Mobile phone stuff
- From: Elliot Richmond <xmrichmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:13:54 -0500
Hi
Recently, I decided to "upgrade" my cell phone, I am easy to please,
so I can always find one that has my minimal requirements and is free.
Since my old phone (> 4 years) was a Samsung, I mistakenly assumed
that another Samsung would be able to use the same chargers. No deal.
The new one has a completely different plug.
My wife had already bought the same model at the store and she was
assured by the sales critter that the old chargers would work. So she
went back, threw a fit, threatened to return it for her money back, so
the critter gave her a new car charger. So now we have two house
chargers and the car charger. (The car charger has a USB port on it. I
have no idea why.)
I did not assume that my magnetic mount external antenna would fit,
but I have one with interchangeable tips, so I thought I could get a
new tip. I started looking around for the antenna plug. There is none.
Great, I thought, out of luck. Maybe it is somehow integrated into the
power cord. But while poking around, I took the battery cover off and
noticed this sort of round hole just below the battery with a little
round, black sticker at the bottom. I took out the battery and lifted
up the sticker and lo and behold, there is the antenna plug. Why in
the world would they put it there? Is it even hooked up to anything?
I have not tried it out yet. To use it, I will have to leave off the
battery cover, but that's no big deal. I will also have to find a
place with no or weak service and try it out. When I do, I will report
back.
The new phone is a Samsung SGH-a237, sold through AT&T.
AT&T also sold a data cable for the phone, so I ordered that too. I
downloaded AT&T connectivity software and it was a waste of time. So I
removed that program and went to the Samsung site and found Samsung PC
Studio 3. It works like a charm, except I can't synchronize my
Outlook calendar. But I can upload and download images and sound
files. I can manage my phone list. I can also send and receive email
to certain providers such as Yahoo, AOL, etc. But not Gmail. No
problem, I now have a Yaboo email account and that works. The service
is free, but I have to pay for data transfer.
The big surprise for me was when I clicked on the PC Studio Networking
Wizard. It thought about it for a while, then, amazingly, I had
Internet access through the phone. It was slow compared to my
broadband, but it was there. I probably won't use that feature until I
find out much it costs.
Elliot Richmond
Itinerant astronomy teacher
.
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