welo

NOKIA 7310

here's also an FM radio, Bluetooth and a 2-megapixel camera that's very basic -- no LED photo light or flash. If you're looking for a decent camera phone, steer clear; but if you just want to take the odd picture in well-lit locations for MMS messages, it'll suffice.

source: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39030106,49298657,00.htm

The built-in 2.0 megapixel digital still and video camera has been designed in full retro style. Sadly however, it isn’t all that positive this time. Launching the camera application takes about 3 seconds, and if you want to take a picture next, even without autofocus or flash, you will have to wait another 4 seconds before you get to see a preview.

source: http://www.letsgomobile.org/en/review/0135...ova-test/page2/

The startup time sounds comparable to the Nokia N73

I then have to go into the router setup and change the IP address there.

Of course, the next day I probably have to change it back again.

If you assign a static IP to your computers instead of letting the router assign a new one each time you will not have those problems.

On some router models it is also possible to configure the router to assign the same address to a device each time.

welo

You made me curious about the program you found, Simple Port Forwarder, so I just tried it.

Respect! It looks very nice and should make a complicated task pretty easy, if it only had supported my router model (Speedtouch Thomson ST536). The model is not supported, so I tried the script of 2 other Thomson models but it wouldn't work. Still, if somebody's model is supported and the tool actually works, I can only recommend it!

If your router is supported and the configuration process works (that is the port test works and your status symbol in uTorrent becomes green), then YOU ARE FINE!!

Just select step 3 'Set your local IP to a static IP' and YOU ARE FINE. You don't need to worry about static IPs anymore!

However, if it does not work out or you don't want to use that program, then the 3 steps you mentioned in your posts do NOT work.

Reason: As you already suspected, you have to enter your Computer's LAN IP address in the port forwarding configuration on your router. If you enable Dynamic IP assignment on your computers LAN configuration, then the IP address might change every time you start your computer, especially if you have more than 1 computer on the network (but sometimes even if you just have 1 computer).

That of course would require to modify the port forwarding configuration on your router each time the IP changes. To find out your assigned LAN IP Address: Howto for Windows XP, Howto for Windows 7

This is why you should assign a static IP address. You can use 'Simple Port Forwarding' to do that, or you can do it yourself (Howto).

You can always check the current local IP address of your computer (no matter whether statically or dynamically assigned) by following the howtos mentioned above (Howto for Windows XP, Howto for Windows 7).

welo

Sleek and easy to use, but don't buy it for the Cyber-shot name: it won't replace your compact camera

Flash-free snaps

The C510 is principally a camera phone. But it's a basic one, and the features reflect that. It's got a 3.2-megapixel camera, which peeps out elegantly from behind a slider with a solid mechanism that won't open in your pocket.

The camera's face-recognition software detected our faces just fine, despite our beards and glasses. The smile-detection mode, which doesn't take a picture until the subject smiles, grabbed our grins perfectly too.

But there's no xenon flash, just an LED photo light, so the camera struggles in low light. The shutter speed is decent, but not mind-blowing: we found a lag of about 2 seconds between pressing the shutter and taking the picture. But, because of the delay and lack of a proper flash, we needed good light and a steady hand to get decent results.

In bright light, the C510 takes photos with good colour reproduction, but they're slightly noisy and soft. In low light, even with the LED, we think the noise levels are too high.

source: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39030106,49301479,00.htm

What has riled us though is the quality of those 3.2-megapixel photos and to be honest, they're pretty disappointing on the C510. Five years after creating its first camera phone, Sony Ericsson should know better than to have a slow shutter and on the C510, this is a real problem. Almost like a cameraphone from 2004, the screen is always behind the motion of finding that perfect shot; a jerky movement is all you see on in the viewfinder as you pan. Press down on the shutter and that blur will be reflected in the photo too.

[..]

Flash power is also a little disapponting. Although there's a dual LED flash, this is no rival to the impressive xenon light as seen on the Sony Ericsson K810i. A downgrade and a half, we'd say.

source: http://www.knowyourmobile.in/sonyericsson/...510_review.html

@LivinLOS

I am interested in your opinion. Would you mind read my post and comment on it?

Thank you.

I agree with many things said here, also with customers having to take responsibility for the behaviour of their phone/gadget/toy. BUT the provider should make it easy and possible for the customer to avoid high costs due to device 'errors' or limited technical knowledge.

• Why not send a SMS when the monthly package is finished? I mean it works with your prepaid phone credit, too.
  

• Why not offer a detailed listing of GPRS connections used (maybe on demand) as you can do with telephone numbers? (Admittingly I don't know how the monthly bill looks like, I just rely on the OP's complaint here)?
  

"That would cost them a lot of cash." - Exactly, I am not sure how exactly this statement is meant (irony?), but I'm sure an SMS would cost near to nothing for the provider, so the only thing that 'costs' is not luring customers into buying GPRS connection time at high prices any more (because those customers who are willingly buying additional time will also do so after receiving the SMS).

A friend of mine who is interested in photography a big deal, bought a Nokia N73 about 3 years back when it was new. It was one of the first to have a Zeiss lense, an integrated flash, autofocus, and was said to have good image quality (for a phone). Remembering that I bought a used one a couple of months ago for just under 5000 B in MBK.

The pictures at daylight are really pretty good (for a phone) and the flash makes it at least usable in bad light situations and motifs close to the camera.

Downsides: the phone is a bit 'slow' sometimes, meaning the processor power is just enough for the OS. The phone doesn't have a mini-usb connector yet so you need the nokia data cable (100-150B) or use Bluetooth (slow).

Just be aware that a phone camera (at least at this price target) will never be comparable to even a cheap pocket camera. The small size of the lense, the chip and other mechanical parts and of course the costs limit the capabilities of the camera. In low light situations a strong integrated flash is important (light is everything when it comes to photography), and for snapshots a long-time delay release (typical for phones and smartphones) will annoy you very quickly.

And: Stay away from those China iphone and Nokia clones. I tested 2 different iphone clones and the built-in camera was HORRIBLE (not just 'OK', not just 'not good', I tell you HORRIBLE), besides usability is bad as well.

welo

OK, that's kewl! Didn't know it has an automatic fix mode. Good to know. Glad you could sort it out, probably saved you a lot of time and worries compared to a re-install

welo

I need to backup some data from a failing harddrive! Windows cannot access the partition, but I can with a Linux LIVE CD from sysresccd.org. Unfortunately this distri cannot deal with the unicode filenames. To be more precise, I am unable to copy those files (files with non-Thai filenames work fine) from a NTFS partition to a FAT32 partition on a different harddrive. Error is 'illegal argument'. I tried the graphical file manager in xwindow as well as mc and cp.

I am not sure if its a limitation of the file system drivers or some configuration issue of the LiveCD.

Does anybody know a LiveCD that supports unicode filenames on NTFS/FAT32 out of the box? (Or with very little configuration work).

Thanks,

welo

Nice job!

Have used Microsoft's FixIt once before to check whether my IPSocks config was messed up. The tool is OK but seems widely unknown. And isn't it just the basis to run specific fixes you have to find on Microsofts web site? Which was the Fix you have run? Do you have a link?

welo

Welcome to Thailand!

Consumer protection is still in its infancy, you don't always have to accept the way it is, but you have to deal with it, and sometimes you can't do anything about it.

I'm not sure I am in the position of giving you advice since I am still in the process of trying to find a way to deal with it, and examine the range between what I have to accept because I'm living in Thailand and what I need not accept because it is utterly shameless

But I don't want to rant about Thailand, because I had suprisingly good customer experiences here, too!

So back to AIS. I still don't understand when and why you were charged for the download volume? Does this have anything to do with the current bill, or is this the problem you mentioned you had in the past? I listened to the GPRS/EDGE call plans several time last month and I believe to remember they were always talking about 1 Baht 'for each additional minute'.

You might still try to find a compromise/deal with AIS. Just remember the number 1 expat rule 'stay calm and friendly', but be persistent

And I'm sure there are many people out there who agree with you, this subforum is just not a very busy place I guess!

Cheers,

welo

Just wanted to report back on the outcome/latest events.

I gave up on reactivating the Windows partition to boot into Windows. The drive started to become (even more) unstable, TestDisk would stall for tens of seconds with each menu step, so I focused on backing up the data. I know this should have been the first step, but the data partitions were a real mess and I wanted my friend's daughter to sort it out for herself.

Whatever, I finally removed the drive from the computer to fit it into my external HDD case (I only have Laptops), and surprisingly nearly all harddisk and recovery tools also worked via USB.

I used the Linux LIVE CD from sysrescuecd.org to mount the drive in readonly mode and copy the data. Very professional I thought, but unfortunately it did not support copying Thai (or Unicode?) filenames to a NTFS or FAT32 partition.

So back to Windows XP, removing the drive letter for the corrupt C partition and backing up the data from the other 2 partitions. That worked nicely, just had to free up enough space on my drives to hold all the gigabytes - this part took longest I have to say

Finally I was confident enough to tackle the C partition. sysrescuecd includes TestDisk, and this time the Repair MFT option actually worked. Linux would list and access the whole filesystem contents as before, however, backup not possible due to Thai character filenames.

Problem is, back in Windows XP the C partition is still not readable. I'm not sure I am motivated enough to tackle the problem of fixing the filename problem in Linux.

My strategy for now is to buy a new harddrive and try to clone the Windows partition to the new drive on a bit-by-bit basis if filesystem based imagers fail.

Thanks for listening, tune in next week

welo

I assume you use an alternative Browser like Firefox or Chrome and this is why you still use IE6, right?

welo

PS That was probably the most 'offtopish' and useless post in my entire Thaivisa career

As said already, youre I phone is connecting or connected all the time. AIS WILL NOT TELL YOU when your package is exceeded. Why would they ? When it runs out they charge you 1 baht a mintue, That would cost them a lot of cash. You can check your allowance by calling *139. This will tell you how many minutes you have remaining.

I agree with many things said here, also with customers having to take responsibility for the behaviour of their phone/gadget/toy. BUT the provider should make it easy and possible for the customer to avoid high costs due to device 'errors' or limited technical knowledge.

• Why not send a SMS when the monthly package is finished? I mean it works with your prepaid phone credit, too.
  

• Why not offer a detailed listing of GPRS connections used (maybe on demand) as you can do with telephone numbers? (Admittingly I don't know how the monthly bill looks like, I just rely on the OP's complaint here)?
  

"That would cost them a lot of cash." - Exactly, I am not sure how exactly this statement is meant (irony?), but I'm sure an SMS would cost near to nothing for the provider, so the only thing that costs by not luring customers into buying GPRS connection time at high prices (because those customers who are willingly buying additional time will also do so after receiving the SMS).

This reminds me of 'the old days' where ADSL broadband traffic was not unlimited. Providers would charge you thefty prices on downloads exceeding your monthly limit. However, users would get a 'warning' by email BEFORE the limit is reached, and another one when actually finishing it up. Users could change to a larger package with the beginning of the next month.

Ah yeah, I know this doesn't help the OP at all, just wanted to give some moral support here

welo

Small (and free) app that resides in the System Tray and translates any selectable text (application independent) on mouseclick (inline) or keypress (popup).

http://translateclient.com/

Uses Google Translate for translation (and therefore needs an active internet connection). Not perfect but the best free tool I know. Works also well as dictionary.

welo

Inline mode:

Popup mode:

There are Vista Setup CDs available that have all the latest updates and service packs integrated (they call it 'slipstreamed'). 'Slipstreaming' is nothing illegal. Usually Microsoft offers Windows discs with ServicePacks integrated to subscribers of MSDN and technet, and also sell/ship those CDs/DVDs in stores some time after the service pack has been released.

If you have an official Vista license you could still get an installation DVD with service pack 2 integrated from MBK, Panthip or the internet. There are several Vista versions around (Home, Premium, OEM, Upgrade, ...), you have to get the correct version otherwise a Repair install will not work. Activation and your license key should not be affected.

I don't have much experience with Vista though, will skip Vista and upgrade to Windows 7 soon (too lazy at the moment).

I guess many people would advise you to upgrade to Windows 7. I don't have first hand experience yet so I don't want to advise you anything. As with every new Windows release the most common reason agains upgrading (besides costs) are driver issues. Not THAT big issue with Windows 7 from what I heard but you should check whether your hardware is supported. If you are not an experienced user I would also recommend to have the upgrade done by somebody who is

welo

First of all, I am by far no expert on bittorrent connection settings, the only optimization I did with my setup is to increase the 'global maximum number of connections' and 'maximum numbers of peers per torrent'. This setup worked for me without a lot of finetuning. Since in Thailand international bandwith is shared between users, but no bandwith management per user is installed, you can get around slow connections by increasing the number of connections. Of course this has limits and if you go too crazy some routers can't handle it and cause troubles.

Just recently I had issues with my setup when I came back from a longer trip, the port forwarding would not work. I also suspected my provider(TOT) might have blocked my port, tried a view ports and finally went with uPnp which worked for me. During that troubleshooting I also enabled the 'Randomize port on each start' feature. When it finally worked again I could not tell what had caused the problem (port, router, uTorrent, firewall) and I didn't bother to find out.

I had also read that a static port forwarding is preferable to uPnp, but I am not sure whether due to security concerns (probably), or performance. I just remember that I had a router once that had a bug in its uPnp implementation and would freeze or lock up after some time.

I also wonder on which port uTorrent actually initiates the upload. It definitely opens connections on other ports, too. So the connections initiated by uTorrent are for download from other users, and other users initiate connections to the one forwarded port on our local machine (= upload)?

Can anybody shed some light on this? supernova?

About the speed guide. I am not sure the speed guide gives good results in Thailands broadband landscape. The local ADSL speed is just too different from the actual international bandwith.

But I understand too little about the bittorrent protocol to be able to give profound advise.

welo

I would not recommend a repair install with a (very long) outdated Windows CD/DVD! You will have to download all Windows updates again for the last 2 years. Better get a Vista install DVD with at least SP2 integrated, but make sure it is the same edition of Vista (and avoid those modified Windows releases you get in Thailand).

A quick google search brought up this thread. Is the task bar missing when you login with a different account?

welo

@JR

The result protocol you posted sounds a lot like your international connection is very unstable (surprise!)

There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests a TCP upload achieved at least 16 Kbps while a BitTorrent upload achieved at most 120 Kbps. You can find details here.

Looks like quite a difference between min and max (I assume no matter whether TCP or bittorrent). Since the server for this test is probably located outside of Thailand, this is what is to be expected with Maxnet Indy (and many other broadband offers in Thailand).

I remember you saying that you get 28kB/s upload with other torrents, but not with the private tracker. So it might be that your ISP interfers with bittorrent, but it might as well be just the crap international connection you get with Maxnet Indy.

Did you run speedtest.net against a server outside of Thailand? This will give you a good idea about the quality of the Indy package

You could also try to find a tracker in Thailand and test your upload on a popular torrent there.

welo

I am not sure what is broken, I just see the result.

I actually did run TestDisk and found the feature to recover erased data to another partition, but not the feature you linked to. From the description it sounds that it might be exactly what I need. Thanks a lot!! Will try it first thing when I can get hands on the computer tomorrow!

welo

Hi guys! This is my problem:

During the process of fixing bad blocks on a friend's harddrive the contents of the C partition got wiped out. I didn't use any tools that write to the drive (apart from 1 low level tool that 'repairs' bad blocks). Two other (extended) partitions are unaffected and the contents fully accessible. The partition table of partition C seems to be OK, but the file allocation table seems to be lost.

How can I recover the file allocation table - the partition is NTFS.

I tried several data recovery tools that would allow to copy recovered files to another partition, but I didn't find any that would recover the file allocation table in place.

Partition Recovery Software seems to be unsuiteable, since the partition table is OK.

I assume there should be a program to rebuild the file index.

There is no important data to recover on this drive, I just want to avoid a Windows re-install (Windows, drivers, programs,.. we all know that..). I am going to buy a new harddrive anyway but my intention was to copy the Windows installations to the new drive keeping the installed software (doing a repair install if Windows doesn't like it).

Anybody knows what exactly was destroyed on that harddrive/partition and how I can fix it?

Thanks

welo

Here is a more detailed description of what has happened:

(You can also read about it in the old thread but since most of the problems described there are solved I decided to open a new thread and start with a summary of what has happened so far)

This is the second time Windows (XP) is rendered unusable due to harddrive issues. I recovered the harddrive about a month ago, fixing bad blocks with HDD Regenerator and running checkdisk therafter to fix the filesystem (NTFS on all 3 partitions). Windows ran stable since until a couple of days ago.

This time I followed the same procedure and got Windows running again. In my efforts to determine the state of the harddrive so I can safely issue a RMA with seagate I ran multiple 'Long Tests' on Seagates SeaTools with the intention of getting a clear FAILED status, however, the Long Test would never finish but abort with a program error and no clear FAILED status. SMART would still report 'OK'.

Further it appeared that Windows runs slow and checking the Device Manager I found both the harddrive and the DVD drive are running in PIO mode. Changing a setting in the BIOS on the IDE configuration I finally messed up the BIOS so it would hang on detecting attached IDE devices, interestingly that made it also impossible to enter the BIOS setup and revert the change. I had to clear the CMOS by setting the appropriate Jumper on the motherboard. Before I had also updated the Bios to the newest version in the hope of reverting the change that way (without success).

Finally the BIOS would no longer hang, and I loaded default settings and tried to boot into Windows. Windows (XP) would crash just shortly after displaying the Windows logo with the loading bar, and reboort. After disabling 'automatic reboot after system error' I could see the Blue Screen message, something wrong with the NTFS file system (...000024).

Booting from a LIVE CD I could see that all 3 partitions on the harddisk (1 primary, 2 extended) are still valid, but the contents of partition C is empty. No files on this drive (checked for hidden files too). The other 2 partitions are OK, contents still accessible.

Data Recovery Tools can still access the directory table and list its contents. A Uneraser Tool would also list all files as 'erased' and offer to recover the contents to another partition.

Partition Recovering software would report the partition table as OK.

Btw I recommend Avira Personal Antivirus, it is free and has pretty good detection rates, and it supports offline updates.

Download here: http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Anti...nload-6527.html

latest virus definition file (updated regularly): http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Avir...load-82517.html

Vendor page: http://www.free-av.com/en/trialpay_downloa..._antivirus.html

Tuturial how to update: http://forum.avira.com/wbb/index.php?page=...;threadid=12073

HTH

welo

If you have any driver for the card installed it should show up in the Device Manager (howto start Device Manager). If no driver is installed or the device is not working properly there will be a yellow exclamation mark.

You can also use this little tool to get a list of Hardware in your PC. Look for 'firewire' or 'ieee 1394' or similiar.

PCI\VEN_1180&DEV_0832&SUBSYS_30CD103C&REV_05\4&3B3A03B5&0&48F0: OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

If the model and name are not part of the name you can use this database to look up the device from the highlighted string at the beginning. VEN_xxx is the vendor and DEV_xxx is the device.

If you tell me what you find I can try to find an updated driver for you.

If no driver is installed you should still find a 'Unknown Device' and be able to extract the vendor and device ids

source: this

Of course it might also be an issue with the camcorder, or the camcorder and this special card, or windows, or whatever

Do you have any other Firewire device that you can use to test if your Firewire card works (maybe from a friend)?

I also assume that you didn't use the Camcorder on this PC with this card before, correct?

Just be careful with all those driver update utillities around. Many of them are malware and I don't know any that would easily identify a unknown device.

You could also try to get one of those driver CDs (don't have one but I guess you could get at Panthip) and have Windows look there for an updated driver.

And again. If you can open your computer case and have a look at the printings on the card itself...

welo

If you want to make sure that the Firewall is not interfering, just find the option to disable it temporarily. I am not familiar with your software, but I am sure you can disable or exit the program.

If you still experience slow uploads I would rate it a 95% chance that the Firewall does not cause the troubles - eliminate the remaining 5% by completely uninstalling the software (since the system driver that filters the network packets will not be uninstalled upon disabling the software I think).

Maybe I missed it in the discussion, but did you ever run speedtest.net and check your upload speed. This should give you a basic idea about the capabillities of your upload connection to a Bangkok server.

What about just enjoying the good download speeds and observe your torrents over a couple of days. Use torrents from different trackers. If you use a private tracker than maybe there are no users that want to download from you, hence the bad upload speed.

Anybody has a tracker running so JR can test his upload speed with a test torrent?

welo

Remember the absolute maximum upload is about 50kB/s (512kbps converted to Kilobyte minus protocol overhead).

I have a 2048/512kbps TOT line and with enough torrents and connections I can max out the download to 150kB/s. Upload is between 10-30kB/s.

I guess a lot depends on the connection setting in uTorrent. Standard settings have limits on the number of connections, I guess this might affect the upload speed in your case too.

Checkout this guide

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/op...rrent-speed.htm.

Use the calculator linked there to adjust your settings.

welo

Hi JR,

you only need a static IP for your desktop computer/laptop. There is no need to change anything on your router configuration besides the port forwarding!!!!

I don't want to go into details here since it will only confuse you. Just know that most private people don't have a public static IP on the internet, that is what your friend referred to. Everytime your router connects to TT&T he will (or might) get a new public IP on the internet so your computer and others can communicate. This does not prevent torrent downloads from working because everytime you start your torrent program it will connect to the 'torrent network' and report your current IP so other computers can communicate with your PC.

The 'public static IP on the interntet' is NOT the same 'static IP' you configure on your PC, which is basically only for communication between your PC and your router.

The only reason why you want a static IP for your PC is because you want to configure a port forward on your router to your PC so that other torrent users can connect to the torrent program running on your PC. You need this because your PC is hidden behind the router and usually other users/programs cannot easily connect directly to your PC - which is a good thing for security.

So step by step (assuming you use uTorrent) you should

1. Configure a static IP for your computer. Find out what that static IP is if you use a program. Should be something starting with 192.168.x.x

2. You need to know the port that uTorrent is using (goto settings), this is usually a number with 4 or 5 digits.

3. Make sure uTorrent can open the port by checking the status symbol in the uTorrent status bar at the bottom (http://www.utorrent.com/faq/network#faq). It should be yellow, not red. Red means your Personal (Windows) Firewall on your PC is interfering.

(If by chance it's green than you already configured your router correctly or uPnP is enabled to do all of this automatically.

4. Configure your router to forward the port to the static IP of your PC.

5. Use uTorrents port forwarding check to see if your port is open from outside (http://www.utorrent.com/testport or click the status symbol and then the 'test port forwarding' button)

If you are stuck at any point, don't jump to the next. It will only confuse you and the people that are trying to help

For every step there are tutorials on the internet with screenshots and all. If you need better instructions than I'm sure somebody will point you to a good tutorial and give you some guideance.

Configuring port forwarding is not rocket science, but it is definitely not trivial!! There are many components involved that an average user who just wants to USE the computer should not have to deal with.

Saying that, there is another solution using uPnP support in both uTorrent and your router to get this one going without any additional configuration work. It depends on the router though if uPnp support is stable and reliable.

welo