I have had it with Windows Mobile Devices.
My main phone has been a HTC Wizard, sold by O2 as the XDA Mini. I bought it because it has a nice screen, a built-in keyboard, and will run PuTTY, which is handy when I’m pretending to be a sysadmin. It’s useful, in that it’s a pretty good Internet Device – though one of the new Nokia tablets would be better – but it fails massivly on several important criteria. Like:
- It’s too big. It’s not a device you can slip into your pocket and forget about, and it has an exposed screen so you have to remember not to put it where your keys or anything sharp is.
- The touch-screen is too stupid, and occasional resets the time while in your pocket.
- The battery life is annoying.
- You can’t lock the display when the media-player is on.
- The headphone jack is 2.5mm. Why? What is stopping them from using a standard jack?
- Windows.
- Mobile.
- Sucks
- Donkey
- Balls.
- Yes, that did need to be five or six points.
So, my new solution is for the XDA to live in my bag and be Wifi and GPRS if I can be bothered to swap the sim around, and I have got hold of a Sony Eriksson z310g. One of the few Eriksson’s with the clamshell form factor I prefer, an Eriksson interface (which I prefer to most of the rest) MP3 ringtone support and, and this was no small part of my decision to buy it, support for trutap. If I’m going to work for a mobile application company, it would seem useful if the software works on my phone. (FTR, it installed quickly and easily, its failure to connect to start with was because the phone installed the new Internet settings for WAP but not Java connections, and the MSN IM networking stuff seems to work. I’m pleasantly surprised :-).
Now the complicated bit. Getting my contacts off my XDA onto the 310 from a clean Windows install (without the supplied XDA drivers). Note: I do not have Office installed.
- Install Microsoft Active Sync
- Discover latest Active Sync will not sync to Windows’ built in address book like all previous versions would.
- Discover that there is no way around this, searching on the internet for a while.
- Decide to fuck this and try it in Linux. (Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn install)
- Find a tutorial for this follow it religiously.
- Everything installs fine, detects fine, all messages fine.
- Click “Sync”
- Nothing happens.
- Tail all relevant logs, track USB connections, unplug USB, reboot, plug in, tracking all logs, viewing all messages, turning up debug.
- Nothing happens.
- Search internet for solutions to nothing happening.
- Nothing continues to happen.
- Decide to fuck this and go back to Windows
- Find age-old version of Outlook 2002 that came with an older computer.
- Install it.
- Discover that latest version of Active Sync doesn’t support that either.
- Wonder how Microsoft Internet Explorer is not allowed to be backwardly compatible with itself when ActiveSync is.
- Wonder how the fuck we expect Microsoft to comply with other people’s data interoperability ideals when their own software is incompatible with itself.
- Locate shady copy of Outlook 2007.
- Install shady copy of Outlook 2007. Am surprised when I don’t have to reboot.
- ActiveSync doesn’t find any copy of Outlook on this computer.
- Reboot.
- ActiveSync finds Outlook 2007.
- The more things change.
- Sync contacts to Outlook.
- Install “Sony Ericsson PC Suite”
- Allow PC Suite to sync with Outlook and Phone.
- Get contacts on new phone.
- Jump for joy.
- Attempt to PURGE all traces of Outlook from my computer
- Fail.
- Book complete windows Reinstall for when I get back home from Christmas With Folks.
- Sigh.
- Go find Christmas Cake.
- Yay Christmas Cake