blue screen

ok, it wasn't blue, it was an at&t globe, but yesterday morning when i went to start my phone, it would begin to start up but got hung up somewhere before the end of the boot. it sucked!
I finally figured out how to get it unstuck. (hold the up of the nav & press the power button while it is starting.) but it wipes out all the data on the phone... i removed the sd card so i did not loose that.
once or twice in the last 7-8 years I have had a phone get stuck, but i was always able to remove the battery and it would come back up... and I did not loose all the data.
i suppose if i had the outlook settings memorized i could have survived without my laptop. activesync is awesome... once i plugged my settings in, all the contacts were back as were the unread e-mails... but shame on windows for needing to flush everything.

mobile phone infrastructure

It seems like the only time I have to catch up on my reading in on airplanes. While reading last months Metropolis magazine, I stumbled across Ericsson's new cell towers. As a designer I think they are cool, much nicer than anything I have seen out there today. So at least it is no longer an aesthetic blight on the landscape. As far as I can tell it doesn't do much to reduce RF emission, which would make it the ultimate infrastructure solution. Here is the link to the Ericsson web page that discusses the new towers.

calendar

The last week has revealed some frustration with the calendar. There have been a number of instances where I would like to have been able forward a meeting appointment to someone else. There may be a way, but I have not been able to figure it out. It is an action that I use frequently on my outlook on my laptop.

phone geeks

Today at lunch, I am not sure how we ended up on the topics, but we were discussing how long it takes for mobile to boot up (for example my blackjack takes over a minute)... just to show how how bad it is, here is a picture of the design team racing to see whose phone is fastest and the slowest... yes designers are a sad lot :)

wm media player update...

In an earlier posting, i said that it was frustrating that i could not listen to music while doing something else... it turns out that if you did deep enough, there is a setting to play audio in the background. i suppose that a blackjack is primarily a business device, so having that is the default is understandable.
It is frustrating that the outlook integration is so good and the media is so amature. the blackjack plays aac files, which windows media on the pc doesn't recognize, so therefore i can not add them to the sync list or create any kind of playlist. i can add them as files via the file manager, but i can only listen to one song at a time. songs not on a playlist are viewed via a file manager and there is no way to play an entire directory or shuffle the entire library.
Another gripe, i was watching some movies on the airplane today... they have been compressed below dvd compression. the longer i watched, the further the audio lagged behind the video.
I still maintain that the ff / rw search is bad, even once you figure out how it works.

killer app

I find myself always wanting to check e-mail while I am driving... obviously not safe. (given the fact I have three kids, I am very good about resisting the temptation) I think it would be cool to have a text to speak app that would read my e-mails to me while I am driving. I realize that this is not really that revolutionary, as I know there are applications that will do this on a desktop. I am not sure if smartphones have the horsepower to to run something with good enough sound. it would definately be a nice addition to windows mobile...

windows mobile / outlook integration

It has been maybe two weeks or so since i have been using the 'sleeker' (which seems to mean shinnier, not thinner... but i assume that i can not complain too much, as the battery life is great) blackjack 2. Brett's iphone is truly an engaging device, but i can honestly say i have no buyer's remorse. The syncronization of outlook via the network is cool. i have noticed that i get e-mails on my phone faster than i do on my laptop with a wired connection. when i need to add a number to my phone and i am sitting at my computer... i plug it into my outlook contacts and voila it shows up on my phone. the same can be said with 'tasks.' a feature i did not used to use but use all the time to keep everything i need to do straight. ditto for the calendar. i have even started to use the outlook calendar for my personal things. there is no need to plug in or connect via bluetooth to do a seperate 'sync.' the only feature that seems to be missing, is i wish that i could sync my corporate outlook with my wife's hotmail, i mean windows live. bottom line... windows mobile's integration with the corporate outlook server rules.