I’ve updated my free AudioVox unlock post & and new unlock page (with clearer instructions!) with some details on the charities I’m funding:

the rolling duffel project

While the Red Cross is getting tons, my wife and I decided to split our money to the Humane Society for the various pets stuck in the aftermath, as well as with Habitat for Humanity, which will help with rebuilding homes. Also, as I mentioned in the below post, the Rolling Duffel Project, which is busy actually providing support to refugees in Dallas.

I’d also like to put in a plug for the following: Katrina Housing Northwest. It’s a grassroots group like Rolling Duffel that is looking for homeowners, esp. those that may have a secondary home (like a summer home or an empty rental) to house families from New Orleans. So, if you are in the area and can help out, please do. If you’re not, do some searches and see what’s in the area. We’ve got about 100,000 people to put around the country, and since FEMA clearly isn’t doing anything, time for the people to get it done.

Oh…. and while I’m sure this will get into my permanent record somewhere, if you happen to someday meet this woman, would you please just ask her how many people she’s taken in to her house? What a piece of work…

Ok… I’ve been a bit too stunned about Katrina, and completely frustrated. I’m in Seattle. So, I can’t quite drive on down and help out directly. I can give money, and I can rant about a completely ineffective government. Hurricanes happen, and sometimes people die when they cause buildings to fall down on them. But the elderly and infants dying of dehydration in a stadium is inexcusable.

And yet there still isn’t much I can do about it.

But there is this: The Rolling Duffel Project. Some folks in Dallas are driving over to Reunion Arena and adopting families. Literally. They find out what they need, hit WalMart (I know), but a rolling duffel survival kit, and deliver it to these needy families. These people have nothing, and a rolling duffel isn’t much, but it will at least get them through a week or two.

So, link to it, and give to it. And, if you’re within an hour or so of some of the larger shelters (such as Reunion Arena in Dallas, or Baton Rouge, etc.) then take it upon yourself to get down there, find out what people need, and get it to them. The Red Cross and other agencies have very few people and appear to be doing things in bulk… but what’s needed are for lots of people who have something to take in a lot of people that don’t.

If you’re down there, please, do what you can to help out. My cash will help, but sharing a room with a working bathroom probably goes much, much further for these people.

Update: I don’t have a tip jar, as I support myself in what I say. That being said, the below would normally cost you $30 - $60 elsewhere. Therefore, if you were going to spend some cash, and this saved it, please use that money to donate for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. I’d like to recommend the three I support (both images will direct you to the appropriate donation page):

the rolling duffel project

The following instructions were taken from an earlier post I made, but to make it more to the point and to avoid eventual blog rot, I’ve included it as a first-class page on the blog. I’ve also made some updates to make the instructions a bit more clear.

Note: actually doing the following probably voids your warranty (I don’t know as I never read it), and botching it could well render your phone unusable. But it worked for me, even with a few missteps I didn’t include here.

You need the following three files:

1. aeconfig.zip
2. resetSecurity.zip
3. SPV Services

Or to save you some time (and in case the above are down), you can just get them all in one big zip: UnlockAudioVox5600Apps.zip

What you’ll need:

• A SIM card on the network your AudioVox is locked to. For example, if you’re locked to AT&T (Cingular Blue network) then you’ll need an AT&T SIM card. For people who bought their phone off e-bay or something, find a friend, as you need one of these to proceed!
• A SIM card on some other network to make sure things worked. Any network will do. Again, find a buddy.

Here’s what you do:

1. Plug your AudioVox into your computer via the USB cable that came with it. Open an explorer window via ActiveSync and browse the top level directory of the SmartPhone… you should see directories like Temp and Storage.
2. Extract aeconfig.zip, say to C:\unlock5600. DO NOT SIMPLY OPEN THE .ZIP AND TRY TO COPY FILES TO YOUR SMARTPHONE, IT DOES NOT WORK! You’ll get a folder named “unlock-all” which contains two directories, StartMenu and Temp, along with a manual. The manual is almost correct for the 5600. What you want to do is:
   1. Put the “Disable Security” file in StartMenu under \Storage\Windows\Start Menu\ in your 5600.
   2. Put “AEConfig.exe” and “DisableSecurity.xml” in Temp in \Temp in your 5600. Do not reboot your 5600, as it will erase these files in \Temp!
   3. Go to Start on your 5600, then select Disable Security and run it. Phase 1 done.
3. Open resetSecurity.zip and extract the files on your computer somewhere. I’ll say C:\unlock5600, but feel free to replace that with anything you like.
4. On your computer, go to Start -> Run and type “cmd” for a DOS prompt. Change directories to the directory you put the files of resetSecurity (e.g. cd c:\unlock5600 using our example).
5. Run RapiConfig as follows from the cmd prompt:
   % RapiConfig.exe /p ResetSecurity.xml
   This will unlock your phone to install new apps (needed for the next step).
6. Confirm it works by putting “CheckLock.exe” in the \Temp dir of your 5600 and running it by going to Start -> File Manager on your AudioVox and selecting CheckLock.exe under \Temp. It should say “Your phone is not locked.”
   Phase 2 End.
7. Open up SPV-Services.zip and copy the files somewhere (say c:\unlock5600).
8. Copy the Cert.cab into \Temp of your smartphone
9. From your smartphone Start -> File Manager, browser to \Temp and run Cert.cab. Install the program.
10. From your computer, run SPVServices.exe. Click on the SIMLock Toggle button and type AGREE. Don’t worry about the “Doesn’t work on AudioVox” as this did for this purpose.
11. Unlock your AudioVox by clicking on the button. End Phase 3.
12. Test out your new unlocked AudioVox with a friend’s SIM card on another network (I used T-Mobile). You will need to power down the phone, take out the card, put the new one in, and power up. If you see “Network locked, enter unlock code” then something didn’t work. If you see the normal home page with the carrier’s name, you’re golden.

So, that’s a decent number of steps… but it’s in painful detail, for someone who might not be a 5600 hacker and knows where to find and use all these files. Search isn’t a magic bullet; it won’t find The Answer if The Answer doesn’t exist in a single page. Sometimes it doesn’t even find the single page. But it will provide you the path to get there… and thus I’m psyched that the tool I help build was able to teach me, and now potentially teach you, how to unlock an AudioVox SMT 5600.

Update: I don’t have a tip jar, as I support myself in what I say. That being said, the below would normally cost you $30 - $60 elsewhere. Therefore, if you were going to spend some cash, and this saved it, please use that money to donate for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. I’d like to recommend the three I support (both images will direct you to the appropriate donation page):

the rolling duffel project

It’s HUGE

I’m in the air now, about an hour and some from landing in Seattle,
where I’ll see my lovely wife and daughter after almost two weeks. Man
this has been hard!

Before I forget, I wanted to put down some observations about Brasil.
These aren’t in any particular order, but maybe you’ll find them useful
someday.

• Brazil is big, and thus you can’t stereotype the people or a place.
  It’s like saying all Americans are the same, but people from Seattle and
  Little Rock are wildly different.
• People in Bahia are poor but content and happy. They don’t need tons
  of money to be happy… they have music, friendship, and gorgeous
  beaches everywhere. And they seem OK with not trying to get into the rat
  race. Good for them.
• Lots of parents exploit their kids as beggars. Kids make great
  beggars, and parents know this. So they send out their kids, who are
  wearing reasonable clothes and good sneakers, to beg. This just seems
  like something that’d be easy to outlaw and police, but I’m sure I’m
  missing something — for example, the legitimate cases where the kids
  have to help because there isn’t enough money to go around.
• There are lots of beautiful people in Brazil, but it isn’t like
  everyone is. Sure, you’ll see a lot of women who look amazing in bikins
  at the beach, but you’ll also see ordinary women in bikins at the beach.
  People are different, it’s OK. Although the speedo-like tighty-whities
  the men wear are still kinda too revealing.
• Panhandlers are a lot more aggressive in Brazil.
• Merchants and souvenier sellers are the same — they’re hucksters,
  but they’re the same kind of huckster in every country.
• There’s a lot of English in Brasilia and São Paulo, probably Rio too.
  Not much anywhere else.
• In São Paulo, buiding security is tight. You need a card to get in AND
  out, and the receptionist will take down your info and take a digital
  picture of you before she lets you up. This happened at both the MS
  building and Amanda’s.
• When you greet someone of the opposite sex, at least in São Paulo, the
  man kisses the left and then right cheek of the woman. Jean-Francios
  said that in France it’s also like this, except in Paris where it’s
  left-right-left-right. But only in Paris. I guess ‘cuz they like kissing
  there.
• Bahia is like almost any other near-the-beach place…. 5 minutes is,
  well, 5 or 10 or 15, whatever.
• People in general are very friendly and inviting.
• Looks seem to be more important in Brazil. I’m not talking about how
  many women have plastic surgery (they do), but it seems to be more
  acceptable to do things based on looks. For example, Amanda mentioned
  that a firm she once worked at apparently only hired pretty people (she
  picked up that pattern after some good people were rejected), and at the
  company dinner one year all the female players had to play a soccer
  game…. apparently so all the men could see pretty girls running around
  in short shorts. They probably don’t have much in the way of sexual
  harassment laws there yet, either.
• Local cell phones are key… although the international rates on them
  can kinda eat your minutes quickly.
• They’re pretty open about sex. In fact, one channel (MultiShow, which
  shows a lot of US content, such as South Park) has “SexyTime” which is
  an hour of (usually American-made and subtitled) softcore porn. Flipping
  channels at the Hilton, it appears there’s some other channel that also
  shows softcore movies late at night.
• You can still smoke indoors (although I heard a rumor that there was
  some law that made it illegal… maybe they’re all just ignoring it).
• Mosquitoes, even those that don’t carry malaria, still suck.
• Brazil has a ton of different fruits, and they’re good. Bananas taste
  better, and they have a couple different varieties. There’s also a ton
  of different citrus fruits that you don’t see in Seattle. All good stuff.
• Brazil has better beef. Free range organic is simply better.
• Brazil is very Catholic. I saw lots of crosses, and in Manaus all the
  busses had a big “JESUS” sign. Also, decent number of people who had a
  religious saying on their back window — like in the US we’d see a
  company ad / contact info. But they don’t appear to be obnioxious about
  it… e.g. I don’t know anyone who started off with the Portugeuse
  equivalent of, “Well, I’m a Christian, so……”

I think that’s about it…. welp, I’m seeing some volcano out the left
side of the plane… I think Shasta, but I’d swear we’re too far north
for that. Maybe Mt. St. Helens from a weird angle, as the peak is rather
pointy at the top. But, it’s almost time to land, so I’ll end this part
of the travel journal. Until the next blog entry then, cheers!

-e

No, not Paris Hilton. She’s just a shining example that you can be filty
rich and yet still be po’ white trash. No, I’m talking about where she
gets her money - Hilton Hotels.

Hilton Hotels are your standard business hotel. They cater to the
business traveler who is spending his or her company’s money. The rooms
are all very nice and comfortable, and there’s a good work environment
with a desk and a phone and all the things you like. There’s a nice TV
with many channels and may pay-per-view movies, all of which will show
up as “Guest Services” or something on the bill so your employer won’t
know you’re expensing your porn watching (although in Brazil, they
actually just have softcore on TV normally, but we’ll get to that later).

The problem I have with Hilton is that you pay extra for Every. Last.
Little. Thing. OK, the $10 mini-bottle from the mini-bar, fine. We all
know that the mini-bar is stupidly overpriced, but occasionally we need
it, so fine, extort your $5 more from us. Whatever. However, local calls
should not be metered *by the minute*. We’re calling across the street,
not a 976 number. And don’t tell me that everyone in Brazil has calls
metered by the minute, as they didn’t have them metered in Salvador or
Manaus.

Of course, they meter local calls, because people like me can dial into
a local modem and check mail. And they’d much rather I pay $30 a day for
a 128k connection. or I can pay $40 for 256K, on up to 1M. Gee, I get to
pay more for a faster pipe… lovely. Didn’t that go out when Compuserve
stopped the surcharge for 1200 baud modems vs 300 baud?

Random tourist hotels usually have free wireless, or at least free
broadband, and local calls are cheap. Even hotels in Japan have this,
and you breath out money in that country. So, yeah, a nice staff and
pretty room is fine, but really, if I’m in a place to get work done, I
really don’t want to have to keep adding on to the tab to get work done.
Just increase the price of the room by a few bucks and include it. And
if that causes people to go to other hotels? Well, then maybe perhaps
competition is doing what it’s supposed to do — drive prices down to
where they’re fair.

One of MK’s friends, Amanda, is a family law lawyer in São Paolo, and we
managed to get together for lunch at a nearby sushi place she likes.
Even though I’m not a 3WA’er, I suspect I may be an honorary one and
thus get Amanda’s count of 3WA people she’s met up to two. Hey, we don’t
often get down to Brazil!

Anyway, Amanda is great. She’s doing well for herself in the Alameda
Lorne district? area? of São Paulo, which is where there are a number of
nicer restaurants and shops and whatnot. We had a lovely conversation
where I learned a lot about life in Brazil and São Paulo, and I think I
scared her a bit by telling her about what I do at Microsoft. However,
the trips to Beijing to meet with MSRA certainly piqued her interest!

Amanda took me to a lovely chocolate shop, which she thinks is the best
in São Paulo. It was great… we had some passionfruit truffles that
were to die for. I picked up a small (heh) gift for MK there — her
name, in 3″ chocolate letters! It should travel well, and I’m sure
she’ll enjoy it over the weeks to come. Sadly, no truffles, as they
wouldn’t travel well without a cooler or something to put them in.

Amanda and I parted company after sipping cafe briefly at a bistro near
her office, and then I headed back to Microsoft Brazil to pack up and
head to the airport. São Paulo, being a small city of only 15 million
people, has very well designed roadways and a wonderful mass
transportation system. That’s why we left for my 10 PM flight at 6 PM,
as it normally takes 2 hours to go 40 km (that’s like 24 miles) — the
distance to the airport. Yeah…. traffic was light that day, and my cab
driver familiar with the area, so we made it in an hour and a half. Hey,
16 miles per hour, not bad!

I was invited to take part in a Press Conference announcing the new MSN
Search in Brasil, which we launched Aug. 3rd. Turns out I was in for a
bit of a treat — I got my picture taken with Osvaldo Barbosa de
Oliveira, the head of MSN Brasil, which appeared in Valor, a local Sao
Paulo economic magazine. Still trying to figure out if I need a
subscription to see the content or just fill out the form….

Anyway, we had a good press conference (about 10 local reporters) and
MSN Search was received pretty well. Like in most places, people in
Brazil tend to use Google or Yahoo, but they’re starting to see what
we’re doing and take some interesst. It’ll take time, certainly, but
it’s coming.

Some other fun facts about Brazil… some 70% of Orkut, Google’s
social-networking thing, are Brazilians. That’s about 6 million of the 8
million people on Orkut (which, in the grand scheme of things, makes
Orkut one of the smaller networks, but hey, Google doesn’t get it right
all the time!). Also, MSN Messenger is the #1 messenger there —
Yahoo’s a distant third, and AOL (AIM) really has no presence in Brazil.
ICQ (also owned by AOL) is also small now, as that product really hasn’t
done much in about 8 years.

What does this mean? Turns out Brazilians like networking and talking to
one another, a lot more so than I’ve seen elsewhere. Huh. Learn
something new every day.

That evening, my hosts Guillherme and Tiago took me to a nice dinner at
the Valermo (?) Grill, where I had a lovely picanha-cut (a local cut,
not sure exactly how it compares to any US cut) steak along with some
lovely sides. Mmm… Brazilian beef is just yummy.

Andrew, Julie, and I talked that evening for some time, all lying in our
hammocks listening to the frogs and crickets, drinking our cervejas.
Then we finally succumbed to the night. The next morning, it was early
to rise, and then hop on the boat for the ride back.

However, once we got to the bus stop, things started to get a bit dicey.
The bus was an hour late, and while the pastry-covered cheese and fried
cheese sticks were awesome, we were still a bit panicked about making
our flight — 3 PM. So, 10 AM, we’re on the bus to Manaus.

Fortunately, we made good time, arriving in Manaus at 12:45. Antonio was
there, and we booked it to the Hotel Ideal, the youth hostel where
Andrew and Julie stayed, to get their stuff, and then to the Hotel
Tropical for me to check out and get my stuff. Then, over to the
airport, were we arrived at 1:55. Plenty of time. We then stood in line
for quite some time and eventually got on the flight to Sao Paulo.

We parted at São Paulo… I was staying for a few days to visit MS
Brasil, and Andrew and Julie were heading home on American and
Continental, respectively. We didn’t have a long stay in the Amazon, and
we were all wishing we had 3-4 more days up there, but it was still an
amazing experience that we’ll treasure for many, many years.

One thing about the Amazon… it turns out that some tributaries are
acidic, like the one we were on. 5% acidity means no mosquitoes — they
can’t breed in water that acidic. So we were walking around in shorts
and T-shirts, and didn’t need mosquito netting when we slept. OK, this
doesn’t suck.

Andrew, Julie, and the other camp-mates had gone on a 3-hour
bushwhacking hike earlier that day, and so we were taking it easy when I
arrived. Along the way, they had picked up some bamboo, so the guides
there taught us to make blowguns! Basically, you hollow out a section of
bamboo using a thinner piece of bamboo. You then shave off the bark with
a knife. You affix a mouthpiece to one end (the guides made ours, as you
have to ensure that there isn’t air coming out where the tube connects
to the mouthpiece), and you make a dart using a thin piece of bamboo and
this hair-like plant material that’s commonly available in the jungle.
The hair acts as initially the sail — you blow against it and it
launches the dart — as well as the feature in flight, keeping the
dart’s trajectory stable.

This was tons of fun, and now I have my own blowgun with two darts, all
made in Brazil!

About 3:30, we went piranha fishing. It’s pretty simple… you take a
single fishhook, put a big chunk o’ chicken on it, toss a line (no pole,
just line tied to a stick), and wait for the piranha to bite. Then you
pull the line in.

Well, Team Microsoft got completely skunked, although I did get some
nibbles. Jean-Francios pulled in the most, 4 I think, and the guides
also pulled in about 4 total. So, we were having piranha for dinner
tonight! The guides were showing us how tough the teeth were on the
piranha — they were snapping down hard on rope or anything else in
front of them, even though they were out of the water and gasping a bit.
Wow.

We went back to camp and the staff made us dinner, including piranha
with onions. Yumm….. there are few things better than fish that was
caught mere hours ago. It’s just good, and the piranha was tasty. A bit
tough to eat as they’re a small fish and not tons of meat on them, but
still yummy. The rainbow trout of the Amazon, or so it would be.

We then went gator spotting. This is like deer spotting on a boat. You
cruise around the river, shining a flashlight into the shallows by the
shore, and look for the reflection of the gator’s eyes. Then, if it
looks small enough, you cut the engine, paddle over, and catch it so the
tourists can touch a real live gator. Welp, we found a couple (including
a 1.5m - 2m one), and eventually found a baby (maybe a foot and a half)
that we passed around and posed with. I know I know, but it was still
pretty cool. And look, we treated the gator better than we did the piranha!

That night was the night after the full moon, and it rose as we were
going to bed. I got some great shots of the river in the moonlight; I’ll
post them as soon as I return to upload them to the server. Suffice to
say, this was simply amazing.