Chovy's Blog

I spent the better part of the last 3 hours scouring the web for a way to unlock the Seimens A56 model cell phone I got for free from a friend.

Turns out, the only viable solution is to buy an unlocked phone off ebay or craigslist.org (or one that was previously on the same network as my current provider – ie: Cingular or AT&T, etc.), or simply sign up a new plan and get a free phone (but then that would be giving in to these greedy bastard cell phone companies, who lock the cell phones in the first place to keep us from switching phones easily, without buying a new plan).

Well, all is not totally lost, although for this model it seems to be a waste of time, trust me, I searched everywhere. I found two plausable solutions for unlocking the Seimens A56:

1) buy a data cable (worth more than the free phone I got), and “flash/upgrade” to the C56 using software from seimens.com, then use some “remote unlocking” service. (see below for another thread about using free software).

2) buy a used phone that was previously used with the same provider you’re on now, or find a used phone that is “unlocked”, which can be used anywhere in the world, with any provider (** best solution **)

Other models:

3) If you’re lucky enough to have a cell phone that supports “remote unlocking”, you can try this site: http://www.westerna.org (see bottom left of site for manufacturers) or http://key.westerna.org (click on phone manufacturer). These guys cost money too, I think it’s $12. They will email you the unlock code. They seem to be the most legitimate, and can unlock the widest range of models.

If you have a Nokia phone, you should be able to unlock it free, online. Kodos to Nokia for not being “cellular nazis” with their customers: http://unlock.nokiafree.org/

To find out if your cell phone is currently locked (at least with the seimens A56), you can take out the sim card, and then type: *#0606#, you’ll get some crap, then hit the “Info” button, on mine the 2nd line says: “multiple lock”, the rest say “Unbarred”. This means that Cingular (the previous provider used with the phone), has locked the phone, so you can’t use it with any other provider, except – you guessed it! – Cingular (not even AT&T, even though they merged recently).

For the online “remote unlocking”, you have to get the IMEI phone identifier number, which can be found by re-inserting the sim card, and typing *#06#. You can also press the “Info” button and see some more info about your phone.

Some cool phone phreaking forums I came across are:

http://www.howardforums.com (Excellent source)

http://forum.westerna.org/index.php (Ok, kind of dead at least in helpful responses)

http://forum.gsmhosting.com/vbb/archive/index.php/t-119476 (the most detailed thread I could find about unlocking the Seimens A56 model, with a data cable and free software).

I found a cool little app (freeware), which means it’s absolutely free, no crippled version! You can download it here: http://awc.smurphy.co.uk/ It’s called AWC “Automatic Wallpaper Changer” written by Steve Murphy.

Easy to install and configure on XP, supports recursive directories. You can download some of my own Flower Wallpapers from gardening tips.

Here’s a song I listen to every Christmas Eve. When I went to church today, for the first time in about a year, a solo guitar player sang the song. It has even more meaning to me now, then it did when I first heard it…

Here are the lyrics, you can listen to it here as an MP3 file:

Belleau Wood

by Joe Henry & Garth Brooks

Oh, the snowflakes fell in silence,

Over Belleau Wood that night,

For a Christmas truce had been declared

By both sides of the fight.

As we lay down in our trenches,

The silence broke in two

By a German soldier singing

A song that we all knew…

Though I did not know the language,

The song was ‘Silent Night’.

Then I heard my buddy whisper,

‘All is calm, and all is bright’,

Then the fear and doubt surrounded me

‘Cause I’d die if I was wrong,

But I stood up in my trench

And I began to sing along…

Then across the frozen battlefield

Another’s voice joined in

Until one by one each man became

A singer of the hymn.

Then I thought that I was dreaming,

For right there in my sight

Stood the German soldier

‘Neath the falling flakes of white,

And he raised his hand and smiled at me

As if he seemed to say

Here’s hoping we both live

To see us find a better way.

Then the devil’s clock struck midnight

And the skies lit up again,

And the battlefield where heaven stood

Was blown to hell again.

But for just one fleeting moment

The answer seemed so clear:

Heaven’s not beyond the clouds,

It’s just beyond the fear.

No, heaven’s not beyond the clouds,

It’s for us to find Here.

The second gotcha I faced with the ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard was getting the Inernet connection (broadband w/router) to recongize the onbard LAN, apparently it’s firewire (IEEE 1394) adaptor (see Network Connections in XP), but didn’t work off the bat.

Simply load up the ASUS CD which came with the motherboard, and run the utility to install the onBoard Lan driver. After that, I didn’t even have to reboot, type “ping google.com” from a dos window and you should be set, assuming your Internet conenction is properly working ,etc.

So I bought my computer parts on newgg.com, and started assembly all the pieces last night. Turns out my Western Digital Raptor was an SATA harddrive, which is faster than IDE, but a bit more frustrating to get the Windows XP installation cd to recognize it.

Parts:

ASUS A8V Deluxe motherboard

Western Digital Raptor SATA hdd (1)

The steps are not that difficult once you know how:

1) Plug in 1 sata hdd to the first plug in the mother board with sata cable (see motherboard instructions)

2) Enter Bios, choose boot mode: 1) floppy, 2) cd, 3) hdd. At this point, my hdd was recongized by the bios (a good sign).

3) Disable Promise Raid stuff, enable BootRom thing (I forget the exact wording) – this will enable you to use the VIA raid driver from asus web site, recommended over the Promoise raid driver for speed improvements.

4) Install XP, hit F6 when it asks (bottom of screen), then type “S” to specify the driver for the hdd.

This is where it got tricky for me, I only had the ASUS CD which came with the motherboard, and XP wouldn’t read from it. So I had to buy a floppy drive :-( Then went to asus web site, and found the Via Raid drive (7mb) zip file and extracted it to c:\temp on my win2k box. There is a utility in there somewhere called “MakeDisk.exe”, just run that with a floppy in your floppy drive, and it’ll create the driver disk. Go back into the XP Install, hit F6, then S, and then insert the floppy, just choose the right driver (it should be obvious). Whallah, XP now recongizes the sata hdd so it can then format and install.

Hoepfully this will help people.

You can find the drivers on the “Downloads” page from http://usa.asus.com

Updated: 12/31/04 – Addition of ASUS tech support response:

DESCRIPTION

———–

I installed the A8V Deluxe w/ SATA harddrive, and when installing

Windows

XP, hitting F6 to load sata drivers from Asus cd won’t read the cd.

I also tried booting up into the ASUS cd, and it just ends with a blank

screen and a flashing hyphen 1/4 of the way down on the screen.

My configuration is 1 sata harddrive (not raid), and trying to install

Windows XP. Unfortunately, I do not have a floppy drive or cd burner

around.

NOTES

———–

[12/30/2004 12:28:00 PM - nick23]

Thank you for your support of our products!

Here are the directions for Installing Windows 2k/XP on the Via RAID

controller.

DRIVERS

Download:

We recommend using the latest available drivers when configuring your

RAID

controller. You can find the latest Via RAID drivers on the ASUS

download

site:

http://www.asus.com/support/download/download.aspx

If this site is slow, or is having problems, you can also use our

download

mirror site:

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/download.aspx

Place a disk in your floppy drive. Download and unzip the file, then

extract the contents to a newly created folder. Double-click on the

MakeDisk file, and it will transfer the necessary files to your floppy

disk.

Support CD:

If you do not have access to the Internet, then start by browsing the

support CD included with the motherboard. Look for the DRIVERS

directory.

Inside that is a directory called VIARAID. Open the DRIVER directory

that

is inside. Make sure to insert a disk in your floppy drive, then

double-click on the MakeDisk file in the DRIVER directory. It will

transfer the necessary files to your floppy disk.

INSTALLATION

1. Start with clean, blank hard drives connected to the RAID

Controller.

These drives will not show up on the motherboard’s BIOS screen.

For a STRIPE array: THIS PROCEDURE WILL DESTORY ALL DATA ON THE

DRIVES!

For a SPAN array: THIS PROCEDURE WILL DESTORY ALL DATA ON THE DRIVES!

For a MIRROR: If you want to mirror a drive with existing information

you

will be asked to copy that information to the new drive. PLEASE BE

CERTAIN WHICH DRIVE HAS YOUR DATA. We recommend setting the drive with

DATA on it as the primary MASTER, but it will also work on the

secondary.

We also recommend backing up any information you do not want to lose.

If

you copy the wrong drive, you will lose your information!!

2. Set up your Array:

Upon first boot, the Promise BIOS should tell you that there are an

equal

number of RAID arrays defined as there are hard drives connected to the

Promise controller. Press [Tab] to enter setup, then delete all of the

existing arrays. This will not remove any data from your drives.

Choose

between the defaults, which should be Performance (Stripe), Data

Security

(Mirror), Safety and Performance (Stripe and Mirror) or Capacity

(Spanning).

3. Boot to your 2K/XP CD & start the installation. As Windows is first

setting up, at the first blue screen hit the [F6] key to load a third

party mass storage driver. If you miss this, you will be warned that

there are no hard drives attached. If this happens, restart the

machine

and tap the “F6” Key a few times as the CD spins up. Windows will go

through its install routine, then prompt you for an OEM disk for your

MASS

STORAGE CONTROLLER. Insert the floppy disk you created earlier, and

load

the first driver on the list. This will allow you to use your RAID.

LEAVE THIS FLOPPY IN THE DRIVE!

4. Let Windows setup the partition and install:

Choose install to the empty disk & choose NTFS FULL format, not quick.

If

you don’t have any other hard disks on your regular IDE channels, there

may be a LONG pause after the format; be patient.

5. If your system paused during the install, it will do so again when

booting into Windows. Once the install is completely finished, enter

the

BIOS Setup, go to the MAIN tab, then change “Auto” to “None” for all

channels where no drives are connected. NOTE: This applies to your

regular IDE channels, NOT your RAID Array.

6. Let Windows run through all of its setup routines and updates.

7. You will now be able to use your RAID disk as a storage device!

Please do not respond to this email. If you need further assistance,

contact Technical Support at 502-995-0883 (M-F 8:30 AM – 12:00 AM EST).

…my favorite is the street sweeper!

Marine Corp’s General Reinwald was interviewed on the

radio the other day, and you have to read his reply to

the lady who interviewed him concerning guns and

children. Regardless of how you feel about gun laws,

you gotta love this!!!!

This is one of the best comeback lines of all time.

It is a portion of National Public Radio (NPR)

interview between a female broadcaster and US Marine

Corps General Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy

Scout Troop visiting his military installation.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things

are you going to teach these young boys when they

visit your base?

GENERAL REINWALD: We’re going to teach them climbing,

canoeing, archery, and shooting.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That’s a bit

irresponsible, isn’t it?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see why, they’ll be

properly supervised on the rifle range.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don’t you admit that this is a

terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL REINWALD: I don’t see how. We will be

teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even

touch a firearm.

FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you’re equipping them to

become violent killers.

GENERAL REINWALD: Well, Ma’am, you’re equipped to be

a prostitute, but you’re not one, are you?

The radio went silent and the interview ended.

You gotta love the Marines!!!!!