Samsung Galaxy S4 not Connecting to Car Audio Fix

Few months back suddenly my Toyota refused to connect to my Samsung Galaxy S4 without any reason. Earlier I could listen to music, dial calls and answer calls without issues.

But suddenly the connection between the car and the phone broke and the worst thing is I lost entire Bluetooth screen from the car audio system (Normally I have FM1, FM2, Bluetooth and AM). I thought my audio system is malfunctioning so I went to Toyota, but they said it is a known error and Galaxy S4 is having new Bluetooth version and it is not compatible with most of the car audio systems and I will not be able to use the phone with the car. This was very disappointing to me so I asked for them for the audio system update but they said no updates are available.

Then I thought to try out few things and get it fixed by myself, good news for anyone having the same issue is I solved the issue. But it is not always reliable but 95% of times it will work.

To get your S4 (or any other new device) connected into your car audio follow the steps below, they might help you.

1. First we need to get the missing Bluetooth mode (screen) back in the car audio, for this I removed all the registered devices I had in the car audio.
2. Then I registered my old Windows Mobile phone to the audio system using the settings screen (since the Bluetooth mode is not available). Any old phone like an iPhone 4G or below, Samsung Galaxy S2, Windows Mobile phones will be ok. If you get the device properly registered you will get the Bluetooth screen back when you restart the car audio system.
3. Then register your Galaxy S4 with the car audio system, and change the connection behaviour immediately. Normally the car audio will try to connect to the phone, but since the phone is having new version of Bluetooth car audio will not recognise the commands transmitted by the phone. So the system will think there is no device.

To over come the issue you need to configure the phone to make the connection. In my Toyota this is done by selecting the connection settings after the Bluetooth connection is made using the Bluetooth mode (screen). Because latest phones are intelligent they will detect that the car audio is having older version of Bluetooth and it will change the instruction set accordingly and start communicating with an instruction set which is recognised by the car audio, making everything back to normal again.

After making my phone to connect to the car, I could play my music, answer calls and dial calls without any issues.

Hope this will help you to get your car audio connected to your latest phone.

Change Quick Access Default Application Icons on Samsung Galaxy S2

If you ever wanted to change the quick access default application icons on Samsung Galaxy S2 you can do this by going to applications screen. For example as seen in the following image we have Phone, Contacts, Messaging and Applications as the default set of icons.

To change this first go to the applications page by touching Applications.

Then touch the menu button on the phone to activate the menu and select Edit. This will take you to edit screen view. Now it is simple as dragging the application icon you want on your quick access to the icon you need to be replaced.

When you are satisfied, touch on the back button to save the changes. If you need to ignore the changes press the middle button.

As seen in the following images I have replaced the Contacts with Play Movies. Also if you want you keep only 3 or less icons in quick access you can achieve this by deleting unwanted icons using the edit view.

Samsung Galaxy S2 not Connecting to Kies

Last week I spent few hours to figure out why Samsung Galaxy S2 was not connecting to Samsung Kies through USB cable. I could browse phone contents using Windows Explorer, transfer files, music and photos, even I could use Kies Air but Kies on my computer kept on ignoring the phone. It always displayed connecting but never got connected.

To resolve the connection problem several times I used the connection troubleshooter which comes with Kies, reinstalled Kies, updated Kies, restarted phone and computer but had no success. Then suddenly I figured this was happening because the phone is in wrong connection mode. By some application or setting the USB connection mode was set to Camera (PTP). Because of this Kies could not connect with the phone. To correct the connection problem simply I had to change the connection mode to Media Device (MTP).

This can be done by accessing the notification area.

Select Media device (MTP) to correctly connect to Kies.

iPhone 4

If you are a iPhone lover then your next dream is in stores.

Apple had released iPhone 4 with many improvements.

Go and have look into it at Apple.

Windows Mobile 7

Highly awaited Windows Mobile 7 is at last showing in horizon.

Have a glance at it by visiting the following URL.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/windowsphone/videoGallery.aspx?contentID=mobileworldcongress2010

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/cmpn/windowsphone7series/default.mspx

http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

Microsoft is planning to release phones with Windows Mobile 7 at the end of 2010.

Making Reliable Connections in BlackBerry Applications

Recently I came up across a blog which provides valuable information on the connections we can make in a BlackBerry application.

If you are interested read more at the following URL.

http://www.localytics.com/blog/post/how-to-reliably-establish-a-network-connection-on-any-blackberry-device/

BlackBerry Security Permissions

If you are eager to find out about BlackBerry security permissions and ways to handle prompts following video from BlackBerry will help you in understanding the basics of it.

http://www.blackberry.com/DevMediaLibrary/view.do?name=SecurityPrompts

Further more if you are seeking ways to change application permissions using code, following link will help you to get more details of the Application Permissions class from RIM device API.

http://docs.blackberry.com/en/developers/deliverables/6022/net/rim/device/api/applicationcontrol/ApplicationPermissions.html#PERMISSION_INPUT_SIMULATION

VixML

Now you can create iPhone and iPod content without being a Objective C developer by using VixML engine.
With this you will be able to create world class iPhone content which use iPhone features with minimal coding.
The best thing is you don't need a MAC, since there is a version which works in Windows.

Read more at,
http://vixml.com/
http://vixml.viximo.com/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=What is VixML?

SharePoint Mobile Development

If you need to create a mobile view for a SharePoint site you will soon realise that the default mobile site created by SharePoint will not take you anywhere.
With its plain look and limited features you will not be able to do anything with the default view, so to give some thing valuable to your customer you need to do some development on the default mobile site.
To get more information on getting this done visit Microsoft.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms464268.aspx

Enabling Mobile View in a SharePoint Site

Microsoft SharePoint Server has a facility to render the site content into mobile devices as well.
In default this feature will be turned off. To enable mobile access execute the following command.

STSADM.EXE -o activatefeature -name mobilityredirect -url http://ms-sharepoint-site01/m

This will create a site under the given URL without any fancy items. It will be a plain site with only basic HTML. Whenever a mobile browser tries to access the site it will be redirected to the new mobile site.
You will be able to access the mobile sites using the URL.
http://ms-sharepoint-site01/_layouts/mobile/default.aspx
or
http://ms-sharepoint-site01/m

How to Hard Reset i-mate JASJAM

Different phone has different key combinations to perform a hard (factory) reset.

In i-mate JASJAM you need to press the 2 soft keys together while pressing the reset whole.

Then it will show options, letting you proceed or cancel the reset. Remember hard resetting will wipe all the applications and data in your device, so remember to backup everything before performing a hard reset.

BlackBerry Network Diagnostic Tool

Latest BlackBerry smart phones are supporting many different network transports to enable reliable data communication between third-party applications and the Internet.

BlackBerry have provided a good tool named "Network Diagnostic Tool" which is essentially a role model that answers all these questions and is a functional diagnostic tool for testing a URL over various transports supported by the BlackBerry solutions, as well as for displaying the values of many network attributes during the test period.
You will be able to download it freely from BlackBerry knowledge base.
If you need to know more about the available transports and more in depth details on the network diagnostic tool, better visit the Article Number: DB-00684 at the BlackBerry knowledge base.

Microsoft Office Mobile 6.1

Microsoft has released Office Mobile 6.1. This is an upgrade to earlier versions of Office Mobile. This version will enable opening Office 2007 files in mobiles (Open XML formatted files).
Additionally it will have the following features,

• Enhanced viewing experience for charts in Excel Mobile.
• Ability to view SmartArt in PowerPoint Mobile.
• Ability to view and extract files from compressed (.zip) folders.
as Microsoft has quoted.

Download it from Microsoft using the following link.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=4b106c1f-51e2-42f0-ba32-69bb7e9a3814&displaylang=en&tm

Yahoo! Go 2.0


Have you tried Yahoo Go 2.0? It has many new additions than the earlier version of Yahoo Go. In supported areas you can even get the traffic reports and maps.

Also note that Yahoo Go 1 service will be stopped on 27th of August 2007.

Try it out at http://mobile.yahoo.com/go.

I am sure that you will like the new version with many new features.