Lazybit

The SMSC stands for "SMS center", it is a system that manages the traffic of SMS (texts) in a mobile network. That's the place where the messages are kept for a while if they cannot be delivered instantly to the recipient.

Normally none of us has to be aware of it, because the SMSC is written to the SIM card by the mobile operator, so we don't have to configure anything.

On the file system of the SIM card, the SMS center is stored in EF SMSP (short message service parameters), the full path to the file is 7F10\6F42. The file can be read and updated, if you know PIN1.

The easiest way to change it is with SIM Explorer. It can display the file in a nice, human-readable form.

And if you prefer raw data - you can have that too:

Version 3.1 is about to go public, this story provides details about some of the entries in the changelog.

+ improved SIM card write speed, only updated records are written
+ the .manifest file is now embedded into the program
+ notifications about missing readers can be optionally disabled
+ automatically enable and start the smart card service, if possible
+ detect ActivClient and let people disable it, for it renders the reader unusable
+ gracefully handle AT&T cards that have incomplete USIM phonebooks (no email file)
+ added support for PTT (push to talk) records available on some 3G cards
- fixed the problem of pasting contacts to FDN sections
- addressed issue of a limited number of contacts copied from Google
- Facebook deprecated their contacts API, so the feature is removed

Full story »

If you sell your product on Amazon, you have to keep an eye on your feedback - a comment left by the buyer after the purchase. This article reflects everything I know about this subject, these tips are distilled from personal experience on the Amazon marketplace.

I am not a guru, and if you find anything that is explicitly contradicted by Amazon's documentation - it means that I am wrong, please point that out and I'll update the text.

Seller feedback is very important

• It helps you improve your service - people tell you what's wrong with it;
• People rely on this information when deciding whether to make a purchase or not;
• Amazon uses the feedback, among other things, to determine your product's position in the search results;
• A lot of negative feedback can cause your merchant account to be closed;
• Seller feedback is not the same thing as a product review. The former is shown on the seller's profile page, the latter - on the product page. Both types are important.

To see your seller feedback, log on to Amazon seller central.

The rules are simple

• Keep your average rating above 4.3
• Neutral feedback is not counted as positive, it reduces your rating
• Negative feedback is bad for you, learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them
• Negative feedback can be removed

What you should know about feedback on Amazon

• It can be removed within 60 days after it was published, so react swiftly; if you're late - the negative rating will stay there forever
• Feedback cannot be edited, only removed
• Only the buyer can remove the negative feedback
• Amazon will remove certain types of feedback, but they don't do this unless you ask them to; these cases will be reviewed below

What you must do

• Read the negative feedback, address the problem and make sure it never happens again. Feedback is a great way to see what your flaws are. It is easy to see the buyer as an enemy, but quite often they're just telling the truth.
• Contact the buyer and talk about the problem. If there is a way to solve it - do it. Explain how to deal with the error they ran into, give them a partial refund, etc. The solution varies from case to case, the point is to talk to the person and find a fair way to resolve the conflict.
• Calling is better than emailing. Amazon's internal mailing system is not always effective, some people simply don't read those messages, there is also a chance they will be flagged as spam.
• Be polite and remember that the customer is not an enemy. Think about the conversation before you make that phonecall. Ideally, a person who talks to clients is someone who knows about social engineering and who has read William Ury's "Getting to Yes", "Getting past No" and "The power of a positive No". You can also practice the conversation with a colleague, who will simulate the customer's answers; ideally - you'll have an answer for every case, such that nothing the customer tells you will catch you off guard. Prepare your BATNA too. Remember, the customer who left negative feedback is not your archnemesis.
• If you can't reach the customer, keep trying - call later, leave a voice message, write an email.
• Once you manage to address the problem and the person is happy - ask them to remove their negative feedback.
• If the customer is unreachable, write a response to the feedback. If you can't talk to the person, at least react in such a way that other people who read the negative feedback will see that you tried to deal with it, that the company has people in it - rather than insensitive zombies that read scripts.

If the customer is cooperative and they are willing to remove the feedback, they can do so:

• Go to the Amazon homepage
• Go to Community\Personalization\Seller Feedback Submitted By You
• Find the entry and click Remove

When Amazon removes negative feedback for you

• If the product is fulfilled by Amazon (i.e. they handle the handling and shipping for you) and the comment is about a late or lost package. Obviously, this is not your problem and the feedback is actually about Amazon's modus operandi. It is fair to remove it, and they do so, if you ask them.
• If the comment contains obscene language.
• Or if it reveals personally identifying information.
• If the entire comment is a product review, rather than a seller review. What this means is that negative feedback is not about the speed or quality of delivery, but it focuses on product features or faults.

Amazon won't remove the negative feedback automagically, you have to get in touch with them and ask them to remove the comment, and point out the rationale for the request (one of the reasons above). Do so via the contact seller support section, then click Orders\Customer feedback problems.

Good luck selling!

If you're someone who checks the system logs every now and then, to make sure things are running smooth - you may have noticed some errors related to Private Disk:

The PRVDISKAMD64 service failed to start due to the following error: The system cannot find the file specified.

The program works fine, despite these log entries.  The error is not critical and it has no impact on the program's functionality. But why is it there? And what does it mean?

Private Disk comes with several flavours of drivers - 32-bit and 64-bit. Upon installation, both driver types are registered, but only one of them is successfully loaded by the system.

The other type, which is not compatible with the platform, fails to load - hence the log entry is generated.

In other words, you can simply ignore these notifications.

This behaviour will be changed in the next release, so the system won't bother loading modules that are not designed for it. Until then, here is a simple solution:

1. download Autoruns from Sysinternals
2. run the program and switch to the Drivers tab
3. find the drivers the pubisher of which is Dekart
4. uncheck the versions that do not correspond to your system
5. the new settings will come into effect after a restart

On choosing the entries:

• if you have a 32-bit (x86) system, disable the ones ending with "amd64"
• for 64-bit platforms, disable the other ones (as in the example below)

What the modules mean:

• pdfilter - Disk Firewall, the application-layer access filter;
• prvdisk - virtual disk driver (the thing that makes the encrypted drive show up in My computer as a regular disk);
• prjndl - the disk encryption driver that implements AES-256 in CBC mode, our NIST-certified implementation of it.

The best way to gather detailed troubleshooting information about Windows is the built-in System information tool. It generates a report that contains details about the hardware and software configuration. Here's how it works:

1. Press Start\Run
2. Type msinfo32 and press Enter
3. Once the program is loaded, press File\Save
4. Send the generated NFO file to your geeky friend who knows what to do with it

Here's what the report will contain:

• exact version of Windows and service packs;
• installed software;
• currently running applications;
• start up programs;
• system services and their status;
• hardware and hardware drivers (and their versions);
• partition table (indicating the size and file system of each drive);
• users and user-groups.

What this means:

• The latest version is the most feature-rich SIM card management program
• The 1.x and 2.x branches are not supported anymore and they will not be updated

If you've made up your mind - you can upgrade to SIM Manager 3.

A new version of SIM Manager was released the other day, it brings changes on multiple fronts:

• features
• names
• costs

The 3.x branch is a major step forward, the program will be extended in these directions:

• More online synchronization services will be supported. At the moment SIM Manager can synchronize with Yahoo! Contacts and Google Contacts; it can also retrieve the phonebook from Facebook and write it to the SIM. We'll add new services to this list. The most likely candidates are Microsoft Live and Nokia Ovi - but our priorities will be determined by the feedback we receive from people. So if you are interested in seeing your favourite service in SIM Manager - let us know.
• Other methods of retrieving SMS and address books will be added. The first point in the roadmap is retrieving the data via Bluetooth or infrared, thus you won't need any cables or readers at all.
• SyncML support - so you can synchronize with any online service that relies on SyncML to get its job done.

What happens to the names:

• We decided to ditch the number sufix in the name, because it creates confusion among people (and sometimes among dekarters). There will be no more "SIM Manager 2" and "SIM Manager 1.x".
• SIM Manager is the name that we're keeping, the version number is not a part of the name anymore.
• SIMple is the name we chose for a simplified version of SIM Manager - the one you get for free when you purchase our SIM reader. SIMple is not as feature-rich, it lacks the online synchronization features and it cannot exchange data with other systems; it does only one thing - read and write to the SIM. Of course, this can be more than enough for most of us.
• If you're interested in any of the old versions, you can find them on our FTP archive.

Costs:

• The cost of the program is the same.

• There are three update options:

  • From 1.x to 3.x - USD 13
  • From 2.x to 3.x - USD 3
  • From SIMple to SIM Manager - USD 9.90

  • Secret option 4 out of 3 - get it for free, if you do one of these:

    • become a fan of Dekart on Facebook
    • tweet about us
    • write about us on your site
    • or you can just drop us an email and explain why you deserve the license; we're open to arguments :-)

The latest version, at this point, is 3.0, here's a direct download link - it always points to the latest version.

As I write these lines, we're already done adding some changes to 3.1, which will significantly reduce the amount of time needed to write data to cards.

Stay tuned, and have fun with SIM Manager - the best SIM card management program out there.