Technology

My rocking Nokia E61i phone has suddenly started playing up.

It ran out of battery power yesterday while on a call. i don't think I've ever run the battery right out like that.

So when I restarted the phone I got a message: "Phone start-up failed. Contact retailer."

Not cool, although I can get another phone easily since it's a work one.

I left it charging until it was fully charged, then restarted it again. It started fine, but whenever I tried to access the clock function (to set the alarm for the morning) it would fail, reporting: "System Error!".

Trying to access Settings would not work either - it would just dump me back to the menu again.

I googled and found that I am not the only one who has encountered this:

Hi, I have an e61i that I use in Australia. If I try to enter 'Clock' or 'Tools' I get a system error. I live in Queensland Australia. When I fly to other states in Oz the phone works fine. If I change my Telstra SIM for Voda it works fine. If I put another Telstra sim in I get the fault. If I put my sim in another E61 I get the fault.

No replies to that thread, but I took the hint and tried it in Offline mode (next step was to remove the SIM) - it works fine with no problem when it is Offline.

I googled and got the reset codes for the Nokia E61i:

*#7370# - Soft reset
*#7780# - Restore factory settings

I backed up my phone's data to its mini-SD card (Tools > Memory > Options > Backup memory to card), then tried both. After the reset the phone will not restart with the SIM card in it until the internal clock has been set. Without the SIM card, and after the clock is set, it's fine.

According to this thread on Whirlpool, someone else has the same problem with a Nokia N73, but only when they are in Queensland. In Melbourne and NZ it works fine.

I read a bunch of other hits and found a recommendation (in the comments to this blog post) to set the Time mode to "Network Operator", which will set the clock via the network when it is connected. This seems to work.

So here's the formula:

Phone: Nokia E61i

Symptom: Cannot access Settings | Cannot access clock with "System Error!" message | "Phone start-up failed. Contact retailer" message on startup

Probable cause: Faulty internal clock battery or something weird with Queensland's cell network

Action:

1. Put phone into Offline mode, or remove SIM card if phone is switched off and cannot be restarted.
2. Access Tools > Settings > Date & Time. Set Network operator time to "Auto-update"
3. Restart phone with SIM card inserted or switch back to online mode

Result: Phone starts, clock and settings work

Science!

Thanks to Google, the wisdom of the crowd, and two years of troubleshooting in production support at Red Hat.

Update: The back up didn't work. I lost all my contacts. <>. Send me an SMS to +61431929675 (that's 0431 929 675 if you're in Australia) with your name in the message, and I'll add you back in. Thanks!

In the latest fall out from the ISO (International Standards Organization) ratification of Microsoft's controversial OOXML (Open Office eXtensible Markup Language) standard, Norway's local standard body has imploded.

Standards Norway, the organization that manages technical standards for the Scandinavian country, took a serious blow last week when key members resigned in protest over procedural irregularities in the approval process for Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format. The 23-person technical committee has lost 13 of its members.

- Norwegian standards body implodes over OOXML controversy

The International ISO organisation is made up of national member organisations, as well as corporate members. IBM, a major corporate member, has threatened to withdraw from ISO over this issue, and several other nations are tottering on the edge.

India, Brazil, and South Africa are attempting to appeal ISO's fast-track approval of Microsoft's controversial Office Open XML (OOXML) format. The organizations representing those countries in ISO complain of process irregularities, lack of inclusiveness during meetings and debates, and insufficient time to address all of the issues and concerns raised by participants during the review process.

- OOXML revolt brewing? Three countries appeal ISO approval, May 31

Why is this such a big deal? As more and more of mankind's communication and commerce takes place digitally, whoever controls the medium controls everything. This is why open standards and open source software are so important.

Of course it's always possible that the apocalypse will occur and we'll go back to the Bronze Age, in which case we don't have to worry about any of this, do we?

On the other hand, if history continues to develop as it has for the past two thousand years, digital freedom is as useful as political and religious freedom have been, and things like universal literacy and labour-protection laws. It may not be the ultimate reality or the most important thing in life, but it's certainly nice to have.

The other thing I note from this is that procedural irregularities lead to organisational distintegration. Managers of all types take note.

Narrowing the focus and ramping up the pressure.

Finally we got a projector installed at Atma. I can't believe it took me so long to do it. It's actually verging on criminal negligence on my part. I first started using a digital projector to present Krishna Consciousness in 1998. Ten years later, we finally install one.

Dominic, the stage manager of Indradyumna Swami's Polish festival tour, came and put it in.

It took Dominic 30 minutes to do it. If I tried to do it, it would take three hours, and would probably end up broken. I'm not being "humble" - five minutes after Dominic left I tried to adjust the ceiling panel, dropped it, and smashed it.

Ceiling mounting bracket: $99 from Harvey Norman.

10m VGA cable (with gold-plated connectors!) - routed through the ceiling and falling behind a curtain. $44 from Jay Car.

Here's the projector in action. It's not as dark as the camera makes it look in the room. It's not a case of turning the lights off and having people stare at a screen. The lights are on, I talk with the people there and the projector provides supporting visual elements, which I cue with my cellphone.

I was amazed that how the technology is "just works (tm)" for me at the moment. I just plugged my eeePC with Ubuntu on it into the projector and PA, fired up my cellphone with amora on it, and away we went.

The technology should be transparent. It should make the message arrive more clearly and more powerfully, not get in the way of the delivery. Having a projector sitting in the middle of the room with a beam of light cutting the room in half and dividing the audience is ridiculous.

With the projector now in the ceiling I can spend less time setting up each week, and focus more time, attention, and energy into the message.

Here's a video:

s$%# in the post title = "self", btw ;-)

The Open Source nature of the Android platform was the true focus with ample time given to the subject. Third-party applications are viewed as the heart and soul and the real future of the platform. There were even third-party developers present such as CompareAnywhere, ShopSavvy and Ecorio. It is apparent that the goal here is to create the most robust platform ever, and to Google, that means opening it up for all.

Slashgear: T-Mobile G1 Android powered phone is packed with features; Open Source is focus

What we are seeing is something that I wrote about in 2004:

Another example are cell phones, which were once very expensive. However now, after some time, cell phones are given away, and access to the cellular network is charged. The cell phone becomes a commodity, and access is charged. After some time, even access becomes commodified. Then there is diversification in content. Beyond diversification of content is free content and sale of the viewing public, as in the television model.

- Vision 2011: Towards Network-centric Preaching

Sale of content we see with the iPhone and the iTunes store, and with Amazon mp3. What Google is aiming for is the next level. The phone is free. The access is a commodity. The content is free or extremely low cost, and you are being sold, to advertisers.

The first cellphone based on Google's Android operating system was released overnight in the States.

The Android operating system is an open source platform, based on a Linux 2.6 kernel.

Early reports of the Android phone, as it is now, are that it isn't a game changer, but it does provide a much richer web browsing experience.

Two observations on that:

First of all, it is a game changer. If open source has shown us one thing, it's that the open source development model can lead to exponentially faster evolution of a platform. The Android phone will start mutating and evolving almost immediately. One open source mantra is "Release early, release often". Whatever the initial release is, it is just the seed. And from that seed something big will grow.

Secondly, mobile web browsing is the future. Start adapting your websites now.

Here is a plugin for wordpress that will present a mobile version of a website to a phone. You can see it in action on the Atma Yoga website.

And here is one for drupal. I'll look into setting this one up for this website..

Based on my use of my phone's web browser, I recommend making a link on your front page using html code like:

This will display your phone number and allow a user to simply click on it to call you. I frequently use Google to find a local service, then I want to call them up. Without a link like this on the page I have to either write the number down or try to memorize it, then switch my phone to cellphone mode and punch it in.

Doh!

Also, put succinct information on there - such as your opening hours or a timetable.

The next stage is to put Paypal on there, and allow people to purchase things with their mobile phone. Paypal has an interface for mobile phones: mobile.paypal.com / m.paypal.com.au.

In the case of Atma Yoga, this would allow people to buy a monthly pass online via their cellphone, either before they come, or right then and there when they get to the class.

"The future is already here, it's just not widely distributed yet" - William Gibson