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Paul's Time Sink

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iPhone

Paul Westbrook | 01 September, 2008 00:28

So my wife and I joined the crowd and got iPhone 3Gs.  Now that we have them, we are enjoying them, but it was a pretty big hassle to get them.

I got to the Apple Store pretty early in the morning, and there wasn't a line for iPhones.  An Apple Store employees got the two iPhones and started activating the first.  The Symbian device lost connection to the service, but after the AT&T Wireless account was created, and after the phone number port started, but before the number was added to the account.

When he got another Symbian device, further attempts to continue the setup kept failing.  It looks like Apple's system to register iPhones will only work if the device actually does the registration, and will not work if the phone is configured via the phone with AT&T support.  We were on hold with AT&T for over 2 hours, talking to 7 different people at AT&T.

Finally we got the phones registered.  What we had to do was add the iPhones to the account with new phone numbers.  Then with the AT&T support rep on the phone, the numbers were switched to the numbers that were were attempting to port.

I do appreciate the time that the Apple Store rep spent with settiing this up.

One other problem arose.  The microphone on my wife's iPhone didn't work so I took it back to the Apple Store and they did replace it, without too much hassle.

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Skype for Windows Mobile

Paul Westbrook | 04 August, 2008 12:17

This post mentions that the Windows Mobile version of Skype has been upated.  We use Skype at work, so I was interested in trying this out.

The download and install went well.  I was able to use it to send text messages, but I wasn't able tomake a voice call.  I am not sure if it is possible for Skype to use the microphone on my phone to send audio to Skype.

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Parrot 3200-LS

Paul Westbrook | 11 July, 2008 02:24

Parrot 3200-LSSince is is now a requirement to use hands-free devices for use in cars, I started to look for a solution for our van.  I wanted to find something that would connect to the main headunit, where it would automatically mute the audio, to allow the call audio to be heard.  Also, I wanted the device, when installed, to look releatively stock. The Parrot 3200-LS looked like it would work perfectly.  

I had it installed a few weeks ago, and the install looks nice.  It was easy to configure with my Samsung iSCH-760.  On the Parrot, I went into the setting menu for pairing, and selected Windows CE, and the Parrot displayed a password.  Then on my phone, I searched for Bluetooth devices, and then selected the Parrot 3200-LS.  Once paired, the phone numbers on my phone automatically appeared on the Parrot 3200-LS, so I could select phone numbers directly from the Parrot's interface.

 (More)

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New Phone

Paul Westbrook | 11 June, 2008 23:01

My wife is getting frustrated with her Windows Mobile base Palm 700w, so we were thinking about getting her one of the new 3G iPhones when they come out.  Since she would be need to switch to AT&T, I would switch at the same time. 

Though, I do like the iPhone, I don't think that it would work for me.  There are still several features that I would still to have:

  • Qwerty keyboard (hard buttons)
  • Ability to tether to a computer to allow the computer to use that network connection
  • MMS support.

I am thinking that I would go with the AT&T Tilt, Blackberry Curve 8310 or potentially an unlocked phone that I would get somewhere else.

This Google Andriod video has me interested in this as an option, even though there isn't a query keyboard.

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HTC Touch Dual

Paul Westbrook | 01 June, 2008 03:10

My wife and I are thinking of switching to AT&T for cell phone service, when the 3G iPhones come out.  When we switch, I was thinking about getting the HTC Touch Dual.  This looks like a pretty nice phone.

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OpenDNS and Verizon Wireless MMS

Paul Westbrook | 19 March, 2008 23:29

As soon as I got my Samsung SCH-i760, I configured the phone to use the DNS servers from OpenDNS.  Everything seemed to be working fine, and web browsing seemed faster.  A while later, I tried sending an MMS message, and it just didn't work, but an error messages was shown.

I finally, got around to tracking this down today.  It looks like Verizon uses a MMS server that has a host name that only resolves from inside the Verizon Wireless network.  So OpenDNS is not able to resolve this hostname.

Once I switched back to the default servers I was able to send picture messages again.

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Duplicate events with GooSync

Paul Westbrook | 27 February, 2008 23:55

Both my wife and I have Windows Mobile phones, and we use Google Calendar for our calendars.  GooSync allows us to wirelessly sync our calendars with our phones.  My wife and I both have GooSync accounts, which sync to our own Google Calendar accounts.  The permissions on some of the calendars has been setup so either one of us can add events.

There appears to be a bug where events are getting duplicated, seemingly on every sync.  From looking at the duplicated events, they are being created from my wife's phone.  Maybe it is caused because these events were created by my account, and maybe GooSync can't handle this.

 (More)

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links for 2008-02-13

Paul Westbrook | 13 February, 2008 00:20

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GSPlayer

Paul Westbrook | 31 December, 2007 21:12

The Windows Media Player built-in to Windows Mobile can't play the mp3 streams from SlimServer.  I wanted to be able to listen to all my music where ever I am, without having to have a copy with me.

I found this page that mentioned GSPlayer.  This is a simple Windows Mobile audio player that plays mp3, ogg vorbis and wav files. In addition to local files, it can play various streaming formats.  It works perfectly for playing the streams from SlimServer.

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FlexMail

Paul Westbrook | 12 December, 2007 16:49

Since IMAP is not working with Google Mail and my Windows Mobile phone, I started looking into what other clients I could run on my phone.  FlexMail looked like the best option.

FlexMail integrates SMS, MMS, ActiveSync and POP/IMAP accounts.  You can see all of accounts in an integrated folder list.  Fordisplaying email messages, FlexMail handles HTML messages.  There are tons of options, so you can configure how much mail is downloaded, which way an IMAP folder should be synchronized.

Once I finished configuring it, I noticed that my phone was really starting to drag and actually crashed. Once I disabled it, my phone returned to normal.

I think that what I am going to do is configure the built-in Windows Mobile email client to check my email with POP3.  I will just have to deal with the views of my mail being out of sync on different email clients.  

 [via  Short Nerd Chief]

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Samsung SCH-i760

Paul Westbrook | 12 December, 2007 15:18

Samsung SCH-i760 Last week, I got a Samsung SCH-i760.  I have been looking for a new phone for a while.  I had been using the limited browser on the E815 for checking email and reading rss feeds.  But the interface is really bad, especially when filling out an html form.

In addition to the SCH-i760, I was also interested in the Verizon Wireless XV6800.  Both of these phone are Windows Mobile phones that have have integrated WiFi, that are available on Verizon Wireless.  I was also interested in these as I could install other programs.  The reason that I picked the SCH-i760, is because there are hard phone key pad.  This makes it easy to dial without having to use the touch screen.

Setting up the phone was pretty painless. I installed The Missing Sync for Windows Mobile on our mac.  The using that, I installed GooSync to get my contacts and calendars that are hosted in Google Calendar on the phone.  Then I installed MilkSync for my task list.  I also configured the mail client to access my GMail account via IMAP.  Lastly, I configured ActiveSync to get my work email/calendar from my work's Exchange server.

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More MP3tunes clients

Paul Westbrook | 06 December, 2007 12:34

In September, MP3tunes announed a contest for developers to create clients to play content hosted in MP3tunes lockers.  Today some of the resulting applications were announced. Now you can listen to the music in your locker on a Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3, Windows Mobile devices, Chumbys, and in Eclipse.

 I am looking forward to try this on my new phone.

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Verizon Voyager walkthough video

Paul Westbrook | 19 November, 2007 10:00

This post has a pretty good walkthrough of the Verizon Voyager.  I am trying to decide between this phone and the Samsung SCH-i760.

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Android

Paul Westbrook | 13 November, 2007 14:28

The Android platform looks like it could result in some very cool phones.  Here is a brief demo that Google posted: 

 When I get a chance, I will take a look at the SDK.

 

[via Google Blogoscoped]

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Phone Wishlist

Paul Westbrook | 02 October, 2007 00:44

I went to the Verizon store today, to check out the latests phones.  There wasn't a single phone that did everything that I wanted.  Here the list of features that I want in a phone:

  • smart phone
  • WiFi
  • Bluetooth
  • Voice dialing
  • qwerty keyboard
  • EV-DO
  • camera phone
  • ability to install applications
    • Google Mail application (I want to view my mail as it is see in the web interface, but the mobile web interface to google mail is pretty limited.)
    • Google Maps
  • Web browser
  • Ability to sync calendar and contacts without a computer.  (Maybe GooSync)

It would also be nice to have:

  • GPS

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