Force WP7 update on a mac

So I read this post  on using Zune to force-update a lumia over on The Nokia Blog, and wondered if I could do the same with my mac. I couldn’t replicate the trick with windows phone connector, but I *could* detect the update was there by using Zune on a Win7 virtual box install. Once it was detected I shut down the VM and fired up WPC again – this then let me install the update. I tried it this way as I didn’t want to risk a FW update from within a VM in case of issues.

Surprising that the “update available” flag seemed to be set on-device, not in the software though.

Lumia How-to: Bookmarklets

This is hopefully the first in a series of posts, getting back to the sprit of why I originally created this blog: instructions on how to do things a little out the ordinary with tech, written down here primarily for my reference but so they’re also available for all. Although the title is “Lumia” how-to, I guess this could also apply to WP7 in general. Hopefully you’ll find them useful, if there’s a subject you’d like me to cover then fire away in the comments.

Today, bookmarklets.

New Nokia Lumia (or other windows phone) won’t software update?

So, got your new WP7 phone/Lumia, you want it up to date. So you plug it in, fire up windows phone connector and check for updates.

But you get error 80072fa8 – bad times!

Turns out the *phone* needs a net connection. I setup my 3G APN, re-tried and it worked fine.

WindowsPhone/Lumia Not connecting to your mac?

…and just getting unhelpful suggestions from WP Connector to reboot the phone?

• Close windows phone connector.
• Plug in the phone.
• Restart connector.

Obvious, but might save some faff.

Nokia Lumia 800 and O2 PAYG

So I’ve just got a Nokia Lumia 800 for trial from Nokia Connects, and they’ve kindly included an O2 microsim to get me up and running…nearly.

For some reason it doesn’t detect the APN settings correctly. So to get mobile data working, you need to do the following:

1. Go to settings, mobile network.
2. Scroll down, “Add APN”
3. The details you want are:

• APN: payandgo.o2.co.uk
• Username: payandgo
• password: password

And you’re good to go!

Bonus pro-tip for you: Dial *#10# to check your balance.

Bonus pro-tip2: Contract settings:

• wap.o2.co.uk
• o2wap
• password

HOWTO: Import photos from a Galaxy S2 into Aperture

So, I’ve been noticing some odd behaviour trying to import from my SGS2 into Apple’s Aperture. Basically, if you connect the phone in mass storage mode (either via settings/wireless/usb utilities, or the notification bar if you have debug mode on) then let aperture launch, or open the import menu, you can’t import from the phone. The solution is to do things in this order:

1. Get to the “USB Connected” green android screen – you know the one I mean. DON’T HIT CONNECT!
2. Start Aperture, hit import to get to the import mode.
3. NOW hit connect on the phone.
4. In the bottom of the import window on aperture, the SGS2 will appear in the file system view. There you can browse to SGS2/DCIM/Camera and import your photos/video as normal.

For some reason the SGS2 doesn’t appear as a device in the main import selector top left. And for some reason it won’t appear in the file browser pane at the bottom, unless it’s connected AFTER you get to this view.

I don’t know if this is Samsung’s bug, or Apple’s – someone needs to sort it out!

How to Upload Photos from an N8 to a iPad, Wirelessly

OK, so I promised a new blog post on twitter, to make up for the O2 based ranting last week, so here it is :-)

I’ve posted before about connecting with the camera connection kit, but what if you don’t have one? You can still get your files from the N8 to the iPad over wifi.

New Lapsed Beta!

UPDATE: The beta expired at the end of the month, and the new Qt4.7.3/QtM1.1.2 completely breaks Lapsed. So there won’t be a new version up till I have time to redo the camera code. It seems Nokia don’t like to make things easy…

So Nokia have released the Qt 1.1 SDK beta, complete with amongst other things, Qt 4.7.2 and Mobility 1.1.1. This is great news, as they fix a bunch of the bugs I was hitting in earlier versions.

So here’s a new beta of Lapsed for you all to try! You’ll need Qt 4.7.2/Mobility 1.1. If you can’t work out how to get that installed, beta software’s probably not for you. As usual, try this software at your own risk. The beta will stop working at the end of the month – I hope to get this into Ovi soon…

If you try the beta, please do one thing for me: Post a short comment letting me know if it worked ok and what device you’re using. I want to know about it working right and any bugs. If you can describe how to reproduce the bugs all the better!

iMovie doesn’t find iPhoto videos?

In my case it was because I keep the iPhoto library on a different drive, and symlink it to ~/pictures. iMovie for some reason doesn’t get on with this. Launch iPhoto with alt held down, select the iPhoto library directly (not the linked version), let it start then quit. iMovie will now live happily ever after…

Other issues with iMovie not finding the videos would appear to boil down to the same problem, perhaps with a different cause.

PUSH Snowboarding Ideas

So, Nokia and Burton have some cool stuff going on with PUSH Snowboarding. The basic idea is to take a pile of sensors, put them on the board/rider, connect wirelessly to a Nokia to log the data, and Do Cool Things. And they’re not just doing them themselves, everyone can join in the fun! They’ve open sourced all the code, and published all their test data.

Connecting an iPad to an N8

So you’ve shot a load of great photos and video on your Nokia N8, and you want to show them off, edit them on a big screen etc. Ideally you want to transfer them to your iPad so you can do this on the go. Well, here’s how:

N8 connected to iPad with Camera Connection kit

Lapsed Beta

UPDATE 12/3/11 New beta time!

UPDATE 31/1/11: The currently release Lapsed Beta will expire and stop working tomorrow. There’s no new version as yet, as the latest release of Qt 4.7/Mobility 1.1 for Symbian, in the 1.1 SDK TP breaks QCamera, so Lapsed won’t start. It’s not just my code – the Nokia supplied mobility examples also fail. Sorry timelapse fans – you’ll have to wait for Nokia on this one :-(

So my timelapse app, Lapsed, that I’ve been writing to have a go with Qt is reaching a more polished stage. So I’ve decided to release a more public beta version. It’ll time-expire in a couple of weeks, but that’s enough time for folk to try it out and let me know how they find it. I might release on the Ovi store eventually, still debating it (and I can’t till Qt 4.7/Mobility 1.1 hit release).

However, please bear in mind this is still early software, written to satisfy my own curiosity.

First up, here’s a video I made with Lapsed:

N8 Camera Mounts

So there’s currently a Nokia competition running to create a short film on the N8, N8 Producers. I plan to create an entry…mostly because there’s a short film I wanted to make anyway. I don’t expect to win – the talent on display so far is breathtaking. Anyhow, as part of an idea I’ve not had good enough weather to film yet, I’ve made a few camera mounts. The beauty of having such a small HD camera is you can mount it in interesting ways! I’ve more ideas too, of course, but I thought I’d blog about a few.

N8 Strobism

First things first, let me illustrate what I’ve been up with a photo, taken on my Nokia N8 (all pics in this post click-thru for high res):

Shot on a cameraphone. Awesome.

How to download .sis files from the Ovi store on the Desktop

Ok, so sometimes it would be nice if you could download a .sis (symbian install file) from the Ovi store on your desktop. This is handy to copy a load of stuff to install to your phone en masse or perhaps to get around flaky Ovi store issues or a slow 3G/wifi connection on your phone.

It’s really easy!

1. Go to http://store.ovi.com/
2. Sign in.
3. Make sure your mobile is selected:
4. Browse to the app you want, e.g. Nokia Battery Monitor
5. Change the URL to the following scheme by appending “/download”: http://store.ovi.com/content/61776/download
6. Install as you wish!

NOTE: This only works for free apps, doesn’t seem to work for bought & paid apps. Still handy though! Read this on a forum somewhere I think, but I forget where.

If I can be bothered, I might write a bookmarklet to do it for you. Would this be of interest to anyone?