Filip Norrgård’s blog @ filips.net
Filip’s blog about mobile technology, tech itself and other stuff

Don’t Install The Vista Bluetooth Update!
12 July 2007 in Root | Comments (2)

This warning goes out to all of you Windows Vista users that use Bluetooth: don’t install the latest IVT Bluetooth Driver update that comes through Windows Update! If you do, then you’re in for a heap of trouble… like I was.

For reasons unkown, Microsoft has pushed out the update driver which only seems to break Bluetooth stacks and implementations. Thankfully, the solution is quite simple:

1. Open Device Manager (using e.g. Start Menu’s search or Control Panel)
2. Expand (if not expanded already) Bluetooth Radio
3. Right click “Wlink Bluetooth Controller“
4. Click Uninstall
5. Check the box for “Delete the driver software for this device“
6. Click OK
7. Now let Windows automatically find the drivers for your Bluetooth radio.

No HID Bluetooth Driver? Then Delete One File

I had problems with getting my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse working after trying to pair them with my computer, so if you are having the same problems, here is how to get it fixed. It seems the INFCACHE.1 file (much too) easily becomes corrupt. The solution is to delete it:

1. Go to %windir%\inf\
2. Find INFCACHE.1 and open Properties
3. In the Security tab, add your username and give yourself full control
4. Now, you should be able to delete INFCACHE.1 — if not, check that your permissions to the file
5. Now try to let Windows automatically find the drivers for your  Bluetooth drivers.

Bluetooth Mouse Driver Problems? No Problem!

If you get problems with the mouse, then you need to find and delete the driver for the CHIC mouse. The message I got was the following:

Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it.
USB Browser Mouse
An error occurred during the installation of the device.
The driver installation file for this device is missing a necessary entry.
This may be because the INF was written for Windows 95 or later. Contact your
hardware vendor. If you know the manufacturer of your device, you can visit its website and
check the support section for driver software.

Do the following:

1. Open Windows Update and click on View Update History on the left side.
2. Find “CHIC - Other Hardware - USB Browser Mouse” and make note of the date. (Mine was from the 16th of February, 2007 — your date will vary.)
3. Again, go to the INF folder: %windir%\inf\
4. Using the date from step 2, filter the files so that only the files from that date are visible and delete them all.
5. Allow Windows to find the proper mouse driver.

Thanks to these sources: [Peter Caplan via Microsoft newsgroups] ["USB Browser Mouse Error" by Kirb.com]

Vaasa, Where The Gasoline Prices Are 1337
11 July 2007 in Fun | Comments (0)

No, I don’t like 1337 sp33k (aka. “leet speek”) much, but seeing how the 95 octane gas price the other day was 1.337 €/liter at Shell Express in Vaasa/Vasa (and for a short while at Teboil Express) I couldn’t help but laugh at the relation. You can just barely see the price (and the last 7, but it is there) in the picture below since the lighting conditoins were all but ideal for my camera of choice.

After thinking about if the cold gasoline station had been compromised by some cracker, I realized that I had to get some gas and proof of the coincidental “phenomenon”. Sadly the picture is a bit blurry since I didn’t have anything else to take the photo with except my cameraphone…