I got a few questions about a Vario II

[Guest cjard]

I recently purchased a Vario II and today was having a problem with it.

Multiselect Bug?

Any app that showed a list of clickable things, like the hotmail inbox or the file explorer files list was operating in a multi-select mode whereby:

An unselected item would be selected by tapping it

A selected item would not be deselected by tapping it

If there were 2 selected items, tapping the first would not unselect it (as above) but tapping the second would unselect the first

Sometimes a series of dots would appear round the area where I had tapped, and a menu would appear

I later found out that if I hold the stylus on the screen, those dots also appear - if they are only supposed to appear when hold, why did they appear when I tapped?

Repeatedly tapping an item would sometimes open the first item that was selected, other times the screen did nothing

After half an hour of messing about with all sorts, the behaviour seemed to go away when i switched Ctrl on, then off on the on screen keyboard. Curiously, the behaviour though similar to Ctrl+click on a windows pc, didnt function as expected in deselecting (as noted above, when tapping selected item N, it was tapped/selected item N-1 that was deselected)

The device was on charge at the time and was quite warm.

I have a video of this behaviour on my camera (640x480) but it is likely to be quite large.. I havent taken it off the camera yet but anyone that wants to see the behaviour can do so.

Wifi Is a Pain

I have so far failed to get any encrypted wifi links working. Only the open unsecure networks work. Even when connected to a wireless network, the phone still tries to dial T-mobile to connect to the net. I messed around for 4 hours, getting rather tired of the quirky way this thing works - on windows, it is the network connection that remembers whether to use DHCP or not. On this device it seems to be the wireless card that remembers DHCP or not.

How do we connect to a wireless network at work, that is static IP and a home network that is DHCP?

I eventually find a setting that said soemthing like "all internet programs should use which connection for access?" and the choices were T-Mobile internet, Work, or My ISP. Putting it on Work seemed to make e.g. IE use the wifi for net access, but then when I walked away from the access point the phone wouldnt go on the net via t-mobile

Why is this so hard? On windows, it would be manifest as each being a gateway and giving them a metric, or the pc dialling the net when no other conenction was available. Is there anything I can do to set it up so that "if in wifi range and can access internet, use wifi, else use tmobile"

?

MSN Messenger

In a word: annoying. The sign-in notifications never go away unless dismissed and i forget who im talking to. Are there any better IM apps? Unobtrusive maybe? Some people cannot be talked to.. a grey bar containing the word "Connecting..." appears above the message im writing, Send is greyed out and never activates. What is the phone doing?

Hotmail

Never downloads the full email! Says "click here to d/l the full 5 kb" at the end of the mail. I click there and it says it will be downlaoded later. Never is.. What am I doing wrong?

Do we have only one MSN id? I have 2, one for messenger and one for email. I take it I cant make the phone understand this?

I'll have some more quesitons for you gurus later, i think!

[Guest jimbouk]

The multi-select thing is a bug. Hard reset should fix it.

Wifi - Mine always uses wifi if its on and I have a valid IP address.

MSN - the new MSN live will be better when its properly launched soon.

Hotmail - go into the account settings and tell it to download the full emails in future (menu, options, select the account, then click next til you get to the last page)

Two Id's - just create a new mail account for the the other id - call it hotmail 2 or something and then you can use one of msn and a new one for hotmail.

[Guest The Doctor]

The multi-select thing is a bug. Hard reset should fix it.

Never had this problem.

Wifi - Mine always uses wifi if its on and I have a valid IP address.

WiFi is fine for me as well, check your router settings, i had problems up until i upgraded my router firmware.

MSN - the new MSN live will be better when its properly launched soon.

Live IS alot better as it stands it BETA version so keep your eyes peeled for it, it's gonna be great :D Having said that, i recently tried to uninstall the beta and it complete b0rked my device so it would get stuck at the windows mobile screen :) You won't get those annoying sign in notices either, they drove me up the wall too....

My 2p

Phil

Edited December 4, 2006 by The Doctor

[Guest cjard]

Never had this problem.

WiFi is fine for me as well, check your router settings, i had problems up until i upgraded my router firmware.

still struggling with some aspects. can someone tell me the difference between "work" and "the internet" in terms of "this connection connectgs to"?

there are a load of connection screens that seem to be confusingly laid out.. what is the purpose of the connections control panel? in the advanced screen I can tell the phone what connection to use for public and private. the names don't appear to tally up though.. in here is tmobile intgernet, my isp and my work network. in the wireless screen. how do these relate to those I mentioned in the paragraph above?

[Guest MikeWard1701]

can someone tell me the difference between "work" and "the internet" in terms of "this connection connectgs to"?

As I understand it...

Work is for connecting to a trusted network such as a home or office network, this gives you internet access and allows other network services such as file and print sharing.

The Internet is for use with public WiFi hotspots and access points where security cannot be guaranteed. It only allows internet access and all other network services are disabled.

still struggling with some aspects. can someone tell me the difference between "work" and "the internet" in terms of "this connection connectgs to"?

there are a load of connection screens that seem to be confusingly laid out.. what is the purpose of the connections control panel? in the advanced screen I can tell the phone what connection to use for public and private. the names don't appear to tally up though.. in here is tmobile intgernet, my isp and my work network. in the wireless screen. how do these relate to those I mentioned in the paragraph above?

When you detect a new wireless network you will be asked whether this network is to be used for Work or Internet, as I mentioned above, the choce you make determines the network features are available to you.

T-Mobile Internet, My Work Network, and My ISP are predefined connections with various protocols setup or their use. T-Mobile Internet, preset for connecting to T-Mobile servers and services, this connection is also used for MMS send/receive. My Work Network, is setup for accessing LANs. My ISP is designed for accessing the internet via a third party.

Hope this info helps,

Mike

[Guest cjard]

As I understand it...

Work is for connecting to a trusted network such as a home or office network, this gives you internet access and allows other network services such as file and print sharing.

The Internet is for use with public WiFi hotspots and access points where security cannot be guaranteed. It only allows internet access and all other network services are disabled.

When you detect a new wireless network you will be asked whether this network is to be used for Work or Internet, as I mentioned above, the choce you make determines the network features are available to you.

T-Mobile Internet, My Work Network, and My ISP are predefined connections with various protocols setup or their use. T-Mobile Internet, preset for connecting to T-Mobile servers and services, this connection is also used for MMS send/receive. My Work Network, is setup for accessing LANs. My ISP is designed for accessing the internet via a third party.

Hope this info helps,

Mike

Thats very helpful. It would thus appear that setting a connection to be work would be best, given that its usually going onto a private lan via wifi. the file sharing, if it works may be handy..

I have a new problem with the wireless, and it is to some extent the fault of the poor quality router provided with my wanadoo broadband. In this particular room I am in now, i am right on the limit of the usable range of the wireless. My laptop has coped with this ever since I reduced the roaming aggressiveness of the card- it no longer periodically disconnects in the search for a better signal. I think the phone is still roaming to try and find a better wifi signal, but it cannot because there is only one transmitter. The annoyance here is that the phone forgets the WEP key each time, so i routinely get notifications that i must type it in again.. I'm tiring of typing 26 characters each time, especially since I cannot paste into a password field (grr) so does anyone know if there is a way to prevent the key from "falling out" of the settings?

[Guest MikeWard1701]

I have a new problem with the wireless, and it is to some extent the fault of the poor quality router provided with my wanadoo broadband.

What router are you using? I'm using the Netgear DG834G provided by Karoo (My ISP) and have next to no problems with WiFi (but I do only live in a 1 bedroomed ground floor apartment).

In this particular room I am in now, i am right on the limit of the usable range of the wireless. My laptop has coped with this ever since I reduced the roaming aggressiveness of the card- it no longer periodically disconnects in the search for a better signal. I think the phone is still roaming to try and find a better wifi signal, but it cannot because there is only one transmitter.

On your Vario...

Go into Comm Manager tap Settings > WLAN Settings select the Power Mode tab and move the slider to the left towards Best Performance or experiment with different positions on the slider.

The annoyance here is that the phone forgets the WEP key each time, so i routinely get notifications that i must type it in again.. I'm tiring of typing 26 characters each time, especially since I cannot paste into a password field (grr) so does anyone know if there is a way to prevent the key from "falling out" of the settings?

I'n not sure on this one as I use WPA-PSK as its more secure than WEP. but when I initially setup the Wifi and had to input the passphrase there was a save tick box.

Hope this helps,

Mike

[Guest cjard]

tbh, the only words I could describe the router (a wanadoo livebox) with would be censored by the board software anyway. Plus in the christmas months we get a fine for swearing at work. Even my laptop has issues with that router, but its just a bit of a nuisance that, if youre right on the edge of the range, the phone will conenct, then disconnect ina cycle, but eventually it seems to assume that the key isnt correct, deletes it and prompts for it again.. If a normal windows laptop does this, I dismiss the dialog, and the key isnt wiped out. Perhaps there is some registry setting I can save, and instead of typing the key out again, just run the registry patch?

I've set the slider to best performance, though I can see that might actually make the problem worse, if the phone ius constantly hunting for a better stronmger signal. I'll try best battery mode and see.

Now, is there anyone who can give me a morons guide to setting up the phone so that when there is wifi there it uses it, and when its not there, it goes 3G/PRS? At the moment I have to go to the laborious extent of entering Connections Control Panel, Advanced, Select Networks, Public Network uses: T-Mobile (to use 3g/prs) or Work (to use wifi)

I may try taking it to t-mobile today, and saying "here. call your tech guys and fix this while I go for some lunch" - is that reasonable seeing as they havent done much else to earn their commission so far! :)

[Guest cjard]

Hotmail - go into the account settings and tell it to download the full emails in future (menu, options, select the account, then click next til you get to the last page)

My hotmail account doesnt apear in Menu>Tools>Options

I see only:

Text Messages

MMS

New Account..

Two Id's - just create a new mail account for the the other id - call it hotmail 2 or something and then you can use one of msn and a new one for hotmail.

If you mean by clicking New Account above, I write my new hotmail address in, and it just goes back to the "Messenger/Hotmail/Compose/Mobile Home/PocketMSN Help" screen. Are you sure it can handle two hotmail accounts?

[Guest cjard]

Another thing I jsut noticed: The WiFi seems horrendously slow?! It took well over a minute to transfer a 3 megabyte MP3 via file sharing. Is that normal?

[Guest MikeWard1701]

WiFi like any form of radio transmission can be extrememly tempremental where singal quality and strength are concerned.

A lot of things can alter the quality; materials the singal has to pass through, interferance from other EM sources, singal reflection, etc.

I'm surprised my WiFi works so well as my router is sat on a metal framed glass desk, underneith my DECT phone, next to one of my speakers, and above a metal filing cabinet. Guidelines say that you should avoid puting a router near large metal structures, and away from other EM sources especially other radio/telephones.