Howto: Reset a Helio Ocean

January 17th, 2008

I am about to sell my Helio Ocean and I wanted to remove all of my personal information from it before I handed it over to a stranger with all my friends’ and family’s phone numbers stored in it.

Please use these instructions at your own risk; they worked for me but I am making NO guarantees they’ll work for you.

There were two types of data that I felt needed to be removed: my cell number and personal contacts.

Make sure to complete this instruction in the order laid out below. You can NOT remove your cell number then remove your contacts; you must remove the contacts first.

How to soft reset the Helio Ocean:

- From the main menu select “Customize”

- Then select “Settings”

- Then select “Device”

- Then select “Default Reset”

- When you see the “Enter Lock Code” field enter four zeros

- Click “OK”

The device should restart itself.

The second step is to remove your cell phone number from the device.

How to remove your cell phone number from the Ocean:

- From the main screen enter ##435#46#636# you should be directed to a menu with 3 options

- Select “Edit”

- Delete your cell number

- Enter in ten zeros

- Click “OK”

- Then select “Done”

The device should restart itself and it should then display the activation screen after it restarts.

Leopard’s Time Machine

October 28th, 2007

I’m a little disappointed that I can’t use my 60GB iPod with Time Machine. Is there some technical reason for this limitation?

Granted, I wouldn’t be able to back-up my complete hard drive to this “external” drive, but I could back up my mail, important documents, etc…

Pardon me if I’m just not getting the concept here but it seems weird that Apple would specifically block users from using Time Machine with iPods and iDisk.

Maybe someone can help explain to me what the rationale may be for this in the comments. Thanks!

The Dip by Seth Godin

June 13th, 2007

I just finished listening to the abridged version of The Dip and I think it was worth the $5 I paid for it. Although, Barnes and Noble tried to charge me $6.95 for an item that was clearly marked $5 - I’m a little bitter since I was purchasing 3 items and was over charged for 2. Really!

Phil Windley of Technometria has a pretty good review on the book so I’ll forgo writing my own here.