Category Archives: Gadgets

09.03.08
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Test Driving an AT&T Tilt (HTC TyYN II)

For the past 4-5 days I have been playing with an AT&T 8925 Tilt (AT&T’s version of the HTC’s TyYN II).  I am a big fan of Windows Mobile phones, I have been using one for years and I love the way Windows Mobile simply syncs to Outlook.  My life is in Outlook so getting a phone to sync with Outlook is very important to me.  Windows Mobile does it very well.

There are two versions of Windows Mobile right now – Standard and Pro which are also known as the Touchscreen and non-Touchscreen versions.  This Tilt has WinMoPro 6 on it – I haven’t upgraded it to 6.1 because it isn’t mine, I need to return it.  It belongs to the AT&T rep who calls on my employer.  I had asked her if it was ok if I updated it to 6.1 and yesterday she sent me an e-mail telling me to go ahead so I will probably do that later today.

The Touchscreen version is much different than the non-Touchscreen version and I don’t think it is better.  Years ago I had an iPAQ and the Tilt feels much more like an PDA first, phone second where as devices running the non-Touchscreen version feel like phones first, PDAs second.  While it is much easier to work with the calendar and contacts, it is much harder to use as a phone.  In fact, it is clunky.  It would be nice to try the TouchFlo interface HTC is known for but it isn’t included on the AT&T version of the phone so no luck there.

I have actually sent my Pantech Duo in for repair after using this phone – the Pantech Duo runs WinMoStd (non-Touchscreen) and it just much easier to use.  AT&T’s WindowsMobile roadmap doesn’t seem to have much on it although a guy at the local store told me they were getting a new HTC device in November.

I could get an iPhone through work but after playing with a co-workers, I am not sold on it.  The iPhone has the same issue I have with the Tilt – I don’t like using the touchscreen.  On an I phone I probably hit the delete key once for every two letters I type.  If an iPhone had a slide out keyboard like the Tilt has, I’d be all over that.

I am taking the Tilt to Europe with me next week – using it for a few days while traveling will be a real test.  After that it goes back to our AT&T rep and hopefully my Pantech Duo will be back by then.  I am kicking myself for not sending it in earlier.  Not sure why it didn’t occur to me to look into a repair.  I was hoping new phones, in particular the Sony-Ericsson Xperia X1, would be out by now but there isn’t anything, at least from AT&T, on the near horizon I am excited about.

04.12.08
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Cradlepoint

I was listening to the TWIT podcast the other day and they mentioned something called Cradlepoint.  Apparently Cradlepoint is a new gadget which will allow you to turn your cellular broadand device into a WiFi access point which a bunch of people can share.  This is a very interesting concept.  I have an AT&T Laptop Connect Card for work and it is really handy, I use it all of the time.  At least, I used to.  I have a problem now when I insert the card into my PC slot, my computer blue screens.

I am now using a Sony-Ericsson Z750i which was given to me by one of my contacts at SEMC before I went to Japan (the Z750i is a GSM phone which supports the 200 MHz band which is available in Japan) to connect to the Internet.  I took the SIMM card out of my PC card and put it in the phone- everything works as it should.  Need to do a little more testing with it for I claim victory nit so far, so good.

I can see using something like Cradlepoint when we arte somewhere WiFi isn’t available but it seems like a “nice to have” versus a “must have”.

03.14.08
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Fixing Broken iTunes Compilations

I have been trying to import a bunch of songs from Guitar Hero III into iTunes and have them appear as single album. While it worked great for Rock Band, I couldn’t get it to work for Guitar Hero III.  After messing around with every logical control available with Get Info, I finally found a post which explained it.  Changing the Album Artist field to Various Artists did the trick and now I only have one Guitar Hero three album in the album view instead of one for every song!