A frantic Google search last night failed to shed any light on what happened to my mobile phone last night, so I'm posting this blog for anyone else who suffers the same thing.
It began with my mobile chirping at me with an unfamiliar sound; not a call or an event or a text. I pressed it to light up the face and got a brief glimpse of a message telling me that F-Secure was active. Then the phone switched off and wouldn't come back on.
Disaster. Had the phone security program decided that the phone had been stolen and so locked it down?
The phone had spent all day connected to my PC, so it should have had a full battery. However, on the off chance I disconnected, then reconnected it. The battery charging indicator came on, though nothing else was happening. After a few minutes I tried to power the phone on, and it came back to life.
I don't know how or why the micro-USB connection decided to blow instead of suck, but that's what must have happened. The battery got empty, the phone tried to warn me, and the message about F-Secure might have been related or just a complete coincidence.
One last thing worth remembering: even with the phone in this state, I could still access the memory card via the PC.
Showing posts with label f-secure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label f-secure. Show all posts
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Defending my Mobile
I've just installed an app on my Nokia smartphone called Anti-theft for Mobile, partly because I've been thinking for a while that I should have some way of protecting my phone in the event of me losing it, but mainly because I found out that it's free from the Nokia OVI store.
Now, if I find I've lost my phone, I can send it a text message to lock it, locate it, or even wipe it clean. Of course, by definition I won't have a mobile phone with me when I realise this, but eventually I'll be able to get my hands on one and send the necessary message.
Two thoughts now occur to me. To begin with, unless I lose my phone in the next few days, I will almost certainly not be able to remember what it is I'm supposed to send to lock the missing mobile. Normally I would make a note of this in my smartphone, but clearly that's not going to cut it in this situation. Secondly, I can't be sure that the program will work unless I test it. However, there are three possible outcomes to this experiment: it might work flawlessly, it might not work at all, or it might lock the phone but not let me unlock it.
As this app must have been downloaded many, many times by now, you'd think I should be reasonably confident that it will work properly. And yet...there are so many times when software has decided to fail on me in ways that (according to Google) nobody else in the world has ever experienced.
My two year contract expires soon and I'll be getting a new phone. Very tempting to think that that would be the ideal time to risk bricking my Nokia.
Now, if I find I've lost my phone, I can send it a text message to lock it, locate it, or even wipe it clean. Of course, by definition I won't have a mobile phone with me when I realise this, but eventually I'll be able to get my hands on one and send the necessary message.
Two thoughts now occur to me. To begin with, unless I lose my phone in the next few days, I will almost certainly not be able to remember what it is I'm supposed to send to lock the missing mobile. Normally I would make a note of this in my smartphone, but clearly that's not going to cut it in this situation. Secondly, I can't be sure that the program will work unless I test it. However, there are three possible outcomes to this experiment: it might work flawlessly, it might not work at all, or it might lock the phone but not let me unlock it.
As this app must have been downloaded many, many times by now, you'd think I should be reasonably confident that it will work properly. And yet...there are so many times when software has decided to fail on me in ways that (according to Google) nobody else in the world has ever experienced.
My two year contract expires soon and I'll be getting a new phone. Very tempting to think that that would be the ideal time to risk bricking my Nokia.
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