life . tech . peace . planet

BlackBerry Anywhere

2009-02-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

Boy Genius Report has published a hands-on review of BlackBerry Application Suite for Windows Mobile

This is a fantastic news for the users who are

(a) Stuck with a non-BlackBerry because of their own fault (signing up two year contract for the sake of free device, without doing enough homework about which device)
(b) Forced by their employer to use a non-BlackBerry (some companies have come up with strange cost savings thesis that causes them to behave this way)
(c) Living happily with a non-BlackBerry, but miss BlackBerry (this mostly true in case of iPhone users only though)

Based on what I read, the BAS for Windows Mobile looks quite promising. Unlike the BlackBerry Connect software that was released couple of years ago. BB Connect used to constantly crash my Dash and Tilt.

Hoping to find this shiny CAB somewhere soon, so I can give it a go!

huh??!!!

2008-04-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

In Outlook 2007, attached documents appear as tabs on the preview pane, which I found very cool. Today I received an email with an attachment. The attachment itself was another email. Drag-n-dropped to the mail editor in Outlook 2007. When I clicked on the attachment, the preview pane suggested me to use the progam that was used to create the file. Hmmmm. I am 110% sure that Outlook 2007 was used to create the attached message.

If I followed the direction, I would put myself into a recursive loop. Of course, double-clicking the message did open it. But I thought the error message was quite amusing.

"1 known issues found"

2008-03-20T06:23:00.000-07:00

Here's another area MS could put some thoughts behind. I had a problem connecting my Windows Mobile device to the desktop ActiveSync. ActiveSync automatically brought up a troubleshooting tool for me. Which was really cool.

Although, this diagnosis that was given to me 10 minutes later could have been more helpful.

I got very hopeful reading "1 known issues found". Here is the full text of the diagnosis:

Unable to establish a connection between the PC and the device. [Well, I already knew this] Get up-to-date solutions to common connection problems. Please click the following link:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=65257
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
No additional known issues have been found. [So where's the known issue?]
If you are still experiencing problems please send the results to Microsoft to help improve future versions.

I know how this type of contradicting messages get generated. You concatenate the counter with a static string and then concatenate it with the error message that comes from a separate method or something. The trouble is, the concatenation happens regardless of what the error message means. This type of code is quite typical. I am OK with such messages being presented to developers or IT admins. This particular diagnosis is being presented to the end-user, a consumer, in some cases.

Getting to voicemail on Tilt

2008-03-18T06:53:00.001-07:00

To me a touch-screen is about having the ability to get right to the information that I see on the screen. That's the minimum a touch-screen device has to offer. Of course, it is possible to get a lot more creative with touch-screen interface as demonstrated by various iPhone apps.

I am not sure why I am not able to tap open the voice mail on my AT&T Tilt. Every other item on the top row is interactive. Nothing happens when I tap on the voice mail icon.

Hopefully the upcoming version of Windows Mobile will address several such glitches that exist in the current version of this OS.

EU fine on Microsoft

2008-03-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

It is time EU caught up with rest of the world. MS was evil. It deserved all kinds of fines years ago. Why now? There was a time MS websites looked funky on FireFox. But these days, MS prefers FireFox browser over IE. This morning I have been trying to open Microsoft Connect website in IE without any luck. When it comes to computers, people do some things for no good reason. I am no different. In this case I tried opening the same URL using FireFox. Even though it made no sense to try an MS website after IE itself gave up. You see the result in this picture. I immediately realized how ludicrous was the EU fine. Way to fund welfare for the public that would like spend 15 hours/week working.

System.Data.OracleClient requires Oracle client software version 8.1.7 or greater

2008-03-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

99.99% chances are that the user account under which the application or service is running does not have sufficient privileges to access ORACLE_HOME directory. Either add the user to local administrators group or follow the instructions provided on this link:
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/rtgurskevik/archive/2005/01/19/45958.aspx

When I tried this, there was no 'Authenticated Users' in the name list by default. I simply clicked 'Add' button and typed 'authenticated users' to add it to the list.

Play and feed the hungry (and learn some English)

2007-12-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

I am hooked on to this for last few days.

What a brilliant idea this is!!

I get to play and improve my vocabulary. All the money that site makes off the banner ads is donated to charity. I love it. Much better than playing a silly online computer game.

Check it out

www.freerice.com

Killing Push To Talk (PTT) button on AT&T Tilt

2007-11-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

I find the PTT button on the Tilt pretty creepy. Every time you click it (by mistake), you are greeted with an unfriendly dialog to the meaning AT&T wants some more money (like $80 is not overpaying already). I just wanted to disable the button so I don't see that message again. After googling around, I found that it is not just me completely irritated by the PTT button.

Remapping/reassigning the PTT button has been made as hard as possible by AT&T. Carriers are evil.

Editing the registry is one way to disable PTT and reassign the button to voice dialing or something useful. Some have tried PTTFix from XDA Developer forums. PTTFix is not fully compatible with the Tilt. It can accomplish what I needed, i.e., kill PTT functionality. But it can't make the button available for assigning to another application. I guess we have to stay tuned for future versions of PTTFix.

Or I might write an app to rewire the PTT button. Given how hard it is using this phone while driving, it does not make sense to waste the botton. Neither touch screen nor the slide out keyboard are easy to use using one hand. Editing the registy is no big deal, but it is not something I would want to do every time I reset the device.