Changing the Startup and Shutdown Animation

MobileJaw reader Tisha, asked about how to remove the AT&T animation that takes place on startup and shutdown of your device. This is the same animation used on any of the Windows Mobile 3G smartphones that AT&T carries – the one where 3G clouds fly by and leaving a trail that transforms into the cellular reception bars. On other carriers this a different animation or sometimes just an image that shows the carriers logo or something simple like that.

The steps below will walk you through removing this animation and there’s even details about what you need to do to display your own graphic. One special note – If you have a Samsung Jack or Propel Pro, you can not remove the startup animation. If you do this, the screen driver fails to load and you can no longer see anything on the device. You can, however, connect to the device using Pocket Controller Pro and reinstate the startup animation and all will be fine again. Again, this is only a problem on the Propel Pro and the Jack. All other devices have not displayed this behaviour.

1) The first thing you need to do is remove the application lock from your device (Windows Mobile Standard or non-touch devices only). To do this, check out my other post about Removing Application Lock.

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Disable the Sent TXT Message on Windows Mobile

As my SMS’ing has increased over the last little while I’m getting more and more annoyed with the message sent notification that shows up on after sending a text message on a Windows Mobile Smartphone. Yes, I know that it will actually go away by itself if you leave it alone, but I’m a mover and shaker and I want move along to another task. Having that message pop up is just annoying.  So, without further ado, here’s the registry hack you’ll need to do in order to stop that message from showing.  This should work on pretty much any Windows Mobile Standard / Smartphone (non-touch screen) device.

First thing is to fire up your favorite registry editor. Your phone doesn’t have one installed, so you’ll have to get one and install it first.  I recommend PHM - it’s good and it’s free. In your registry editor, go to HKLM \ Software \ Microsoft \ Inbox. Create a new key with the name of Settings. Then select that key and create a new String value (you should now be under the new key Settings, that you just created) and set the name as SMSNoSentMsg and the value as 1  Reboot your phone and that’s it.

Changing Menu Layouts Between Numbers and Letters

Some Windows Mobile devices are configured to show the menu items prefixed with a number, while other devices will use a letter of the alphabet. Sometimes the letter is in front of the menu item, while other times they underscore a letter in the menu item. Typically, devices with a front facing keyboard are using the letter option. While candy-bar phone are displaying the number option.

On the original BlackJack, Samsung used the number option. This made for quick and easy menu selections when combined with an oversized region for the number keys. On the BlackJack II, Samsung changed the number layout to 1 number to 1 key and switched the menu to the letter format. While I’m pretty good with the alphabet and QWERTY layout, I still find it faster and easier to navigate the menu’s using numbers and not letters. Thankfully, there’s a way to switch the layout to reflect your preference.

Break out your registry editor of choice and follow along!

1. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell
2. You should see a Value by the name of HasKeyboard. If you don’t see this, switch from KEYS to VALUES and it should display.
3. Change the value data in HasKeyboard to reflect your preference. Setting it to 1 will show letters and setting it to 0 will show numbers.
4. Save your changes and your done. No rebooting required.

Changing the Media Net and Cellular Video Buttons on the BlackJack II

A little while back I spent some time looking around for a way to change the destination for the AT&T Media Net dedicated button on my BlackJack II. There was a couple different solutions but they all seemed to be way to complicated or involved unnecessary executables that would reside in memory on the device. So after a short browse around the device, I’ve figured out how to modify the Media Net button along with the Cellular Video buttons on the BlackJack II. There’s no registry editing required, and no need to download a third party application that will intercept your key press’s and then launch the application or link of your choice.

The following steps outline how to change the Media Net button.

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Change the Maximum Size for Ringtones

I’ve never had a problem loading my ringtones onto my Windows Mobile devices. Typically I use files that a small and sharp so they can easily grab your attention. Recently I was point to some free ringtones being offered by Cisco (Thanks Clinton!) and I thought I would give them a try. Only problem was that they don’t show up in the list of ringtones available on the device. I know that they have been put in the right folder as all the other sounds I have loaded the device with are displayed just fine.

The problem is that there is a limit on the maximum file size for ringtones. I would imagine that this is done to prevent the phone from having to load a 10MB MP3 every time there was an incoming phone call. I can understand that, but at the same time the 307200 bytes just doesn’t seem like enough. Especially since these Cisco ringtones started at 450+KB.

Thankfully the solution isn’t a hard one. Simply modify a registry setting and away you go. Best of all, you don’t have to restart your phone after making this change. Grab your favourite registry editor and you’ll be off and running in no time. For people that like to work from their desktop, I would suggest a tool like SOTI’s Pocket Controller. Otherwise, grab PHM registry editor and you can modify this setting directly from the device.

1. Browse to HKEY_Current_User / ControlPanel / Sounds
2. Under the Sounds key, you should see a value by the name of FileSizeLimit
3. Highlight the FileSizeLimit value and edit it
4. The default Value Data for this value is 307200 – at least that’s what I see on my BlackJack. Change this to a value that better suits your needs. I would recommend a reasonable amount as you don’t want to use all system resources to load up your ringtone. I would think that 807200 would be a reasonable size for most people.
5. Save your changes and you should now be able to select those larger files as your ringtones.