Random thought exchange

I’ve finally had time to go through my photos and post new ones in my portfolio.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

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Well, so far I don’t have my iPhone yet. I spoke with a CSR at Rogers, and there’s no tracking details, which means the order hasn’t been processed.

Anyone want to place their bets on when I’ll get it?

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I’ve been debating switching over to Rogers for about 3 years. I’ve called in several times to see what they could offer me, and nothing has been able to beat my Bell plan.

Over the last week or so, I decided to start calling in to sign up and port my number from Bell to Rogers, so that I can take advantage of the 6GB data plan for $30 before it expired on October 6th.

After calling about 15 times to different reps, and about seven-hours on the phone I finally got a CSR that was able to come pretty close to the Bell plan that I’m on with my HTC Touch. This was yesterday evening – I was getting anxious as it was getting pretty close to October 6th!I had to leave to meet up with some friends, so the CSR said that he would call me today around 5 p.m. to go over the plan details that he was going to work out for me. He said that he was going to spend about an hour trying to come up with the best plan that he could for me. Since I didn’t already have a mobile phone with Rogers, he was having a difficult time, because apparently he needed to create a mobile phone on my account to play around with all the pricing and plan details. That’s where we parted, and I was a bit concerned that he wasn’t going to call me. He was really nice and seemed quite knowledgeable. I was pleased that I finally got a CSR that was willing to help me get something as close to the plan that I have now.

5:45 p.m. came and I hadn’t heard anything from him. So I called Rogers, and after about 20-minutes of listening to bad music I got to speak with a rep. I let her know that I was looking for the person that I spoke with yesterday. I was told that he was in meetings or something, and that they would pass a note on to him to let him know to give me a call.

At 7:14 p.m. I got a call from a really friendly rep saying that the person I spoke with yesterday wasn’t at work today, but that he left the notes that he wrote down for her to follow-up with me. 104-minutes later all of the documentation and plan details were worked out.

So, despite the early termination fee I need to pay Bell, I’ve taken the plunge and have started the process to port my mobile number to Rogers.

Now it’s just a waiting game. The iPhone’s are out of stock, and when they get their next shipment they’re going to ship one to me.

I’m hoping that my Bell cell doesn’t get disabled before I get the new phone – I’m not too sure how the whole porting actually works when a phone is OOS.

I’m also a bit skeptical of the billing – I’m somewhat concerned that all the discounts and bonuses that were applied to the new activation aren’t going to actually be on the account. Having said that, the CSR that I just dealt with said that she’s going to be following-up on my account in a few days to make sure that everything is going ok with the porting, and that if I don’t have the new phone within a week she’ll be calling me to let me know what the status is.

Kudos to the CSR’s for stepping up, and offering me an outstanding plan. The closest plan that I was able to get up until this point was about $30/mo more, once you factor in taxes.

Once everything is settled, and the billing is all proper, I’ll post the full plan details. For now, I’ll leave you with this… the plan has more features that I have with Bell, and is only going to run me $5 to $9 more a month – that is… if everything goes according to plan and the billing isn’t messed up!

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Google launched their free 411 service Goog-411 in Canada with full Canadian listings.

How does it work?
You simply dial 1.800.GOOG.411 from any phone, and talk into the system. Using their voice recognition they’ll respond with several listings. Not only that, but they’ll connect you directly for free!

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I have the touch… on my computer at work I sync with Windows XP running through Parallels on my Leopard (10.5) system.

At home, I sync it with my Leopard 10.5 system using Markspace MissingSync (MMS) software… you can get a 15-day trial of their software or their Beta software (I think the Beta is 30-days).  I’m using their latest Beta.

Using Parallels, it will sync with Outlook… no probs…  (we have an exchange server at work – so this is how I sync all my meetings and whatnot). I could use MMS at work to sync with Entourage if I wanted to – but I don’t bother.

When I sync with MMS – OMFG….  amazing stuff happens… I can sync with iPhoto, iMovie, iCal (I don’t use this as I use Entourage), and even Mail (again, I don’t use this – I use entourage).

The stuff with page magnification and whatnot… I have a few things to say about that.  The version of IE that comes on the touch doesn’t do that. You can set it to landscape or portrait, you can set it to force everything into 1 column, or desktop mode (there’s a 3rd option but those are the 2 that I use).  By default, the touch will try to load mobile versions of webpages – if I go to http://facebook.com – it will actually load up http://m.facebook.com automatically, unless I put www. in front.

There’s a version of Opera for the touch that runs through the Java app. I’m using the free Opera Mini (OM) – doesn’t seem to work all that well – so much so that I’m not going to continue using it. I’m not sure how the full version (paid version) of Opera runs. From what I’ve been able to get OM to do, it will load up the page zoomed out and in full “real” mode, and when you click on an area, it will zoom in to that part of the page. You can then pan around the page.  Not quite what Safari can do on the iPhone – but close.

I’m content with using the IE that came with it.  I don’t plan on doing a TON of web browsing on there. Mostly Facebook, Canada411 lookups (free… yay… no more 411 charges… BTW bell is $1.50/411 call).

It will be interesting to see how or if Firefox ends up debuting on the Windows Mobile 6 platform. My guess, is that something is in the works.

Perhaps Google is already working on something…

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Today is day 5 that I’ve been using the HTC Touch on the Bell Mobility network.

So far so good. Unlimited mobile browser and e-mail. Everything is setup and working how I want.

So – I decided that I would give some “hacking”, skinning, and apps a shot and turn my HTC Touch into an iPhone.

It took me about 30-minutes to get everything done – using some great resources that I found online. The interface works pretty well, but I should admit that I MUCH prefer the today screen plugin that HTC developed and included.

Why? Well, it shows the date and time without having to read the analogue clock – easier to see if I’m in a meeting or driving or something (yes, I wear a watch, and my car has 2 clocks in it). The weather panel is upfront vs. having to open an application (you have to change “tabs” in the HTC plugin – very easy to do).

In an effort to answer some peoples questions…

Hey man, its hard to get a straight answer from the forum, so I was hoping that you could answer a couple questions for me about the new HTC Touch and the unlimited plan for $7.00.

So, can you go to like any website with this for free (ex www.ebay.ca, www.mapleleafs.com) or is it restricted to certain sites?

Can you download clips and sound waves from these sites or is this not included in the plan? Ex: if I am on TSN can I watch one of their highlight clips?. Can you download an attachment from an email etc?

How is the speed and approx what sort of kb/sec do you get?

Thanks in advance for all the help! I know – some people just don’t understand/are upset that they’re not with bell/are speculating when they have no idea.

My response….

yes… for $7 you can go to ANY website you want. It seems that using the built-in IE – the sites that have mobile versions show you the mobile site (WAP versions) – but a site that doesn’t will show you want you want. Does that make sense? If I were to go to www.facebook.com it will end up taking me to m.facebook.com (their mobile version). I haven’t tried to see if there’s a setting to disable that – but it doesn’t make that much of a difference to me.

I haven’t tried to watch clips or videos… so I can’t answer that for you. You CAN download files off the web and save them to your phone or memory card. The phone has a built-in zip decompressor too…

As for speed – it’s EVDO… what the rating is I couldn’t tell you. There is a bit of a lag as it trys to load sites – but not too bad. For $7 who can complain?

You can get e-mail from any webserver on it – you can have 8 addresses setup on the phone. You can set the e-mail to check every 5/10/15…etc. automatically for you… so it’s similar to “push” e-mail. Also, if you have an active exchange e-mail server you can get hooked into that from the phone for real push e-mail. I don’t have one – so I can’t tell you about setting it up or anything. I do use my own pop mail servers though. It also supports IMAP.

On another note, I have a bunch of screen protectors and hard-plastic protective cases that are coming to me from a supplier – so if you have a Touch and want one, let me know.

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The reports are that Bell is going to launch the HTC Touch smartphone today.

Why is this big news? There are a number of reasons.

1. It’s a touch screen phone – similar-esq to the iPhone
2. It’s launching in Canada prior to the iPhone
3. Bell is reported to have a $7 unlimited data (does not include tethering to a computer) for it

I guess we’ll see later on today if it’s true or not. If it is, I have every intention of switching my Palm Treo 700P for the Touch.

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