Verizon Wireless

Reviewing our cell phone plan.  Wireless plans have become yet another monthly/quarterly task we have to take on so you don’t find yourself with a $500 monthly cell phone bill.

Another part of this ritual is to discover how Verizon (or enter name of your mobile provider) have changed the plans they offer.  This month, our plan I found out several things:

1. Verizon only offers 700, 1400, 2000, and UNLIMITED plans online.
2. Online Chat confirmed my only option was to upgrade from my current plan (2100) to the Unlimited plan.
3. I tried to upgrade to Unlimited, but the online system required I add a data plan to a Samsung i760, which I own, and does NOT require a data plan.
4. Calling Verizon Customer Service, the automated attendant offered 700, 1400, 2000, and 3000 minute plans.
5. The Final Solution was selecting the 3000 minute plan, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.

Technorati Tags: Verizon,phone

Verizon software update ‘bug’

I recommend that everyone update their Verizon phones using the *228 feature on a regular basis.  My daughter did this last night, and after the software update (option 1), her phone reset.  No problem, this is often required after a firmware update.  However, after the reset, her security code changed.  It took us a few minutes to guess that is was reset to the last four digits of her phone  number.

Is this a bug or a feature?  This is a feature, but not well documented.  I found it after searching the Verizon forums.

Technorati Tags: Verizon,mobile,firmware

Droid Apps

I have a few minutes and wanted to tabulate the Android applications I have installed on my Droid.

The more I use the Droid, the more I appreciate the integration and utility it offers on a daily basis.  As an example, today a co-worker sent me an IM through Google Talk asking me to call him along with a phone number.  I touched the phone number, which cross referenced the phone number and it was the office phone for another co-worker.  So I knew where he was before he picked up the phone.

Applications I’m using on a regular basis

• Google Apps
  • Google Maps – are just awesome, and is the basis for navigation, Latitude, and other features
  • Latitude – very neat, people can track your location in real time.  The tracking is granular enough to show me walking through a town.
  • Google Talk – Google IM client
  • Google Mail – seamless integration on the Android; Contacts sync automatically
  • Google Calendar – automatic sync
  • Google Contacts – configurable sync, supports tags, can merge with ActiveSync contacts
• Find Starbucks - self explanatory
• twidroid for twitter - Twitter Android client
• Google Voice - VoIP phone calls and manage Google Voice account
• Periodic Table - yes, it's a periodic table for your Droid
• PdaNet free edition - tether your laptop for Internet access
• gTasks - beta - Google Task sync
• My Tracks - use Droid and GPS as a training tool – bike
• Tone Picker - MP3 ringtones - I have Star Trek and Star Wars alerts
• GDocs - Google Docs sync
• Barcode Scanner - scan bar codes (UPC) and look up product info and compare prices on web

Applications I’m testing or are just interesting

PaderSyncFTP - FTP sync tool - still testing

Key Ring Reward Card - scan reward cards

Applications I tested and uninstalled

SugarSync - sync files from desktop to phone.  Documents are read-only, and I have some minor issues with file formats (line wrapping, and tabs).

Technorati Tags: Droid,Android,apps,software

Mozilla Labs Weave

 Mozilla Labs - Weave

Weave is a FireFox (Mozilla) add-on.  I installed and will test the sync capabilities.  The only issue for me is that I had to create Yet Another Account (including a pass phrase to encrypt my data/credentials).  At this point, I prefer to use an existing account and/or cloud services (think Microsoft, Google) for my sync services. 

I am hoping that cloud services will be the source of centralized authentication and services, but at least we are headed in the right direction.

Some of the key functionality enabled by the Weave add-on includes:

• Synchronization engine - securely transports your browsing experience across all your devices
• Cryptographic engine - provides default client side encryption for all your data
• Weave server - a secure storage location for all your encrypted data
• APIs - extension interfaces for 3rd party developers

The initial release provides synchronization of browser meta-data (bookmarks, stored passwords, history, tabs, preferences, add-ons, personas).  Future releases will support other types of data and functionality.

Technorati Tags: Mozilla,sync,Firefox,cloud

Google Sandbox closed

http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ is now offline.  We have to take our toys and go home.  I enjoy using the various beta products from Google and Microsoft.  For the past few years most of the ‘beta’ tools, with a few exceptions, have been production ready.  Participation in beta programs provides insight into new product features helping define best practices and roadmap technologies for my clients.

Thank you!

We appreciate all the feedback from people who searched on our Caffeine sandbox.

Based on the success we've seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given.

©2009 Google

Thank you!

Technorati Tags: Google,beta,internet

Location Aware Printing

This is a Windows 7 feature I stumbled upon this on my work laptop.  I noticed that my default printer changed when I connected to my home wireless network.

TechNet has a walkthrough article and downloadable document detailing the setup.  A screen shot from my laptop is below showing how you can customize the default printer based on your network connection (and, yet, I miss Frank Zappa).

Technorati Tags: Win7,printers

The Motorola DROID Review Mix!

 

The Motorola DROID Review Mix! - iSmashPhone iPhone Blog

This is a summary of reviews from NYT, WSJ, Gizmodo, and Engadget with my comments on each topic.

Screen

The screen is the biggest and brightest I have experienced on a handheld.  Text and graphics pop from the screen, and the best feature is its automatic brightness adjustment based on ambient light.  The phone is easily visible at all times, even in direct sunlight.

Keyboard

I agree with other reviews – the keyboard is marginal, particularly for people (like me) with large hands and fingers.  I type with my thumb, and I miss the auto-correct I had with my WinMobile phones.  Auto capitalization does work with the keyboard.  I *do* like the keyboard layout which is optimized for e-mail and web use.  The ‘@’ sign, ‘/’, and most commonly used punctuation don’t require use of Shift or Fn.
I’m not too keen on the screen keyboard, but Motorola needs to enable auto-correct with the slide out keyboard.

Camera

It works, it’s 5 megapixels, it integrates with  software, and it supports applications such as barcode reader, which I like have found very useful.

Operating System

Android 2.0 is very impressive.  I have used Windows Mobile since the 2003 release in various form factors (flip phone, QWERTY no touch, touch screen with keyboard, touch screen only). 

 

The biggest feature I need to address is the full ActiveSync with Exchange/Outlook.  The base ActiveSync support works with e-mail, contacts, and calendar (Corporate Calendar on the Droid).  However, in my testing, e-mail and contact sync appear to work fine, but I’m debugging an authentication issue with Calendar and using Google’s Outlook Calendar Sync as a work around.  Also, Outlook/Exchange Tasks and Notes are not supported, which makes me sad. 

Android integration with Google is very, very good, but still not complete.  I would like to see full mobile support for all Google Apps.

 

 

Technorati Tags: Droid,review

Droid Day 3

1. First full business day of use summary
2. Droid recharge issue (possibly operator error)
3. ActiveSync error with Corporate Calendar
4. USB Sync with Windows (tested Win7)

First full business day of use, I had a very light day of e-mail, text, and web use. 

Phone configuration – Bluetooth, mail sync (GMail and ActiveSync) enabled all day. 

Use – 5-6 phone calls, ~15 texts, Twitter post and review morning, lunch, and evening.  GMail checks real time, about 100 messages total.   The battery level 40% at 8PM.

Another odd observation is that the Droid turns on when you charge it.  I turned it off on the charger, but if the power is cycled (turned off and on), the phone turns itself on again. Not a big deal, but not expected behavior.

ActiveSync – works fine with e-mail and Contacts, and I’m getting an authentication error with Corporate Calendar.  Not sure how e-mail is working and Calendar sync is not, but I’ll look into it and see if I can enable logging to debug the issue.

USB Sync with Windows 7 is not well documented.  Connect the Droid to your computer with the USB cable, a USB icon is displayed on the status bar.  Pull down the status bar, select USB and select “USB connected”, then Mount the Droid SD card. 

You can transfer files manually, or use DoubleTwist (http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt) to automate synch of media files.

Technorati Tags: Droid,USB,review

Droid Day 2

List of the Apps I added below.  I continue to be impressed with the integration of the Google Apps (GMail, Google Voice, and Maps.  I’m not so certain Navigation will put Garmin out of business, but it does a reasonable job.

The sluggish response issue I had on Day 1 may have been an anomaly.  I disabled automatic sync on the applications and disabled the GPS as well, but the battery life is probably going to be something I manage closely.  I would buy an extended life battery in a minute, and don’t care that the Droid would look like a humpback whale.

Droid Apps - update

• Action Complete – nice GTD app, but can’t sync with laptop or cloud.
• gDocs – Google Docs application – synch with Google Docs, supports folders, not sure how I will use, possibly to link to Tasks or shopping lists.
• gTasks – Google Tasks synch.  Works OK, but can’t synch with Outlook, so this is of limited utility to me.
• Maps – Google Maps, enabled Latitude.  Very interesting, but requires GPS to be enabled, so it drains battery.  Also some privacy issues, but very neat for the kids to keep up with us if we are out of town.
• MeeboIM – Meebo Droid client – it caused MSN to log out my laptop client because it’s not a ‘native’ Microsoft Messenger client.  Not a big deal.  I setup my MSN, Google accounts.  Supports AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, jabber, Mebo, MSN, MySpace (gak!), and Yahoo clients.
• Visual Voicemail – Verizon loads a default client, but will automatically upgrade, and for $2.99 a month, you can have your Verizon Wireless voicemail transcribed and available on your Droid.  I find it odd that I get this service for free from Vonage and Google Voice.  Hello, Verizon, anyone home?

Droid Manuals:
Droid User Guide – which I didn’t get in the unit I purchased on Friday!

Technorati Tags: Droid,apps,Google,manuals

Verizon Droid

I went to the Mount Laurel Verizon store at 6am this morning to buy a Droid.  Oddly enough, I was the only one in line over the age of, oh, 30?  Lots of customer service people and they even had a photographer and some marketing folks.  Bill was my customer service person, and he did a great job – he knew the Droid and even took some time to walk me through the interface and apps a bit, even demonstrating how to search the App Marketplace for a Twitter client.

I was the first person to complete my purchase, so they took a picture of Bill, me, and the Droid with the time displaying.

My first impression is very, very positive.  I will wring the hell out of it this weekend and post my comments. 

I bought a set of screen protectors, but the Droid fits in my Samsung i760 holster as well as my car holder.  I’m amused that the Droid manual has fewer pages (it’s actually a gatefold) than the Product Safety and Consumer Information brochures.  The only accessory is a 115V USB wall adapter and USB/mini-USB connector, but this fits into my existing car charger, so I’m ready to go.

Current Favorite Apps

• TwitDroid – twitter client
• Advanced Task Killer Free – task management utility
• Google Voice
• Car Home – GPS navigator
• Barcode Scanner – scan barcode and web lookup
  
  

Technorati Tags: Droid,Android,Google,mobile,communications

Cell phone users rack up accidental data charges

NOTE – if you ask Verizon, they can setup your account so it is impossible for your mobile phone to access the Internet.  Period.  They incorrectly stated that multimedia messaging would be disabled, but this is not correct.  You can send and receive pictures without a data connection.

It also appears that need to have them reconfigure your account to disable Internet access if you switch phones or reset features of your plan.

I find it very troubling that Verizon talks about “fixing this aspect of our service” when I know this is not true, and my local Verizon tech people have configured my accounts in this fashion.

 

Verizon Wireless is looking into ways to prevent subscribers without data plans from accidentally starting up the Web browser on their phones and racking up $1.99 in fees each time.

On many phones, including ones on other carriers, it's easy to inadvertently hit a button that brings up the Web browser.

"It is obvious to us that we need to fix this aspect of our service," spokesman Tom Pica said.

He said the company is refunding data charges to subscribers who complain.

My Way News - Cell phone users rack up accidental data charges

Technorati Tags: Verizon,mobile,budget

SourceForge Community Choice Awards

http://sourceforge.net/community/cca09/vote/

SourceForge is a great source for high quality, high function applications for multiple platforms.  The Community Choice Awards is a good overview of the best applications available from SourceForge.

Applications I use on a regular basis include:

Notepad++ – Notepad replacement
FreeMind – Mind mapping tool
FreeNAS – turn your spare workstation into a NAS device
KeePass – Password management tool
OpenOffice – Microsoft office replacement (sort of…)
Audacity – Audio editing tool
ClamAntiVirus – free antivirus, low CPU utilization
Nagios – comprehensive, opensource network monitor tool

Technorati Tags: SourceForge,opensource,software

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon to Sync with Google Reader?

What is RSS and why is it important?

RSS = Real Simple Syndication. It is an internet standard for publishing HTML based content that allows end users to receive summary information published to a site without making a browser connection to the site.

I have a list of 100+ sites that I visit for work, to receive news, and personal interests. Using an RSS aggregator, I can skim through all my feeds very quickly, flag the ones I’m interested in, and review them later. FeedDemon let’s me manage the flagged content and optionally synch it with a server for an annual subscription fee of $15.

Now, it looks like they will offer a synch capability with Google Reader. I think this is where Google has an edge on Microsoft. Microsoft tries to offer turn key solutions, but users like me are looking to pick and choose ‘best of breed’ solutions and integrate them into the cloud (Google, Microsoft, others).

Nick Bradbury: FeedDemon to Sync with Google Reader?

Sprint HTC Mogul – Hard Reset

While traveling, I had my HTC Mogul die.  The symptoms were ‘artifacts’ on the home screen (overlay), and the device was generally unresponsive.  I turned was able to turn the phone off and on, but it was stuck at the green Windows Mobile 6.1 initialization screen.  I had to remove the battery to shut down.  A soft reset made no difference, so I performed a hard reset.

This is disturbing when you are on the road, but at least the problem was resolved in less than 30 minutes.  No additional hardware or software was required, ActiveSync and Mobile applications data are retained on the laptop.  I have considered disaster recovery applications for Windows Mobile, but I do not think this is necessary.

Data lost after the reset was limited to Text messages.  I didn’t have any other data in local storage because I configured all other applications to store on the SD card.

Hard Reset – hold down both the soft keys (right and left with the dot at the bottom of the device) and press the reset button on the base of the device.

1. After the reset, you are prompted to be sure you want to reinitialize the device.  You must respond using the keyboard. 
2. System performs an auto-restore with Sprint customizations, some of which can not be uninstalled.
3. Next, the phone auto-restarts to initialize the auto-restore.
4. The phone can be used at this point, but I need to restore my contacts and applications, so I connect to my laptop running ActiveSync 4.5.
5. ActiveSync device with local laptop.  I configure my synch to maintain
   1. Contacts - ~900 contacts – everyone I know, business, personal, and family
   2. Calendar – three month history of appointments
   3. Tasks – typically 45-75 total
   4. Notes – 55 notes
   5. Favorites – 5
   6. Microsoft Office OneNote – light use, about 20K-30K
6. Reset Theme and interface.  I use Windows Default and simplify the interface so I don’t have to scroll the screen.  I also added my basic Owner Information.
7. Add/Remove Programs
   1. Developer One Agenda – install on device
   2. Evernote Mobile (3.0.0.981) – storage card
   3. OneNote Mobile – storage card
   4. Microsoft Voice Command PPC 1.60 – device
8. Device restarts after the Voice Command install to re-initialize the device.
9. Last, reset the Ring Tones to my personal choices

Technorati Tags: Windows Mobile,HTC,Sprint,Mogul,ActiveSync,disaster recover

Uber Note – online notebook

UberNote is an online note system.  I have experimented with just about every system around (Jott, Twine, del.icio.us, Google Tools, etc), but this system seems to be working for me.

You setup an online account to store everything, UberNote then generates an UberMail ID (<username>.hex@ubernote.com).  Once your account is setup, you can use Firefox extensions, or Javascript shortcuts to store a web site URL, selected content, or an entire page to UberNote.

Once it’s stored, you can share stored content, tag it, publish it (RSS, public, or private). 

There is also a mobile client, and I have tested the Windows Mobile client and it works very well.  The UberNote web site supports mobile devices as well.

Technorati Tags: GTD,productivity,mobile,online

Hardware and Software I use

Starting this as a sanity check, and to answer some questions people have asked in the past few months.  I’m burning time while we wait to take Sarah to the airport.

Software

Backup – Acronis True Image – great software for full backup and rapid restore to your desktop or laptop.  1GB/min backup speeds to external USB 2.0 drives.

Office 2007 – I live in Outlook 2007, and use Word 2007 daily for my work.  There is a learning curve from previous releases, but it’s worthwhile learning the Office Ribbon.

RSS Reader – FeedDemon.  Period.  It’s great, and I maintain a subscription Newsgator so I synch my RSS feeds across multiple systems (work laptop, home desktop, personal laptops) and I it is available via web as well.

Browser – IE7 and the current release of Firefox.  I live in browsers and use both, selecting the best for the task at hand.  Typically, Firefox for general use and IE7 for business/financial transactions.

Text Editors - Notepad++, TextPad, and VIM.  VIM is a personal choice because I have used vi under Unix for longer than I can remember, Notepad++ is a great open source, multi-platform editor, and TextPad is quite good and I use the workplace feature often.

PDF Creation - PDFCreator – another open source project, I use it to generate PDF files and it installs as a print driver on your system.  It supports all the basic Adobe Acrobat Pro features, but not encryption, watermarks, and other advanced features.

Process Lasso - Process Lasso runs at a higher priority, monitors and throttles processes to optimize the system responsiveness.  I have tested for a few days and it has been stable and measurably improved my system response.  I am using the free version, but may upgrade if I’m still using it in January.  Process Lasso helps system response on my laptop, particularly with the SMC.EXE process and when I’m doing labs with Virtual PC locally.

 

Hardware

Windows Mobile Phone – forget the iPhone, I have used a Windows Mobile phone for almost five years.  It synchs with Outlook, it works well as a phone, and supports

Zune – I don’t like iTunes software, I got a 30GB Zune for $99 a while ago (white versus poo brown), and it does a great job with podcasts, which is my primary use as well as music when I use a bicycle trainer indoors.

 

Technorati Tags: software,list,hardware

Windows Mobile 6.1 Firmware – Sprint Mogul

I updated my phone with a developer version of the firmware.  The production release was issued 8.6.2008 and the link below matches the exact rev I have installed on my phone.

I found the following benefits of the firmware:

• NO SYSTEM RESETS.  None, since the firmware update.
• Device certs for ActiveSync support (future requirement for my company for security)
• Longer battery life (this is more qualitative, but it is noticeably better)
• Text messages conversations are threaded
• Eliminated occasional problems I had answering calls when phone locked
• Java updated – Google Mail application works
• GPS application support enabled – works with Google Maps real time
• Did I mention NO SYSTEM RESETS?

There are probably some other issues, but these are ones I know off the top of my head.

Also, I had a local problem with ActiveSync that I resolved with help from Sandy Dahri.  Details on link below .  The root cause appears to be a beta release of Microsoft Desktop Search 4.0.

Windows Mobile 6.1 for Mogul - Sprint

http://www.htc.com/us/SupportDownloadList.aspx?p_id=75&cat=all

ActiveSync problem fix

http://www.paulbegley.com/2008/07/office-2007-and-activesync-45-problems.htm

Technorati Tags: HTC,Sprint,Microsoft,mobile,firmware,ActiveSync