I own and currently use a Motorola Q. Well, I haven't updated the software on this thing in a very long time and thought that I might as well check to see if such a thing even existed. Although I know plenty about JavaScript, C#, and other such and similar software engineering subjects, I am a complete ignoramus when it comes to mobile devices, largely because I barely use the one I have. My wife and I both have cell phones but barely use them - I usually only received phone calls from my wife on my phone. Other than that, the only other useful thing mine does is tell me the time.

So, I found an update on the Motorola website, went through the motions with it and it tells me there is an update available for my phone after all. So, I let this updater have its way with my phone for about 15 minutes, via the USB cable, and after all is said and done, I notice that it is in roaming mode.

Huh. Okay, what is that?

Then I discover that, according to the phone's settings, the phone thinks its phone number is "0000005303" which is completely incorrect.

Not good.

Sure enough, I try calling with it and it tells me I need to use a credit card, etc.

I accepted the idea that the update must've hosed the phone and that I would need to head into the Verizon store and spend the better part of my Saturday there in order to get this fixed...just lovely!

Thankfully, after a bit of googling around, I found a comment to a blog post that indicated that all I needed to do was dial *228 from my phone and then select option 1 when presented with that choice.

Sure enough, after about a minute waiting while the phone was reprogrammed over the air, my phone was back to normal and working. Hallelujah!