Anatiferous blog | Move every zig.

Howdy! This is my (William Reading's) webpage. At the moment, I only have this blog script and my gallery up, but I hope to get more stuff on this page at some point, or so I thought when I created this site years ago. Updates and shiny new copy to eventually go here. If you'd like to contact me to point out that I've done something to break XHTML/CSS standards or heaven forbid--look at my Vita--drop me a line at my e-mail address bill +spam @ [ELEPHANT] aggienerds.org. Simply remove "+spam", the spaces and the pachyderm along with its brackets and that address will reach me. I'm also available on Jabber/GChat/AIM/MSN with the same address above.

The T28 Sony Ericsson service cable for unlocking my eBay’d T68i from AT&T finally arrived today. Given that it didn’t arrive with the rest of my mail lot, I knew that it would be there by the time I checked it in the afternoon, since I’d requested that it be sent Priority Mail. One might think that it’s then a simple matter of running the unlocking software and everything would sort of fall into place for actually making use of said phone, but then that person would be wrong.

Perhaps my Windows ™ operating environment had something to do with the problem. For instance, instead of using it on a IA32 platform like most of the world, I run it inside of Virtual PC on Mac OS X. Apparently, the unlocking software doesn’t support this platform and is nice enough to crash on launch. After much googling and forum digging later, I learned that not only does the software not support VPC, but it also doesn’t support most AMD processors, including their 64 bit line. It also wont launch on a machine with any sort of debugger installed. (I also had one on the VPC image, in the off chance that I might want to try out some Win32 code.)

I thought I was safe on a real windows machine using the Microsoft ™ RDP software to access it from my G4 workstation, but this apparently causes a kernel panic of some sort. Running the software on an Intel machine with the (Visual Basic?) program right in front of me seems to work just fine, so about five minutes after that I was the proud owner of a fully unlocked GSM phone.

Because in a prior life this phone was tied to AT&T, I’ve spent a good deal of time looking up the correct settings for GPRS and wap for the phone and seem to have finally arrived at the settings to make everything work correctly. I’ve now paired the phone with the Powerbook and am now able to connect to GPRS over Bluetooth, in addition to being able to do various things over Bluetooth, such as control iTunes and change out themes.

Good Times.

Using some magic provided by Perl LWP, HTML::TreeParser and XML::RSS, I’ve written a parser to automatically generate full RSS feeds from TAMU’s newspaper, The Battalion. The main reason for this is the fact that the site is horribly designed and loads extremely slowly. There also wasn’t any way for me to read the articles via an RSS aggregator on my desktop or cell phone. If you’d like to use the feed also, just use the following link: Battalion RSS.

Current Song: Believe -Evidence01 Mix- from the album “Greeting” by Nami Temaki (玉置成実)

As a joke, I searched for “strippers near college station” in the new Google Maps. The results are rather amusing.

Since I’ll likely be in China relatively soon, I’m taking care to make sure that all of my GSM phones are unlocked and ready to use with any carrier. Strangely enough, T-Mobile seems to think that their phone doesn’t exist:

T-Mobile Sim Unlock Request
Sim Unlock Reference: xxxxxxx
IMEI: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for taking the time to contact T-Mobile. We have received your
SIM Unlock Request. Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request
at this time because the given IMEI is shown as “Unknown” in our SIM
Unlock Database.

To ensure that we have the correct IMEI, please obtain the IMEI directly
from the handset by pressing *#06#. Once this is obtained, please submit
a new request including the information below:

1. T-Mobile account and mobile number (required)
2. IMEI number, press *#06# on handset to get the IMEI (required)
3. Contact number or email address
4. Make and model of the phone
5. Carrier’s name (if the phone came from another carrier)
6. A brief reason for the request
7. Dealer Code (if the request is from a dealer on behalf of a customer)

NOTE: If this is not a T-Mobile handset, we would need to request the
unlock code from the other provider. Since T-Mobile is requesting an
unlock code from another carrier we cannot guarantee the response time
or that a unlock code will be provided.

Thank You,

Sim Unlock Department
T-Mobile USA, Inc.

So while T-Mobile does get props for haaving a Sim Unlocking department, the fact that it’s a T-Mobile branded sidekick makes me wonder about these people.

Now that I have a Powerbook, I’ve had bluetooth phone envy as of lately, especially after going to the recently re-organized Mac user’s group meeting and seeing a fellow his one set up for GPRS over bluetooth on Mac OS X. Having alredy spent an exorbitant amount of money already on the laptop, I decided to take the bargain route and pick up a phone on eBay. In fact, I found what seemed to be a pretty good deal: Sony Ericsson T68i (T-Mobile) TRI MODE CELL WORLD CELL, which was only $50 and has bluetooth functionality. So I plunk down the money and the phone finally arrived today. I take the phone out and slap my T-Mobile sim card into it, only to discover that my card is “invalid". “Oh no", I think, “Is the phone broken?", “Did my sim card finally break from changing it out of phones too often?", “Or wait.. is this phone still locked?”

My final thought is soon confirmed as I soon learn that my phone is still locked to AT&T, contrary to what the auction claimed. I’m going to have to get an unlocking kit in order to use it with T-Mobile, so I decided that I’d give the vendor one more chance before filing fraud charges, since the phone isn’t a bad deal for $50. I pointed out to the guy that I’d need an unlock code for the phone (actually, it turns out that I need a cable and some special software to fix the firmware, but that’s another story). Here’s his brief response nested in my reply:

Howdy,

On Feb 15, 2005, at 9:40 PM, tiennguyen@writeme.com wrote:

Unlock that mean you can put Valid Sim card in it working .I don t understand How you understand Unlock mean.(Turn on it display PUK )

Correct. An unlocked phone means that you may put a valid sim card in from any carrier and it will work properly, and that it does not require a password to use it with a valid sim card. However, this is not the case in the phone that you have sent me:

http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0003.JPG

If you note the top line:
Network (lock) 1
(This means that the phone is locked to a network still. Unlocked phones have an unlocked symbol in that place.)

This means that the phone is still locked to the AT&T network, which results in the following if you attempt to insert a card from another vendor such as T-Mobile:

http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0008.JPG
(The card is not an AT&T sim card and is therefore rejected by the phone)

Your auction (conveniently archived here: http://www.anatifero.us/t68i-pics/DSC_0010.JPG)
specifically states the following:

“This already UNLOCK so just put a valid sim card in ready to USED with T.mobie/ATT ,Cingular…". However, a phone call to AT&T and T-Mobile and my own attempts, as shown in the picture above, along with the phone itself saying that it is still locked proves otherwise.

I do understand that there are other types of locks, such as the SIM card lock and the phone’s pin lock. However, you specifically stated that it is ready to be used with T-Mobile/ATT, so I do not believe there was any ambiguity as to what you were offering.

Now I’m a fairly reasonable person and I don’t want this to be troublesome, so I’ll give you the following options:

1) You may reimburse me for the cost of making it usable on the T-Mobile network, as advertised, by sending me the $25 required to have it unlocked by a technician. I leave you good feedback and everyone is happy.
2) You refuse to make matters right and I file eBay/PayPal fraud charges and have them refund my money and you get negative feedback.

I’ll leave the choice up to you. If I don’t receive a reply within the next 48 hours, I will take the second course of action. I have more than adequate documentation to prove my case.

Regards,
William Reading

Update: Shortly after sending this off, the vendor refunded me $25 to get the phone unlocked. Success!