My problem described in my previous blog post is solved!

Well, solved is not really the good choice I guess because the problem might reproduce itself. But for now it seems to be solved. What did I do to fix it?

I backed up all the contents of my memory card to a folder on my pc. After this I reformatted the entire card and copied the contents back. Now the gallery, sounds, profiles, ... All is working as it should. For some reason my cellphone seemed to have corrupted the card. Or not really the card, but something on the card?

If the problem reproduces itself I'm going to contact Nokia, a cellphone that cost me 400 euro should not behave this way!

/dev/out

I'm getting really frustrated with my Nokia E71. Check out my description of a weird issue:

My Nokia E71 won't find/see the following stuff:

• Images saved on the memory card with the Symbian Gallery
• Sounds saved on the memory card with the Symbian Gallery
• Ringtones saved on the memory card in Profiles

However, it will find/see:

• Images saved on the memory card with third party apps or the Symbian File Manager.
• Sounds saved on the memory card with third party apps or the Symbian File Manager.
• Ringtones saved on the memory card with third party apps or the Symbian File Manager.

Conclusion:
My memory card is NOT corrupted because I can entirely read it with third party apps or the Symbian File Manager or on my PC. So it's probably a software issue.

However:
Restoring to default settings with *#7780# or even doing an entire reset with *#7370# will NOT solve the problem.
I'm currently in the process of backing up my memory card so I can format it and restore it again.

Nokia?!
What the f*ck is up here?!

Yesterday I was kind of bored when I noticed I still had an old Nokia 3110C laying around + a simyo (cheap belgian operator) sim card I didn't use anymore.

I decided it was playtime! Let's make my homeserver send me some sms's.

After a bit of research it was time to start testing. My homeserver runs ubuntu-server at the moment, but this tends to change quite often. As does the setup. It will change again soon because I will be getting a soekris :-).

Anyway, on with the fun!

A few easy steps to make your (home)server sms you:

1. Connect your phone

Take your old nokia phone (in my case the Nokia 3110C) and the included datacable. Connect it to your server choosing the pc suite mode on newer phones, or the "nokia mode" on somewhat older phones.

2. Install smstools

You can install smstools on ubuntu 8.10 (tested) with:

apt-get install smstools

Or you can download the source at http://smstools3.kekekasvi.com/ and compile the code yourself.

3. Configure smstools

After you did this it is time to configure smstools.
Open the file /etc/smsd.conf and add/change the following lines:

devices = GSM1

with this line you specify which device smstools needs to talk to.

loglevel = 7

to set the loglevel to debug, this gives you more information in the logfile: /var/log/smsd.log

[GSM1]
device = /dev/ttyACM0
incoming = no

The device parameter needs to point to the serial interface for your phone. Normally this is /dev/ttyACM0, but it could also be /dev/ttyUSB0 for example. If you can't seem to find the serial interface follow these next steps to make sure your cellphone is recognized:

lsusb

You should see some entry like:

Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0421:0428 Nokia Mobile Phones 

And:

lsmod

You should see the following modules loaded:

sbcore               112644  7 usbserial,cdc_acm,rt73,usbhid,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd

The incoming parameter is set to no, this means we will not read incoming text messages on the phone and deliver them to /var/spool/sms/incoming. Sadly enough my too old Nokia 3110C does not support the AT commands for reading text messages over the data connection.

The only list I found of Nokia phones that should be able to read text messages through AT commands is at:

http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52900

4. Start smstools

If everything went right you can start the smstools with:

/etc/init.d/smstools start

or

/etc/init.d/sms3 start

To send an sms you can simply drop a file in /var/spool/sms/outgoing.

Your text file should look like:

To: 32495123456

Hi! This is a test.

If your cellphone supports the AT commands for reading incoming messages over data you can edit the smstools configuration
and put incoming=1 in there. Now, all incoming text messages will be available for you/your script or your program to read in:
/var/spool/sms/incoming

To test this I created a perl script which fetches an RSS feed, filters out interresting stuff, and drops a file with the description in /var/spool/sms/outgoing when the script hasn't seen this story before.

Now I get sms updates about that rss feed :-)

That's all folks!

Oh, 1 note: make sure you also connect the charger to your cellphone. I noticed that when the datacable is connected the battery seems to run flat rather fast...

I ignored the previous firmware update available for my Nokia E71, as it was just a minor update. But now it seems that there is a rather large firmware upgrade.

I really like my symbian powered smartphone, and now with this new firmware I hope I will be able to enjoy it even more! Got something to have fun with this evening: upgrading my firmware and trying it out!! Woohoow :-)

Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/8759_Firmware_update_for_E71_20...

I'll include the changelog here:

New functionalities in MCU SW version 200.21.118:

- Internet Radio application
- My Nokia application
- 3G power reduction for applications using keep-alive style messaging
- User experience improvements:
- Easy Dialing support for Simplified Chinese language
- Device Lock improvement: Open device lock with LSK + Fn-keys
- One key input method switch for China language
- ‘Mute’ option in Right Soft Key when wired headset / hands free is connected
- ‘Loudspeaker’ option in Right Soft Key immediately when phone call is started
- Enlarge characters in Chr-table
- NTLM v1 and v2 support for Intranet Browsing
- New black and red themes

Changes/improvements made to MCU SW version 200.21.118:

General
- Time zones updated
- Improvements to localization
- Localization fixes
- Missing localizations added
- Operator name database updated
- Startup Settings updated
- Certificates updated
- Security updates
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Barcode reader icon changed from 1D icon to 2D icon
- Windows DRM keys are not lost during NSU update from 110.07.127

Qwerty keyboard
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Keyboard mapping corrections

Browser
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Flash Lite improvements

Connectivity
- WLAN stability improvements
- EAP-FAST/TLS stability improved
- WLAN roaming functionality improved
- BT IOP and Dial-up stability improvements

Maps
- Several stability and functionality improvement

Messaging
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Performance improvement

Quickoffice
- Several stability and functionality improvements

VOIP / SIP
- Many stability and functionality improvements

Email
- Mail for Exchange upgraded from version 2.5.5 to 2.7.22
- Improved functionality when sending email via SSL/TLS SMTP server

Mobile dictionary
- Stability improvements
- Improvement for installed languages. Installed language can be removed.

Camera
- Camera image improvements & slow capture correction with certain HW’s
- Stability improvements

Music player
- General functionality and stability improvements

Java
- Update for CLDC-HI (Sun 1.1.1s Java VM)

Device encryption
- Device encryption functionality and stability improvements

Switch application
- Application updates and stability improvements

And I hope I will be able to bring some screenshots of the new themes this evening ;-).

/dev/out

To all with symbian devices, especially the people with an E71:

I noticed that when you press and hold the 'Chr' key, and then simoultaniously press a letter, e.g. the e symbian will cycle through the possible accents that are applicable for that character!