Get into Smart Devices

How to unlock your smartphone

2006-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

When I tried to use Place Lab softwares to get GSM cell-id from my Dopod smartphone, it failed
because I need to software unlock my phone first. To get the cell info from phone requires swithching into the kernel-mode something not usually prohibited by window CE.

If you want to unlock your smartphone like me, you can just follow the instructions posted by
GTek. It is written for Audiovox SMT5600, but it is also suitable for my Dopod phone.

2006-02-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

Place Lab is a project which uses radio beacons for positioning. Unlike GPS, the Place Lab can obtain larger coverage of both time and location.
The three beacons they use are:
1. GSM with accuracy about 100 meters in urban area.
2. 802.11 APs (Access Points) 20- 30m
3. Bluetooth.

Place Lab techniques are very useful in coarse positioning without additional equipments

2005-11-28T23:30:00.000-08:00

Windows CE 4.x Emulator does not work correctly if PAE mode is enabled
If Physical Address Extension (PAE) mode is enabled on a Microsoft Windows XP-based computer, and you try to run the Microsoft Windows CE Emulator in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Microsoft Windows CE Platform Builder 4.x, Microsoft eMbedded Visual C++ version 4.0, the Pocket PC 2003 SDK, or the Smartphone 2003 SDK.

How to disabel PAE mode
1. Click Start -> Run, type C:\boot.ini, and return
2. If there is a /pae option ,just delete it.
else
change /noexecute=OptIn to /noexecute=alwaysoff
3. Restart your machine

2005-11-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

How To Locate Mobile Devices By GSM

There are several ways to locate a mobile devices by GSM detecting, they are various from accuracy.
1. using the CellID, not expensive, no need to change the phone and very few upgrade for the operator, but not very accurate.
2.using the NMR (Network Measurements Results) with a triangulation on three BTS. The phone needs a SIM Tool Kit application to allow that, the precision become more accurate.
3. using the triangulation the Timing Advance (TA). It's even possible to use until 6 measurements on 6 different BTS. The precision can be very accurate, around 100 meters but this technic need important upgrades in the software of the GSM operators

Here is a good paper, which addresses these methods

2005-11-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

Smartphone device debugging problem with VS 2005

When I tried to debug native smartphone(2003) applications on visual studio 2005 beta2,
I got an error:
Unable to start program '%CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES%\SmartApp\SmartApp.exe'.
Operation not supported. Unknown error: 0x89731102.

Some one in MSDN forum has posted the problem, the answer is useful and can solve the problem.
I will paste the answer step by step:
What is the reason: this is a security certificate issue. The VS-Devices binaries are not signed with a certificate on your device, specifically "edm.exe".
1. * Select "Properties" on \smartdevices\Debugger\target\wce400\armv4\edm.exe

2. * Go to the Digital signatures-tab. Click on "Details", Show Certificate and choose the "View Certificate "-tab. Choose to save the certificate to file using Base 64-encoding.

3. After you save the certificate , copy the thumb print for the certificate:* The thumb print can be found in the same tab as you chose to save the certificate to file. Simply find the "Thumb print"-field.

4. Now, create an Xml-file that looks like this:

<wap-provisioningdoc>
    <characteristic type="CertificateStore">
        <characteristic type="Privileged Execution Trust Authorities">

        <characteristic type="{Enter
certificate SHA-1 thumbprint in hexadecimal here}">



    <parm name="EncodedCertificate" value="{Enter
base64 encoded X.509 certificate here}" />
                <parm name="Role" value="255" />
            </characteristic>
        </characteristic>
    </characteristic>
</wap-provisioningdoc>

5. Simply cut and paste the text in the certificate file that is inside -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE----- to the correct place in the Xml-file. Remember to remove the newlines so the certificate is on one line only.

6. Also, cut and paste the thumbprint to the correct place as well, and remove the white spaces.

7. Run rapiconfig /p yourxmlfile.xml
8. Restart your phone

Then it should be OK.

2005-11-23T04:09:00.000-08:00

2005-11-23T03:26:00.000-08:00

Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2, will not work with Version 3.7 or 3.8 of Active Sync

If you want to develop wince 5.0 application on VS05, you can download active sync 4.1
from Windows Mobile downloads

2005-11-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

"Connection was not created " SmartPhone 2003 device From Google group

Question:

While using Visual C++ 4.0 SP3 with the PlatformManager, I try to connect via ActiveSync 3.7.1 and USB with a Windows SmartPhone 2003 based device. It produces following error message:
"The Microsoft ActiveSync reported the following error: Unable to load device side components. Please check server configuration settings."
I choosed as device "SMARTPHONE 2003 Device" and in the device settings for transport and startup server ActiveSync. There are no properties to configure.

Answer:

The security features of Smartphone devices make it necessary to sign certain files that are used to support the development and debugging process. During the installation of the Smartphone SDK, this process is performed automatically for the files that the device emulator uses. However, when you want to enable a real Smartphone device for testing and debugging, you will need to complete this file-signing process manually.
snap
For SmartPhone 2002 the "sp2002dps.exe", found on standard path:
"C:\Windows CE Tools\wce300\Smartphone 2002\tools\sp2002dps.exe" /create /device
Or for SmartPhone 2003 SDK spdps.exe, maybe under:
"C:\Programme\Windows CE Tools\wce420\SMARTPHONE 2003\Tools\spdps.exe" /create /device