Just bought a Dell Inspiron 1121 (11z / M101z) and want to know how to upgrade the memory or hard drive?  Unlike a few netbooks from the Dell Mini line, it’s quite simple on the 1121 and all you need are a couple of screw drivers and about 10 minutes – keep on reading to learn how!

Video Guide:

Text Guide

First off, Dell has an illustrated guide on how to access the memory and hard drive here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1121/sm/index.htm.   I’d suggest using that to supplement my guide (it’s what I used!) if you have any questions.

Upgrading the memory:

1.  Remove the battery, unscrew the memory door screw, and remove the memory door itself:

2.  Push the clips on either side of each of the memory sticks and the memory stick should pop up a bit. Then simply pull/wiggle them out. 

To put the memory back in, simply push them back into place (you know it’s all the way in when you cannot, or barely, see the gold contacts of the memory stick), and push it down into the clips.  Screw back on the memory door and you’re done upgrading the memory!

Upgrading the hard drive:

1)  To gain access to the hard drive, you must first remove the keyboard.  To do this, start by removing these three screws on the bottom:

2)  Now we need to start pulling the keyboard out.  The easiest way to start this is by using a screw driver (or any other small tipped object), and push the keyboard out through one of the screw holes you just worked with and grab it from the other side when it’s pushed out a bit:

3) With your finger holding a corner of the keyboard out, proceed by sliding your finger to the other side and getting the other corner loose. 

It’s important to note that there are 4 clips holding the keyboard in at this point (and 5 tabs at the bottom):

You can probably just pull up on the keyboard to get the two top tabs (red) loose, but you may need to use a credit card to put in between the keyboard and the chassis to get the bottom two clips loose:

4)  With all 4 clips overcome, slide the keyboard up towards the screen a bit (to clear the bottom 5 tabs) and flip the keyboard over the palm rest.  Note, don’t pull the keyboard too far away from the computer as it is still attached via a ribbon cable:

5) At this point, you could remove the hard drive as is, but I think it’s better to remove the keyboard entirely (just so you have less chance of pulling the keyboard out and damaging the cable).  All you need to do is flip up the tab holding the cable to the motherboard (the black part of the tab is hinged to the white part, so with minimal force, just pull it (rotate it) up and to the left – watch the video if you are unsure – and the cable will be free):

6)  With the keyboard completely removed, all you need to do is remove the two screws securing the hard drive in place and pull it to the right, then out:

7) From here, just simply remove the 2 screws on either side securing the drive to the drive caddy, replace it with your new hard drive, and screw it back in:

8)  Place the hard drive and caddy back in it’s place, slide to the left, put back in the two hard drive screws.  Then, place the keyboard upside down on the palm wrest, flip the ribbon cable upside down so you see the white line,

place the ribbon back in the connector, and rotate the latch closed:

9) Almost done – flip the keyboard around and start with making sure the tabs slide under the chassis, press on the keyboard around where the 4 clips are, replace the 3 screws underneath, and you’re done!

And there you have it – relatively quick and painless to upgrade the memory and hard drive.  If you’re looking for come memory upgrades, here are a few options:

Any thoughts to make this easier or want to know how to dismantle or upgrade any other part of this laptop?  Let me know in the comments!

However, that’s when I came across http://joel.thegoodmanblog.com and found that you can simply put the bios files on a bootable USB drive and update the bios that way.   However, I had a bit of trouble finding the correct boot files so I figured I’d elaborate on his post in case anyone else has any troubles:

1. Download the following:
   • Latest bios from www.foxconnsupport.com (943F1P06 is the latest as of 2 Dec 2011) and extract it,
   • Windows 98 System Files (for creating a dos bootable USB drive) and extract it,
   • HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (which allows you to use the win98 boot files to create a bootable USB drive that will get you to a dos prompt to run the bios update) and install it




2. Insert your USB drive (or SD card, etc) and run the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.  Note that you may get a permissions error:
   
   To get around this, right click and Run as Administrator:
   




3. In the HP tool: select your USB drive (A),
   choose FAT32 (B),
   check “Quick Format”, “Create a DOS startup disk”, and browse to where you extracted the Win98 System Files (C),
   click Start (D),
   and click Yes (E)
   




4. With that done, you now have a bootable USB drive (if you have hidden/protected files visible, you should see “COMMAND.COM”, “IO.SYS”, and “MSDOS.SYS”):
   
   What you want to do now is copy over the extracted files from the bios zip (you only need the .ROM file, AFUDOS.EXE, and DOSFLASH.BAT):
   

5. Safely remove the flash drive from your computer, plug it into your Foxconn, and boot it up.  While it’s booting up, press F11 to bring up the boot options and select your flash drive.  You should then be presented with a Windows 98 boot screen for a second and then be at a command prompt.

   From here, you want to type in ‘dosflash.bat’ and then press enter:
   

6. The bios updater should do the rest automatically (calling afudos with the required parameters) and once it’s done, you should be presented with a “CMOS checksum destroyed” and “Program ended normally”:
   
7. Almost done – now you’ll want to reboot (and remove the flash drive).  During the first reboot, you’ll get a message saying “CMOS Checksum Bad” and you’ll want to press F2 to load the defaults – otherwise, things like not being able to specify the sleep mode will not be possible (not sure why, but just do it!):
   

And that’s it – you’ve just flashed the bios!  (thanks again to joel.thegoodmanblog.com!)

Want to enable voice calling on your AT&T Samsung Galaxy Tab?  All you need to do is download a few files and run through a few hoops and you’ll be good to go.  All credit to figuring this out goes completely to clubtech over at XDA – I simply just took a few screenshots to make a slightly easier step-by-step guide:

1. Download the necessary files and extract them:
   • firmware P1000XWJJ4 (password: samfirmware.com)
   • firmware P1000XXJK5 (password: samfirmware.com)
   • Odin 1.3
   • modem_bell_i9000 (you’ll need to register for a free account at xda-developers.com if you don’t already have one)
2. Turn off the tab, plug it in via USB, and press and hold the Volume Down button then press and hold the Power Button until you are in download mode (once in download mode, release the buttons):
   
3. Run Odin and make sure you see the port number listed in yellow on the top (in my case, “0:[COM8]”):
   
4. Check “Re-Partition”, “Auto Reboot”, and “F. Reset Time”.  Then, load in the various extracted JJ4 (the Russian ROM) files for PIT, PDA, PHONE, and CSC:
   
   1. PIT:  P1_add_hidden.pit
   2. PDA:  P1000XWJJ4-REV03-ALL-CL639474.tar.md5
   3. PHONE:  MODEM_P1000XXJID.tar.md5
   4. CSC:  GT-P1000-CSC-SERJJ2.tar.md5
       
5. Now click start.  It will take a few minutes to flash the files, during which, you’ll see a progress bar on the tab itself:
   

   as well as some text output within Odin:
   

6. Once it’s done flashing, you’ll hopefully have a green success notification in Odin:
   

   and your tab will have restarted and now be in Russian:
   

7. Turn off the tab again (press the power button, select the last option, then the left option):
   
   and restart in download mode again (hold the Volume Button and Power Button):
   
8. Now, either open Odin again (if you closed it), or click Reset.  If you do not have a Yellow Port number displayed like in 4 above – close Odin, unplug and re-plugin the tab, and open Odin again.  Uncheck “re-partition” and check “Auto Reboot” and “F. Reset Time”.  Click on PDA and load the JK5 file (P1000OXAJK5.tar) and click Start:
   
9. As before with the JJ4, you’ll hopefully have a green PASS notification in Odin:
   
   and your Tab should restart (in English) and be able to make voice calls!:
   
    
10. At this point, however, it’s possible that HSDPA is no longer enabled.  If you know you are in a HSDPA area and you can’t seem to get HSDPA speeds or the HSDPA icon, you’ll want to flash the canada bell radio bin by following the same procedure above for JK5 (reboot into download mode, uncheck re-partition), only this time loading in the modem_bell_i9000 file for PHONE (modem.bin):
    

If all went well, you should now be able to make calls and use data on your AT&T Samsung Galaxy Tab!  Again, total credit goes to clubtech over at XDA for figuring this out, thanks clubtech!

Taking a screenshot on the Eee Pad Transformer is simple and requires no additional software.  To take one, follow the below steps:

1. Tap on the Apps button on the top right corner of the homescreen:
   
2. Open up Settings:
   
3. Click on Screen and then check the box next to “Screenshot:  Capture screenshots by holding the Recent Apps Key”:
   
4. Now, whenever you want to take a screen shot, simply hold the “recent apps key” for a second or two (it’s the double rectangle button on the bottom left of the screen):
   
5. Once a screenshot is taken, you’ll get a message asking to stay in screenshot mode (as well as a message letting you know the Screenshot is saved).  Select Yes to continue being able to take screenshots (if you select no, you’ll have to run through the above steps to re-enable screenshots):
   
6. All screenshots will be saved in the /mnt/sdcard/Screenshots directory:

The easiest way to retrieve the screenshots is probably by emailing them to yourself directly from the tablet, or by plugging the Transformer into your computer and copy them off directly:

That’s it!

Tools required:

All you need are some mini screw drivers and a plastic scribe (I used a credit card) for prying parts of the case apart.  

Note:  While following either the video or picture guide, it’s a good idea to also follow the Dell Service Manual (it’s what I followed to make these guides!)

How-to video:

As with the 1012, here is a video guide to dismantling the 1018.  For just upgrading the memory, it’s similar to the 1012 except there is no memory access door under the keyboard;  you have to go one step further and remove the palm rest as well.

and of course, re-assembling it:

Picture guide:

And for those of you who want a picture guide, here you go (unfortunately, I forgot to take actual pictures when taking the video, so all the images below are video screen grabs, so the quality isn’t perfect):

1)  Press out the two tabs holding the battery in, remove it, and unscrew the three screws holding the keyboard in:

2)  Flip the laptop on it’s side and stick a screw driver in one of the keyboard holes to push the keyboard out a bit.  This will allow you to pry out the keyboard:

With your finger under the keyboard, use the rest of your hand to grab the keyboard, rotate it towards the palm rest as though there was a hinge at the bottom while breaking free of the two clips on the left and right. Pull it toward the screen about half an inch, and flip it upside down on the palm rest (note that it is attached to the motherboard via a ribbon cable, so don’t pull it too far away from the laptop yet). 

Now you just need to push out the two grey tabs securing the keyboard cable to the motherboard and then remove the keyboard:

3)  Remove the single screw holding the hard drive in, pull it to the left using the pull tab, and lift it out.  (If you want to replace the hard drive, remove the 2 screws on either side and replace it). 

4)  Prepare the palm rest for removal.  Start by flipping the laptop over and remove the 3 bottom screws holding it down:

Then, flip it back over, open the screen, and remove the touchpad cable by flipping up the latch securing it to the mother board and pull the cable out:

Next, unplug the power button cable by simply pulling it out.  If you can, grab the actual plastic piece of the connector, but if not, you should be fine just pulling on the wires or the sticker tab:
 

Last thing to do is to remove the top 3 final screws holding down the palm rest:

5)  Pry off the palm rest.  Start out by using your finger to pry it apart starting on the left, inner part (I’ve found it to be the easiest place to start).  Once you get one of the clips loose here, you can use a credit card to break free of the clips all around the left, bottom, and right side:

With the left, bottom, and right loose, you basically just lift it up from the bottom until it breaks free from the screen hinge area.  It may seem like it’s going to snap in half, but as long as you removed all the screws and such, you should be fine!

6)  Upgrade the memory.  You now have access to the memory slot – if you want to upgrade it (max 2gb ddr3 stick), simple push out the two tabs and the stick will pop up – pull it out and put in your new stick and you’re good to go! (note, this takes DDR3 memory and not DDR2 like all the previous Dell Mini 10v’s)

If you are looking for some DDR3 memory, here are a few cheap options from Amazon.com that would work:

7)  Disconnect the display and Wi-Fi cables in order to remove the screen.  Start by using a screw driver or your finger nails and push the edges of the display cable towards the display until the cable is unplugged:

Next, remove the white (left) and black (right) wifi cables by simply pulling them off, and then un-route the cable all the way to the display hinge:

8)  Remove the middle cover and the back display screw.  Start out by flipping the laptop over and remove the two screws securing the middle cover:

Then, using a plastic scribe (or, if you don’t have something similar, use a screw driver – but it may rip up the chassis a bit) and pry up the middle cover just enough to slide your credit card (or similar) in to release all the clips and pull off the cover. 

With the cover removed, remove the single rear display screw:

9)  Remove the display assembly.  There are two final screws holding the display to the chassis.  While removing these screws, be sure to hold onto the screen so it doesn’t pop out in the process of removing said screws:

10)  Remove the display bezel.  Pry off the two sticky, rubber screw covers and then remove the screws underneath:

Now, start to pry off the top part of the bezel by prying from the inside while being careful not to put too much pressure on the screen itself.  There isn’t much to explain about how to do this other than basically try to rip it off, haha – with any luck, you won’t break any of the clips and everything will be fine:

From here, remove the four screws securing the screen to the bottom bezel.  With them removed, start to pull the the display away – there may be some sticky tape on the underside, so be aware when removing:

Before you completely pull the screen away from the bottom bezel, you’ll need to pull free the webcam cable.  Just simply grab it from the wire and gently pull it free:

12)  If you want to keep going, you can remove the 2 screws (4 total) on either side of the screen for the brackets, and simply pull off the ribbon cable on the back, in order to free the actual display from everything.

To put it back together now, simply follow this guide in reverse! 

That’s it!  Let us know how your dismantling, upgrading, and/or reassembling goes in the comments! 

I recently wrote a post about how to unlock the Dell Streak using a Rebel Simcard II – however – there ended up being a few issues where it would regularly loose connection, not be able to work on 3G, and a few other problems.   However, there have been some recent updates and new solutions that RebelSim have come out with that now allow you to either have a full unlock solution using the latest firmware of their Rebel Simcard II – or – you can pay for their factory unlocking service by sending them your phone and having them extract the factory unlock code and permanently unlock it.

Version 1.2 firmware of the Rebel Simcard II

As mentioned above, after I posted about using the Rebel Simcard II to unlock the Streak, a bunch of people commented about issues they were having with it.  I apparently didn’t test it very much and was soon able to reproduce the issues such as 3G not working, having it eventually be unable to connect to any network, and also needing to have data roaming enabled at all times.  

However, the Rebel Simcard team followed up by releasing an updated firmware (direct link for v1.2) for the Rebel Simcard II which corrected all the above issues.  (this latest firmware is also supposed to work to unlock any HTC, Windows Mobile, or Palm WebOS phone)

Being not too far away from the Rebel Simcard office, I ended up actually meeting with them in person and brought a couple of my simcards and tested them to see if the new firmware actually worked!  Results? It actually works!

Another neat side feature of the Rebel Simcard is that it also allows auto-population of the APN settings (data).  As shown in the video, I had the data settings setup for a T-Mobile UK sim and once I inserted the Orange UK sim (with the Rebel Simcard II of course) and turned it on, the phone was able to pull in the Orange APN settings and I was able to use data straight away. Note, however, that the auto APN settings may not always work – for example, when I put in my Tesco or GiffGaff sim, it pulls in the APN settings for O2, presumably because both of those carriers are simply MVNOs (reseller) of O2 so I guess they have the same network identification when pulling the APN settings. 

If you already have a Rebel Simcard II with the older firmware (v1.1 or older), you can order one of their sim card programmers and update the firmware yourself, or if you don’t want to wait for it to be sent to you, you should be able to use any generic sim card reader such as the Sweex Multi Sim and Card reader at Maplin.  (I actually bought this myself when I accidently crushed my programmer from Rebel Sim. I didn’t want to wait for a new rebel programmer, so I bought this one and it seems to work just fine).  With your sim card + rebel sim card plugged into the reader, simply fire up their programming software and load in the latest firmware.

They have a video on how to update the firmware here in case you get lost:

Factory unlock via post (mail in to them):

The RebelSim team have also been able to create a factory unlocking service where they are able to extract the factory unlock code from your phone and be able to permanently unlock it (in other words, make it a SIM free phone.  No more need for a Rebel Simcard II if you don’t want to rely on it).   For now at least, you need to actually send your phone to them in the UK to extract the unlock code, so you would be without your phone for a few days.  However, if you don’t mind shelling out the cash, it seems to be the best, and currently only, way to get your Dell Streak factory unlocked (without actually buying it SIM free to begin with or having the US ATT locked version and are lucky enough to have them provide you with the unlock code):

For anyone who is apprehensive about sending them your phone, I can personally vouch for them and can say that you should be able to rest assured that you will indeed get your phone back, unlocked, and in one piece.  I have actually been to their offices and they are definitely passionate about what they do here with the RebelSim (and their other products) and they are committed to offering a top notch product/service. 

And no, I am not getting any sort of kick back from them with this particular post (except for maybe some search result traffic, haha).  I simply want to get the word out that they are legit and genuinely enjoy what they do and want to provide a good product!  I originally found out about them when I first bought my Streak a few months back and started searching for unlock solutions, which is how I found out about the Rebel Simcard.  After I tried the Rebel Simcard and created a review about unlocking the Dell Streak, I ended up getting in contact with them and started playing around with a few of their other products and services.  After talking with them back and fourth and mentioning issues I and others were having with the Dell Streak and their Rebel Simcard II, I ended up meeting them at their office to test their latest version of the firmware (as mentioned above).  They explained that they were working on an updated solution as soon as they found out about the issues and released the update as soon as they could.  I was able to meet with them and brought my own simcards to test out their latest version and everything worked as expected.  I would have no problem sending them my phone to be unlocked (if I had the money and still had a Dell Streak haha). 

So until they, or someone else, comes out with a remote unlocking service, go get your Dell Streak unlocking with Rebel Sim!

——————

Do you have a Dell Streak and have done their postal factory unlock or updated your Rebel Simcard II to the latest firmware?  Let us know in the comments how it worked out!

Since the original post on how to use Gizmo5 for free calls with Google Voice, many things have changed so I figured that guide could use a bit of an update. When the integration of Google Voice and Gizmo first came about, Google Voice was still in beta and invite only, you could openly register for a Gizmo5 account, and you were able to combine the two to have free unlimited incoming and outgoing calls.  Now, however, Google Voice is open to everyone (in the US), Google acquired Gizmo5 and closed new registrations, and while their combination still allows free unlimited incoming calls, it now has a 3 minute limit for free outgoing calls.

note: outgoing calls here means calls made directly from Gizmo5, or any SIP or ATA device using Gizmo5 servers, when integrated with Google Voice.  You can still, and have always been able to, make free unlimited “outgoing” calls using Google Voice when you start the call from Google Voice’s (or Gmail’s) web interface and have it call a phone of your choice to connect the call (which is the normal way to use Google Voice for outgoing calls)

So what?

You can also configure a softphone to work with it as well, or have your GV calls forwarded to Skype or a different SIP (like Gizmo5) provider. 

So how do I actually get Google Voice to work with Gizmo5?

Just to warn you now, it sometimes can be a bit temperamental to get the initial setup working (during the GV phone verification stage, but I will explain shortly) – that being said, here’s how you do it:

• What you need before you begin: 

  – You must already have a Gizmo5 account.  As mentioned earlier, new registrations are closed (though, there appear to be a few Gizmo5 accounts on eBay – however, proceed at your own risk with those). 

  – If you don’t already have a Google (Voice) account, get one. 

  – If you want to use a landline phone, you will need an ATA device.  Some popular ones are the Linksys PAP2, PAP2-NA, SPA1001 (most of which you can find on Amazon or eBay).  If you want to use your iPhone, I highly recommend Softphone by Acrobits (yes, it’s $8, but totally worth it) or you could also try Fring or Siphon if you are jailbroken.  Then there’s Sipdroid for Android phones.  And if you want to use a softphone on your computer, X-Lite is always a good choice.

• Login to your Gizmo5 account to figure out what your Sip Number is.  As soon as you login, you can find your Sip Number near the top of the page under “Account Overview”:
  
• Head over to Google Voice (and login) and click Settings near the top right and select “Voice settings”.  You should then be brought to the “Phones” settings tab:
  
• From here, click on Add another phone at the bottom:
  
• Enter a Name you want to call it, your 10-digit Sip number from earlier, select “Gizmo” as the phone type, and then click Save.
  
  Once you click save, a “Verify your Phone” window will pop up.  What this will do when you click Connect (don’t click it yet) is call your Gizmo5 number and you will need to enter the code shown to you in the box.  Google Voice needs to make sure that you actually have access to this forwarding number (so, for example, you don’t have calls start forwarding randomly to someone else’s number).  Again, don’t click connect quite yet…
• What we need to do now is setup a phone in order to answer the GV verification call and enter in the 2 digit code.  To do this, the easiest way will probably be to go Gizmo5’s web based phone at http://www.gizmocall.com and login using your Gizmo5 credentials. 
  

  (Once you login, you may get an Adobe message asking you to to enable hardware acceleration, go ahead and check the box and click close). At this point, it may be easier to click the “Open in separate window” link so you can have the phone window within view when you click the “Connect” button on the “Verify your Phone” window from earlier (you’ll have to log back into GizmoCall and the adobe message may pop up again):
  

• Warning – this next part is where it can be a bit temperamental.  As others have experienced (including my self once or twice), you may need to try to connect a few times before the GizmoPhone actually gets the call, and sometimes entering in the verification code doesn’t work.  All I can say is that if this happens to you, keep trying… (though, the last few times I’ve done this over the past couple weeks, I haven’t had any issues)

  You are now ready to click the connect button.  Once you click connect, it will show a message about verifying your phone,
   
  and you should receive the call on your GizmoCall phone.  When you click Accept, you may get Flash prompt asking to grant microphone and camera access to the GizmoPhone.  You’ll want to click allow and this will likely cause the call to disconnect before you have a chance to enter in the code:
  
  Don’t worry, simply go back to Google Voice and click on the “verify” link next to your Gizmo5 phone entry:
   

• You will be back at the “Verify your Phone” window with the “Connect” button.  Click connect again, answer the call on your GizmoCall phone, and click on the 2 digits.   You should hear the Google Voice lady say your phone was verified, and shortly the Verify your Phone window should disappear and your Gizmo5 number should be verified:
   
• Done!  Google Voice will now be able to use your Gizmo5 account as one of the numbers to forward incoming calls to.   At this point, you can now either use the Gizmo5 desktop app or the GizmoCall web app you used earlier to receive unlimited incoming calls or directly place up to 3 free minutes of out going calls.

How do I setup my phone/device to use the GV & G5 combo?

Now with the two happily married, the key to getting any ATA device, softphone, or Sip phone to work is by knowing the Gizmo5 SIP/server settings which are:

• SIP Proxy (or “server” or “proxy”):  proxy01.sipphone.com:5060
• STUN server:  stun01.sipphone.com:3478
• Username (or “Auth ID” or “User ID”):  your 11 digit Gizmo5 Sip Number
• Password:  your Gizmo5 password used when logging in

Here are a few device specific setup guides:

• Linksys/Sipura SPA1001, PAP2, PAP2t-NA, PAP2-NA (they’re all basically the same): Log into it by typing in the IP address in your browser (if you don’t know it, you can plug in a landline phone, dial **** and then 110# and the IP address will be spoken to you).

  Click on Admin on the top right, and then click the Line 1 tab.  From here, edit the following settings:
  *  Proxy:  proxy01.sipphone.com
  *  Display name, User ID, and Auth ID:  your 11 digit Gizmo5 Sip number
  *  Password:  your Gizmo5 password
  *  Use Auth ID and Register:  yes
  

• Softphone (by Acrobits) iPhone App:  I’ve got to hand it to Acrobits for making it so easy to use with many VoIP/SIP providers.  With the app running, tap Settings –> Sip Accounts –> the + on the top right –> choose Gizmo5:
  *  Username:  your 11 digit Sip Number
  *  Password:  your Gizmo5 password
   
• X-Lite:  one of the better, free desktop (windows/mac) softphones available.   Open up X-lite, right click on the “display” and select “SIP Account Settings…” and then Add.  From here, enter in the Gizmo5 settings mentioned earlier and pictured below:
  

And that’s it — you now have a working Google Voice and Gizmo5 solution!   Remember, you can receive unlimited incoming minutes but are limited to 3 minutes of calling when you make calls from one of these devices connected with Gizmo5.  However, if you start the call from Gmail/Google Voice and select your Gizmo5 number (and answer your connected device when it rings), it will be an unlimited call just as if you had it ring your cell phone, or other phone. 

Would you like to call internationally from your mobile phone without having to pay the high per minute rates from your cell carrier or manually having to use a calling card and remembering to actually use the card in the first place?  Using the RebelSim Dialer Call through SIM, you can have your phone automatically intercept outgoing international calls to instead first dial your calling card access number, send the number you actually dialed, and ultimately connect your call at a cheaper rate (calling card rate + local minute rate from your carrier as opposed to international rate from your carrier).

What is it and how does it work?

What this device essentially allows you to do is have outgoing calls that start with either 00 (international), 1, or just 0 be automatically dialed through a calling card or VoIP access number instead of direct.   This paper thin device actually fits between your SIM card and your phone in order to “capture” what you are dialing, then dials the access number first when necessary:

Usually, when dialing internationally direct from your mobile phone, you will be charged fairly high rates per minute from your carrier such as £1.45/min calling from Tesco UK to US or $1.49/min calling from AT&T US to UK.  Then, of course, you have local calls which will either be part your monthly minute plan or generally a much cheaper per minute rate.    

With international calls, you can traditionally get around these higher rates by using a calling card with a local access number that you can call as a "local number" from your cell phone (UK landline numbers if you live in the UK or any US number if you live in the US).  Then, dial the international number through your calling card and get charged "local minute rates" from your cell carrier plus whatever international rates you get from your calling card.  

For example, say I wanted to call home to the states from my mobile phone in the UK.  Normally I would dial 001 999 999 9999, with the "00" meaning international, "1" meaning the states, followed by the number.  With my particular cell carrier (Tesco), this would cost me £1.45 per minute, but with my calling card, it would cost me £0.01 per minute – quite a big difference! Using the Rebel Sim Call through SIM, it will see that the number starts with 00 and it will instead dial the access number for my calling card when I press send to dial that international number.  Once the phone has dialed my card’s access number, it is then able to automatically send the digits (via DTMF*) of the number I actually dialed thus completing the international call via my calling card as opposed to directly from my mobile carrier.  My call will now cost £0.01 per minute plus minutes from my monthly minute plan as opposed to £1.45p per minute. 

(* less technical explanation:  Think about how you normally use a calling card. You call the calling card number, it prompts you for the number you want to call, and then it connects the call.  The RebelSim Call through SIM automates this process by “seeing” that you dialed 00, then dialing the calling card number, pauses, and then dials the original out going number)

How to setup:

• First off, this won’t work if you are using a micro SIM – sorry iPhone 4 users – because the RebelSim is of “normal” SIM size, but it will work for any phone that uses a normal size SIM.  Also, the latest (v2) firmware also does not support entering an ID or pin number, so you’ll need a provider that works by caller ID (you call the access number, and it recognizes your caller ID for authentication for your account); that being said, v2.1 will be released soon which will allow the use of an ID/pin, as well as additional configuration options than the ones discussed later on below.
• What you have to do first is punch a “hole puncher” size hole in the top plastic part of your SIM card. This is for the chip on the Rebel Sim Call through SIM to fit in between your phone and your normal SIM (you can either buy a RebelSim cutter, or use your own hole puncher).  Don’t worry, it’s just plastic on the top of your SIM card – it won’t damage anything and you can still use it even if you are not using the RebelSim.

• Then, of course, you need to put them in your phone.  The manual suggests putting the Rebel SIM in first, then sliding your normal SIM in on top of it – I’ve found it easier at times to just put them in together at the same time, but I suppose it’s just a matter of how easy/hard it is to access your SIM slot
  
• Next, you’ll need to have a calling card or VoIP service that has an access number.  Any calling card has an access number, as that’s how they’re setup to work, but not all VoIP providers have one.  Personally, I use a VoIP provider as they usually don’t charge connection fees, their rates are easy to understand, and they can be used with a SIP/Soft phone as well.   I personally use VoipFone (rates and access numbers) as they allow pin-less usage but there are plenty of others such as Call Centric (rates and access numbers) if you are in the States and  VoipTalk (rates and access numbers) in the UK (once v2.1 comes out for the RebelSim Callthrough).

  Note:  which ever calling card or VoIP provider you use must have an access number that doesn’t require you to use a pin since the current firmware of Call Through only supports dialing the access number. 

• And last, you need to add the access number and configure the options on the Rebel Sim.  When you turn on your phone with the RebelSim, you should see a new menu option.  On my Pirelli DP-L10 wifi phone, you can see this on the main menu, with other phones it will probably show up in different locations but either way a new option will appear somewhere and will have the same configuration options/steps:
   

  Select the new RebelSim option and you will be brought to the configuration page with the following options:
    – Disable (don’t use the RebelSim)
    – *Enable (use the RebelSim)
    – Editing Number (edit the access number)
    – Dialing Rules (4 options on when to use the RebelSim: when there is a 00, 1, or 0 in the beginning of the dialed call, or use it always)
    – Dialing Speed (this is basically how fast the number is dialed once the access number is called – I haven’t had an issue using it on “Fast”)
    – Dialing Mode (two options, don’t really know what it means, but ICC2 is said to be needed for the iPhone, and ICC1 works on my Pirelli phone)

  All you should have to mess with here is the Editing Number and Dialing Rules.  Select Editing Number to change the access number and Dialing Rules to determine when the RebelSim should be used.  For my particular usage, I use Dialing Rule “00” to use for international calls and Editing Number “02070990707” as the access number for VoipFone.co.uk.

  Then, dial out!  In the picture below, you can see that I dialed a random international US number (001 770 123 4567), and when I pressed send, you can see that the phone automatically called the access number instead (02070990707):
  Once the call is connected, you hear a dial tone from the speaker (which is VoipFone saying it’s ready for a number to connect to).  After a couple of seconds, the dial tone goes away which is when the RebelSim dials the number I actually entered (you don’t actually hear anything until you hear ringing which means the number you dialed is ringing) – and that’s it, you just made a cheaper international call from your mobile phone.

Final thoughts:

Using the Rebel Sim Callthrough SIM is a great way to make dialing international numbers from your cell phone cheap and easy.  Could you simply remember to dial the access number and skip the use and purchase of the RebelSim?  Yep!  Could you opt to just use a smartphone app to use a data connection and use Voip?  Yep!  That being said, I like the idea of this “working in the background” because I could then give it to a friend, family member, etc and not have to explain to them how to make international calls or have to worry about someone, or myself, accidentally making an expensive £1.45/min call.  

Another useful aspect about this particular Rebel Sim (“Rebel Sim II”) is that you can load 3 different types of firmware on it (providing you have one of their programmers):  the Call Through (v2), Call Back (v3), or their HTC unlocking firmware (v1).  Plus for £7 + shipping (worldwide), it’s not too bad of a deal!

Pros:

• Set it up and forget it approach for cheap international calls from mobile phones
• Cheap
• Will work with any phone that uses regular size SIM cards (the phone can be locked or unlocked, from anywhere in the world, on any carrier, etc)
• Can be repurposed with 3 different firmwares ( one for call through, one for unlocking HTC phones, and the other a different approach for cheap mobile calls)
• Simple to configure

Cons:

• Latest firmware does not allow to use access numbers that require you to enter a PIN or ID number to use (though it can with firmware v2.1, which is to be released soon)
• Can be a bit tricky to sandwich it with your existing SIM card and push into the SIM slot on some phones
• Doesn’t work with micro SIM cards (won’t work with iPhone 4)

Have a locked iPhone but don’t have a SIM card that is associated with the carrier it is locked to to activate?  Using a RebelSimCard iPhone Activation SIM, you can use it to simply bypass the activation screen and in turn be able to access the phone’s features and potentially move on to perform a Spirit jailbreak (though, only on the 3GS and older with 3.1.2 or older at the time of this posting).

Video review:

Written review:

All you need to do is take your non-activated iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, or 4 and leave it unplugged from iTunes

Then, take the activation SIM and place it in the phone (if working with an iPhone 4, you will need to cut it down to a micro-sim if you did not specify RebelSimCard to send you one pre-cut):

Finally, plug the iPhone into iTunes (your computer) and the activation screen will then be bypassed, thus giving you access to the phone:

NOTE:  this does NOT actually active the iPhone, nor does it unlock it.  It only bypasses the activation screen to allow you to use it at least as an iPod Touch (until an unlock is available for iPhone 4 / iOS4 if you are in that situation).   To show this, once I put an O2 sim card in my iPhone 4 (which is locked to O2), I then get an “iPhone is activated” message:

Coupon!

Have you decided to go ahead and buy an iPhone activation SIM from RebelSimCard?  Be sure to use coupon code “jrin” for 10% off your entire order!

Update — 1 July 2010: after a few days using this, and from other people’s reports, it looks like there are issues with the RebelSim II being able to receive/make calls while connected to 3G/HSDPA (as well as connecting to the network in general). However, tt appears to work alright if you keep the phone in 2G (GSM only) mode (see comments below). I will report back when/if any updates occur!

So you just bought a new Dell Streak but you want to use it with a network other than O2 either because you are in the US, UK, or elsewhere, or simply don’t like the O2 network. Unfortunately, there currently is not a software unlock solution available (once one is, I’ll update this post!).  However, you can still use it on other carriers by either A) use the GiffGaff (UK) network or B) use a RebelSim to “bypass” the simlock:

How-To Video:

Either watch the HD below video, or continue on with the written guide afterwards:

Use the GiffGaff network

If you are using, or thinking of using, GiffGaff as a carrier, they are actually powered by the O2 network, so using a GiffGaff SIM will work out of the box (it’s what I am currently using on my Streak).  A quick plug about GiffGaff:

They actually use the O2 network but are a pre-paid network offering “Goody Bag” packages such as £10 for 100min, £15 for 300min, or £35 for Unlimited minutes – and best of all, all three packages come with unlimited data and texts – and since it’s pre-paid, there are NO contracts!   (This of course assumes you like O2’s coverage and data speeds – where I am located, they’re great).

Use a RebelSim

For everyone else (outside the UK, or those not wanting to use O2 or GiffGaff), you can pop over to http://rebelsimcard.com and purchase a HTC Rebel sim II (v1.1) card (currently £9.99/$14.96, plus shipping), combined with whatever sim card you use, to bypass the sim lock on your phone!

Basically, the RebelSimCard is a paper thin PCB with a small chip that is the thickness of a SIM card that acts as a middle man between your phone and the your SIM card (yes, it really is that thin!)

It effectively bypasses the carrier lock on your phone, making your phone “think” the SIM card you are using is for the network that the phone is locked to.  There is only one “physical” modification you have to do and that is to punch a hole in the plastic part of your existing SIM card – meaning – no damage or “tech” modifications are done to your SIM card, only the plastic part which isn’t used by any phone is messed with a bit. 

How do you get the RebelSim to work with the Dell Streak?  First thing is that you have to buy the “HTC” RebelSim as it is the version that will allow the simlock to be bypassed on the Streak.  

You can order it with or without with the “SIM Cutter” tool that RebelSim offers, but it’s not absolutely necessary.  The tool comes with an insert that will guide you to punch the hole in the exact spot for the tiny chip on the RebelSim to fit into

(imagine if I flipped the SIM card on top of the RebelSim in the picture below; the black chip would fit inside the punched hole in the SIM card)

However, this SIM Cutter is basically just a hole puncher (with the ability to put a “SIM card guide plate” into it).  If you happen to have a single hole puncher already, you should be able to just punch a hole in the top-middle of your SIM card yourself and be fine

Now, with your SIM card having a hole punched in it, you want to start by placing the RebelSim on the bottom of it, like so:

Now, carefully slide it into the SIM slot on your Dell Streak.  This can be a bit tricky and frustrating, so take your time and don’t push the SIM card + RebelSim combo in the slot if at any time they come apart or are not flush with each other (you may risk damaging the delicate RebelSim). 

I have found the easiest way for me to do it is to start pushing the bottom-left corner into the SIM slot first – first starting on one of the phone’s SIM contacts and slightly pushing it into the corner, then by pushing (rotating) in the other corner until they are both going in together.  (In the picture below, that corner is probably pushed in a bit too much to actually be able to rotate the other corner in…but just keep trying until it works :)  — it’s hard to explain, so if you are not following, watch the video above)

If you start to push the SIM card in and the RebelSim is not flush with the SIM card, pull it out and try again:

Once you have them going into the SIM slot straight and together, I find it easiest to use another SIM card (or something similarly flat and sturdy) to push them in together at the same time:

Once you’ve got them both all the way in, and the RebelSim isn’t sticking out at all (if it is, remove both and try again!), like so…

…boot up the phone and enjoy your Dell Streak on a non-O2 carrier!

Do you know of a better way to use the Streak on different carrier?  Have you seen a way to sim-unlock the phone?  Let us know in the comments!