March 17, 2005

Nokia 6620 PC Suite

Nokia USA: Nokia 6620 PC Applications. I've had a boatload of trouble trying to get my contacts into my 6620. I know I have 5,400 contacts, so that is more than the average bear, but really. The original software CD has version 6.1 and it spend about an hour trying to synchronize and then would fail with an "Unknown" PC Sync error.

After much trial and error, I found the Nokia application page and downloaded 6.41, now it seems to work fine, although I notice that my Sony has trouble finding my 6620. It is supposed to autodiscover over Bluetooth, but that is unreliable.

Posted by rich at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2005

Linksys WRT54GP2

TomsNetworking Product Reviews : TomsNetworking :. Here is the perfect combo device for $100 or so. It has Wifi, router and also is a 2-port VOIP phone system. Quality on Vonage was only OK according to them.

The bottom line for me is that the GP2 is a very good, feature-rich, hardware based firewall / router, with decent wireless performance and QoS features that are essential for setting the balance between VoIP and other bandwidth-hungry applications. But I'll be keeping my old telephone.

To test the performance of the VoIP side of the GP2, I turned to Testyourvoip.com. This is a free service run by Brix Networks in hopes that it will whet your appetite for their pay-for VoIP performance management products. TestYourVoip.com lets you run two types of tests. The first uses a Java applet to make a VoIP call to Boston, Helsinki, London, Montreal, San Jose or Sydney. This test essentially tests the fitness of your computer and Internet connection for handling VoIP traffic. The second (which requires free registration) lets you make a voice call to a "Golden Phone", which measures the actual voice quality of a call made through a VoIP service.

I then made a call to the site's "Golden Phone" and got a score of 4.4. Here's what the site says about the testing results:

"While the theoretical MOS scale tops out at 5.0, practically speaking, you won't get a 5.0 score no matter how good your network connection is. That's because VoIP codecs introduce some amount of quality loss. For example, the maximum MOS score you can achieve with the quality-preserving G.711 codec is 4.4. For the low-bandwidth G.729 codec, the maximum is only 4.2.

Posted by rich at 09:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 15, 2005

USB Phone Charger

ZIP-KIT-NK1 ZIP-LINQ Retractable Nokia Phone Charger Kit at TigerDirect.com. NOw that I have USB connection for just about everything, I can charge my Blackberry, iPod, Bluespoon AX headset all from my laptop or any USB connection, the only thing left is my Nokia 6620 phone. Here's the $20 solution from Tigerdirect. Its got the right USB to power adapter plus a DC-to-DC convertor since the phone needs 6V and USB is just 5V.

Also comes with an in-car charger that is 12V in the car to USB. Wow, another charger gone and now every device can get recharged in the car. Not bad for $20.

All the gory compatibility details are on the Ziplinq site.

You can also get the M01 kit for $15 if you don't need the in-car charger. This also gives about a zillion other connectors for Motorola, Siemens, Ericsson adn Nokia phones in trade for the in-car charger.

Of if you really need the AC adapter and the car charger, get the ZIP-CELL-Kit1 from Tiger for $25.

Posted by rich at 11:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2005

Caveat Emptor on Amazon Cingular Cell phones

I bought a Cingular phone through Amazon and returned it. Beware if you are doing this!

The biggest warning to everyone is that returning this through Amazon is a true nightmare. If you read the fine print, Amazon will take it back, but you have to call Cingular immediately separately.

Here is what you have to make sure to do:

1. Make sure to get the UPS tracking number for the return package. That is the only link between Amazon and Cingular. Amazon doesn't take any responsibility for the plan and if you don't have that tracking number then they will say they think you still have the phone.
2. The phone activates the second that it ships so you are paying charges the whole time even if you never turn the phone on. So if you talk even one second on the phone, you are paying for at least a week of shipment time as well, so if you don't like the phone don't turn it on.
3. Cingular doesn't know anything about Amazon as a reseller and Amazon doesn't know anything about Cingular, so what you have to do is to call Cingular and have the UPS tracker for the package so when you return you can prove that you really did. Also, you'll need to print out all the return web pages and fax it to Cingular to prove you really returned it.
4. It takes about an hour and a half, but if you are lucky like me, you can get it taken care of.

Posted by rich at 09:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 04, 2005

Prefetch Exception and Abort Exception

PDA street forums - error. Just got this horrible error on my brand new replacement blackberry. Unlike the fellow I haven't installed any software.

Frankly, it sounds like a hardware problem. The Blackberry boots into a single message that is variously:

Prefetch Exception Reset
Abort Exception Reset
Error 365 Reset

Sigh. I'm never going to get my mail!

On the Blackberry site, it says that for Abort Exception you should connect the handheld to the crable, open the desktop manager and click Applications Loader and select the optoin to erate all existing data and appliations. Kind of sad to see this is the resolution.

Posted by rich at 02:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 03, 2005

Blackberry Internal Error 4238

Tong Family Blog: Blackberry Internal Error #4238. Darn it I got this error again. And of course I'm the number 1 site on google covering it. Talk about self-referential! You will get this bizzare error if you are trying to use a public folder for a contact. There are two things you have to do. First, make sure there is a null private folder that is included and second make sure you are using uncached mode for Exchange.

This is quite hard to do:

First, go to Start/Control Panel/Mail/Show Profiles/Add (this is for Outlook 2003 btw) and type in a new profile name, like "uncached for blackberry". Then go to Add New Mail Account/Microsoft Exchange Server/. Here is the magic entry, unclick Use Exchange Cached Mode Then type in your Exchange server and user name and choose Next and Finish

Here is how you set that, start Blackberry Desktop Manager, btw it doesn't matter how Outlook accesses things, Blackberry Desktop Manager has its own ideas about what profile to run. Click on Intellisync/Configure PIM/Address Book/Options and there will be the profile that you should have set up to be an entry for "uncached for blackberry" and click on it.

If you're curious to see what happens if you don't do this, you end up trying to debug Pumasync's confusion with Body fields as noted below

In any case, Blackberry reports this error for Notes which I don't have as well as for Exchange where all it says is send an error log to Blackberry. That is helpful :-(

Looking inside the magic file ptrace.log (do a search for this on your machine, it is hidden away in a Blackberry data file, I see a host of error messages that aren't like the one's I resolved before Last Puma Error, but seem to indicate similar problems with Pumatech. Arggh....so I tried the same fix, delete the entire Blackberry folder and start all over. Start Exchange and make sure it is in uncached mode (create a special Blackberry profile for OUtlook to do this). Then start the Desktop Manager and it will recreate the entire profile, hopefully correctly.

Last time it seemed like using the Cached mode was the problem, so make sure you never select that. Unfortunately, I still get the same message. Seems to happen at record 144 in my contact list (I don't know which one that is though!). Here is the error in ptrace.log. From rim.log, you can see the database record number, but this isn't visible anywhere in Outlook :-(

Blackberry advises turning on advanced logging which goes through a complex process, but it tells you exactly where it barfed:

  1. Configure the iloptcfg.cfg file, complete the following steps:
    ##. Open the iloptcfg.cfg file in Microsoft Notepad. The file is located in one of the following directories depending on your operating system:
      • In Windows 98: C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry\Intellisync\
      • In Windows 2000 or Windows XP: C:\Document and Settings\\Application Data\Research In Motion\BlackBerry\Intellisync\
    • Change the MultiJobTraceLog value to 200 (the default is 1). This setting will generate the PtTrace.log file.
    • Change the TifLog value to 100 (the default is 0). This setting will generate the tif.log file.
    • Save the file.

Then you rerun the synchronization for just the application that failed, in this case contacts for me. This generates the two log files, which you then take and email to blackberry and pray.

Trolling through tif.log, I see that it died trying to read the subject field or the body field of a particular record it looks like the body field is causing the problem. Its a variable length field which is a text description of the person, so I'm guessing there is a bug in either Exchange or in the Pumatech where if the field is invalid then the synchronizer crashes. In my case, all the records have a bad body somehow. Only records with a something in that field seem to die. You can just copy it around or add or delete the field, something is wrong internally in the record

Mon Jan 03 22:13:17 2005: Error 0x35e3000a.904069130.30067 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\dev\ilxolk2\olkapi\pumapist.cpp line 737
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 0.30078 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\dev\ilxolk2\olkapi\pumapie.cpp line 1158
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 2005_BODY.30078.30016 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\dev\ilxolk2\olk_Export.cpp line 799
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 30016.30016 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\sync_sdk\il_sdk\sdk_data.cpp line 1385
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.0 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\xlator_libs\ilxtrans\CILFIELD.CPP line 208
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error Body.4238.0 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\xlator_libs\ilxtrans\CILREC.CPP line 324
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.0 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\xlator_libs\ilxtrans\CILTRANS.CPP line 698
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.4238 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\sync_sdk\il_sdk\Ilx_sdk.cpp line 168
22:13:25.493: Translation Unit Status: User=200b1d33, rc=4238, Phase=20, TrErr=4238, SysErr=0 at D:\Work\Mav1039513_301\core\engine\ilx_v3\XLATEV3.cpp line 488
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.4238 at D:\Mav1039513.82_17\core\engine\xlate\XLATE.CPP line 2999
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.4238 at D:\Mav1039513.82_17\core\engine\xlate\XLATE.CPP line 2726
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.4238 at D:\Mav1039513.82_17\core\engine\xlate\XLATE.CPP line 2350
Mon Jan 03 22:13:25 2005: Error 4238.4238 at D:\Mav1039513.82_17\core\engine\xlate\XLATE.CPP line 3444

Posted by rich at 10:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 31, 2004

Etymotic Accessories

Etymotic Research, Inc. - ETY•COM - Nokia Phone Adapters. Etymotic is now making a headset. Should be very good for noise reduction given its design. They also make a nice looking adapter set that will take proprietary Nokia connections and turn them into standard 3.5mm headsets.

The ER22-20N3 is is just $8 and well worth it since you can use anyone's headset then.

Other useful accessories they have include various cases, filters and shirt clips that you can order online from Etymotic.

Posted by rich at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 17, 2004

Nokia 6620 Downloads

My-Symbian.com - Symbian OS News and Software for Series 60 smartphones downloads. Eureka, here finally is a source of 6600 Symbian applications. I'm checking out the most popular, but Doom is available on the phone how cool.

Also there is MP3Go which I hope is a much better player than the Real player. For instance, hopefully it knows HE AAC and also can see more than 99 songs on the whole system and it is faster too I hope. We'll see.

One of the coolest is getting a real Opera browser on the 6620. That is kind of cool.

Also there is Oggplay which playsback ogg vorbis, mp3 and aac formats. Not clear if it supporst aacPlus or not.

Posted by rich at 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Symbian Virus

Zedge: Symbian Virus called Skull. Very scary, there is a file call Extended Theme Manager by Tee-222 that has this virus. You have to have a third party file manager installed to get rid of it.

There is a third party virus scanner for symbian from f-secure. Probably should get it.

Posted by rich at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 16, 2004

Nokia 6620 Unlocking

Going to Europe, so will need to use a prepaid card. Here are various sites that unlock the 6620 courtesy of google:"6620 unlock":

  • Nokia Unlock, Symbian 3600,3620,6600,6620 and 7650 Unlock - GSMLOCKER. They charge $15 and can do it remotely.
  • Mobileunlocked.com. These folks charge $9 for the same service. Pretty high google rank, but who knows if it will work.
  • Zedge.no. This free site has zillions of free themes, ringtones, etc. And also folks who are giving unlock codes out too in their nokia forum.
  • Nokiafree. Thereis a unlock code generator. But I can't quite understand all the parameters and you only have five tries to get the unlock code right. There is also an online version of the unlocker as well.

Amazingly, I downloaded the v3.10 of the unlocker, got a bunch of codes and the first code actually unlocked the sim card for free. Wow!

Posted by rich at 11:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 13, 2004

New Phone

Connie's 7230 finally gave up the ghost. Naturally two years later, so it is out of warranty, so time to buy a new phone. Naturally, T-Mobile makes it hard to do this and stay with T-Mobile. Both Cingular and AT&T Wireless are smarter. At the end of your commitment period, you get the same deal as a new customer. At T-mobile, you only get the retail deal, not the new customer deal from someone else. So, it looks like we are off to Cingular and the new Blackberry 7290. This thing is quad band (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz) so its coverage with Cingular/AT&T should be very good.

But with this, we need to get on a family plan since I've got my Wildseed phone as well that needs a plan, so we need to find another "free phone". There are quite a few new review sources.

I used to just have Cnet, but thanks to blogging, there are many more sites like Mobiledia with reviews like the ones below. Also checkout Cellreception.com for various user comments a database of where cell towers are. Letstalk.com also has a review list that is very thinly populated unfortunately. Other sites include Phone Scoop which has a great phone finder where you put criteria in. So here are the low cost phones to consider. None of these sites tell you if these are 3GPP phones. That is do they support AACplus so I can listen to music via Melodeo

  • Motorola V551. This is a $50 handset from Cingular via Letstalk.com. So its not quite free, but close. Nice things are that it is Bluetooth, has EDGE (so it is fast where that's available), had an OK camera (640×480), but is MIDP 2.0, so it can run mFoundry.
  • Motorola RAZR V3 Review - First Look. This is an amazingly thin (and expensive at $400 to the customer phone). It is super thin clamshell loaded with features like Bluetooth, MP3 ringtones and camera.

Posted by rich at 08:59 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 18, 2004

Freeware for Nokia 6620

All About Symbian Forums - Good Freeware Applications NOT Warez/Cracks. Here are some good applications including:

  • Fxplorer. A new file manager.

Posted by rich at 11:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 17, 2004

Hot phone on CDMA

Many folks think this is the ultimate phone. The geek specs basically say that it support every major codec particularly HE AAC (3GPP compliant).

ARM9 CPU
178×220 Pixel 16-Bit Color Main Display
MIDP 1.0.3
3GPP, 3GPP2, H.263 & MP4 Support (Streaming Video Codecs)
QCELP, AAC & AMR Audio Codec Support
Video Camera (25 FPS for Recording, 15 FPS for Streaming)

Posted by rich at 10:53 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 15, 2004

Latest data on mobile

Phonecontent.com. A cool site for the latest on the phone business. Interest phone news:

Posted by rich at 02:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 04, 2004

Unlocked Nokia 6620s

The best place to get Nokia 6620s that are "unlocked" so that you can put it anywhere. Actually, they are amazingly cheap given they are unlocked. We bought three phones for $99 each but had to sign up for a three year contract.

If you check out ebay you can find dozens for about $250. There is an unlocked one including a 256MB MMC card that is $230 with a $275 buy it now.

Or you can get $252 unlocked. Pretty amazing pricing. So if I were you, get an unlocked 6620 and then you get a free phone from AWS as well. The only thing I don't understand is how you provision EDGE to this phone.

Posted by rich at 11:05 AM | TrackBack

November 03, 2004

Nokia 6620

Russell Beattie Notebook - My Shiny New Nokia 6620!. We got three of these and this is a great review by Russell Beattie.

Am still charging it and am anxious to test the screen. The main bummer is that they have some funky headset attachment so you can't plug in any headphones and the MMC card is hidden in the back of the phone.

Still we bought $80 1GB MMCs and that should be enough for any music we want..

Posted by rich at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 24, 2004

Coolest Bluetooth Headset

Since we are getting all kinds of new phone stuff, might as well try Bluetooth headsets. I've never liked them because they are so gigantic, but a little trolling shows this Bluespoon to be pretty amazing. Just 10 grams and not expensive.

There is a big brother that has a DSP in it that costs $300. Can't get that. I'll lose it.

At Impact Wireless, they are now taking preorders with fulfillment in November hopefully. Just in time for Christmas. If you order before tomorrow, they'll include a free USB dongle that lets the headset connet to your PC for VOIP calls. Cool.

NextLink's New BlueSpoon "AX" Headset is Here! : Accessories : Sony Ericsson @ Esato. Pre-order your Bluespoon AX at Impact Wireless for $109.95 CAD. If you live within North America, call 1-877-578-7355 or place your order online at www.impactwireless.ca. For those you live outside North America please send an email to bsn@impactwireless.ca with your contact information, which to include country, time zone, and what time is best to reach you. Simply redeem coupon HOFO5 during checkout to receive a five (5) dollar discount. Coupon expires October 15, 2004. They are accepting referrals, to find out more please contact them and mention bluespoon.ca

Posted by rich at 12:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 23, 2004

Need MMC for Nokia 6620

MMC vs. SD and Flashcards.co.nz. We are getting Nokia 6620 for various demonstrations and need a big memory card. It takes MMC, but I've never understood the difference with SD until now.

Basically SD is newer and has a higher transfer rate, but has some mysterious copy protection scheme. They are the same shape, so you should be able to use either. Unfortunately, the Nokia has a MMC reader so the newer SD won't read right. (SD readers can handle MMC, but MMC readers can't handle SD). Symbian Forums has a thread on what MMC cards work in 6600 and 6620 Nokias.

Justin Castle has a good pricing overview as well. Shows that the current pricing as of October is a sweet spot of 512MB and that with volumes, the SD cards are actually cheaper now than MMC because they are used by more devices, but I don't know if the slightly bigger SD will actually fit in a Nokia 6620 (btw the prices below are in UK pounds). The main issue is that the case is slightly thicker at 2.1mm vs. 1.4mm.

The other change is that the SD cards have a bunch of different variants. The first SD cards read at 10Mbps vs. 2.5Mbps for MMC. But there is now the Ultra II SD whic writes at 9Mbps (45x) and the XS SD that writes at 10Mpbs (66x). So judging by this, it probably makes sense to get a 512MB XS given the low price different (only about 6 pounds more). So if you have a phone with SD, get SD, otherwise, jam for a good MMC.

SizeSDMMC
128MB11.99 (Amazon)10.99 (Amazon)
256MB17.61 (Amazon)21.95 (Expansys)
512MB32.95 (Expansys)34.99 (Amazon)
1024MB59.99 (Amazon)75.99 (Amazon)
256MB Ultra II32.40 (Pic Stop)
512MB Ultra II52.35 (Blank Media
256MB XS25.99 (Amazon)
512MB XS38.99 (Amazon)
1024MB XS69.99 (Amazon)

Posted by rich at 11:32 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

October 15, 2004

Nokia 6620 and Bluetooth Headsets

Well, time once again to get a great phone. The prices are pretty reasonable right now. You can get a Symbian phone that has full stereo plumbing for $100 with a 2-year plan from AT&T. This is an EDGE phone, so it is incredibly fast.

Letstalk.com is about $50 more expensive than Amazon.com for this phone, but they let you take a number from an existing phone and they have a family plan. So for us, this is great. I can get a phone for Adrian and me to do demos for Mfoundry, Melodeo and Mobilelime for about $100 per phone on a $60 shared rate plan with $25 for unlimited data.

Since I'm doing that, I might as well try Bluetooth headsets. If you google, you'll find that Ask Engadget folks have some good reviews of them.

Opinions vary, but the Motorola headset gets good reviews. The most intriguing is the Nextlink ones, but lots of folks are raving. They don't distribute in the US, but you can get them from Pilcon.

Here's one opinion:

I own a Nextlink Digital Bluespoon Gold and it's great!

1) Currently, it's the smallest of the BT headsets out there.

2) It's the only one out there that's Digital. It has noise cancellation (2 microphones built in) features and great sound quality.

3) It's the only one that will allow you to wear sunglasses/glasses while you're using the headset, because it doesn't wrap around your ear. That's an important thing to consider.

4) It's the smallest and lightest of all the BT headsets out there.

5) It has the best battery life of all the BT headsets out there.

6) It's also one of the best looking headsets out there, IMO, because it's very small and doesn't cover up your whole ear or run down the side of your face like some of the dorky, ugly, huge and heavy headsets you see out there.

7) Now the hard part: it's the most expensive headset out there. But for the smallest, lightest, highest sound quality unit out there with the best battery life, along with it being one of nicest looking headsets, you're going to pay more.

8) But yet another great part, is that the guys at Nextlink are FANTASTIC. If you ever need any help with one of their products, they're there to help. Really great service. And THAT can make such a big difference. One of the best ways to get in touch with them is at Howard Forums. Just do a search for Nextlink and you'll see their (Lars's, Jan's, and Jon's) posts.

The newest model is just US$85 and is analog but incredibly small. It is just 9 grams and has a USB connector for recharging. How cool is that. Called the AX. The Digital is expensive at $200 (so more than a phone!) and the AX is about $85.

Other ones folks like include the Bluetrek G2 which is about $65 from mobileplanet.com.

Posted by rich at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2004

Blackberry T-mobile Web Client

It is nearly impossible to navigate through the t-mobile UI to find the web client interface for the blackberry. I don’t know who designed the interface but it is terrible.

Here’s the link to the Web Client if you need it.

Posted by rich at 09:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2004

Blackberry 7230 Resets, Won't Load

I've been using my 7230 faithfully for the last two years now. We got a pair when they shipped two years ago. Lately though, I've been having lots of trouble. The contacts won't sync and have a strange error and the thing will randomly reinitialize itself. The Blackberry.net site is singularly useless for debugging, but in browsing t-mobile.com, I'm amazed to find that they've really upgraded their support.

But, if you actually upgrade, then the phone application in particular gets much better. You can actually read the incoming calls (it appears to not use the invisible system font, but picks up your choice of fonts and the letters are huge). Also the confusing phone screen is now much clearer and beside showing you the person who called, shows the number as well. Well worth the firmware upgrade.

Here are the recommendations on how to find the upgrade. The problem is that blackberry.net no longer puts upgrades on their site, so you have to splunking:

  • BlackBerry 7230 Troubleshooting. To reset the handheld using the Application Loader:
    Use the Backup and Restore tool to back up the data from your handheld to your computer before proceeding. Warning: These following steps will erase the data on the handheld:
    1. In the desktop manager, double-click the Application Loader icon. The Application Loader Wizard window will display.
    2. Click Next.
    3. In the Handheld Application Selection window, ensure that the appropriate applications are selected and click Next.
    4. The Completing the Application Loader Wizard will display. Click Advanced.
    5. In the Handheld Data Preservation window, select Erase all application data and Erase all currently installed applications, and click Next.
    6. Click Finish. The handheld resets. This may take several minutes.
    7. Verify that the cradle is plugged into the port that has been selected in the BlackBerry Desktop Manager.
    8. Open the Settings window: from the desktop manager within the Options menu, click Serial Settings. In the Port Number field, select None. Click Detect.
  • Also make sure you have the latest version of the Desktop Manager that runs on the PC and also within the device itself. Amazingly on the Technical Specifications page there is now a check for System Upgrade so that you can now check the version ID and see if you need to update firmware. Confusing because it is not on the support page, but is actually in the products page. This is for the 6230 which is the black and white version BTW
  • Blackberry Upgrades. Another hard to find page, this lists all the upgrades. Very useful if you have one of these devies are are trying to figure out where it went.

Posted by rich at 09:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 01, 2004

Symbian Handsets

With really cool Symbian apps, I need to get a Symbian phone. Interesting to see which ones you can actually buy in the US:

  • Symbian OS phones:. Here is the list from the horses mouth. Amazing how few Symbian phones there really are.
  • Symbian by Operator. A nice little application that tells you where you can buy handsets by geography.
  • Nokia 6600 is the only modern symbian handset in the US right now according to this and its $99 :-(
  • Nokia 6620 is an EDGE phone and a little older v7.0 "Symbian, its $300 or so from AT&T Wireless.
  • Nokia 6630. This is their next EDGE phone. Symbian OS v8.0, 1.2Mpixel camera, 74Mb memory, but it is a pretty big phone. This one has stereo speaker plumbing as well. Pretty cool, but not clear when it will come to the US.
  • Panasonic X700. A nice candy bar phone, Symbian OS v7.0s, not c

Posted by rich at 09:36 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 09, 2004

Buying Cell phones online

OK, here are folks doing activations online.

  • Amazon. Their big cellular store. They have incredible discounts as well because of their scale.
  • Let's Talk. These guys are no. 3 google hit when you search for "cell phone" I've used them before.
  • Point. The one that I use quite a bit as well. Another big provider. In Maryland.
  • Karbon. They sell lots of Blackberrys. Robert Karbon is a great guy. He knows us as he was in the developer programs for Microsoft for quite a long time. A good example of someone doing speciality distribution, even small cell phone resellers can deal with activations and discounts now.

Search Amazon.com Cell Phones

Posted by rich at 09:17 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 11, 2004

Blackberry Internal Error #4238

Livelink - Result Page for Internal Error #4238. Talk about obscure error messages. Got this while using my Blackberry and trying to synchronize contacts. The bad error message mumbles about a bad connection to the Exchange Server.

Digging deeper, it looks like there is some corruption in the Outlook contact file and you have to turn logging on and send it to Blackberry.

I've run the clean utility against Exchange and don't see any obvious errors.

Posted by rich at 03:42 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 09, 2004

Incredible AT&T Wireless Snafu

a little ludwig goes a long way: ATT phone obsoleting. For those of you who have been wondering why AT&T GSM coverage is so horrible. Ludwig explains it. Basically, AT&T launched their GSM in the 1900 MHz range, but then built out their older 850 MHz TDMA spectrum, so now they really need phones that are dual band (1900/800MHz) to really work effectively.

Of course that means that you really want the newest AT&T phones only. Sigh. What a mess.

Posted by rich at 10:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Guide to Cell phones in general: March 2004

Well, Jenn asked me about cell phones. She needs one or maybe two. Given the pricing right now and wireless local number portability, here's what I told her (this applies mainly to Seattle) and is tuned for "just married" set for once vs. geeks galore:

  • Wireless Local Number Portability. Given that it costs $30 here in Seattle for a wireline phone. If you're young and moving around alot, it sure makes sense to watch your minutes and go with a family plan rather than having a cell phone and a landline phone. The main thing you give up is the ability to dial-up for PC access.
  • Comcast. Broadband. Again, given that that $30 looks large, the $45 for a cable modem sure looks good. On that line, you get of course data and if you really need lots more minutes, then you can get Net2Phone where you pay $0.02/minute. It will be a long time before you use up all those minutes :-)
  • T-mobile Family Time Plans. I've done bunches of pricings and T-mobile comes out consistently in Seattle with decent coverage and very aggressive pricing. In particular, their Family Time plans are great. You get unlimited T-mobile-to-T-mobile minutes, so newlyweds can talk to their batteries content. Then for $70/month, you get two lines and also unlimited nights and weekends. Only major bummer is that you do have to pay $0.05/text message or get 300 text messages for $3/phone.
  • Verizon. They are more expensive, but coverage in Seattle is better. Also these aren't world phones, so you can't use in Europe, Asia, etc. The $80 for 600 minutes, so a little more. They have a bunch of promotions going on now.
  • LetsTalk.com. You can get phones about $100 cheaper on this site. So I'd advise buying here or at Amazon. And the Samsung SGH-R225, actually gives you back $100. Great for bargain hunters. It isn't color, but it is a world phone.

Posted by rich at 09:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 07, 2003

Nikon D75 vs. Canon Digital Rebel

Popular Photography Magazine. The first really great sub-$1000 digital SLRs are coming out. First Canon announced the Digital Rebel with an incredible lense. Now Nikon announced their D70 at the same pricing range. This is great as it means that really high quality is coming down super fast in price.

Still a ways to go before the 11-14 megapixel full-frame imagers are at $1,000 but the day is coming :-)

The best things are the new lenses:

  • AF DX Fisheye-Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8 G ED
  • AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 12–24mm f/4G IF-ED
  • AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17–55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

That last lense is pretty amazing. Constant aperature and it goes down to wide angle.

Posted by rich at 08:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 29, 2003

Blackberry 7230: Off to Germany...

I’ve been recommending the Blackberry 7230 to a host of folks. Here’s the latest and some FAQs:

_Hello Rich,

Finally I see someone who has a Blackberry 7230. I have been seriously considering one.

I live in Upstate NY but I travel every year to Germany for a month. While there I would like to send/receive e-mail and the Blackberry seems a good solution.

BUT—my computer at home would be turned off. And I have an e-mail account as you see it right now. Would it be possible to access e-mail while in Germany?

Oh yes, I also do not use Outlook/Outlook express, but rather the e-mail program with Netscape. (People tell me I am working with a dinosaur, but it still works for me).

I do also have a T-Mobile data only account for my laptop with using a PCMCIA card acting as a modem connecting to T-Mobile’s network.

Thanks for any information/suggestions you may have.
Cordially,
Mahl
Mahlon Wagner_

Great questions, Mahlon. Here are your answers:

I’ve been to Germany and the UK myself and this has turned out to be a good solution. Your mileage may vary of course, but the fact that it supports GPRS international roaming makes it easy to get email anywhere where there is GSM coverage.

On your connection to email, this Blackberry sports a new feature called “Web client”.
The Blackberry servers themselves will look for mail and deliver them to you so you don’t need to have your PC on. The only thing you need is to have POP3 or IMAP access to your mail server. If you don’t know what these are, let me know. Unfortunately, AOL and hotmail won’t work and yahoo requires an extra charge for POP3 access. If you are using a cable modem like Roadrunner then things are great since they provide this POP3 access.

Also since you have T-mobile already, you can decide to make the Blackberry just a data device for $40/month or you can use it as a phone as well for whatever plan you pick plus $30/month. I’ve been using it as a phone and while it is big, it does let me get rid of one device.

Thanks,
Rich

————————————————————————————————————————-
Wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. If interested, see ignitionpartners.com . (With apologies to Sir Ernest Shackleton)
———————————————————————————————————————-

Posted by rich at 04:46 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

October 19, 2003

Cool Cell Phones

Been spending a bunch of time in Europe lately, so it has been fun to compare the different cell phones in the US and here. Here’s quick scoop on cool ones:

  • a little ludwig goes a long way: My new phone — Siemens SL56. This has been in Europe for a while. An amazingly small one. This is just a phone, so doesn’t have a zillion functions.
  • Sony Ericsson P810. This is a class of smart phones you don’t see much here. Based on the Symbian Operating System, so it feels like you are using a “big” device. Incredibly big screen and a tap-able user interface. There is a keyboard when you close the thing so you can dial like a conventional phone. Has ever feature in the known universe including camera, MP3 player, SD card slot for more memory. Only problem is that it is incredibly hard to find and use things. For instance, taking a picture and then sending it takes quite a few clicks. Amazing screen is the main thing.

Posted by rich at 08:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 03, 2003

International Calling to the US

OK, I just went to the UK and Germany and realized that even with a wonderful world phone, it is very expensive to call given the roaming charges. Here are the ways around that:

  • CogniCall Long Distance Calling Card. This is an international long distance calling card. Nice thing is that it is billed to your credit card and there is no minimum monthly (unlike IDT which I used to have) nor is it prepaid (so you don’t have to leave money lying around). Rates are pretty good. It is $0.17 from a UK landline to the US. Hoops, take note, this is a good card for going to Spain. Have to order in advance though.
  • MCI World Traveler. This is a pretty good card. It is $25. And the rates are pretty good. $0.19 from a UK landline to the US. Main problem is that it expires after six months, so it is roughly equivalent to IDT which I’ve used before. It charges $2/month even when you don’t use it. A good deal if you are going to use it all up quickly. Also it rounds to 3 minutes, so not great for short calls.
  • IDT. I’ve used quite a few times. Reliable and similar in cost to MCI. Best if you have a international phone or a mobile on a prepay so you can call the local access number and then jump to the US.
  • Phone Card Savers. A pretty good comparison site. Does a specific call to the USA comparison.
  • Everdialback. This is great if you have live overseas and have a dedicated phone line. Won’t work if you are calling from a hotel or a mobile. It is $0.43/minute calling from a UK mobile to the US for instance.

Posted by rich at 09:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 02, 2003

Blackberry 7210/7230 woes and FAQ

I truly love the new Blackberry (really a blueberry), but it is amazing how hard it is to get support for it. Between the carrier and Blackberry, it doesn’t seem like there is a place to find out what is going on. So it is off to Google we go. BTW, the only difference between the 7210 and the 7230 is that one is locked to T-Mobile and the other to AT&T Wireless:

  • RIM/Blackberry - AT&T Wireless Support. Although we have T-mobile, there is no support forum at all for it. They tell you to literally call Blackberry or email help@blackberry.net. Right. AT&T does run a pretty good forum though, so I’m going to use it even though I’m on T-mobile. I am completely in love with Markf who is on that forum. he actually answers back.
  • PDAStreets. This is the top google hit for blackberry forum. Seems more random than the AT&T forum, but is more active.
  • Tekforum. Another moderately active forum.
  • Blackberry Developer Forum. Amazingly, the only forum that Blackberry sponsors is about Java, still sometimes some useful tips there.

Here are the problems and answers as I know them:

  • Invisible Fonts. I personally find the system font nearly invisible. I’m getting old. Millbanks 10 in the Options icon, choose screen/keyboard is much better. I am now using BBCondenses in 8 font with subpixel rendering and it is very nice too.
  • Lousy deleted interface The Blackberry web client has a 10MB limit (not very much!) and if you delete mail from the inbox, it just goes to deleted items and it still counts against your 10MB limit. So, to really get more space, you have to deleted from the inbox, then go to deleted items and delete again. Arrrrghhh. So, if you just complete delete from the inbox, you have to either understand what “Permanently Delete” is vs. just “Delete” or go to deleted and delete there. What a lousy interface. Also, the same happens with sent mail. There are aging rules, but the default is 365 days which is way too long given that there is only 10MB of storage and you have to set for each folder, so that’s another half hour wasted.
  • Reconcile mail. It is completely unobvious is how to do it. You have to first hit on your Blackberry, the options/Reconcile now, then you have to hit Options then in that page, goto the menu item that says Purge Deleted items to actually get rid of it because of the strange deleted is not deleted. Doesn’t appear documented anywhere but the AT&T forum. Alternatively, you can set the deleted items aging rule to 1 days. The minimum it appears.
  • Web Client slowness. The client is incredibly slow. Sometimes takes a minute to respond. Nothing like hotmail or any other web client I’ve used. Must be lots of fancy Jscript programming, but it is nearly unusable.
  • Backlighting. I’ve never thought any Blackberry really had it, but this is nearly as bad as the original 957. More information at AT&T support
  • HTML Web Sites. It is sad, but both AT&T and T-mobile lockout the use of standard HTML web sites via WAP. So, you can’t just browse an ordinary site, you have to have a WAP enabled, yucky one. What are they thinking, the Blackberry is a 486 class machine, it could browse static html easily and the browser is already on the machine. The best solution appears to be to use the Wap.google.com site which then proxies to the HTML web page cache that google has. This does the HTML to WAP translation. How cool!
  • 7210 Applications. None of the older 957 or 6210 or 6710 applications appear to work. Requires a whole recompile. Wonder why.
  • 7210 Unlock. The Blackberry is locked to a particular service. The good news for those of you using T-Mobile USA is that they will supply the unlock code. You just need to call them and tell them you are traveling overseas and don’t use their service there. This BTW is true for all T-Mobile phones I’ve had, they will give you the unlock. Very friendly folks. AT&T on the other hand won’t give the unlock code at all and there appear to be no third party services that do it.

Posted by rich at 09:46 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack

Fall Cell Phone and Plan Analysis

Well, it’s time for Rich’s twice-yearly shuffle of cell phones and plans. When number portability strikes, it will be even easier, but right now of the five or so phones I manage for my family, most have contracts ending around now. here is what I’m doing and other advice for you:

Best GSM Plans

  • T-Mobile - Family Plans. If you have a high usage person and some low usage folks (fits me to a tee, I’m high usage, Connie and my parents are low), then T-mobile has some of the best plans I’ve seen. The Family Plan right now gives you 800 minutes shared between two phones for $70. You can add another phone for $10/month. Does require a one year contract. Amazing thing is that this includes nationwide roaming, long distance, unlimited weekend minutes and unlimited calls to any other T-mobile phone. How amazing is that. Heck, I think everyone should get one so their retired parents can have a phone.
  • Otherwise, for a single person, the “Get More 1000:”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00009MQDG/qid=1062560342//102-7967833-8380932?v=glance&s=wireless seems about unbeatable if you can stand the T-mobile coverage. Again, it has just about everything, nationwide roaming and long distance. Doesn’t have unlimited nights or weekends or T-mobile calling, but at 1000 minutes, most folks aren’t every going to max out their bucket.
  • Now Amazon doesn’t have the Family Plan on their site, so I think you have to buy the phones and then call T-mobile to switch plans. That is what I did with our two Blackberrys.

GSM Devices

Check out

  • C|Net which has a bunch of reviews that tend to be old, but interesting to read and there really aren’t reliable sources of reviews I’ve found for phones on the web amazingly enough. C|Net has the most volume, but the quality is pretty suspect these days. it is too easy to spam it.
  • Amazon. On the mass market, Amazon has the absolutely most amazing prices.

Here are some phone recommendations:

  • Blackberry 7320. We’ve been using for a while. Love the device, but have to say the current software on the data side leaves quite a bit to be desired particularly if you are using POP3 pulling. They are essentially out of stock of these devices, but they are a Blackberry with great Exchange integration as well as being a GSM phone.
  • Samsung V205 with its integrated camera. I personally think that you shouldn’t buy a phone without color screen and a camera right now. If you can hold off though, wait until this Christmas when the deals and new phone will fly.
  • Nokia 6610 or the Motorola T722 both seem trusty dusty reliable. Both are color and have reasonable interfaces. I’ve got a CDMA Motorola T720 and it is pretty good.

CDMA Choices

In the Seattle area, for the best coverage, I’ve found that Verizon is still about the best choice at least for my commute. Here’s the latest best choices for them:

  • Americas Choice. These are free roaming and long distance within the Verizon network (pretty extensive, most major metros). Not as cheap as T-mobile, but $40 does get you 400 minutes plus unlimited nights/weekend and 1000 mobile-to-mobile.
  • Let’s Talk. Amazon doesn’t sell Verizon, but Let’s Talk seems to be the top hit on Google, but no one seems to offer much discounting.
  • LG VX6000. Expensive at $300, but has the camera phone. There seem to be much smaller subsidies on Verizon these days so the phones cost quite a bit more unless there is a promotion going.

Upcoming phones

C|Net Upcoming. Finally, using C|Net, a look at upcoming phones that you can drool over. This site is a bit thin, but the Siemens SL56. This has a cool sliding design and is color, but no camera.

Posted by rich at 09:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 23, 2003

At Last... Java Phone Benchmarks

Satoshi’s Wireless Weblog: User Interface is an Art: Java benchmark. Hattip to Satoshi for finding a benchmark site. Amazing to see how different performant is at Jbenchmark. There is a 10x difference in performance. For instance the Motorola 720i is at 500 utils while the Sharp sh53 is at 1500 and the Nokia 7650 is at 2524.

Posted by rich at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 12, 2003

Color Blackberry is coming

Forbes.com: A Splash Of Blackberry Color. Yahoo, Blackberry is finally doing a color version. I like the 6210 form factor and the 7230 is a color version. Confusingly, the thing is actually “blue” :-)

Anyway, in Europe, it will sell for $300 while the monochrome version goes for $200. These are bigger subsidies than what you can get in the states, where the monochrome version is $250-300.

Posted by rich at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 03, 2003

Long Distance

Now that Connie’s trip to Senegal went off so well, I thought it was a good time to look at our long distance carrier. We’ve been an AT&T customer forever mainly because I’ve been scared about call quality, but playing with these 1010 services has really changed my mind. Everest for instance has been good as has Cognicall. Although I would say 1016868 is cheap but didn’t work well.

In any case, we pay $0.05 weekends and $0.09 weekdays for interstate and $3/month for international just to make sure my parents don’t dial incorrectly as happened last year when we didn’t have a plan. Here are some sites to study that have no minimum monthlies:

  • Bettertelephonerates.com. This site seems to show that things can get much better. They have a nice rate calculator that shows the bill drops to $5.37 per month for in-state and interstate. Wow. Don’t know about the quality of these things though, will keep looking for that. The calculator is great, but they don’t tell you how good the service is.
  • Telcompare. Here’s a site that reviews various carriers. Don’t know if they are legitimate though, they are high in google ranking. They conclude for long distance that the leading carriers are:
  1. Capsule. A real $0.039 rate and a pretty good network.
  2. Cogniphone. I used this for dial-around service from Canada and it worked super well. The quality was pretty good. Only concern is that this is a penny stock on the Nasdaq, so who knows how long it will be around. Best thing is the intrastate rates in Washington are phenomenal. $0.039 vs. $0.10 that the others charge. I have their $0.069 calling card and also use their similarly inexpensive dial-around service now and the quality is good.
  3. Accxx. The quality leader, so naturally, their rates are higher. $0.049 as if you care and $0.11 intrastate in Washington. I might get this one, just because of quality, since Connie would be pretty mad if suddently the long distance stuff stopped working.

Posted by rich at 09:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2003

t68 User Guide

t68 User Group. It is amazing how bad the manual is for the Sony Ericsson t68. Fortunately, the Internet saves the day. Here's a great how-to site to help setup the POP3 mail feature for instance.

Posted by rich at 08:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 14, 2003

The Final Word On International Calling

I never really finished this full analysis, so here it is. This is for traveling to Canada and also calling into Senegal. Here is the strategy I ended up using:

  1. 10-10 Phone Rates. This appears to be a fantastic and honest site that analyzes the cost to call out using the 1010 dial around services. The net is that you save quite a bit over the traditional carriers. For calling to Switzerland, the best is 1016868 and then the number. For calling to Canada it's the same 1016868 seems great as does Everdial, but you have to register there first
  2. Telestial. When you are in country, you need a cell phone, so use Telestial to get a global SIM for about $90 if you aren't going to a major country. Otherwise, if you are, then get into that country and buy a prepaid account. In the UK, that is Fresh at www.carphonewarehouse.com as an example.
  3. Save on Phone. Once you have a cell phone for emergencies, don't ever answer it, you are just using it for urgent things. What you want to do is to get a dial-around service. That is, you call a local access number in that country, it then calls you back from the US using a very low rate. Cognicall seems to have the best rates for doing this from Canada at $0.12 and $0.31 or so from Switzerland using a mobile phone if you are using that Global SIM.
  4. Save On Phone - Calling Cards. If you are calling from within the US, the best choice is one of those nationwide cellular plans I think. Otherwise, see the list from Saveonphone, right now Cognicall looks pretty good because there is no monthly fee.

Posted by rich at 09:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 13, 2003

What phone should I buy?

Steve ask for phones. Great question steve about what phone to buy. It's an incredibly complex question, even if you just live in Seattle. Here's an update on it, for more, you can search this blog for the occasional irreverent entries. First of all, I'm going to assume you are more or less like me, want something cool, but not too expensive. I'm assuming you don't want one of these hybrid PDA/smartphone things. That's a whole different set of issues.

First the methodology that I use:

  1. Carrier. Bill Malloy points out that coverage and dropped calls are the beginning, middle and end of the customer experience. Sort of the PC gospel of make the software easy and fast. I've tried lots of services, not specifically in Union Hill, but Seattle and Bellevue. Here is what I've found that coverage quality in rough order is: a) Verizon, b) Nextel, c) AT&T TDMA and T-mobile and d) Sprint and AT&T GSM. I haven't tried Cingular in this area. This is just one mans opinion of course.
  2. C|Net Phones has the best reviews of phones and a good overview of what's coming and the best place to buy seems right now to be Amazon Cell Phone Store, they have amazing rebates like the Internet days of old. . When looking through this, make sure to check the user ratings. Very revealing is the percentage of lovers and haters. Sometimes this is more interesting to read than the reviews. Right now, if you are a power user, I wouldn't get any phone that doesn't have a color screen and a camera which weighs more than 4 oz. The current hot models are by network:
    • LG VX4400 on Verizon. The upcoming Samsung is according to Paul Jacobs over at Qualcomm incredibly cool, but late. So if you can stand it, wait for the camera phones. As usual, most of these phones were supposed to make Christmas, but slipped, so this seems like when many are launching.
    • Motorola T720 on Verizon or T-mobile. What I am using right now. Verizon has good coverage and the phone is nice. The display is pretty good too. It is tri-mode on T-mobile and you can use pretty much anywhere in the world.
    • Sony Ericsson t68. The screen is nearly invisible in the sun, but it is tiny, tiny, tiny. Connie likes it for that reason. It is also a world phone and has bluetooth, IR, so you can geek out to your hearts content
    • Motorola i95cl. Nextel's color phone, it is bigger and larger than the rest, but it does have this DirectConnect, so you and Christine can stay in touch all the time. I've used its brothers and it is big and reliable.
    • Samsung SGH-S105
      • . Haven't tried this yet, but it got great reviews on Cnet. Cool color screen.
    • Sanyo SCP-5300 on Sprint. This is a camera phone. Has good reviews. I haven't tried it myself, but folks seem to like it.
  3. Rate Plans. This is the great confusing mess. Pretty much everyone has about the same rate plan right now. The sweet spot seems to be the $40 plans in terms of minutes. I actually haven't found that many difference. Cingular has a rollover, so the minutes keep accumulating. AT&T One Rate is more expensive, but the GSM plans are very cheap. Most of the others are identical. To me, the biggest difference is whether these are one or two-year agreements. With a one year, you can replace the phone in a year, which given the technology changes is a good idea. I try not to do anything that is more than a year. Also, if you switch rate plans in mid stream, they reset the one year clock. Interestingly, the lowest cost thing to do is to bounce between carriers because new customers get the phone rebates but old customers don't when you are buying a new phone. So I'd advise studying the web sites carefully.

Steve had a number of other criteria which I don't use but will cover here

  • Sound quality. I really haven't found in the last year that the phone is the main problem with sound quality. It is more the network.
  • Hands free system for car. Pretty much no one sells these anymore. Most folks just use a hands-free ear piece. The main reason is the models are spinning so fast. I don't think you can use the new Nokias with the old cradles, so I haven't had a cradle in my car for four years now. Also, the speakphone sound quality was always kind of bad at least for me.
  • Address book. Everyone has 500 numbers in the phonebook now, but don't even think about trying to sync with Outlook unless you have a few days of time. It is amazing that the firmware here is so bad.
  • Bonus: plays games. Just about everyone does. The color screen really adds alot. Prince of Persia rules!
  • Bonus: productivity apps. If you mean email. This is another sad story. Suffice to say, that this is incredibly hard. On the other hand, SMS seems to be working pretty well on most US phones now. Now if I could only get Connie to use it :-)

Posted by rich at 09:11 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

February 11, 2003

Ericsson T68 Unlock

Connie has an Ericsson t68 and is going overseas. She will need to use a local carriers SIM card, but her phone is locked. Here is what I found out about unlocking:

  • WirelessAdvisor.com Forums - Do you provide, or need, unlocking services? Read this. Be aware that T-Mobile and Cingular will provide you with your subsidy (SIM-) unlock code and instructions for free. For Cingular, call Customer Care at 1-800-393-7267. For T-Mobile, send an e-mail to simunlock (at) t-mobile (dot) com. You will need your phone's IMEI number, which can be discovered by pressing *#06# on your GSM phone or by looking under the battery. It is a 15-digit number and is unique to your phone. AT&T historically have not given out unlock codes for GSM devices.
  • Logos Unlimited Remote Unlock Procedure. This ones says you must use Windows 98 and the instructions seem pretty complete. It is 20 pounds to unlock and upgrade to latest firmware. Seems like a good deal, but I have no idea how legitimate folks like these are. Could just take your money :-(

    • Posted by rich at 09:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

    February 10, 2003

    Calling from home: VOIP vs. 1010 vs. Calling Cards

    As part of looking all this calling stuff overseas, I hit a bunch of VOIP sites. A pretty interesting review. I actually tried some of them from Ignition and they were amazingly good and cheap too. These are sorted in Google page rank order and the analysis shows they are great for the US, but not clearly better than a calling card or 1010 dial around for overseas.

    For example, 1010 Phone Rates shows that 1016868 shows costs $0.23 to Switzerland cellular and WorldXchange at 1010629 is just $0.54 for a call to Senegal. As another example, with AT&T it is $0.76 to Senegal and $0.14 to Swiss and French landlines, doesn't say what the celllular rates, but I'm guess that it is probably $0.35. In contrast, here are the VOIP vendors:

    1. Net2Phone. I've had an account here for a while and it was terrible about two years ago. Now, I tried and it worked fine. They have a prepay program so I thought I would try it when calling Connie given I have a PC speaker and it would be nice for the kids to hear. Sample rates are $0.02 with the US, $0.30 to Franch, $0.36 for Swiss cellular and $1.19 to Senegal.
    2. Dialpad. The second biggest according to google and the rates are a little lower. Sample rates are $0.03 within the US, $0.29 to French mobile, $0.36 to Swiss cellular and $0.99 to Senegal.
    3. I Connect There. The most informative site and also the lowest cost, but I don't know about quality. Best thing is that they tell you about hardware to buy. For instance, there are USB gateways that let you connect an analog phone to your PC and there is a device from Cisco that does this without a PC but costs $180. Sample rates are $0.03 with the US, $0.27 to a French mobile, $0.29 to Swiss mobile and Senegal is $0.79 via Internet.

    Posted by rich at 11:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    February 05, 2003

    Video Conferencing

    Paul Maritz and Eyal both want to do video conferencing over at Ignition. This seems like a classic opportunity for Rich "The Geek" Tong to learn another inane subject. I certainly don't think we should spend $2,000 for some hardware when we don't understand all the issues (like why can't we just use a PC with Netmeeting?)

    Here is what an hour on google has taught me FWIW. Mainly that there is a confusing set of products. These start at the low end with a PC plus a camera and a speaker system with Netmeeting or CUSeeMe, then onto the online meeting companies like Webex, Placeware, Centra and Raindance and then to internal products like Lotus Sametime and then up to dedicated hardware like Polycom, Tandberg and Sony. I have a nasty suspicion that the quality of the T-1 we have is going to have the biggest impact. Oh well. Lots to learn.

    • ViDe Videoconferencing Cookbook, Version 3.0. This is a great introduction to what is out there. Main thing I learned is that there are lots of open source efforts going on and also that there are lots of different technologies now. It is not just H.323 anymore. Main things to study are MPEG-2000 based compression and also the many commercial products like Lotus Sametime or Webex. Personally I want the Reality Interface 3-d hologram thingy :-)
    • D-link IP video conferencing. D-Link debuted its i2eye DVC-1000 VideoPhone, a broadband appliance that delivers IP videoconferencing via TV. The device sits on top of a TV and features an adjustable tilt/focus camera lens and integrated microphone. You place calls via the interface you control with a remote. To speak, you can use an analog phone plugged into the back of the box, or talk directly into the built-in speaker.
    • Meeting by wire. A video conferencing site with emphasis on Microsoft conferencing stuff.
    • David Strom's Web Conferencing List. This is a good list of all those web based clients
    • David Woolie's Web Conferencing directory. Another great list.
    • Conference Zone Newsletter. Someone actually follows this market closely.
    • PC Magazine on Video Conferencing. Only problem with this review is that it is a year old. Says that the Fly Conferencing Suite is great
    • Exchange 2000 IM Clients. Now that Ignition is up to Exchange 2000, we can use the IM client that uses the Exchange directory.

    Posted by rich at 11:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

    December 26, 2002

    Scripting vs. Java and C Comparisons

    Python Compared. A fascinating study list of comparisons fo different languages and how efficient they are.

    Perhaps the best study done was by Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st Century

    Posted by rich at 12:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

    December 16, 2002

    VOIP arriving

    Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things. This is a neat geek site for interesting gadgets and a multiuser site. Here's a note from Clay Shirky about VoIP. I have to give it a try!

    I have been testing Vonage's VoIP service, and it comes close to the critical mix of simple, useful, and cheap. The key difference between Vonage and previous "You computer is your phone!" models is that now your phone can be your phone, thanks to Cisco's Analog Telephone Adapter, a box that takes a phone cable in the front and ethernet in the back and does pretty much exactly what you would expect a box that takes phone cable in the front and ethernet in the back would do.

    Posted by rich at 12:06 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

    December 15, 2002

    Buy the device, hate the network

    Returning my Sidekick. It is amazing to me how many times people just want to love their device like the new Danger, but the network just gets in the way. Sounds like Matt needs to look up C|net where they mainly talk about the network it is running on, so it is not just T-mobile

    Fundamentally all these devices seem to be designed with the assumption that there is an always-on network. It is amazing to me that only Blackberry gets this right and then only for mail. Somewhere there needs to be a disconnected client model where the server talks to a store on the client and the client can run disconnected. We talked about this three years ago when we started Ignition and it just has never happened. Maybe 2003?

    Posted by rich at 11:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack