Woohoo! It's working
I finally got a new mobile phone after about 4 years. Felt like a very long time to me. I'd been on the fence about a new Blackberry, a Q, a Treo - or even waiting to see what the real buzz is about the iPhone in the summer. I pulled the trigger last week and got a new Blackberry 8700c (Thanks Tracy and Linda Witt!) primarily on the strength of the success that I saw Rich Cropp having with it about a month or so ago. After a day of fighting with it, I finally won - with fantastic help from John Kalbach last night.
I got the SyncJe client from www.nexthaus.com and Oracle Calendar is working like a champ. e-mail, SMS, etc. are also where I want them to be. The gmail client works just great on the new phone and updated OS from what I used to have. The web browser is vastly superior to what I used to have as well. I'm back in the driver's seat again in terms of being able to connect lots of tools I use to get work done.
I used e-mail, on-line forums, the ITS ET wiki, Nexthaus' helpdesk, Cingular's helpdesk, and of course google search to help improve my understanding as the day (and night) went along.
The joy of a new toy is wonderful but it overwhelmed by the joy in the victory of making the new toy a new tool - at least for me. And I got it all working just in time to enjoy Zach Braff's latest movie, "The Last Kiss".
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Woohoo! It's working.
TrackBack URL for this entry: https://blogs.psu.edu/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/7863
I have a Treo 650 and it works with most of our services -- Sync ML makes wireless syncing with Oracle a breeze. I cannot for the life of me get the email working. I can send and receive email from my gmail account and from my .Mac account, but nothing for PSU mail. I got the giant device to be able to keep better track of where I need to be and to stay connected to email when I am away from my computer. It has driven me crazy for half a year. If the BlackBerry works with ITS tools -- calendar and email then I may have to switch.
But I am still ultimately holding out for the iPhone. The Internet features alone are over the top.
I was going to wait for the iPhone but just couldn't anymore.
And I need to amend the "woohoo" and downgrade it to a "yes!" because I've still got some hurdles to climb with some glitches in sync'ing with Oracle Calendar.
Also, I don't have integration with PSU e-mail but I don't really want it yet. That may put me in the minority, I know.
The PSU email is all of a sudden becoming less important with things like Twitter ... I know it sounds strange, but I am now getting instant pieces of information that can be very important and in the moment. Not sure where the Twitter thing is headed, but apps like this are tapping the social web and mobility in ways I haven't thought possible/interesting/relevant until just recently. This is a space for us to watch and work.
I agree. At first, I thought of twitter only as a toy but as the last couple of days have gone by my mind is starting to see some real uses. I like Alan's thought - instant one line blogging.
Part of me would like to have a place where everyone could do this from everywhere with whoever they are meeting. One line here and there could help raise the level of awareness of all we do, to everyone. I know it sounds noisy at one level - but I think something like this would have value and could actually work.