April 22nd, 2009 by jeff
I use gmail as my main email provider, and have been checking it using both Gmail Notifier and IMAP on my Fuze mobile phone. I never realized how much ‘junk’ went into my main inbox until my phone started alerting me upon every received message. I’m not talking about actual spam, but newsletters and notifications that aren’t really important but which I still enjoy reading in my downtime. I could have just disabled the alert, but that would be admitting defeat and negating a potentially useful capability of the phone.
Continue reading ‘Using email filters to reduce distractions’
March 5th, 2009 by jeff
Since my AT&T Fuze is basically a portable computer, I’ve been trying to find cool (if not entirely useful) uses for it. For my latest project, I wanted to use it as a remote control for my Xbox 360′s music playing. Ideally, I’d like to use my 360 as a music player during a party and have the ability to remotely control the song selection without navigating the clunky Xbox interface which lacks any search features. What follows is a guide on what works (and especially what doesn’t work) for accomplishing this.
Continue reading ‘Remote control Xbox 360 music using a cell phone (or PC)’
January 17th, 2009 by jeff
Note: This article is a bit old, and applies to Windows Mobile 6, *not* Windows Phone 7
Because I use multiple platforms on a daily basis, I’m a big fan of cross-platform software. I’d been previous considering writing my personal apps in python/wxPython for this purpose, but with the recent announcement of QT going LGPL, I thought I’d try out QT and see if I could compile a program to use on my Fuze running WM 6.1 Professional.
Continue reading ‘Building Windows Mobile 6 apps using QT’
January 10th, 2009 by jeff
I’m constantly looking for new media/phone software to play with, and just came across Didiom, a free pair of programs that lets you stream all your home pc music onto your phone over your data connection.
Continue reading ‘Didiom Review – Stream music from desktop to phone’
January 7th, 2009 by jeff
I’ve been playing around with some various games on my Fuze, and even spent quite a few hours getting Quake 3 and Warcraft 2 to work. Quake 3 is pretty laggy, and using the Fuze’s d-pad for movement isn’t the greatest. Warcraft 2 actually plays decently well (and even has the memorable music!) but it’s not really well suited to the 5 minute gaming breaks that are common with phones.
So far, I’ve found myself playing Uno and Lemmings the most. Uno is especially polished and well-executed for being freeware. I highly recommend them to anyone with a windows mobile phone!
January 4th, 2009 by jeff
Within a day after using my new Fuze, I noticed that there were some strange color issues with the screen. It can’t display gradients very well. Instead of a smooth transition, the colors form distinct ‘bands’, like viewing a computer screen in 256 bit color mode. Also, the colors would ‘bleed’ out from their proper area, sometimes even causing a flickering effect on static images.
I compared my phone to a coworkers and found his didn’t have these issues, so I called AT&T support to get a replacement. I only mentioned that I had a ‘screen problem’ to the support tech, and she asked if the colors were bleeding. Seems like this is a common issue…
I received a replacement phone within a couple days. I used a digital camera to take a picture of both the new and old phones to actually document the difference. The issue is most noticeable when viewing photographs with a light shining on a wall (gradients aplenty!)
 Defective |
 Working |
December 29th, 2008 by jeff
I just got a new phone, the AT&T Fuze (aka the HTC Touch Pro / Raphael). I wanted a shiny new smartphone to replace my Sprint Fusic.
It was incredibly hard to choose between all the new smartphones out there. In short, the iPhone is too locked down / limited by Apple, TMobile’s G1 doesn’t have 3G support in Ann Arbor, and I didn’t really like the look of any Symbian devices.
See the rest of my thoughts on the ‘Projects’ page
