Check that international data roaming is enabled

Toggle data roaming on the carrier side

Dialing #763# will turn off the roaming on the carrier side (as opposed to just the phone), and dialing #766# will turn it back on. Restart the phone.

Up until now, I’ve never opened an MMS successfully. My Internet settings on the phone were never set
probably plus I never bothered to do it. I also didn’t know the billing rates for opening them either.
But now, an opportunity arose for me to require MMS. The Deutsche Bahn has three options for distributing tickets purchased online. The first one is by printing them out, but I don’t have a printer. The second method is having them mailed to me, but that costs 3.50 euro. The third and best option, is to have them sent as MMS. Knowing that my phone, the P1i, has this ability, I looked for how to do it. After going through lots of Googling and reading through translated German sites, I finally figured it out.

Now, I use Vodafone in Germany, but this method may work on other providers even. I am also using GPRS, and not 3G (I don’t have a dataplan unfortunately). The way to do it is to register an account on Vodafone.de using your phone number. Obviously, if you use a different provider, you’d go to their website to make the account. I clicked through their services and found an option called the “HandyKonfigurator”. What it does is it sends me the proper settings required for my phone. I clicked through the dropdown boxes, found my phone and pressed continue. Vodafone then sent me a file that would inject the settings into my phone. They also sent me a PIN that I had to enter before my phone settings were changed. I did as I was asked, and now I can receive MMS messages!

Vodafone Internet Account Settings

• Address: event.vodafone.de
• No user name and password required
• IP Config and DNS Addresses are set to automatic
• Proxy Server: 139.7.29.17 at port 80

Vodafone MMS Account Settings

• Service Center Address: http://139.7.24.1/servlets/mms

Since I arrived in Germany, I had been looking for a good phone plan.  I figure I should just stick with a prepaid phone plan since I can’t imagine myself getting a lot of phone calls.  I ended up using one of Vodafone’s prepaid phone plans.  The closest phone plan from Fido is their prepaid plan.  Below is a comparison (as of January 18, 2011).

It seems that everything is mostly the same in terms of making calls and sending text messages.  But the biggest perk in Vodafone’s plan is the fact that receiving international calls is free.  That’s the same as Fido’s “unlimited incoming calls feature”.  The expiring date is longer too.  But as with most better features, they almost always cost more.  Here €10 is just about $3 more expensive than Fido’s plan.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,600 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 85 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 120 posts. There were 48 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was November 23rd with 83 views. The most popular post that day was South Korea: Yet Again Swallowing the Bitter Pill.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were zamunda.net, facebook.com, dailyblogged.com, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for p1i windows 7, p1_usb_signed_drivers, p1_usb_signed_drivers.rar, p1_usb_signed_drivers package, and failed to load resource sony ericsson.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

South Korea: Yet Again Swallowing the Bitter Pill November 2010
1 comment

Connecting a Sony Ericsson P1i to a Windows 7 x64 Computer in Phone Mode December 2009
1 comment

Snow Leopard on a Dell Inspiron 1520 June 2010
17 comments

How to Install Solidworks 2008 on a x64 Operating System November 2009

SolidWorks 2010 Side-By-Side Configuration Error Fix August 2010
5 comments

I didn’t really go into specifics as to what kind of modem lights to look for because all modems are different.  But they almost always will have an “Online” light.  If that is off, then there is clearly a problem.

Router lights are usually just a power light, the WAN and LAN lights.  If the WAN light is off, it means the router has no access to the Internet.

Each network adapter on the computer can be disabled and enabled by accessing “Network Connections” in Windows.  That can be accessed by typing the name without the quotes in the address bar in any open Explorer window.

Warning: After doing this, I’ve lost all contact with my router even with the IP of the router changed.  This is probably because my router is acting as a switch.  The only way that I’ve found to access the router page is to reset the router.  This is probably due to the fact that my router is a piece of junk and I don’t know if this is something consistent among all routers.

1. Change the IP of the router to something else that is unused in the network (I changed mine to 192.168.0.254)
2. Disable the DHCP client on the router
3. Plug the ethernet cable from the wall/modem to one of the LAN ports on the router (Don’t use the WAN port anymore)
4. Plug ethernet cables from each computer to any free LAN port on the router
5. Release/renew IP’s on all computers

Note: Do not use the WAN port since the DHCP functionality has been disabled.

Despite the drawback of not being able to access the router afterward, I now have all my computers networked.  Some people on forums had solutions on retaining access to the router, but those methods didn’t work for me.

• Rogers Wireless: [10-digit phone number]@pcs.rogers.com
• Fido: [10-digit phone number]@fido.ca
• Telus: [10-digit phone number]@msg.telus.com
• Bell Mobility: [10-digit phone number]@txt.bell.ca
• Kudo Mobile: [10-digit phone number]@msg.koodomobile.com
• MTS: [10-digit phone number]@text.mtsmobility.com
• President’s Choice: [10-digit phone number]@txt.bell.ca
• Sasktel: [10-digit phone number]@sms.sasktel.com
• Solo: [10-digit phone number]@txt.bell.ca
• Virgin: [10-digit phone number]@vmobile.ca

http://smartcanucks.ca/how-to-send-free-text-messages-to-rogers-fido-telus-bell-virgin-cell-phones-canada/

To be specific, here are all the options that are included:

• Services information
  • Model information – what model your phone is (mine just says P1i)
  • Software information – PDA, phone, and Bluetooth software version, and CDA version
  • Hardware information – IMEI number
  • SIM locks – I’m guessing this tells you whether your phone is locked or unlocked (reasonable assumption)
  • Configuration – Speech codec rate, and GSM bands
• Services tests
  • Display – shows abunch of weird lines and colors to see if colors look right I guess
  • Camera – shows an image of the front and rear camera
  • Touchscreen – gives a blank drawing canvas to test the stylus
  • Illumination – screen brightness
  • LED’s – lights up the light near the phone charger port red and green
  • Keyboard – lets you type different keys and reads your input
  • Vibrator – vibrates the phone letting you know that function still works
  • Speakers – makes sounds with the front and rear speakers
  • Microphone – records sounds
  • FM radio – didn’t try this one, since I didn’t have my handsfree with me
  • Memory Stick – tells you if its attached
• Format internal disk – it is what it says

Accessing the Services Menu

1. Go to the Main Menu
2. Select Phone
3. Select Phone again.  Once you do this, it will show a blank space for typing a number
4. Turn the jog dial up once, then type a *
5. Turn the jog dial down twice, then type a *
6. Turn the jog dial down once, then type another *
7. The services menu will now open