I bought myself an LG Viewty in the summer last year, or at least I thought I did. It turns out Vodafone were selling the slightly less equipped KU990i, also known as the Viewty Lite, which along with no stylus pen also came without any software CD.

With my contacts list saved in Outlook, it would have been nice to import all of the contacts from the PC directly onto the phone, rather than having to put them all on the SIM card then back to handset memory (so that I can store multiple phone numbers per contact)

Today I decided that I'd have another look, and found the following works.

All credit goes to Dave Young who first posted this on the Vodafone UK forum

• Ensure that your phone is not connected to the PC via USB.
• Go to LG Product Support for KU990i
• Click the "Drivers & Software" tab and then the "Download PCSynch software for Windows" link and save the application (B2CAppSetup.exe) to your computer.
• Run the "B2CAppSetup.exe" application. When the application loads, choose "Customer Support" from the menu, then the "Application, Manual and USB Driver download..." menu item.
• The following screen will appear. Enter your IMEI number (just the numbers, no hyphens) and hit the search icon to the right.
  
• 3 files will be listed in the box underneath. Double click the links for the PCSynch and USB Drivers. You can also download the User Manual if you wish. These will automatically be saved in the following folder: C:\KU990IGO.

• From the C:\KU990IGO folder, run LGInstaller.exe. Choose your language (e.g.; English) and click the LG PC Suite button to start the installation. Optionally you can also install DivX for Mobile.
• Once installed, I'd recommend rebooting your PC before connecting using the USB Data cable.

Having done this, I have now been able to synchronise with my Outlook contacts as well as delete some SMS messages which is much quicker than trying to delete them on the handset!. It is not perfect, but using PCSynch is better than no connectivity at all.

It's been a while since I promised a few new features for the site. The release of the new version of CodeIgniter prompted me to rethink the progress I'd made, coupled with moving hosting to PHP5, so I decided the website and content management system (CMS) needed a rewrite.

I toyed with the idea of transferring over to Wordpress but decided I'd much rather try writing my own blog system into the CMS. It's worked out quite nicely but with family about to expand I have had little time to test it properly - and will have even less in the next few weeks!

Hopefully all the features of the site will work nicely. I've fixed several issues over the last couple of days since the site was updated - not least being a lack of dates in the RSS feed!

Behind the scenes, the CMS is due for a facelift and I need better control over the CodeIgniter application itself. I also have to re-introduce spellchecking into the blog system!

It's been a while since the last release of CodeIgniter, and whilst ExpressionEngine 2.0 is still eagerly anticipated (based on CodeIgniter) the new CodeIgniter 1.7.2 release includes the all new Cart class, which looks very good indeed.

I will be adding support for 1.7.2 into my Google Code project Intype snippets for CodeIgniter, including new entries for the Cart class.

Late on Friday, Microsoft formally announced that it will not be shipping a different version of Windows 7 in Europe than it does in the rest of the world. Writing in "Microsoft on the Issues", Dave Heiner writes:

We decided last month that we would ship a unique version of Windows 7 in Europe—which we dubbed Windows 7 “E”—that would not include a Web browser. Instead, we decided to offer IE separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users who wanted the Microsoft browser. We have now decided to alter that launch plan. In the wake of last week’s developments, as well as continuing feedback on Windows 7 E that we have received from computer manufacturers and other business partners, I’m pleased to report that we will ship the same version of Windows 7 in Europe in October that we will ship in the rest of the world. If the Commission accepts our recent proposal, we would then fully implement all of its terms. As proposed, we would use the Internet to deliver a ballot screen update to customers who purchase Windows 7 in the European Economic Area, either as part of a PC or as a retail upgrade product Source: Microsoft on the Issues

Also included in the blog post is a sample ballot screen (shown below). Microsoft have suggested that the ballot screen would be made available in a Windows update (and would also be presented for XP and Vista)

Whilst the proposals set out by Microsoft have yet to be ratified by the European Commission, it seems likely that this will go ahead given the Commission's positive reponse to Microsoft's proposals for the ballot screen. Hopefully common sense will prevail and this will make the best out of a bad situation. Still hedging their bets, Microsoft state that if the proposals are refused, Windows "E" could still be reintroduced.

Presumably, this means that anyone (like myself) who pre-ordered Windows "E" in Europe will now receive the full product instead.

For many, the various different retail versions of Windows Vista meant choosing which DVD to buy was a problem. With Windows 7 I'm afraid to say it's not that much easier. Luckily, Microsoft have released what will and won't be in each version.

Click on the image to the left to view the features comparison chart of what's in the different versions. The chart is split into 2 images.