I just realized that the Fido GPRS package I just mentioned in Derek's blog is 50 Canadian and not US dollars a month. If you really need GPRS, then that's quite a steal compared to the offerings down here. Of course, their coverage isn't so good yet, in particular they don't cover California... :-)
Speaking of Canada, Michael Crawford's diary entry Talking to Americans is really funny.
Viridiana and I went to the Apple Store just an hour ago so I could pick up the bluetooth adapter.
They have the 12" PowerBooks now. So neat. My la idea is to get a PowerMac and then a 12" instead of the 17". Or something. For right now I'm happily bluetoothing my T68i.
Actually, sorta happily. Why can't I syncronize groups to the phone? It helps that I can choose just one group from the address book to get syncronized to the phone, but the phone supports groups too. Why can't I choose multiple groups and have them synced with the group membership?
And why does iSync crash every few syncs? (iSyncServer to be exact). Not very helpful.
And once in a while I get a message that says
|AsksT68i| The conduit does not recognize some data coming from the device, the data is inconsistent and cannot be trusted. Please reset this device and try again
Conduit AsksT68i generated exception NSSyncConduitException: The conduit does not recognize some data coming from the device, the data is inconsistent and cannot be trusted. Please reset this device and try again. Can't read contents of folder Default DataStore. ... What's that supposed to mean? I'm about as geeky as they come, and even I don't think it's very clear what can't be read. And there's not a shed of information about why. "Does not recognize some data"... uhu. Which data? From where? Why? What can I do about it? "Reset the device". Oh, thank you.
It was a bit odd to get it to work at first; iSync denied all knowledge of the bluetooth adapter until I opened the network control panel. Hmpfr.
I was going to write about using the phone as a modem via bluetooth, but Apple has a document called Bluetooth: How to Use a Sony Ericsson T68 Phone as a Bluetooth Modem - so just go and read it there.
I brought my laptop in the car so I could try going online while driving (no silly, I'm just a passenger).
It works. It's I really need to buy the bluetooth adapter so I don't have to balance the phone on my knee to stay connected. And the ping times of mostly 1-2 seconds, but sometimes up to 5, 10 and 16(!), kindareally stink when you read mail remotely. I seem to get disconnected every 5-10 minutes or so. Not sure if the GSM coverage slips up or if it's because I'm not aligning the IrDA alright. (A bit later: Definately GSM coverage trouble).
I should find out if dial-up isp has any ISDN numbers and if T-Mobile supports that. With ISDN I could use V.110 or V.120 and get faster connects (but not faster transfers). I also need to install a local dnscache again and get squid installed and setup with aggressive caching.
So what do I use this wonderful technology to? Lookup store hours of the Apple stores so I can get the bluetooth adapter and to write about it in my weblog.
(Some days later .... That I didn't get to post the above tells something about how well it worked after all. I didn't try after we got to San Francisco. The web thing I did try were awfully slow to use over GSM. Yuck. I think it would be less painful if everyone would just start using proper xhtml etc instead of Huge Giant HTML pages with a billion small images).
