Telecom NZ had shipped out HTC Vogue some years ago,rebadged as Okta Touch on its CDMA network . The original phone was shipped out with Windows Mobile 6.0 and after the release of Windows Mobile 6.1 by Microsoft, an update was posted by Telecom NZ, which allowed Okta Touch owners to move on to the new version [Tony Hughes has got a nice article with instructions on how to upgrade to WM6.1 http://www.geekzone.co.nz/tonyhughes/6309]
I have owned this fabulous phone for almost 6 months now. I resisted my urge to buy an iphone because of its locked down nature and was awaiting Android to gain market share and traction. Within the last year, there have been some really nice Android phones released in the market, eg. Droid from Motorolla, Google's Nexus One
Being ever so inquisitive, I started searching for ways of getting Android on to my HTC Vogue aka Okta Touch. From the articles that I read up, this process seemed very straight forward and so I gave it a try. Now that I have used it for a while, I am very impressed with Android 2.1 aka Eclair . I havent quite fully migrated onto Android since at the moment I am running it off my microSD card. Once I have tested it for a week, I will install it on the NAND chip of my HTC Vogue and have it as the primary operating system for my phone.
For those of you who would like to give Android a go on your Okta Touch, I have listed below the steps. The official site for Android on HTC is located at http://sourceforge.net/projects/androidhtc
Prepare your microSD card
1. Go to sourceforge and download haretinstall.zip . This package contains a linux bootloader that will be used to reboot your phone and run your Android image.
2. The haretinstall.zip archive is just a zip of a folder called andboot. Unzip the archive and place this folder on the root of your microSD card. MAKE SURE YOU TRANSFER EVERYTHING.
3. Download the Eclair image from http://sourceforge.net/projects/androidhtc/files/2010-03-25/mssmisoneclair7.rar/download. This archive is quite large and contains the archive androidinstall.rar [there is a gingerbread version out. I haven't tested this but if you do go ahead with this image, please post your results. It can be found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/androidhtc/files/latest ]
4. Copy the archive androidintall.rar into the folder andboot on the microSD card. DO NOT UNZIP THE FILE. JUST COPY IT
Boot Into Android
5. From Windows Mobile, start File Explorer and browse to your microSD card and then into your andboot folder. You will see a file called haret . Double tap it to run it. Once it starts, leave the defaults and tap Run . This will power down your phone and boot it up into Linux. Keep an eye on the progress since it will prompt you to press on the D Pad if you wish to Install or change any settings. When it does, press on the D Pad (the Enter button). This will take you into the Install menu.
6. Choose Install System . It will warn you that your system will be wiped. Click Yes to confirm. After that you will be prompted if you would like to flush out the data. Select Yes to this.
7. Once the install is finished, you will be returned to the Options. Select Quit. This will start Android.
THE FIRST BOOTUP IS VERY SLOW. DONT PANIC. JUST LET IT TAKE ITS TIME
Viola! You have Android running on your HTC Vogue aka Okta Touch.
Some tips on Android
# Volume controls volume
# Long Press camera is home
# Press and release camera is back
# Press and release top power button is menu
# Press and hold 1 second top power button for on screen keyboard
# Press and hold 2 seconds top power button for landscape (turn off auto rotate in settings)
# Press and hold end key for shutdown menu
# For best battery life, disable background data in Settings..Data Synchronization
FAQs
- Getting Internet Working
In the Menu, choose Settings and then Wireless & networks
Once here select Mobile networks
Click on Access Point Names. The default one listed is Android. Tap on it and fill in the username and password as per your carriers data network settings
I am just loving Android and even more so the concept of a Market Place for apps, or as iPhone coined it, the AppStore. I am just soo addicted.
Have fun and I will post soon how to get Android as your primary OS on your Okta Touch.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Concerned about your data privacy? Enable Bitlocker on Windows Vista/Windows 7
With the ever increasing demand for privacy, it is no wonder that Microsoft has packaged some encryption tools with its latest release of operating system. BitLocker and BitLocker ToGo, are available only in Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 7 Enterprise.
I remember reading an article online during the first few days when Windows 7 RC had come out. One of the bloggers had commented that while installing Windows 7, he noticed a hidden partition being created, and couldnt figure out why it was there, and he recommended deleting it and absorbing the free space into the system drive using some partitioning tools. I now realise that the reason why there is a hidden unused partition, is so that your computer can boot up if you use BitLocker to encrypt your system drive.
BitLocker allows you to encrypt the whole volume, not a specific file, like you could with Encrypted File System (EFS). If your computer has a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, you could use it to store the encryption keys, else you can use a flash disk. This however, would be requested everytime you reboot your computer. The encryption/decryption happens seemlessly by the Operating System, so the user doesnt need to do much in regards to that.
BitLocker To Go, is a new feature, added to Windows 7 by default, that allows you to encrypt your external drives.
Please do note that if you do not own the high end version of Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can still enjoy the privacy of BitLocker and BitLocker To Go. You can use the free tool Truecrypt.
You can get more details about BitLocker and BitLocker To Go from this Microsoft published Walkthrough .
Till the next time ..
I remember reading an article online during the first few days when Windows 7 RC had come out. One of the bloggers had commented that while installing Windows 7, he noticed a hidden partition being created, and couldnt figure out why it was there, and he recommended deleting it and absorbing the free space into the system drive using some partitioning tools. I now realise that the reason why there is a hidden unused partition, is so that your computer can boot up if you use BitLocker to encrypt your system drive.
BitLocker allows you to encrypt the whole volume, not a specific file, like you could with Encrypted File System (EFS). If your computer has a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip, you could use it to store the encryption keys, else you can use a flash disk. This however, would be requested everytime you reboot your computer. The encryption/decryption happens seemlessly by the Operating System, so the user doesnt need to do much in regards to that.
BitLocker To Go, is a new feature, added to Windows 7 by default, that allows you to encrypt your external drives.
Please do note that if you do not own the high end version of Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can still enjoy the privacy of BitLocker and BitLocker To Go. You can use the free tool Truecrypt.
You can get more details about BitLocker and BitLocker To Go from this Microsoft published Walkthrough .
Till the next time ..
Monday, November 9, 2009
Combating Spam - My personal approach to it
Gone are the days when you could surf to a website, click on a download link, and have the download start instantly. Nowadays more and more sites are resorting to asking you for your email address, to which they send a link to the file that you are wanting to download. Even though the site states that your email address will not be used for spamming by them or by any of their partners, you start receiving more junk email after a few days. Sounds familiar? Well believe it or not, email harvesting is a very promising business in the underwground community.
One of the ways you could circumvent the above is by creating some disposable email addresses, those that you only use to download software. This could be as easy as signing up for a free gmail,yahoo or msn account. The only downside to this is that you will have to login to those addresses to retrieve the links that are sent to you.
Another approach is using the following technique. Most of the web based email accounts give you disposable addresses by default. Yahoo gives you disposable addresses on their premium accounts. I personally use gmail and if you were to read the help section on it, you will find out that it also gives you disposable email addresses.
Lets say your email address is john.doe@gmail.com. Now if someone sends you an email at john.doe@gmail.com, you will receive it in your inbox (trivial). Now the funky part that you dont get told off hand is that any email sent to the address john.doe+{blurb}@gmail.com (you have to have + in the address) will also get directed to your inbox. So for instance, if someone sends an email to john.doe+tuesday@gmail.com, this will get delivered to john.doe@gmail.com inbox. So now when you go to download something off a website, and they require you to enter your email address so that they can send you the link to the file, just enter the email address in the above format (i generally append the site name, so that I can track where the spam is coming from). Some sites are smarter and do not allow you to have a + in the email address, but almost 80% of the ones that I have tried, take it as a genuine email address.
The next step will be to create a filter in gmail, that uses the To: address as the filter condition. In this, add the disposable email address that you had given to the website, and in the actions, select delete. Activate this filter after you have received the download url (or you could suspend the rule for a few days and monitor the amount of spam you receive from the website).
You can use this technique to create disposable email addresses out of your personal gmail address. Also, you can use it evaluate how "trustworthy" the website you gave your email address to is.
Have fun.
One of the ways you could circumvent the above is by creating some disposable email addresses, those that you only use to download software. This could be as easy as signing up for a free gmail,yahoo or msn account. The only downside to this is that you will have to login to those addresses to retrieve the links that are sent to you.
Another approach is using the following technique. Most of the web based email accounts give you disposable addresses by default. Yahoo gives you disposable addresses on their premium accounts. I personally use gmail and if you were to read the help section on it, you will find out that it also gives you disposable email addresses.
Lets say your email address is john.doe@gmail.com. Now if someone sends you an email at john.doe@gmail.com, you will receive it in your inbox (trivial). Now the funky part that you dont get told off hand is that any email sent to the address john.doe+{blurb}@gmail.com (you have to have + in the address) will also get directed to your inbox. So for instance, if someone sends an email to john.doe+tuesday@gmail.com, this will get delivered to john.doe@gmail.com inbox. So now when you go to download something off a website, and they require you to enter your email address so that they can send you the link to the file, just enter the email address in the above format (i generally append the site name, so that I can track where the spam is coming from). Some sites are smarter and do not allow you to have a + in the email address, but almost 80% of the ones that I have tried, take it as a genuine email address.
The next step will be to create a filter in gmail, that uses the To: address as the filter condition. In this, add the disposable email address that you had given to the website, and in the actions, select delete. Activate this filter after you have received the download url (or you could suspend the rule for a few days and monitor the amount of spam you receive from the website).
You can use this technique to create disposable email addresses out of your personal gmail address. Also, you can use it evaluate how "trustworthy" the website you gave your email address to is.
Have fun.
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