as random as Ek Do 3

Well, it finally happened. Saw it coming the moment I purchased the phone and declined the insurance option. My Iphone is Igone. Here’s the story.

Last Friday I dropped off my car at the dealership for service, and proceeded to transfer things from out of my car to the loaner vehicle I was to have for the weekend. I checked and double checked to make sure I moved all the important things over into the loaner, such as the car seat, garage door opener, charger, etc…. Got home on Friday evening and discovered that my company Iphone is missing.

I began retracing my steps to earlier in the day, and realized that it must have been in the glove compartment of my vehicle. Immediately contacted the dealership and they were closed for the evening. So first thing Saturday morning, I contact the dealership asking them to look in the vehicle for me. The lady says that she will get back to me shortly.

Since it was the weekend, we had to attend my nephews Birthday party in the valley and we began our 2 hour drive there. On our way there, I received a call from the dealership saying that they have located my phone. I was extremely thankful to the receptionist and told her that I would pick up my phone later in the day when I was getting back from our mini-journey. As 5 o’clock approached, I made it to the dealership and made my way to the reception area. Inquired about my phone, and was told that my phone is now missing. WTF - was my immediate reaction. I asked the receptionist to explain herself, and she said that the phone was put in the drawer and has vanished since (someone had taken my iphone). She said she was extremely sorry for something like this happening and that the manager would get back to me on Monday.

Monday morning rolls around, and I am waiting for the call….but nothing. So, I contact the dealership and speak with the manager in charge. He was unaware of the problem, so I explained exactly what had occurred at his dealership, and as a customer I am not likely to ever purchase anything from them again. He also was very apologetic for the unfortunate incident that occurred and assured me that they would pay all costs associated with the phone. - which they did.

So I go the ATT store to purchase a new Iphone. I mentioned to them that I have lost my phone and asked them what the best thing to do. They said that once I plug in my new iphone and sync it up with itunes, the old phone will no longer be active. So I get home and put my phone in the doc and sync it up. To my amazement, everything is transferred to my new iphone within a few clicks, a very easy setup. Props to apple for simplifying things in regards to such situations. Its as if I never lost my phone in the first place, as everything is the same as before, even my call history. My only concern is that my old phone is still out there with someone and no matter how much ATT convinces me that it is no longer active, I still have the uneasy feeling that my photos, contacts, emails, etc… are still accessible.

The #1 reason for cellular phone dissatisfaction is ‘coverage’ or ‘reception’. In order to overcome this issue, there is a new gadget on the maket called a Femtocell. You’re probably wondering what the heck a ‘femtocell’ is. Well, the Femtocell looks like a box (about the size of a router) that you connect to your broadband router; it essentially gives you your very own cell phone tower, right in your home. So instead of searching for a cell tower to connect to, the femtocell base station picks up the mobile phone signal and sends it out via the Internet via your broadband connection. This will definitely help out some of the smaller networks with fewer cell towers, as they will be able to compete with the big boys at a fraction of the cost.

The Femtocell picked up alot of buzz during CES 2008. The word “femto” means “one-quadrillionth the size of a given unit.”

I recently did the 1.22 software update to my Treo 700w serviced by Verizon. I downloaded the patch at the Palm website, and didn’t notice any difference. Here are the features that will be updated through this update:

• High-speed dial up networking (DUN) use your Treo smartphone as a wireless modem for fast web access virtually anywhere1. Supports USB and Bluetooth connections.
• Advanced audio support (A2DP) listen to the clear sounds of high-definition audio with new support for Bluetooth stereo headsets.
• Today Screen enhancements one-touch access to the Speakerphone and Mute control buttons gives you more freedom than ever.
• Hands-free enhancements  Drive safely and work more efficiently. Get support for even more Bluetooth carkits and the Palm wired carkit.
• Abbreviated dialing preferences  save time with the international dialing prefix and abbreviated dialing for campus environments.In
  

In particular I had a question regarding the feature that allows ‘one touch access to the Speakerphone’. The feature does not appear to be there. Any help would be appreciated.

Ekdo3

Recently had an issue with my DVD player starting to skip on my Inspiron e1505. The DVD Drive that came installed with my Dell was a Sony DVD +-RW DW-Q58A.

After trying different things like updating drivers, scanning for HW changes, etc…I came across the solution thanks to a colleague of mine who helped find the answer with a combination of search through Google and old fashion sleuthing through the Dell knowledge data base.

The problem typically arises because the optical drive has slipped into PIO mode. In order to fix this, please follow these steps and ensure that your current transfer mode is changed to UDMA2, not PIO (see ‘Secondary IDE Channel properties’ image below):

1) Click on Start
2) Right click on ‘My Computer’
3) Click ‘Manage’
4) In the left pane, click on ‘Device Manager’
5) In the right pane, expand the ‘IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers’
6) Right click on ‘Secondary IDE Channel’
7) Click ‘Uninstall’
Reboot machine. You may have to do this twice

Voila! No more skipping.I know its a little disheartning and nerve racking ‘uninstalling’ a piece of hardware that comes installed on your machine, but rest assured, when you reboot your machine, it will auto detect the ‘Secondary IDE Channel’, and install it again. Thanks for all your help on this one Wojo.