Mobile Tech

Bluetooth Card And Other Travel Gear

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I got a new Bluetooth PCMCIA card yesterday. I wanted to see how/if I can successfully use the bluetooth card with my Sony Ericsson T610 phone as a wireless modem. In tests yesterday things looked good. I have yet to need to test it on the road. Like I mentioned in my travel post, I had a T-Mobile hotspot in the airport in NYC.

I had a little issue getting the install shield to run on the CD of drivers that came with the card. I found the hidden exe that starts the actual install to run and got the drivers and software to install. I even paired the phone without major issue. I will put the card through its paces later this weekend.

What I didn’t like was whenever the card was inserted and I opened any network connection, the bluetooth card asked me if I wanted to use the phone to connect. annoying, but I will see if it happens again.

Besides the bluetooth card (from 3Com btw) I am also trying out the Thinkpad extended life battery. Gus and Dean have had them for months (in Gus’ case a year) but it is the first time I have used one. It is heavy compared to the old card. So far I have 80% battery life left. That is good since I have around that much % of my trip left:) I have my regular battery as a backup. Intel says you can go 8 hours with this battery. I may be pushing the spec’s on this trip.

What didn’t make the trip is my trusted (aka old) Sony cybershot camera. it is only 1.3 mega pixels but it works. Well it did up until last night. I was going to take some shots of Morgan but the camera wouldn’t turn on. that was weird since I had charged it up earlier in the week in planing for the trip. I left it with my parents to save weight. I will get it next week when I am back there, and try charging it. It may be dead, or the charge I gave it didn’t hold. not sure what yet. I need to look at that in more detail when I get back.

New PDA

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I want a new PDA. I know I have my Treo, but I cannot read ebooks on it, and the camera sucks. as a PDA phone it is good, but for other multimedia functions I need something else. I currently have an HP iPaq 1945, but for the life of me I cannot get the wifi card from Sandisk that I bought to work with it. I can’t sync the via bluetooth either. I think it is just Pocket PC being buggy. The wifi card works. it see’s wifi networks, but never authenticates right, or gets ip’s from open networks. the screen is great so I keep it for now and read ebooks on it.

I was all ready to buy a new PalmOne Zire 72, but realized that Palm ussually refreshes their product line in October. I figured I can wait and see what they come out with before I buy. If anything I can get the 72 for a cheaper price.

I figure if I sell the iPaq on Ebay and buy something else it wont cost me that much more. I got the ipaq as a present so it was free for me.

iPaq Vs. Treo 600

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As I mentioned earlier this week I got a look at the new HP iPaq phone. After playing with AJ’s for a while yesterday I decided that I will wait till the new Treo comes out. The HP is just way to big compared to the Treo 600 I have now. The screen was nice, but size is an issue, and the HP is bigger than my old Treo 270. check out the comparison in size between my Treo and the iPaq.

The new HP iPaq GSM Phone

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I checked out the new HP iPaq h6315 GSM Pocket PC mobile phone on friday. I was walking by a T-Mobile store and decided to see if the had it. I was able to get a side by side feel from the new iPaq and my Palmone Treo 600. I didn’t get any pictures but my original assessment seems accurate. The iPaq is allot bigger. It is more the size of the old Treo 270, but a bit taller. It is just as wide. That was what made the 270 not comfortable to hold when talking. The screen was big and nice, but I have doubts about the removable keyboard. I will probably wait for the new Treo to come out. Whenever that may be. My luck it will be another 6 months before it is for T-Mobile. Of course since there is no official release date, it is anyone’s guess how long it will be before the new Treo’s hit the stores.

AJ will be getting the new HP iPaq phone this week, so I will check it out in detail later this week. Hopefully I will get a picture of it with my Treo. It will remind me why I won’t spend $600 (I already have T-Mobile service so it will be more than a new activation) on a larger pone.

More T-Mobile Stuff

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It is ironic that I wrote good things about T-Mobile customer service the other day. Gizmodo wrote very negative things about the same group of T-Mobile Customer Service people. I read that site all the time, and I can totally see what he wrote about happening. I have had bad experiences with plenty of companies. It just goes to show you that two people can have totally different experiences with the same company. It is and will always be the people that make a company good or bad.

I for one had a billing problem for 3 months early this year. After several calls they finally fixed the issue. Twice T-Mobile said it was fixed, and then was not. To my credit I keep dates, customer service rep id #’s and one line summaries of what we discuss. I know it sounds like over kill, but at work I have had problems I was working through and if I didn’t have data like that I would have been screwed. I take that lesson learned and have applied it for personal use. it has worked for me. But even then it took months to fix the problem. The difference was the problem I had was in fact fixed, and during the period of time the billing issue went on, I got credits each month for the mistake.

T-Mobile Customer Service Is Great (Today)

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I called to unlock my Sony Ericsson T-610 today. They took down some information and are emailing me the unlock instructions. No questions asked. I have been a customer on and off since Sept 2000. I have had my current account since early 2002. You would expect them to treat you right if you have been around for a while? Other carriers I have had for years didn’t, but so far T-Mobile treats me well.

If you have had an account for several months they will unlock the phone if you ask and have a good reason (for me potential travel to somewhere that I will want to put a local SIM card into my phone). Hey, I own the dam phone. They get their money back from the subsidy if I stay with them for a year, or pay the early termination fee. So why then does AT&T Wireless and Cingular not do the same thing? AT&T does not unlock for any reason. Cingular I am not so sure about.

T-Mobile also doesn’t make me extend or setup a contract for changes to my account. I have been running without a contract for over a 1 1/2. I don’t plan on changing carriers, but I would think twice about staying with T-Mobile if I called and asked to change something and they did make me sign a contract. It is the point of the matter that they (Cell phone companies) lock me in for making changes. Verizon, and AT&T were terrible about that. T-Mobile has been good so far.

To sum this post up: If you are a T-Mobile executive, don’t change your relaxed customer service approach. Customers actually do appreciate it. I for one am a loyal customer not because I am locked into a contract (i have paid $175 to break out of other companies contracts because of draconian rules, etc.), but because T-Mobile can keep me without making me sign a contract.

Honestly T-Mobile may not have the best network in NYC, but they make up for it in all the ways I stated above. Verizon in my experience (and I have tried all carriers in NYC except for Cingular) has the best coverage and network. They do, I tell people that when they ask my advice. The problem is they cannot make up for the shitty customer service, and restrictions with good voice quality. They still suck even if they have the best signal strength, because support just sucks.

The New iPod

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After several months more than I had originally planned I have a new iPod to replace the one I sold way back in March/April. I got a new 40-gig model. it is nice. I was at the apple store for something else and saw they had the new models on sale earlier than I had thought so I got one. It is all charged up for the commute tomorrow.

I don’t like that it didn’t come with a case or a remote, but everything else about it is good so far. I gave it a little spin last night when I was doing my laundry, but the trip to work tomorrow will be its real test.

I also got a new 20″ Flat panel from the apple store. I needed a big screen to replace the screen I had on my iMac. I really missed the large wide screen flat screen. now that I sold the iMac I had to do something. It set me back a bit, but I had some cash from the iMac sale. So far the screen rocks. I plugged it into the powerbook and I was off. Now I need a DVI KVM so I can plug in my windows box to it. The only problem is most consumer DVI KVM’s or any KVM for that matter can only do 1600×1200 dpi. The flat panel does a little higher resolution than that. I am shopping around now.

Palm And Entourage

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I installed the Palm conduit for Microsoft Entourage 2004 over the weekend. After using it for a few days I have no idea why I haven’t been using it for longer. I want outlook like functionality on my Mac. I want free / busy data that works with outlook. Turns out I am a dumbass and have had that all along with Entourage. It makes sense, Entourage is Microsoft’s answer to outlook for the Mac.

I removed the Missing Sync from my Mac and ran the Entourage conduit. it worked great so far. I will put the missing sync back on when the new version 4.0 comes out with support for Entourage. No more iCal & Address book for me. Almost everything sync’ between the palm and Entourage. The only thing that doesn’t is calendar categories. I think that is because the palm doesn’t transfer them, because Entourage has the ability to handle them, and so does outlook.

I am going to try to sync my Treo 600 with my Powerbook today at work, and use the powerbook for my PIM instead of my windows box and outlook. I will see how it turns out. Now all I need is for my Treo to do Bluetooth and I would be a happy camper!!!

My iPaq

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I have been thinking of selling my iPaq. Well I have been thinking of selling allot of devices I have just to clean house and get some cash, but I digress. I don’t need the iPaq, but I like the screen. it is easy to read off of.

I may just keep it because of that easy reading feature. I like ebooks and I cannot read them off my Treo as much as I would like to. I got the iPaq for free so it isn’t costing me anything to get rid of it. I should just keep it. No more rambling from me!

I don’t want this blog to be a rambling of tech stuff. Oh, too late.

HBH-65 Update

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The headset is good so far. The phone I am using with it (Sony Ericsson T610) right now sucks. You don’t really know how good or bad a phone is until you use another one in the exact same places and get totally different results. This time I used the T610 on my trip up from NYC to Kingston. On the train my Treo normally backs out allot, so did my verizon phone. In the cab from the train station I am usually able to make calls, and sometimes have spotty service. With the T610 I had almost no coverage at all on the entire trip. In the cab from the train I had no signal until I was 5 minutes from the office, and our office has a T-Mobile tower in the same building complex.

The headset worked well when I had good cell signal. No complaints from people about voice quality. I probably wont use the headset that much since the phone sucks. I am sticking with my Treo 600 for now. It actually gets a signal. Palmone, please put bluetooth on the Treo!!!