Update, Windows 6.1 on SMT5800

Just a quick update on impressions of the winmo6.1 update for the Verizon Wireless SMT5800. If you did not read that article, or install the update yet, here are instructions: Windows Mobile 6.1 for Verizon Wireless SMT5800

I have had the winmo 6.1 update rom installed on my verizon smt5800 for about one month now. Keep in mind, I am a moderately heavy user of both the data and phone portions of the phone (more so on the data side), So I am a pretty good test case.

I still have not seen anything "official" from Verizon announcing the Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for the SMT5800, but I have had ZERO issues with installing it and running it on my phone. Just thought I would drop some quick notes here, for people that care:

1. Threaded SMS is cool, takes some getting used to, but cool.
2. The remoted desktop client only works if you have a hostname, so okay on local sides of your network, but chances are you do not have a hostname set up for a home pc or an individual machine back at the office.
3. The upgrades to Pocket Internet Explorer are useless. It has a zoom out feature that allows you to see a whole page, and you can now set your homepage. Otherwise, it is as slow and cumbersome as ever. Stick with Skyfire or Opera (Skyfire works great)
4. EVDO Rev A works great.
5. I have about 10 aftermarket programs on the device, all of them are functioning without bugs.
6. I have not run into any programs or issues where something had bugs or was broken.
7. The battery seems to last a little bit longer now
8. I do not have to reboot the phone as much anymore to free up memory, seems they have fixed some of the memory leaks.
9. Call and Voice Quality have not changed
10. The new home screen provided by Microsoft was cool (it is disabled by default for the verizon one) But I still went back and put a custom home screen on the smt5800
11. Navigation on the device changed slightly. For instance, <- arrow now works more like an up arrow and the 'del' key is not universally swapped with the back arrow for navigation. Also, when popping menus up with the right soft key, some of them do not lose by hitting the <- arrow, instead you must hit the soft key again. No big deal, minor things really, but again, takes some getting used to.
    

Overall, I have used the update for about a month now, with not a single negative issue. There is nothing to wait for.

Upgrade your SMT5800 to Windows Mobile 6.1 Today!

Free Up Disk Space on Dell Mini 9 and Netbooks

This is a quick tutorial mainly for netbooks on how to Free up space in Windows XP.

I recently acquired a Dell Mini 9 Netbook from the Dell outlet for $251, shipped after taxes. I could not pass up the deal. I got the white (alpine) model with 1 gb ram, 1.3mp webcam, 8 gig ssd running windows xp service pack 3. The problem is, when I got the computer, it already had 7.5 gigs of the 8 gig drive used up! There was not even enough room to install MS Office on it. So, I took the following steps to get my Dell mini 9 more hard drive storage.

1.) Backup your computer - Use something like "Norton Ghost" or your own preferred software. --This is not required, but should be done if you are scared to lose any of your data.

2.) Go to Control Panel --Add Remove Programs: Remove everything you don't need, below is what I removed:

• Browser Address Error Redirector (if it is installed)
• Dell Support Center
• GoToAssist
• MS Works
• Google Toolbar (if installed)
• Google Desktop (if installed)
• McAfee trial (if it is installed and you have your own AV)

3.) Clear your recycle bin, reboot

4.) Go into explorer and copy the Dell, Drivers, and I386 folders to somewhere else. (They all reside in C:) In my case, I just moved them into the SDHC card that I had purchased. However, moving them to a thumbdrive, cd, dvd, or network drive works just as well. They are really just for backup copies. Once you have "backed up" those folder, Delete Them. They are not necessary.

5.) Turn off Hybernation support (The mini boots super fast, so you should never need to hybernate or suspend the pc) Disabling this will free up as much disk space as you have ram. IE, I have 2 gig of ram, so removing this gave me 2gb of disk space.

• Open the Windows Control Panel
  
• Double-click Power Options (you may need to click "Classic mode" on the upper left first)
• Click the Hibernate tab, de-select the 'Enable hibernate support' check box, and then click Apply.
• Restart your computer and hiberfil.sys will be automatically deleted. (my computer did not require a restart)

6.) Install whatever software you would like. I installed Office 2003 Professional, VLC Media, Firefox, CutePDF, and Flash support and currently have 3.5GB of Free Disk Space.

I will add more to this tutorial at another time. For example, there are a few free programs you can run that allow you to clean up old windows update files.