Tag Archives: AT&T

Mar 13

Phone on the way

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One of my fellow cast members in the play has just gotten a Droid, and I can’t wait to see it at rehearsal tonight.

As for me, I had just about decided to wait a few months, save up some money, and buy an iPhone, or else move to Sprint and get an Android phone from them.

HTC PureBut I follow the AT&T Wireless promotional Twitter account, @ATTDeals, and they had a really good one-day sale on the HTC Pure, a touch-screen Windows Mobile 6.5 phone. It was only a penny with contract renewal, and it was a touch-screen smartphone, and I decided to go for it. Yes, I know that HTC is moving on and will concentrate on Android phones from this point forward. And I know that Microsoft is just about to release a spiffy new version 7 of its mobile phone software. But I think the Pure will be great for my needs. The camera is 5MB.

I placed my order on Friday, and the phone should arrive Monday or Tuesday.

Even better, I think I am still eligible for HTC’s “trade-in-your-old-smartphone” rebate offer. I didn’t think I was eligible for any rebate from AT&T, because of the special sale price, but they sent me a rebate form e-mail, and so I don’t guess it hurts anything for me to fill that out and send it in. The worst they can say is “no.”

Feb 04

Attention, AT&T:

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You need to tell the people at your reward/rebate service center that you switched from Dish Network back to DirecTV on February 1. I called with a rebate-related question and the woman told me, sort of haughtily, that since AT&T was affiliated with Dish Network there’s no possible way I could be eligible for a rebate from my DirecTV installation.

Dec 09

Beep. This is John’s phone….

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Since reinstalling my operating system a week or two ago, I had not gotten around to re-installing ActiveSync, which synchronizes the information from my Windows Mobile cell phone to my PC. I did so last night, and then took the opportunity to rethink whether I want to reinstall FinchSync or find some other non-Outlook sync solution. (I don’t have Outlook on my PC.) I tried installing a sync program for Google calendar, but I couldn’t get it to work properly. About that time, I noticed that my phone had lost signal.

I was certain that I had turned something off or changed some sort of setting in the process of fumbling around to find the Google file. I looked at everything, but to no avail. I restarted the phone with the power button; I took out the battery and the smart card and then reinserted them; I checked every setting I could figure out how to check. No luck — and by the time I gave up, AT&T’s call center had shut down for the night.

So I resigned myself to having to call this morning and eat some crow with a condescending tech support person for whatever it was I had recklessly done to my phone.

But this morning, the phone is getting a signal again. The apparent explanation, which may still turn out to be wrong, is that my local service was coincidentally down last night, independent of what I was trying to do to my phone.

Jun 14

Waiting for Blackjack

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Well, I answered my own question online and I have ordered my new Blackjack. Yes, I know there’s a more-advanced Blackjack II, but with the mission trip coming up I didn’t want to spend the $199 out-of-pocket cost, even though $100 of it would have been rebated eventually. The original Blackjack was free with a two-year contract extension.

They promise delivery in two business days, so I’m assuming the phone will get shipped Monday and I’ll have it Wednesday at the latest.

Between now and then, I’m going to go through the contacts on my Palm and weed out ones that I’m not sure are still accurate or where there’s little chance I’ll ever need the information again.

I’ve already downloaded the instruction manual so I can see what all it can do!

UPDATE: AT&T is now showing that the phone has been shipped, even though today is Saturday. Woo hoo!

Jun 13

Attention, Samsung Blackjack users

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If anyone reading this uses a Blackjack smartphone (not the Blackjack II), answer me this: is there a way to synch the phone (calendar, contacts, etc.) with one’s computer using a cable? Because I don’t want to pay for a $30 / month data plan. I have a $5.99 / month data plan on my current phone, which I use mostly to check GMail using its mobile app.

Dec 03

OpenDNS

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AT&T is having major DNS problems. I had problems with my Internet connection right before I left for the Bicentennial reception, about 5 p.m., and was still having problems when I got home three hours later. If you have an online pal you haven’t heard from tonight, this may be the reason.

After reading the news article referenced above, I have tried using OpenDNS. It’s now working fine. Is anyone else using this? Should I switch back to the AT&T DNS servers once the problem has been resolved, or is it OK to keep using OpenDNS?