One credit card less

Simplify is my tendency. Today I cancelled a credit card, because it was to expensive and I don’t like to complicate my days being worried about debts. No tears about this one, in facts it was a bad credit card. In the future I’ll be more careful when I got one.

Nokia N95 Problem (part II) – Recovering my apps

I’m continuing with the problem. I can’t recover my apps. I think the problems started when I changed the language of the mobile, sincerely no good idea. Another possible reason was corruption on MicroSD, because later I had problems trying to take the info and put them into my backup card.

To solve the problem, I performed a hard reset, used an empty MicroSD and start again installing the apps. I recovered almost everything, and to achieve that it’s important to know where the data of each application is and how to perform a backup-restore. Here some info:

• Step Counter.- Information is storage in a folder called “StepCounter” inside the mobile or in MicroSD. For each workout exists a .dat file, organized in monthly folders. In my case, I had previously “Activity Monitor” and some of the files are directly in the main directory. Copy all the contents, including subfolders and other files.
  
• Sports Tracker.- Information is storage in a folder called “SportsTracker” inside the mobile or in MicroSD. For each workout exists a .dat file, organized in monthly folders. From previous versions, some of the files are directly in the main directory. Copy all the contents, including subfolders and other files.
  
• Wellness diary.- Database is in “\System\data\wfrdb.sq” in SQLite format, in your mobile or in MicroSD. If yours is in your mobile, you need YBrowser to access the file. You copy and paste it.
  
• Landmarks.- I didn’t find out where is storage, but I know how to backup and restore. In “Landmarks” app, select all and then send them to your mail or by Bluetooth. You’ll receive a “.lmx” file, a XML like format from Nokia to save the landmarks. To restore them, copy the file to your MicroSD and open the file in the mobile using File Administrator. Automatically opens an application with an option to save them locally.  
  
• Nokia Maps.- All info is in the folder “cities” in the MicroSD. Copy and paste it.
  
• MobiReader.- Books and annotations are stored in “eBooks” folder. Just copy and paste the contents. Synchronize with your PC if necessary.
  

To prevent lost of information, the most recommendable is storage everything in the MicroSD, configuring every application to use it. Also sync it time to time to prevent data lost. 

I hope this post will be useful.

Nokia N95 Problem - Web browser can’t open

Today I wanted to test a WAP application and I couldn’t open the Web browser of N95. Googling I found these forums:

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=apps&thread.id=1424
http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/board/message?board.id=messaging&message.id=4446

After reading, I took a backup using “Nokia Content Copier”, synchronized it with my laptop and took of the MicroSD card. Then I tried these things in this order:

• Update the firmware.- I run “Nokia Software Updater” but I doesn’t have available updates.
• Take the battery out for 10 minutes.- Nope, didn’t work.
• Erase cache.- I installed YBrowser (http://www.drjukka.com/YBrowser.html) and deleted all the contents in c:\cache. It didn’t work.
• Soft reset.- I had some problems remembering my password but I finally did it. Bad news, didn’t work.
• Hard reset.- My last chance... crossing my fingers I typed *#7370#. Success!

After check that web browser is working, I restored the “Nokia Content Copier” backup. Another problem: incompatibility of language. One week ago I changed the language of the mobile just for fun. I should use the last language and perform the restore. At this point everything was ok.

The real problems started when I put back the MicroSD card. Started a crosscheck validation between the mobile and card, and the result was some corruption of applications. I reset it several times, deleted files and perform restores with all combinations possible, and at this moment these applications don’t work and I can’t re-install them according with corruption of files during install:

• Wellness diary
• MSN Messenger
• Step Counter
• Nokia Maps 2.0
• Moving Ball (due to no longer valid application)

I’ll continue working on recovering my main apps. My plan is perform a hard reset, format the MicroSD and start over again. Next step is making a list of applications and find out how to recover my personal info.

New panohead for N95

I finish the adaptor to put N95 in the panohead. The adaptor alone looks like this:

With the N95:


And this is all together:

Nokia Sport Tracker - new version

A new version of Nokia Sport Tracker is available here. The new feature is access to satellite maps, but it doesn’t use Nokia Maps data, instead of that connects to the Sport Tracker service to download the maps. I didn’t test it yet, I hope do it soon.

Technological evolution of my mobiles and PDAs

I always said “I don’t want to have a mobile-PDA because when you run out of battery, you lose 2 devices and not only one”, but I finally put them together. The main reason is, if you look at my mobile and PDA evolution, you can understand that mobiles had to evolve a lot to be good PDAs. Here is my evolution:

Microsoft SQL Server DBA?

Life is very funny and ironic. When I finally decided get certifications for all my IT knowledge and got OCA, I was assigned a new challenge: audit a Microsoft SQL Server database.

How? I don’t know. The truth is, if you are DBA, you have the criteria to be a DBA in any database, and my first steps were subscribe to SQL Server Central and make some comparisons, in order to get the basic information that I usually get from an Oracle.

I hope share some tips and tricks, if I found ones. LOL

My Panohead

I did this panoramic head two years ago, when I were really passionate about 360° panoramic photos. I’m still an enthusiast and I hope doing some soon, but first I want to show mine to inspire others to make their own. I made this with wood, epoxy, nails, nuts and bolds. Here some pictures with my Canon PowerShot A710 IS:

Wii want to play

Last Christmas I asked Santa to give me a Wii. With 10 months of delay, my Wii arrived. My first impression is: it’s exactly as I expected, a full interactive experience where if you don’t move and burn calories, you aren’t enjoying.

I already created my Mii and explored the games. At the moment, I only have 2 discs: Wii Sports and Wii Play. My favourite is boxing, excellent as stress therapy. Also I’m trying shooting, tennis and baseball This is my Mii:

My next acquisition: Wii Fit. Yoga never was so funny

N95 Tripod

Two months ago I started my personal project about make a device to hold my N95 in a tripod. And now it’s finished. I made it using epoxy, a lot of patience and black paint for the final touch. Here some pictures:

My next project is adapt my self-made panoramic head to the N95, I’m already working on it.