Back to my New Toy: Portability of Information

I'm still working out the kinks in my new-found access to information, where my phone has the potential to become a mobile navigation aide, help me keep track of appointments and items on my "To Do" list, and generally make life easier. I would love the Sony Ericsson K800/K790 even if it didn't have the camera. Here are some of the things I found I can do anywhere, rather than being stuck in front of a computer:

• Check my Vonage Voicemail: This one was tricky, but now works great. I love Vonage, but sometimes find their website a little frustrating. Their voicemail page is particularly slow to respond, so I went to some length to make it accessible from elsewhere some time ago. I set up a private Google Group for just Allison and myself, including virtual members like our cell phones' SMS addresses, to which our voicemail alerts are sent, with attached messages in .wav format. I had previously set the voicemail alerts to go to my Gmail account, which then passed them on to my cell, but I wanted Allison to have similar visibility and didn't want to keep cluttering my Gmail Inbox with these messages. The Google Group helps us both keep up to date with our home voicemail by letting us both know when somebody has cared enough to leave a message. I was getting the individual alerts sent to my phone, Allison to her Gmail Inbox, and I would also get a daily summary in my Gmail Inbox. Now that this Google Group contains lots of messages, all with the same information, it in turn has gotten hard to navigate and retrieve messages. This is where my K790 comes in. It supports IMAP "Push" email which, unlike SMS, supports attachments. After months of searching, I finally found a free IMAP mail service that supports this "Push" service. It's from our good old friends at AOL! Their AIM.com email service just happens to do what I need. I managed to dig up my account information (I had put it away after it got me married) and set up the email account. Configuring the phone was fairly easy as well. Sony Ericsson provided the setup for AOL email to my phone via SMS, which I then changed to reflect the AIM.com domain. Now, I get immediate notification that a message was left, I can download it to the phone to listen to, and then delete the message when I'm done with it.
  
• Check News headlines and weather forecasts: The K800/790 has a built in RSS reader, which allows each feed to be individually customized.
• Find lower-priced gas: I've found a number of services offering mobile access to prices at local gas stations. In 5 clicks (browser-down-down-down-select) I can see a list of the lowest gas prices in my area. This service is one linked to by Cingular, but if you want my all around favorite check out www.gasbuddy.com. They support mobile web browsers as well as SMS services. They also allow you to submit updated prices.
• For you Outlook users, there is software available called MobyToday, which taps your phone's PIM attributes (appointments and To Do list) and puts them together on screen like Outlook Today does as well as any Windows Mobile device. It's really handy to see these items on your standby screen if you are the type wanting that information in your face. I discovered I didn't really need it at about the same time I discovered I couldn't get my theme's background to show up as the MobyToday background. Oh well. Reminders are really enough for me.
• Navigation: This is still a work in progress. I've found a few navigation apps that can use a bluetooth connected GPS to show location information. You can find an appropriate GPS for less than $60. My idea is that I can leave the GPS in the car charging until I get in, dock the phone in it's dash holder, which would also charge it, and start the navigation app. Conceivably these devices could also be used as a two-piece bike computer as well. I've got an OLD Garmin GPSII on my bike now, which it is not ideally suited for, as it takes so long to acquire the satellites.

One other feature to note on this phone -and to look for on other phones-, is Bluetooth 2.0. Don't get a phone without it. In this day when hands-free features are becoming not only prevalent, but required by law, being able to maintain simultaneous connections is really handy. My Moto RAZR had decent bluetooth support, but I had to turn off (or tell the phone to disconnect) my headset if I wanted to wirelessly sync calendar/contacts, which then turned into a pain if someone called because it could only maintain one connection at a time, and I still don't like the idea of holding a cell phone up to the side of my head. With Bluetooth 2.0, I can keep the headset connected all the time, no matter what other bluetooth devices may be clamoring for attention.

Soapbox Time!

This one is near and dear to me, and has been for some time. Distracted driving has become more and more of an issue as the number of guests, gadgets, or food items increase in cars these days.

I have a long history of gadget admiration and consider myself to have been a bit of a road warrior in the past (how's Pascagoula, MS to Portland, OR solo in 52 hours?). After acquiring a wife, house, and two small children, the gadgets and road trips are much fewer and far between. I used to have a small, but delightfully overpowered Chevy Corsica that was near to invisible on the road. It was fully outfitted with counter-intelligence equipment for optimal "safe driving", which meant I had a good idea of where I could get away with speeding and where I couldn't. Here's what I had tucked away in there:

• CB radio: After throwing a rod (thanks Jiffy Lube) and getting stuck between Charlottesville, VA and the Blueridge Parkway with two guests, I didn't want to be without some form of emergency communication, should the need arise. The first thing I bought after getting the engine replaced for $95 (thanks Chrysler warranty) was to purchase an under-dash Citizen's Band Radio. The first one I had was a little large for the space available in my car, and was quickly replaced by a Cobra everything-in-the-handset unit once I read about my next "safe driving" aide. I purchased a cell phone mounting kit (for cell phones that had separate handsets, remember?) to keep it beside the center console, where I could hear it clearly and grab it quickly if I had anything to say (which didn't happen often). After getting a free paint job (thanks for the peeling paint, Chevy) I changed from a trunk lid mounted antenna, to an adhesive glass mount antenna on the upper right portion of the rear window. I had read up on how antenna placement can affect the directionality of your reception, so I compromised between ease of installation
  and center placement, with the antenna for the next gadget already being present on the left side of the same window.
• Mobile Police Band Scanning Radio: This was one was the most fun I've ever gotten from a "driving aide". It was my main reason for replacing my first CB radio, as there was no other adequate place to install it than under the dashboard, above my left knee. This was a revolutionary idea in police detection at the time. I had been living in and out of Virginia, where RADAR detectors are illegal, but wanted some fair way to detect the fuzz residing outside my naval. The Uniden Beartracker BCT-2 didn't have more than a two-digit display, but the trick it had was listening for mobile repeaters installed in the vehicles of state and local law enforcement. They have about a 3-mile range to make sure the officer's hip radios work properly. If somebody keyed their microphone on any of those systems and my BearTracker picked it up (with wild beeping and a bright flashing red light), then I knew I was close to old Smokey. I had to look around to finally find a store that had one, and it was at a Truck Stop, no less. A few years later, I replaced it with a BCT-7, which added a real scanner diplay, more monitoring bands (including CB), and fit in the same bracket. Not having seen any active use in a number of years, I recently loaned my BCT-7 to a friend who was in training to become a police officer. I like to think I helped, as he has since graduated from the academy he later attended.
• RADAR detector: I went through two of these too! Both from Uniden. Having been a fan of the Valentine One detectors since their inception, but not wanting to fork over the cash for one (thanks for never dropping the price, Mike!) I found a fairly capable Uniden 4-band detector (how many do they do now? this was back in 1993!) for my car. Having read and re-read any dectector comparison I could get my hands on, I was looking for optimal placement, that would not be too obvious to the casual onlooker as I was all about stealth, and keeping passers-by passing by. My decision was to cut the clutter of detector and power cord that would be found by attaching the detector to the base of the windshield, and put it just below the window tinting, on the right of the rearview mirror. I powered it by tapping the power to the map lights in the mirror, keeping the cord short, and minimizing the visual impact of the detector. Instead of suction cups, I used adhesive lock strips to anchor the mounting bracket of the detector to the windshield. I replaced this detector with a newer model later, featuring Voice Alert to verbally announce alerts.
• Stereo system: Nothing fantastic. No extra amps or processors. Just a Pioneer KEH-P8200 with 12disc CD changer. Before you dismiss this little-known head unit, know that it was the most complicated car stereo I have ever seen. Literally, you could not perform many basic functions, like track/station seek without using the remote control. The state of the world when I bought this "car radio" was such that CDs had not fully displaced tapes, and I was still using tapes on a semi-regular basis. The P8200 had a great tape transport that could actually repeat songs, and had a number of features to make tapes sound their best, including Dolby C Noise Reduction. How was the radio? Amazing! In the early days of RDS, with spotty usage at best, Pioneer came up with something less flexible, but more complete: Attached via fixed umbilical cord was a small box containing the entire list of FCC licensed AM & FM radio station, their format, and approximate location. You could tell the stereo what state it was in, and it could scan the bands to tell you what city you were close to. I could drive across the country listening to only the format of radio station I wanted.
• My last road gadget was not affixed to the car, but was always ready in the center console. It was one of the early pocket-sized highway directories. I could enter the state, interstate highway number, direction, and mile-post to find the closest services or find out how far to specific businesses. It was quite invaluable when used in concert with AAA Trip-Tiks.

My whole point here it that I had a few simple devices, and a few more that were rather complex. Today I was reading some opinions about cell phones, GPS, and other distractions on the road, and which ones should be allowed. One particular opinion struck a chord with me. They said that any driver should wanting do anything else while driving should take driving test doing that same thing, be it eating food, reading a book, fiddling with the stereo, or anything else.

I whole-heartedly agree. I think that anybody performing a task that could have a potential effect on anyone else should have some level of qualification for that task. If you are all alone in an empty parking lot, and can verify nobody else is present, then I say you can take that opportunity to play around. If not, then you had better be practicing your best "all business" driving. The latest benefits of technology can provide such great benefits, PLEASE make sure you are well versed in using them. Look for ways to minimize the requirements for your attention to leave the road, and keep your eyes open for the other folks not doing such a good job.

Thanks!!

kEnny's New Toy

My latest toy is finally almost fully operational. A few months ago I purchased a wireless phone on Ebay, which I had thought I thoroughly researched. I had read that the mechanism required to unlock this phone was rather complicated, and that it would cost a little more than most others. The combination of features offered by this phone seemed to be worth it to me. It’s the Sony Ericsson K790a.

I made the purchase from a Canadian seller who got the phone to me in good time. Being as it was locked to Rogers AT&T, I could not use it yet. When I set out to find the best place to get the phone unlocked, I seemed to be suddenly running across lots of places saying they could no longer unlock any of the Sony Ericsson db2020 phones (that’s the name for the encrypted locking technique or something associated with it). I made an inquiry to a business that had unlocked another phone for me before, and they said they could unlock it with no problem. Right there I was both happy and suspicious. Could they really do it, or did they possibly not know about the recent “Lockdown on unlocking?” It turned out to be the latter. They were able to unbrand (this removes the software limitations and new software installed for Rogers) the phone right away, but unlocking was a different matter entirely. I let them hang onto it for about a month and a half, so they could try new releases of whatever product they are using to unlock phones, with no success. When I asked for the phone back, it was returned promptly and I was refunded most of the money I paid. Half of it had been for the successful unbranding of the phone. I consider this to have been very generous, as I felt like I was taking advantage of their misunderstanding about their being able to unlock the phone in the first place.

Getting the phone unlocked was an interesting adventure. While there are many b&m stores inviting you to mail or carry your db2020 phone to them for unlocking, I could only find one that would perform remote unlocking of db2020 phones. They had all kinds of downloads available for connecting hidden USB devices, flashing, & unlocking phones. I followed their instructions to generate a file to email to them. My first attempt to send this file was thwarted by my choice of email service. I use Earthlink as my email address, but have it set to forward everything to Gmail, which is set to send messages with Earthlink as my return address. It’s great for dropping the spam, but not when the place you need to send a file to is expecting it from the domain you originally gave to them. I logged into Earthlink’s webmail interface to send the file and waited for about 8 hours for the return file to arrive. I was at work when I got it, and of course the unlocking software required access to the internet. My employer uses proxy servers to access the outside world’s internet, and of course the unlocking software did not have options for using proxies, so I drove to a local strip-mall where a number of businesses have free wi-fi. I sat there for almost an hour trying to get it to work. I finally figured out that I didn’t have all of the correct drivers installed, but by the time I got them running, my laptop had decided to turn off it’s wi-fi adapter. Doh!! I at lunch and tried it again. BINGO!!! I made a call, received an SMS message, and went back to work.

That night I spent a good bit of time getting to know the phone, the camera, and many of their various options. The Sony Ericsson website has lots of useful information, including a feature that will send an SMS message to you to automatically configure your phone for MMS, web access, and email. I used them all. Once I had everything working to my satisfaction, I (watch out!!!) changed my data plan from 200 SMS messages per month, to unlimited web/video & 200 messages (SMS/MMS/IM/Email) per month. Immediately, nothing worked. Coincidentally, my wife couldn’t send or receive MMS messages for the rest of the night either.

The next morning, I found I could send SMS messages out, even to email addresses. The return address was rejected when replying from email accounts, however. Using a specific combination of phone number and Cingular email extension, I was finally able to find an address that would get messages from my email account to the phone as well. I called Cingular with my now-specific complaint, and after spending almost an hour and a half explaining that the phone does the job fine, that they needed to fix the way they were handling (or not) messages for me after changing my data plan, I was left with two interesting things: The CSR I was speaking with didn’t really know what was going on as he told me I should not expect the addressing problem to be resolved, and that everything was going to start working okay again. Allison sent a message from her Gmail account, which I replied to, then she replied back and my phone saw it just fine. WOW!!

After some time getting to know how to navigate with the phone’s built in Netfront web browser, and playing with Opera Mobile, I still don’t know which one I like more, but I’m left to use Netfront more in general because the phone’s built in RSS reader opens links with it. I used to get an SMS message every morning to tell me what to expect for weather, but now I don’t have to waste messages on that, because the phone gets RSS feeds for weather and news headlines every day.

I’ll add updates later as I smooth out my day-to-day operations with this phone. For now, I’m gonna say that I love it, and am glad I waited for it.