However, after re-reading the initial email they sent, it does state:

Once we receive the items we will review the condition and we will contact you by phone or email if we have any further questions. If no additional information is needed a refund should show on your credit card within 14 business days of receipt of the return.

So at this point I’ll be sitting back and waiting for my credit card balance to update. I did end up ordering the replacement phone from Google on Tuesday, and it arrived (in working condition, no less!) this morning! Good thing, to, because I hear that this is Google’s last batch of N1′s that they’ll be selling through the web store….

Concluded in Part 5.

An HTC DoA: Part 2

July 8, 2010 / posted in Android, Google, Hardware, Rants, Support, Troubleshooting / No Comments

Continued from Part 1.

Day four of the return process and no real progress to report. According to the details given to me by HTC on Monday (see part 1), I should have received a shipping label in my email the following day. When I didn’t, I called HTC support back. The agent I spoke with told me to check my spam folder (already done – nothing), and then said that she would ‘escalate the ticket’ and a label sent out right away. I thanked her, disconnected, and waited.

And waited.

End of day Wednesday rolled around and still no shipping label. I called HTC again and was told that it can take an extra day when things go through the escalation process and that I should expect it to show up in my email no later than Thursday.

Well, here we are on Thursday and still no label.

I called HTC yet again, and was told that yes, I should have received the shipping label today. The agent then proceeded to tell me that he update the ticket, ‘increase the priority’, and that I should keep waiting.

Really, HTC? I’m normally a pretty patient guy, but come on! I’ve heard of American customers getting new, replacement phones within days, but we Canadians need to go through this gong show of a return process and then re-purchase the device because otherwise we end up a refurbished phone instead of a new one. This is bad PR, people. It’s time to start spreading the news.

Find out what happens next in Part 3.

After 5000 Tweets: A Review/HowTo of Twitter

June 11, 2010 / posted in Android, Apple, howto, Rants, Twitter / No Comments

I recently hit the 5,000 tweet mark on Twitter, and figured that it’s as good a time as any to write something about my experience on the abbreviated social networking site. It also seems appropriate as I permanently deleted my Facebook account (well, I’m in the process, anyway).

Click ‘Continue Reading’ below for the wall-of-text review.

»Read More

Rogers Wireless Hijacks Wildcard DNS Records

June 7, 2010 / posted in "It's a Feature", Android, Apple, Hack, howto, iPhone, Linux, Rants / No Comments

Rogers LogoAlthough I can’t confirm when this happened (it may have happened a while ago and I just never noticed), I was browsing the internet last night on my Google Nexus One and noticed that, when I mistyped http://imdb.com, I was redirected to http://www20.search.rogers.com (which doesn’t work outside of Rogers’ network) instead of receiving a normal Not Found error. This all smacks of the infamous VeriSign Site Finder fiasco.

I’m no fan of browser redirects in any form, and I’m even less of a fan of Yahoo which Rogers partners with to, among other things, provide results on their hijacked landing page. But what can you do? It’s their service, and there’s no opt-out link on the page.

Well, the answer is to manually opt-out. Unfortunately, you need to have a rooted/jail-broken phone to do this. As stated above, I have a Google Nexus One which runs CyanogenMod, but this should work with any other rooted Android phone and even jail-broken iPhones (although the paths are different — you’ll need to alter them as applicable).

To manually opt-out, do the following (assumes Android phone):

  1. Open a shell on your phone. You can use ConnectBot, Terminal Emulator, or adb shell.
  2. Assume root (su command).
  3. Remount the system partition in to read/write mode —  mount -o rw,remount /system
  4. Browse to /system/etc.
  5. Use your favourite text editor to open hosts.
  6. Add the following to the bottom of the hosts file — 127.0.0.1 www20.search.rogers.com
  7. Save and quit!

You’re done! You’ve just manually opt’ed-out of Rogers Wildcard DNS hijack. Now you’ll just get the normal ‘Not Found’ errors, as when Rogers see that the domain you’ve entered doesn’t exist and tried to redirect you to their search page, your phone will point that domain to itself and fail as it isn’t running a webserver.

TL;DR Version: To prevent getting directed to Rogers’ Search Page when you mistype an address, edit your hosts file to point www20.search.rogers.com to the 127.0.0.1 loopback address.

Update (05/01/2011): You can now officially opt-out using this link: http://searchassist.teoma.com/templates/rogers/optout

Froyo: First Impressions

May 22, 2010 / posted in Android, Software / No Comments
It's Froyo!

It's Froyo!

IMPORTANT NOTE: It’s been pointed out that the Froyo ROM floating around is nothing more than a Release Candidate. Although that means that it’s technically feature complete, it’s still little more than a beta. Expect bugs, expect brokenness, and don’t expect any help with it.

I’ve been using the pre-rooted Froyo update (Android 2.2) for a few hours now, and here are my first impressions:

  • Speed: Holy crap is this fast! In fact, it’s even faster than some of the ROMs running over-clocked kernels. It takes about the same amount of time to boot, but the phone is very responsive as soon as the lock screen appears, and I haven’t encountered any lag throughout the system.
  • App Restore: I had no idea this feature was in Froyo, but imagine my surprise when I booted up Froyo after a full wipe only to have it immediately restore all of my installed apps! Talk about a time saver!
  • Bookmarks: Even though I was missing a few, most of my bookmarks in Browser were automatically synced. This alone almost makes the Froyo update worth while.
  • Exchange Sync: Everything works exactly as before, only now it syncs with my Exchange calendar out-of-box quickly and painlessly. No more need for CorpCAL.apk!
  • Froyo-Only Apps: One of the first apps out for Froyo is ChromeToPhone — it lets you send links from Chrome on your desktop/laptop computer directly to your Android device. Gone are the days of using URL shorteners or QR codes to get something on your phone – instead, simply browse to the site you want on your computer, then click a button in the toolbar. You’re Android device will near-instantly receive the link and notify you.
  • Bugs: Yes, there are a few. The main one I’ve run in to is trying to turn off USB Storage. If you attempt to turn it off on the phone before ‘Safely Removing’ the device in Windows, Android becomes generally unresponsive and eventually reboots. While annoying, I’m not really that surprised, as I did it wrong. Also, Terminal Emulator crashes in Froyo due to a compatibility issue with the stock ROM. This will hopefully be addressed in a future update, but for the time being, use ConnectBot.

I can’t wait for the eventual CyanogenMod 6.x based on Froyo, but that won’t be out for a while, as Google has yet to release the source code for 2.2. Things are definitely looking good for Android, though!

UPDATE: The HTC_IME (virtual keyboard) has been updated for Froyo. Get it on XDA.

Short: Wherein My Nexus One Saves Me Money

May 22, 2010 / posted in Android, Google, howto, Short, Tomfoolery / 2 Comments

I found myself in need of a new microphone for my computer, as the cord on my cheap Staples-brand one broke. After spending the day looking around town for a nice set that fully covered my ears, I found these at Future Shop:

Razer Carcharias

Razer Carcharias - Image Credit: hardwarelogic.com

However, at $99 CAD, they were a little outside of my price range. All was not lost, though – I walked up the counter and asked if the clerk could do anything about the price. After being initially rebuffed (“Sorry, this is the best price I can offer”), I pulled out my Nexus One and loaded up Barcode Scanner. I proceeded to scan the UPC code on the box, then do a Product Search. I showed the clerk that, according the results listed, I could get the same product from Wal-Mart for $69 CAD.

Five minutes later, I walked out with my new $69 headset. And I can honestly say, they are the best headphones I’ve ever owned.

« Older Posts