On Thu, 22 Jun 2006 10:43:34 -0700, FoundCell
<Spamkill@dont.bother.its.invalid> wrote:

>In article <e7e0ue$55h$1@news.al.sw.ericsson.se>,
> "Dan Altemyr" <no.this.is.not.my@email.address> wrote:
>
>> If there still is a SIM card in it,
>
>Pardon me while I go "huh?"
>
>What's this "SIM card", and where do I look/how do I check to find out
>if it has one?

Look under the battery.
>
>> and you have a CLI unit that shows the
>> number of the caller,
>
>CLI = caller ID? If so, that's a no-go. My land-line is a "bare minimum
>dial-tone only" that gets used almost exclusively for dialing up my ISP.
>No "fancy toys" of any kind on it.
You can usually get it by dialing a code. The phone company will
charge you 50 cents or so for using it. i think it *69 on a touch tone
phone, 1169 on a dial phone. It will give the number of the last
caller if it is available.
>
>> Another method might be to trace the phone using the IMEI code (enter *#06#
>> on the keyboard to get a 15 digit unique ID for the phone displayed on the
>> screen).
>
>OK, that worked, and I've got a meaningless (to me, obviously - I'm sure
>*SOMEBODY* can make some sense out of it) string of digits copied down.
>Now I find myself in the classic "Marmaduke finally caught a mailtruck"
>dilemma - namely, "Now that I've caught it, what do I do with it???"
>
>> There is a possibility that the phone has been registered to an
>> owner by the operator. This code can be used to lock the phone in case it
>> has been stolen or otherwise lost.
>
>Operator presumably equals Cingular, in this case? (since Cingular
>branding is splattered all over the phone, and pretty much every menu)
>Presumably my next move is to call Cingular with this number, and see
>what, if anything, they have to say?
>
>> In many countries in Europe, there has recently been a campaign to add the
>> contact "ICE" in your address book; ICE stands for "In Case of Emergency",
>> and is intended to be use if, for example, someone finds you unconcious or
>> finds your phone. The ICE contact should contain a number to someone close
>> to the owner of the phone. A contact named "HOME" or "Mummy" or similar is a
>> good candidate to look for in someone's address book otherwise. But, as you
>> mentioned, if the former owner wasn't into the "personalize my phone" thing,
>> and perhaps wasn't "techie" enough to create contact list entries in the
>> phone, it does not help in this case.
>
>
>No help at all, since, as far as I can figure out, there's nothing in
>the contact list. Not "nothing useful", but "nothing *AT ALL*". I would
>be tempted to guess this means the former owner was as "cell-phone
>illiterate" as I am.
>
>The only number I can manage to get displayed is in the "dialed calls"
>list, showing that the call lasted 1 minute, happened over 2 months
>(coming up on three, now) ago, and dialing it from my land-line gets me
>to a "This number has been disconnected or is no longer in service - no
>further information is available about..." phoneco recording. Which
>makes me think that it may have been a mis-dial to begin with.
>
>How long is one of these things supposed to hold onto list info like
>that when not powered, anyway? Or is it likely that my diddling around
>to jury-rig a power supply for it caused "brain-wipe" on the unit? I
>finally settled on 5 volts at half an amp based on the battery markings,
>but before reaching that decision, I went thorugh several iterations of
>"Is 1.5 volts enough juice to make it work? No? How about 2.0? No? Well,
>what about 3? Still no? How about..." (lather, rinse, repeat) until I
>finally got it to vibrate (and spook the bejeebers outta me!) and turn
>on, then start reporting that it was charging.
>
>Possibly the low-voltage condition caused some sort of "brain-wipe" to
>happen? So for all I can say with any certainy, the contact list may
>have had everything but the owner's shoe size in it before I started
>messing around, if you take my meaning...