When you are connected to the Internet through a network with limited bandwidth or restricted data plan it is desirable to reduce the data consumption. In this case, disabling iCloud sync is something you want to do.
In Windows, you can easily mark a wifi network as limited by data plan and this will automatically inhibit Windows updates to download and it will also make cloud services not to sync.
In the world of Apple and Mac OSX, it seems like Apple assumes that when you are on a wireless or wired network, bandwidth is unlimited. Period. If this only was true, what a great world to live in! The news is that this is not how it works in the real world. Unfortunaly, because of this there is no function to disable or pause iCloud syncing at all. A simple feature present in all other cloud services like One-drive, Dropbox etc.
The solution, which works excellent is called TripMode. This piece of software gives you the control you want over any application using your Internet data.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2018-04-12 11:12:472018-03-12 11:45:42How to disable iCloud sync on Mac while on mobile data
Track and find a stolen mobile phone is often done in vain. If you forgot it somewhere there is a chance to locate it, but if it was stolen for example by a pick pocket, they usually know to turn it off immediately and then wipe it before it has a chance to report it’s location. But it is worth a try.
Apart from that, call your provider to lock your SIM card and the phone IMEI numer (makes it unusable with other SIM cards). Change passwords for all the apps you had installed, like Facebook, email etc.
Android: Use Android Device Manager and login using the same Google account you used to initially set up the phone. Click on Locate device.
iPhone: Use iCloud and login using your Apple ID. Can be used to find your missing Mac, iPhone or iPad.
Windows phone: Use Microsoft and login using your Microsoft Account (former Windows Live ID). Go to Find my device.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2015-10-02 07:25:212015-10-02 07:37:59My mobile phone has been stolen – how do I find it?
I use a HTC Desire HD android mobile. My 8 GB SD card was getting full so I removed photos and videos that had already been copied to my PC. But I became a bit curious because of the 8 GB, the images and videos where not consuming the entire space.
To investigate further I connected the android phone using USB to my PC and used the PC:s explorer to dig into the SD-card.
I found out that the mail program stores images and other parts of emails in the Downloads folder on the SD card. After 1,5 years of use there where a significant amount of files there.
After deleting them i noticed there was a folder called .Mail (i.e. Downloads/.Mail) which contained >21.000 files consuming some 700 MB of space. The filenames began with "token". After some Googleing it seemed by the discussions I found that these are temporary files created each time a message is pushed to the phone. I decided to take a shot and delete them.
After deleting all files in the .Mail folder I opened the mail app on the phone. For a short moment a text was displayed "Preparing SD card". Then my inbox showed up and everything worked normal with the only difference that the mail app seemed a bit quicker now.
My conclusion is that it is probably safe to delete the content of the .Mail folder once in a while to free up some space.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2012-10-15 15:32:212012-09-27 15:34:52Android mail token files fills up my SD card
When I travel abroad I need to stay connected to the Internet, not just for fun but I have to be connected for my work. Relying only on Wifi is not a solution as I recently discovered the hard way on a trip to France. The Hotel advertised "WiFi internet" but this however, turned out to be a connection limited to only web and mail (all traffic forced through a proxy). I needed VPN to work.
The most convenient and cost effective solution is to purchase a prepaid mobile broadband from a local provider. That way I will have 3G Internet connection during my stay.
To not be forced to buy a USB modem with every prepaid mobile Internet, I purchased a Huawei E585 3G/WiFi pocket router which is not SIM locked (works with any provider). This little thing has a battery that last for a couple of hours and I only need to buy prepaid SIM-cards in the countries I visit.
I went on a trip to Latvia and my choice fell on Okarte Internet via computer. They are covering 92% of Latvia for the moment.
There are two choises – a SIM card bundled with a USB modem for Ls 9 or just the SIM card for Ls 4. It includes one week of surf (up to 50 GB) and can then be refilled. According to Okarte’s website it could be purchased on many sales points, for example Narvesen or Plus Punkt kiosks.
The first store I stopped by could only sell refills. The second store didn’t have the SIM card only so I actually bought the package with a USB modem for Ls 9, figuring Ls 5 was a cheap price for not having to run around more stores. The modem was never used, instead I put the SIM card in my pocket router.
Even though Okarte’s website is in Latvian, Russian and English nothing in the package speaks any English, only Latvian and Russian which is of little help for me.
The major problem I encountered was that there was no technical information in the package, especially regarding APN which is crucial. I looked at my network manager in Ubuntu which actually has preconfigured choises for Okarte and found out that the APN is open.lmt.lv.
With this APN set I could surf away from my resort location in Jurmala enjoying download speed at around 4-7 Mbps and upload 0,45-1 Mbps.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2012-07-31 17:50:282012-08-12 10:42:47Mobile internet broadband in Latvia
When I bought my latest smartphone, HTC Desire HD, a navigation software called HTC Locations was preinstalled. HTC Locations is a product by HTC but navigation and maps is powered by the well known Route 66.
It is free to download maps but to be able to navigate in an area you must buy a navigation license. Additinally you can also buy license for traffic information and speed cameras. The navition for Scandinavia came with a 30 day free trial. After a bit of testing I decided to buy navigation for entire Europe, life time updates. It is a big plus that all maps are on the SD memory so you don’t need a data connection to use it.
After a couple of months of use there are some issues with the software (which I have reported to HTC).
A feature I miss from other navigators is to set a town centre as destination. If you are going to a large city for example, you might not know a street name you want to go to. You just want to get into the city centre. This is not possible in HTC Locations. You must enter a street as your destination. Picking one at random and your target is a larger city, you risk ending up in some suburb.
I bought the navigation license with my Swedish SIM in the phone. On a trip to Italy I put an Italian SIM in the phone. Doing this the navigation did not work unless I put my Swedish SIM back in. HTC has not yet responded to my question about this.
On a trip in Italy from Bergamo to Tortona the route goes by Milan which is a major city. Milan has a circular motorway surrounding the city ("tangenziale") in order to lead traffic outside the city centre. HTC Locations however, routed me straight through the city centre. Worse is that in larger cities in Italy they have ECO-zones. Without a permit you will get a fine if you drive into an ECO-zone. The streets are monitored by video cameras and fines are sent to you by mail, even to foreigners. HTC Locations tried to lead us straight through the Milan ECO-zone. Luckily enough I spotted the ECO-zone signs so I manually could avoid it. A couple of days later a similar thing happened in Torino where the navigator tried to lead us through a traffic limitation zone (ZTL, zona traffico limitate) even though our destination address was outside the ZTL.
When going from Münich in Germany to Venice in Italy HTC Locations routed us through the alps on small, beautiful roads. The trip took several hours longer than calculated because the calculations are probably based on the speed limit of the road. Even though the limit is 80 km/h it is impossible to keep that speed on narrow serpentine roads. The roads should probably be encoded with lower speeds so the navigator will make the route on larger roads.
Several times when waiting for a red light the HTC connected to an open Wifi hotspot. When doing so the navigator exited the map mode to the menu, loosing the destination. I quickly had to reselect the destination from the history to contine the navigation. Once it had found my position and recalculated the route to the destination, the red had turned to green and the Italians behind had started honking their horns a long time ago.
Apart from that I think the navigation works well and it is very practical to have a good navigator in your phone. To be able to use it as a navigator (opposed to buying a separate product) you will need a car mount and a car charger.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2011-08-18 15:16:192011-08-18 15:16:19Navigating with HTC Locations
I recently went on a trip to Italy and in order to keep up to date with work I decided to find some prepaid mobile Internet for my stay. I stepped by a Wind (www.wind.it) store in Verona on a friday afternoon. The attendant explained that my best choice would be their "Mega unlimited" offer which included a SIM-card for a total of 30 euros (10 euros for the SIM-card and 20 for the internet). As I have a built in 3G modem in my laptop and a HTC Desire HD smartphone a SIM-card was the only thing I needed. The APN for Wind is internet.wind and the number to dial is *99#.
I was told that I had to wait to the day after until some SMS in Italian had been recieved before I could start using it. Before I left Italy I should also send a text "ESTERO NO" to nr 4033 to cancel the subscription (it is actually a subscription that would cost 4 euros a month after 6 months). So, a couple of SMSes in Italian arrived and off we went! It worked perfectly to surf on the net and check my email and speed was good. A couple of hours later I tried it again. But this time no luck. It seemed that the network wasn’t accepting my SIM-card.
So I moved it from my laptop over to my smartphone and tried it there with the same result. At this point I also could get online temporary on a Wifi-network so I checked the Wind.it website, but there was no means of getting in touch with them by email. Wind has a free customer service number, 155, which can be reached from the mobile. This worked but on a weekend there was nobody speaking english available. I could understand "lunedi" which is monday, so I had to call back after the weekend.
On monday I again tried 155 and now there was a choice in the phone menues to switch to English (which ironically enough was said in Italian but somehow I figured out which dial to press to make the voice switch over to English). Now I could reach an english speaking customer service assistant who could inform me that the reason to my SIM not working is that the account balance is zero. And when it is zero all services are turned off. Trying to explain that I already payed 20 euros for the internet service wasn’t helping. At least I needed to add 5 euros of airtime which can be purchased in any tobacco store or online. Unfortunately she "forgot" to inform me that the smallest online recharge amount is 15 euros. So off to a tobacconist to buy 5 euros of recharge, add it to the account and voila – everything has been working like a charm since.
In total, for 35 euros, I have a month of unlimited mobile Internet in Italy (including the 5 euros of recharge needed, which the attendant in the Wind store in Verona "forgot" to inform me about) which I think is worth the money. When not using it in my computer I put the SIM in my smartphone making it possible for me to have full Internet access all the time. Even though my stay in Italy was only 10 days I think it was worth it. Sadly enough, I could only use it for 7 because of the attendant in Verona who "forgot" to inform me that I had to recharge it with 5 extra euros (which could be resolved on the monday with customer service). But that wasn’t the only thing "forgotten" to inform us about during our stay in Italy. Being ripped off 8 euros per icecream in a gelatteria in Milan just because we sat down and didn’t take them with us is another. And the only prices advertised was the take away prices (of course). But that is another, non-technical story… 🙂
Another small travel tip regarding Italy. Don’t forget power adaptor if you are going to use a grounded power plug (like the ones for laptops for example) since the grounded outlets in Italy is not the european standard. If you forgot the adaptor and are staying at a hotel, check the tv power cord. TVs often have european power plugs connected with an adaptor and choosing between running the computer and watching Italian dubbed tv the choice is easy 😛 Don’t forget to put the adaptor back before you checkout though 😉 Non-grounded power plugs, like mobile phone chargers, etc, will work without an adaptor.
https://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.png00Stefan Helanderhttps://media01.nerdia.net/uploads/nerdia-logo-340x156.pngStefan Helander2011-08-04 10:32:092012-07-11 07:25:00Mobile Internet in Italy by Wind.it
