Shola's Home Gadgets

Here is a real gadget of mine, and to prove it, I can reveal I haven't used it more than twice in 2005.

Do you know what it is, and why I've got it?

It is a Yaesu FT-817 qrp transceiver and I got it to pursue my amateur radio hobby.



The japanese are well known for their electronic products, and this gadget is a testament to the fine engineering from the country, a multi band HF, VHF and UHF radio packed with many bells and whistles in such a small package.

I hope you all have a nice Christmas, and get lots of nice gadgets and toys for presents.

I got my wife a Sandisk 1GB MP3 player, so I might give you a review if I get an opportunity to play with it.

This post is mainly aimed at those who might need to send the odd email from their Sony Ericsson K750i phone or those who want to do some moblogging. While I will give a step by step guide on setting up email on Sony Ericsson's K750i, you should be able to use the information here to figure it out for you own mobile phone.

Why would you want to send emails from you mobile phone?
Well it allows you to send more text than a SMS message and you only get charged once no matter how long the message, you can send attachments, it can be cheaper than MMS, and is idea for moblogging.



What is required?
You will need your Sony Ericsson K750i or any mobile phone that has email functionality, this doesn't have to be a Pocket PC, Smartphone, just one that has an email client, many of the lower end mobile phones currently on the market now have this. You also need a connection to a mobile phone provider that supports internet access via GSM or GPRS.

Before I show you how to configure email to work on the SE K750i, a quick introduction on how email works.

For an email to be sent successfully from one point to the other, you need the following.

An email client (software installed on a PC, mobile phone, this composes the email and hands the message to the smtp server), a network connection between the email client and a smtp server (the smtp server acts a messenger and relays the message to the email server of the recipient). You will need details of the smtp server to configure your email client, this will either be provided by your mobile phone network if they provide this service (Virgin Mobile don't), you can pay for a smtp service from a 3rd party (ISP) or if you have the knowhow provide your own smtp server. Due to the increasing problem of spam, anyone providing a smtp server will either require you to send emails to the server from their network or ask you provide a username and password before allowing you to send.

Sending Email from a Sony Ericsson K750i using Virgin Mobile Network

Once you have your phone connected to Virgin's network and can make phone calls you need to visit Virgin's phone settings website page to configure your phone.
Here you can get MMS, WAP and Enhanced WAP settings sent directly to your phone. If you have a different Sony Ericsson model, or use a different network provider, visit Sony Ericsson's phone setup page where you can get the settings sent directly to your phone. Other phone manufactures have similar facilities, so visit their website and check their support section for details of how these can be sent to your phone.
With the appropriate settings sent to your phone, make sure you press the OK button when asked if you want to install the settings on your phone.

sony ericsson k750i manual email settings

On the Sony Ericsson Phone, press the menu button, choose messaging (envelope), scroll down to email and press select.
In email scroll down to settings (quicker if you scroll up), press select, scroll to account settings, select, and add new account (you can call the name anything you like).
Select connect using, and choose Virgin WAP for standard WAP (this uses your inclusive airtime minutes) or Virgin Enhanced (this uses the GPRS network and is currently charged at 0.5p per Kb). I use standard WAP, but will use GPRS when I go aboard as the cost is still the same (0.5p per KB).
Under Protocol leave as POP3, only change to IMAP4 if you know what it means.
Incoming Server Enter here the name of the mail server from which you will be downloading your mobile mail. Since Virgin does not support mobile mail, you will have to use a 3rd party mailserver, e.g. one from your ISP. Don't use the server you use at home for normal email, unless you want to download these to your mobile phone (this could be very costly if you get a lot of email/spam or large attachments).
Incoming port Leave as 110.
Encryption Leave default non.
Mailbox Enter here the username as supplied by your ISP/Network provider.
Password As supplied with username.
Outgoing Server This is the smtp server that you will use to send outgoing mail. Due to spam issues, you will need to use either your private one or one supplied by an ISP that supports send after POP3 authentication. No other form of smtp authentication will work with the Sony Ericsson K750i, as the supplied software doesn't support (someone correct me if I'm wrong) smtp authentication. I use my own private smtp server installed at home connected to a broadband line.
Outgoing port This is normally 25, but I have changed it to a different number to prevent my private smtp server at home from being used as a spam relay.
Email Address Enter the email address you want all emails from your mobile phone to be sent from. If you want to see replies on your mobile, then this will be the address supplied by your ISP/Network provider as above (mailbox).
Download I have this set as Headers & Text since I don't get any emails sent to my mobile address. To reduce cost if you get a lot of emails on your mobile address, you can change to headers only, this will give you basic information like sender, date/time and subject.
From Name I set this to Shola Mobile, you can put any name you want.
Signature You can put here any text you want added to the bottom of all emails sent, e.g. mobile phone number, text to indicate email was sent from mobile etc.
Copy Outgoing I have this sent to off, as I'm not sure what it does (copies of sent email are still left in sent emails folder).
Check Interval I have this off, but if you need to automatically check for emails, set to the required time interval (again be careful as this could run up a bill).



Once finished, select Done. You should now have configured a data connection with the correct email settings. Press back button twice to return to the Email menu. Scroll to Write New where you can compose a test email and send. If everything works you should see the phone dial (WAP) or just connect, find the server and send the email.
If you have problems, double check the email settings, the important ones are incoming server, incoming port, mailbox, password, outgoing server, outgoing port. If the problem is you can receive but unable to send, then check out going settings, if you can send without receiving check incoming settings. If you get server not found, then either your WAP connections are not working or setup properly, or one of the settings are not correct, you can get the settings resent and try again.

I hope this information is of use to someone with their Sony Ericsson K750i, let me know if you have any problems, corrections or comments.