Is your Windows 10 Mobile Insider stucked at "Loading" home screen?

I just use Windows 10 Mobile from Microsoft insider program, which is just beta software of next major mobile operating system from Microsoft. After a few days, my phone starts to get stucked before loading home screen, which just shows "Loading". 

If you experience same issue, you can follow below:

1. Remove any sim card in your phone.

2. Press power button and volume down till it shows Feedback screen. Just press Home, and it will show home screen. Try this for a few times. 

3. You can now try to go to Settings > Devices > About > Reset your phone. This will delete everything in your phone, which I assume it should be OK as you already run beta software.

There is also other instruction on internet, which I have not tried:

1. Power the device off
2. Press the power key once, device will vibrate
3. Immediately press and hold the Volume Down key
4. Exclamation point will appear, release Volume Down key
5. Press these buttons one at a time in this order: Volume Up, Volume Down, Power, Volume Down
6. Device should vibrate, reboot, show the Nokia flash screen, and then go to the spinning gears install screen.

How to reserve your Windows 10 for FREE?

Microsoft has just posted excited announcement that Windows 10 is coming in less than 2 months time, 29 July 2015. Earlier Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will be given for free to upgrade existing Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 machine.

It is simple to reserve a free upgrade copy:

1. If you use existing Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 with latest March update, below Windows icon will appear on system tray.

2. Just click on that icon, enter your email address, and your Windows will be upgraded to latest Windows 10 when it's available at 29 July 2015.

Hopefully, Microsoft will make Windows 10 available for MSDN Subscriber earlier when Windows 10 goes RTM. And, Microsoft, please release Surface 4 PRO and Lumia 940XL at soonest, that will be most exciting..

Lumia 640: Disable Vibration at Navigation Bar

Just got a Lumia 640 to try out, nice bright orange color with good quality expected from Lumia phone, with exceptional price, definitely value for money.

However, as the phone does not have any soft button, the navigation bar (Start, back and search) is directly inside the screen. It is quite irritating that the phone always vibrate upon pressing any button in navigation bar. I did a bit of research, and it's actually quite easy to turn it off:

1. Go to Settings, search Touch.
2. Switch off the Navigation Bar. Initially, I thought this was meant to switch off the whole Navigation Bar, but there is text below "Vibrate when using Navigation Key".

Is your Lumia 1520 slower after upgrading to Windows Phone 8.1?

I have just managed to get my phone to be upgraded to official Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia Cyan.. Yay..!! :)

It took more than 30 minutes for the whole process to complete. First, there was update to Windows Phone 8 itself and then it would allow you to upgrade to Windows Phone 8. Overall, the process is very smooth.

However, just after upgrade, I can feel the phone is somewhat slower than before. After ensuring there is no more apps updating, I check on the battery saver that actually all the apps that have option to :"run on background" are now allowed to. I have to go through one by one to turn it off. After that, I can feel the phone back to normal with all the glory of WP 8.1. :)

To go to Battery Saver, just go to Settings > Battery Saver. Swipe to the right to usage, and you can see which apps that are allowed to run on the background. Some apps that are popular to suck all battery juice like Here Drive should be turned off to run on background, and only turn it on when you need to use it.

After choosing background to start screen, transparent live tile on 6" screen really look stunning.

Windows Phone 8.1 Keyboard: Where is my comma?

For one that has already used Windows Phone 8.1 will have a shock when they start to type and the comma is nowhere to be found. Instead, you either need to type "&123" or press long on ".". This is too troublesome to type even normal sentence.

Apparently, this can be changed easily. Just go to settings > keyboard > advanced, and check "Show a comma key when available".

I think it's better to display comma as default, and give option for user that needs bigger "space". If I don't really search into this, I will not know this can be displayed back and only can curse somebody at Microsoft for hiding the comma.

One changes that I like in addition to "swype" feature is the cursor key. Previously, you need to press and hold for few seconds then the flying cursor appear. Now, there is one small circle below the cursor, just press the circle and drag. Nice..

Windows Phone 8.1 + Lumia Cyan should land anytime from now

With all the greatness of Windows Phone 8.1 and Lumia Cyan, I have been waiting for the arrival to my Lumia 1520. Now Nokia has published the availability and status of the update on their own website at this link. Well, my Lumia 1520 under starhub status is "under testing". Hopefully it will not take forever.

Well, I have also been lucky selected by Starhub to test out the Lumia 930. Overall so far it is a great device, however, with a few complaints here and there, which I will post later. :)

Other "coming soon" stuff is BBM for Windows Phone. Currently this is under closed beta. It means only registered beta users can use the software now. I have tried to register, but there is no news until now. The app itself is available here, although I hit permission error when trying to install it on the phone.

SQL Server Login Error: The login is from an untrusted domain and cannot be used with Windows authentication

One of SharePoint Farm that I have configured for one client has recently failed with all error shows something like below:
The login is from an untrusted domain and cannot be used with Windows authentication.

After many hours investigating, we found out that this SQL Server had 2 DNS name. This system has been used for many months without issue under this 2 DNS. After AD was upgraded, this error started to appear. Many article pointed to Kerberos issue, but we did not use Kerberos authentication. After removing one of the DNS address, the issue seems to be fixed.

I suspect when the AD was upgraded, somehow the priority of the DNS name might be changed which caused all login to fail.

Free Gift Card for Lumia Users (SGD 45)

Wow, Nokia just published new apps to allow Lumia users to redeem gift card with value of SGD 45 to get any paid apps in Windows Phone store. Quick grab yours here:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-sg/store/app/gift-voucher/18bca550-bf7a-42e4-a2e1-1501b4863f74

Follow the instruction shown in the apps, and wow, $45 just credited to my Microsoft Account wallet.

* Update: Just realize it is mentioned selected Lumia model only, so you can try yours. I use Lumia 1520 and redeem mine succesfully.