... and Astraware's PopCap Game Pack with Bejeweled will be loaded soon. I'm still looking for Hexxagon for my Smartphone, but no one even knows what I'm talking about. I've been struggling with figuring out how to use this phone.
For starters AT&T Wireless is falling apart at the seems (so no one there has a clue). Their website has been neglected and in some cases redirects you to Cingular (even if you CAN'T use Cingular's service - as is the case with the Scoblephone). But what really bugs me about my Scoblephone - is that it took me days to find the volume! At times games seemed too loud, even though the ringtone seemed too low. But Microsoft in their infinite wisdom decided that the volume switch would affect earphone volume *ONLY*. If you don't know, here's a tip: MAIN system volume is controlled in 6 or 7 settings in the phones active PROFILE. Profiles are apparently designed to be this handy, dandy thing that allows you to change the behavior of the phone for any scenario you might encounter - such as Meeting, Movie, Normal, or Silent. You can configure your own - as I replaced Silent with Gaming. I figured I'd up the volume for when I play my puzzle games. Unfortunately, at least with PDAMill's Jewel Master, games appear to ignore the profile and any of its volume settings.
And don't get me started with how hard it was to load this game on the phone. First I found that PocketMac (a third party app because Microsoft is to short-sighted to create an OS X ActiveSync) would push the installer exe (something OS X can't read) over to the phone, but Smartphone 2003 SE wouldn't even read the EXE - saying that it's not compatible with this phone or some crap. Turns out I had to "install" the app on my Windows box, and then copy the CAB that it extracted back over to my mac to be sync'd to my phone. You may be thinking why I didn't just sync my phone on the windows box. Good question! For some reason the ActiveSync for Smartphone caused a conflict with my ActiveSync for PPC... which lead to it not even seeing the phone. Or maybe the PocketMac stuff prevented the phone from seeing the machine? I don't know.
Finally I wanted to setup my preferred ringtone (Axel Foley - you know the Beverly Hills Cop riff). So I located a free midi online, and copied it over to my phone in the My Sounds directory. But when I attempted to switch my ringtone (in the sound settings area that curiously has no main volume setting), the midi's weren't listed. What gives? So I spent the next 10 minutes tracking down the directory where the ringtones were (/windows). Once I found that, I moved my midi's over... and bam! I was able to switch my ringtones. Sweet. But don't celebrate just yet! When I headed over to Check's house for game night, my Scoblephone had conveniently deleted these *un-blessed* files. No more ringtone for me. Poof. Gone.
What gives? Isn't this supposed to be a Smartphone? Of course, I could be horribly wrong. Their may be some crazy key combo to force the volume rocker to work for the phone itself, as well as prevent random deletions of your ringtones... and maybe, just maybe Microsoft will wake up and use it's MacBU to create a better experience over on the Mac. And I'm not talking about the MSN *EXPERIENCE* either!
posted @ Tuesday, January 18, 2005 12:11 AM