Still As Life

I received a completely unexpected present from a good friend of mine a couple of months ago, a new Palm Treo 750 running Windows Mobile 6.

I am quite fond of the design of the Palm Treo’s as they manage to incorporate an (almost) full keyboard along with a reasonable sized screen (240px * 240px) without the need to use a sliding keyboard. Sliding keyboards are prone to getting broken much easier in my experience, especially when I’m using them.

Unlike it’s predecessors and most other Palm phones, the Treo 750 runs Windows Mobile instead of Palm OS, and there have been some interesting things implemented in Windows Mobile by Palm. To my understanding, Palm have an exclusive license with Microsoft, allowing them to actually modify Windows Mobile 6.

One of the things I find the most useful is how it displays SMS and other messages in the form of a conversation, similar to how Gmail displays emails, and how Palm OS displays messages received. The addition of a search box on the Today screen is also extremely useful. Simply start to type a number or name and it will search your contacts and make suggestions as you type.

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Popularity: 42% [?]

Since upgrading to Windows Vista, I have found more problems with the Vodafone software for the 3G broadband modems.

On Windows XP or Mac OS X, when you unplug the modem without disconnecting the connection first, it will act the same way as if you unplug an ethernet cable and unplug a USB device.

On XP, the network connection changes to a disconnected icon, it makes a disconnected USB sound and says the device has been disconnected. The Vodafone software then displays the “Searching for Hardware”  message.

On OS X, the network connection simply disconnects

However, on Windows Vista it complicates it entirely. If you unplug the modem without first disconnecting the connection, you have to reboot the computer before you can use the 3G modem again.

When you unplug it, it performs the normal disconnected USB notifications, however, it doesn’t change the network status to disconnected, and the Vodafone software just sits there, counting the time connected. If you press disconnect, it does nothing, if you try to close it, it does nothing, even forcing it closed and reopening it doesn’t fix it, it straight up starts counting the connected time again.

Even if you manually disable the network connection it keeps doing this.

Plugging the modem back in doesn’t change anything, you simply cannot press the connect button again because it will not come back up until you reboot.

I am using the latest version of the Vodafone software that is meant to be Vista compatible.

Vodafone have been no help either, the software works, it just does not work correctly unless you remember to disconnect it before unplugging the modem.

Popularity: 53% [?]

It’s weekends like this weekend, even more so, days like today, that the $39 a month for my 3G modem is well worth it.

Yes there have been plenty of other times it has proved invaluable, such as keeping my internet usage at uni below 150mb. After all, to get another 5gb at uni it would cost me $35 anyway.

However, last night while I was out, either our router had gotten fed up with life and hit the reset button, or someone helped it out. Thus our ADSL2+ settings were wiped, along with all of my port forwarding, remote access and so on. Yay.

That in and of itself is not a hugely significant problem, it’s just annoying and frustrating. The main problem is that I don’t have the internet connection details that are particularly important, such as the username and password. Okay, that’s alright, I can deal with that.

Can’t get through to my landlord on the phone around lunch time today, so I send him a message asking for the details, or asking if he can come around and put them in himself.

He calls me back a couple hours later and tells me he doesn’t have the details and that the internet here is managed by the Japanese guy that lives next door (my landlord owns the house next door as well), and to go ask him or the Japanese girl that also lives there for them. So, Rhi and I go over there and ask her about them since he didn’t seem to be around. She doesn’t seem to have any idea what we are talking about and tells us that our landlord probably hasn’t paid the bill and so it has been cut off. We explain to her that that is not the case, and so she goes in yelling the guys name and asks him about it. She comes back and tells us that they aren’t looking after the internet anymore and that all the details have been given to my landlord. We then ask if we can talk to the other guy, because he was only at our place a month ago putting the username and password in our new router. She proceeds to tell us that he isn’t there. This is less than 2 minutes after we heard her calling his name and talking to him in the next room. Talk about insulting.

Anyway, she also tells us that the Chinese couple that Rhi and I share a house with know the connection details as well. So we come home and ask them about it. I thought it would be odd that they would know the details and not have already put them into the router. We ask them and they tell us they don’t know them but that they would go and talk to the guy next door. They did and he, even though is supposedly not there, tells them that he doesn’t have the details anymore and that the net was probably cut off because of the bill not being paid. I have explained to all of them that that is not the problem, the bill was not due to be paid yet, and if they would actually listen to me, they would realise that they routers username is set to user@isp.com.au and the password is set to who knows what, but there are 12 stars. Why? Because it has been reset to the factory default settings.

So, try to call my landlord again and no luck so I send him another message. I have not yet heard back from him, but I tell you I am unimpressed.

We have gotten it back finally, but man am I not happy about the organisation of things here, or about being so blatantly lied to.

Not happy Jan.

Popularity: 11% [?]

There is a new poll up from today. Do you use a wireless broadband service? If so, which one? One of the four major Australian providers? Or a different provider altogether?

Popularity: 8% [?]

For those who read my thoughts on the four main wireless broadband providers in Australia, you would have noticed I hadn’t commented on a couple of things relating to 3, including their customer service since I have not had to deal with them more than to ask if they had a certain phone in stock that I was looking at.

Anyway, I was just reading a post by Duncan Riley after he signed up for the $29 a month 2gb contract with 3. Evidently he could have purchased it with completely fake details with no problems at all. They had him enter his own details, including an incorrect phone number since it would not accept his mobile number. While I hope it is not like this everywhere, I can’t help but be amused. I suppose though that I would prefer that to the 3 hours I spent at Vodafone when I was getting mine on the 5gb plan for $39. Almost all of it due to the credit check.

They did call me a month and a half later to say that they had decided they couldn’t accept one of my points of ID and I would have to bring in something else instead (this is two weeks after paying my first bill as well). I haven’t had time to go back in, and after all the time I spent there the first time, I have no intention of going back unless they actually decide to cut off my service because of it. I’ve paid two more bills since then and haven’t heard anything else from them since, so I guess it can’t have been all that important.

Popularity: 14% [?]