Hello fellows,
When there's more than one "pending" icon near the clock, such as: new message arrived, phone call missed, speakerphone ON, etc. -- they are (expectedly) replaced by one icon that looks like a bubble with some lines in it.
It's great way to see there are many notifications waiting for you. When clicked, this icon displays another row with all the constituent icons.
However, with O2 1.72.187 image (without Blackberry support as I don't need it) there is a permanent O2 icon displayed. And the worst about it is -- it is treated just like it IS one of "pending notice" icons! So if you get a text message, you don't have cute envelope icon, but you have a BUBBLE already!
Previous versions allowed to move the O2 icon (centre or left), and it didn't count as notice, so "new message", or "Missed call" icon displayed as is - and only when you had let's say "new message" AND "missed call" you used to get the "composite" bubble icon. Now you can not do anything with O2 icon (it used to display connections menu), and it's just a piece of ****e sitting there for no reason.
That issue really ticks me off as I can't instantly see on the screen - what exactly has my XDA II received! The red LED on the top right corner is very helpful to indicate waiting things, and if I could somehow make that O2 icon to NOT count into pending icons -- or may be just bump up +1 the wrap limit for that place, so it would accomodate one more icon before wrapping into bubble icon, -- I'd be a happy camper.
Can it be done via registry?
Thank you for your attention!
Speach Bubble
I have the same frustration. Hoping that some wiszzard out there will be able to help
Speach Bubble
I have the same frustration. Hoping that some wiszzard out there will be able to help
Speach Bubble
I have the same frustration. Hoping that some wiszzard out there will be able to help
I looked into this thing with the O2 icon. Before the 1.72 release it used to allow selection of connection and to disconnect. It was also possible to position it elsewhere. Now all that is possible is to tap it and it brings up O2 Active. It sucks. :evil:.
I found the registry entry that specifies the position of the icon, but altering it is useless because when ever O2 Active starts it changes the registry entry back to its 'middle' position setting. Sort of defeats the object of having the data in the registry in the first place! Even deleting the entry in the registry is no good as O2 Active re-creates it! :roll:.
I dont have the O2 Active burtton no more, i deleted it from the startup folder in windows and it doesnt load it up at start up, but if you click O2 Active then it shows up and you have to restart the xda2 again to get rid of it...
Thank you guys for your involvement.
I tried to just stop O2 app; it only could be cancelled with End Task, and the bloody icon still sat there, only this time doing nothing.
Seeing not much practical use in that "newfangled" O2 icon -- I thought I'll rather give up that interface at all.
Thank you dcs, it looks like they really deliberately locked things up to make it linger -- breaking the good thing and achieving the opposite effect. The old O2 app icon was a) useful; b) moveable between left corner & centre and c) didn't spoil the notifications count, so I didn't mind.
So I just went to add/remove programs and scrapped both O2 apps.
Then had to change background, as even after reboot there was ugly leftover on the screen (I think the right part remained transparent, ugh :evil. Finally it is all working fine now and I see what comes to my XDA2.
Enough time spent, mine and yours. It better be changed in next versions, or will be permanently kept out of my XDA-2.
<rant>Whoever designed that change just drove me off using the O2 app. (Talk about luring new customers?) I sincerely hope someone from O2 reads all the bitter words in this thread, and passes them to people responsible for packaging new OS versions. I like O2 as company, but the current state of O2 app is an abomination. (Also lots of referenced to paid services from the menu, but lack of free services)
By losing this app, there is no way I can subscribe to any of O2 "value-added" services. I have TomTom for realtime voice "satnav" and AvantGo for my news -- all with no rolling subscription fees.</rant>
EastExpert said:
So I just went to add/remove programs and scrapped both O2 apps.
Then had to change background, as even after reboot there was ugly leftover on the screen (I think the right part remained transparent, ugh :evil. Finally it is all working fine now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Out of interest, just selecting a different theme in the Today settings clears the display problem (after uninstall) or prevents it from happening if done before uninstalling.
dcs said:
Out of interest, just selecting a different theme in the Today settings clears the display problem (after uninstall) or prevents it from happening if done before uninstalling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
May be I had selected a wrong theme, (or may be the same theme and didn't realise it), but I had to also [x] "change background" checkbox. Then I selected the bright blue Default and that was it
Edit: "Change background" has nothing to do with background problem it's actually related to adjacent Browse button.
In fact there were only 4 Today themes that had this problem, all the rest of them worked fine. I presume they were old version or something.
Glad that you managed to solve the problem. However, mine continues as I use CommonTime mNotes to interface to Lotus Notes.
So whereas I has the speach bubble permanently on the today screen (sharing the frustration that I didn't know when I had received a missed call/SMS, revceived a new note etc), I now have a permanent 'M' symbol where the speach bubble originally was.
I really just want it blank and only to come up with a speach bubble where there is something new.
How do I get rid of the 'M'?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
OK I have spent a lonley evening searching the forum for the answer on this - if its here I am sorry i cant find it - on my (new today) xda IIi there is an o2 Icon on the task bar - it sits in the most troublesome of places and covers up parts of program headings - it must be simple enough but I canot work out how to get rid of it - I have searched for the icon file itself to get the name and search for a value in the reg but no avail - please help - someone - anyone!!!!!!!!!!!!
o2 icon
hi,
browse to the windows startup menu and it should be under connections, delete that shortcut and voila.....................
thank you somuch -
that was doing my brain in - what possesed them eh? - tell me that!!!!!
once again - thnks- it was the only thing PISSING ME OFF SO FAR
o2 icon
no probs........here 2 help
You can actually just tap and hold for a second or so on the icon, and a menu appears with a slide bar...letting you move the icon wherever you want it, that's if you want to keep it anyway.
I just cancelled the install of that all that O2 Active rubbish.
As I've stated before in here, I quite like the version that's on the 2i as it allows you to have different themes without it looking crap. Some of the features on this version are quite useful as well.
I've always wanted a screen that makes use of all aspects of the screen as it would a normal Nokia mobile, for example with battery life up the side and signal strength up the other, with some space to actually show the picture you've chosen.
I don't suppose anyone's found anything like that recently have they? I gave up looking 6 months ago!
Cheers
Anthony
New Update of O2 Connections
New Update of O2 Connections...
Forgot the thread here...
Hello everybody - I am currently testing the Universal with the 1.11.45 wwe system, and I would appreciate any confirmation that what I have found still exists in the 1.13 system, as I am not sure if I should upgrade immediately or not.
- “contact” soft key is on the RIGHT when desktop is visible, on the LEFT in phone application and in the MIDDLE button during the phone call. JUST Imagine somebody in the car who wants to make a phone call….. especially with MISSING REAL HARDWARE BUTTONS to assign the contacts to…
- In the phone application – last unanswered phone call is not displayed on the phone screen – you have to click HISTORY to see it – just the same problem in the car – somebody is calling you, you can not get out the device on time, so you press twice TINY TINY green button on the hinge, and …. You call the last number you have called before…not the last missed one
- Phone application just shuts itself of and Universal comes to the desktop screen WHY? (Imagine AGAIN in the car….)
- REALLY ugly TMobile skin, but the original blue skin has to low contrast….Again IN THE CAR…
- maybe I did not try hard enough but I can not obtain predictable results with the onscreen quickdial (not to mismatch with SPEED DIAL butto which Is OK, )– how to obtain the names starting with second or third letter from the key – I don’t know, and anyway it does not work if you have about 1500 contacts as I have
- check how SPEED DIAL it was done in the old handspring TREO phones – large buttons with the names on them in two columns rather than one list, with whole screen “pages” of 12 contacts each, for me much easier to use and navigate if you have more than one screen of numbers as in the car there is no chances for easy up and down navigation, what you have to do now with the numbered list.
- With all this missing hardware buttons what happened with the D-Pad functionality – in Blue Angel it was UP- History DOWN – speed dial … but in Universal nothing works ?????
- “during the call” screen with 6 soft buttons stays on when the phone call is already finished – again you do not find the soft buttons in the right places when you want to make next call
- When I got rid of the TM skin video call button is missing, I can not use UMTS yet as it is not available in Krakow, but it will be needed some time…
- No BT icon on the desktop – no chances for the quick verification of the proper connection between headset and the unit
- I have heard that voice dialing functionality does not work when the unit is closed (I always keep it open – screen on the top)
- There is no voice dialing available when the unit is protected by the password (but this is disputable)
Any other comments / bugs????
Some very valid points - I tell my buds that the JJ (in fact any XDA) is not good for driving frequent phone users. Here are a couple of fixes:
- Quickdial is pretty cool. Just type the name in T9 and matching entries will appear. Click the match you like then press dial. Forget trying this whilst driving tho...
- For speeddial, search this forum for VJDialer, and put links on your today screen any way you like using cLaunch of another plugin
- Search this forum for buzz's BT icon, AND his BT headset fix. However, you will then find that the BT issues are far deeper than you currently realise - the 2 devices just keep on losing connection.
- Voice dialing works perfectly as expected no matter how the phone is laid out - try it, it's DEFINITELY what u need for driving. Works well with BT too
Okay, the Prophet is a great machine. I am getting used to WM5 and like it a lot. The Prophet is fast enough for normal business use, so no complaints.
I do have a wee list of things I would like to be able to do. Some might already have been cracked, so any help would be fab. (These also apply to Wizard and other WM5 devices.)
1) Button Lock
Pressing the power locks the buttons. All is well until you get a notification and then the buttons come alive and your pocket can take over and start dialling people!
Is there any software / reg fix to require a key combination. (I know about the code option, but that is tricky without the stylus.)
Good old Menu * on the Nokia is great!
2) Network info
Is there a simple and clean Today plugin / element that will show you the network name and the signal strength? I know there is commercial stuff out there, but I want something that is in keeping with the regular Today stuff and looks like it came with the machine!
3) Upcoming Events
Can you limit the number in the list. I like to know the next four appointments, but when I have a busy day (!) a scroll bar appears and looks ugly!!
As you can see, I am not that fussy!!
Any ideas appreciated.
1. Mort Saver, get it from www.sto-helit.de
2. DkToday, use the search to find it.
BTW, MortSaver also shows phone signal, but no operator name and only when activated. DKToday shows it in your today screen
prophetuser said:
3) Upcoming Events
Can you limit the number in the list. I like to know the next four appointments, but when I have a busy day (!) a scroll bar appears and looks ugly!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A freeware Calendar+ will definitely help. Download it here: http://mohairsofa.com/content/downloads/calplus.exe
Use the little padlock icon on your today screen to lock the phone.
My beloved o2 mini was having a few 'issues' - dropping calls, bad battery life, periods of no network - it was time for an upgrade.
So I bought a Telstra branded touch dual off ebay from a company called 'viper technologies'. I discovered why it was called that when the parcel arrived with 'Mike Metcalfe' in the 'from' section - Mike Metcalfe was Tom Skerritt's *real* name as the head instructor of 'Top Gun', otherwise known as 'Viper'.
I'd done some prereading at xda developers and discovered the Telstra version is the 850, which is the NEON and not the NIKI. On the upside the 850 apparently has a larger battery, the ability to work on Telstra NextG, an FM radio, and the power button is in a different place (the same as the o2 mini fortuitously)On the downside it has the telescopic stylus, which is fine because I tend not to use it much. I found that the fact that it was in the bottom right corner took more getting used to than the fact that it was telescopic.
Anyways. First, that telstra branding had to go. I found the right spl uploader at http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=377260>, and installed version 1.06.841.4 ROM on it.
The only issues with the flashing was that I missed a crucial step of unplugging and replugging the cable, as per the instructions (in capital letters even) in the aforementioned thread.
I made my own little startup splash screen to replace the windows mobile one and stuck it in the windows directory by making a 240 x 320 pixel jpg in photoshop and naming it 'welcomehead.96.png'.
Before that, of course I had to discover that ActiveSync 4.5 is the latest version for XP, and will always be, because Vista now has some other sort of thing to transfer to mobiles. ActiveSync 4.5 has behaved itself quite well for me, much better than I remember 3.7 ever doing with the o2.
I decided to make a partnership without syncing any data at first, because I knew I'd be connecting and disconnecting and didn't want to always wait for it to sync hundreds of files before it let me do anything. At this juncture the little rubber USB port cover on the bottom first began to annoy me, but more on that later.
OK, it was time to try and make this little fella do everything the o2 could - and more. Familiarising oneself with the new WM6 was fun - the o2 ran 2003 and while they haven't changed much, there were a few things that needed getting used to.
HTC HOME VS CLAUNCHER
My thinking usually centres around getting things done efficiently. And whilst it looked so cool, I came to the realisation that HTC home had to go. The clock? Too much screen real estate (and I have a watch anyway). The message/call/appointment notifiers? I wanted to see the actual appointments written there. The launcher? Only NINE programs? Please! The weather? Firstly I didn't seem to be able to get it for Australia, and secondly... I actually realised that I don't really care about the weather that much! Ringtones? Don't use 'em. Right.
So I stumbled upon a program called clauncher, which it turns out is incredibly cool and efficient. You can just load it up, select it as a plugin and then click and hold on the empty space to access a huge variety of settings. It comes with 8 tabs for categories, like Main, Tools, Comm, Games etc etc. One of the excellent things about clauncher is that you can just import your start menu folder into an empty category and then just cut them out into the right ones. It's easy to move them with a multiple selection function and 'move up' and 'move down' buttons.
I found that keeping the icons at their native 32 pixel size looked nicest, and it's also about the right size for a thumb. I gave them a 3 pixel space between them but then I put a large right margin of 12 pixels, because clauncher has a cool feature which flips icon screens when you touch the blank part. You can also set the total height. So the sizing above gave me five icons in two rows, with a blank portion on the right to thumb to the next page. I discovered also that you can get more screen space (and a neater look) by hiding the tabs altogether.
Earlier on I'd discovered a terrible problem with clauncher - The pop down keypad would only type the first letter or number in the boxes! So I had named the second tab '2' and moved on. The lack of keyboard became an issue when I wanted to add manual shortcuts etc. Luckily I stumbled upon the fix for it. Instead of press and hold for the settings, if you access them via the 'today items' control panel, it gives you the softkey bar at the bottom, and hence your keyboard options back again.
Currently I've got four screens - my most frequently used (vaguely) apps, less frequently used apps, communications stuff and then games.
All I need to find out now is how to anchor it to the bottom part of the screen.
I noticed that WM6 no longer puts your messages on the today screen - 'no unread emails' or whatever. But a shortcut to messaging was an easy fix with clauncher.
HARDWARE KEYS/LONGPRESSENDKEY/SLIDEACTION
The lack of hardware keys was something I didn't realise I'd miss so much. The o2 had phone buttons, volume slider, camera button, the normal nav buttons PLUS appointment, contacts, and voice recorder buttons. I used to run buttonmax on my o2 which let me map press, double press and long press to each of the extra buttons.
I thought I'd found a solution in AEbuttonplus - it was free, it let me map buttons - but the only buttons I could really map were the phone ones.
So I mapped a double click on the green button to close a window (when I'm thumbing around it's actually easier to get to the bottom part of the screen, particularly when using the sliding keyboard). It was working great - until I got a phone call. The green button seems to change purpose depending on what's going on. I had mapped its usual use to 'phone', but that didn't seem to cover 'answer call' or even 'send call' - I had to use the on-screen softkeys. I'd installed 'slide action' software which had been working great, but I realised it must simulate a 'press green button' or something, because it stopped working for phone functions too. So AEbuttonplus had to go.
The small consolation came with the 'longpressendkey' setting somebody thoughtfully put in the ROM - I can at least set my phone to vibrate with one key, which I could never do easily on the o2. I'd love to see 'longpressendkey' set up to allow any customisable link, and while they're at it, make BOTH the green and red keys mappable for single, double and triple press as well as long press. That would give six extra hardware key options and make up for the lack of them elsewhere. Anyways.
ACTIVESYNC/MACROREADER/CEREGEDITOR
Dang it, I stuffed around for a LONG time trying to solve this. On my o2 I had a hardware macro (double press contacts key) which would start activesync, and then another activesync specific hardware macro (hold contacts key) to connect bluetooth and start synchronising. And then to disconnect, I was running the Magic Button task manager and a tap on the X would disconnect and close activesync.
How to do it? I didn't have hardware keys, I didn't have macros, OR didn't I? I ended up discovering a little piece of software here:
http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/download.php?ID=1645&BID=23
in what seemed to be the VITO 'boneyard' where they keep all the seconds and dodgy stuff - I couldn't find a link to it on the main site. It was called 'MacroRecorder' and it comes with no manual or other information. But it works if you just want to record a tap-based macro. Next problem then - how to make a tap for starting Activesync always be in the same place?
You gotta love those registry hacks. I found a program called CERegEditor which lets you connect up the phone, and then edit the registry on your PC. Sure beats keying in all the weird info on the tiny screen using the tiny buttons.
I remapped the bottom left softkey to ActiveSync using the Key 112 registry entry, and now I had my solution to making a tap-based macro. MacroRecorder isn't that tricky actually - you just start the exe, click the okay screen, do your thang, and then press the little red square which has appeared in the middle of the screen to finish. It asks for a name and then creates a file in the same folder as the exe, which you can put wherever. I created an entry for it in clauncher, gave it the activesync icon (Windows\repllog.exe) and now I can start activesync and connect via bluetooth with one press!
While I was there in the registry I did a few other tweaks like making the scroll bars 15 pixels wide (the widest you can make them whilst keeping the 'settings' screen three icons wide) and making the date one line instead of two. There's a list of registry tweaks here:
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=50029&st=0
Getting activesync to close and disconnect in one action was a bit trickier. None of the task managers I tried would close activesync down altogether, like magic button used to do on my o2. I found some trial software which advertised the ability to 'close activesync on disconnect', which it DID... but the only problem was that it wouldn't OPEN it again when you reconnected.
Given that WM6 now gives you the option of the OK button actually closing things rather than minimising, Magic button sadly had no use anymore. Goodbye, trusty software.
So it seems I've gained a step in making Activesync connection a one-click process... but I've lost my one-click disconnection. Oh well. There's some software which people talk about which was supposed to be able to automatically schedule bluetooth connections, but it sadly seems to have disappeared.
CONTINUED IN PART 2
PART 2
MS READER
I had been using MS reader for my ebooks and it worked fine on my o2, but for some reason it seemed to be painfully slow on the dual. I ended up converting my .lit files using 'convertLit' and downloading Mobipocket to read them. It's not quite as pretty as MS reader, but it's definitely faster to load, and it takes you to your last read book straight away instead of having to go through all the intro screens. Second shortcut in clauncher, then!
TOUCHFLO
Well that cubey thing is super cool - so I spent considerable time trying to get it to have the elusive fourth face. BUT then I asked myself, 'what does touchflo do that I can't do with one press in clauncher?'
About this time I had to hard reset and rebuild everything because I'd added in some irrepairable registry stuff and the cube was whacked out completely.
I left it as three sides, then. Now - it's not immediately obvious, but the 'quicktasks' screen that comes up when you open the slider is actually part of the Touchflo 'family' and it's settings are in the same place in the registry.
So it was relatively easy to replace the 'Email' on the third side of the cube with 'new email' from the APlauncher screen, 'SMS' with 'new SMS', 'Notes' with 'new note' and 'calendar' with 'new appointment'. That way the icons matched up just great.
The problem is that now that I've figured out the shortcuts, it's probably just as easy to put an icon in clauncher for them! So rather than 1. turn on, 2. swipe up, 3. swipe across, 4. press icon; you could eliminate the swipes...
I'm finding too, that new things involving contacts (SMS, MMS, email, phone calls) are best handled by sliding out the keypad, typing the first few letters, click down to them with the navigation keys and press the centre key. Then you get a screen with options to call any of their numbers, text them or email them.
If you go the 'new message' route, you have to access the contacts list in a far more cumbersome manner - smaller type entries which are harder to click with your thumbnail and that you either have to scroll to or type an exact match for it.
I've also found the following when using the touchflo features:
* to get the touch cube every time, start at the htc logo and sweep up with the thumbnail.
* you don't have to be 'twitchy' with the photo gestures. A slower and deliberate circle or half circle tends to make it do what you're asking a lot better - more nail, less finger for the photo stuff too.
* for scrolling, press quite firmly, and use a lot of finger surface area. Too much nail tends to make it click. I imagine I'm smudging stuff off my finger and that seems to work well. For long scrolls do a finger 'flick'.
THAT RUBBER COVER
After only a few days of activesyncing, I noticed the rubber cover on the USB port was starting to not close flush anymore. A bit of research turned up that it was an extremely common problem. So I bit the bullet and cut it off, but I cut it in a way that I could put it back on if I wanted, by slitting through one of the sections that anchors around the little pin, leaving the rubber in a hook shape to hold it in when needed. I tried putting it in the freezer for a time, but that seemed to have no effect, and I was already sick of pulling it off everytime I plugged it in to charge or whatever. So I trimmed that baby off, right next to the middle section, so that it was still held in at two points, but so that the USB port was now exposed. I then took the remaining bit and trimmed it right close to its anchor thing, and slotted it back as well. So now the USB port is exposed but none of the ugly holes which the rubber thing slotted into are. I shouldn't have to worry about wear (because I'm not taking it off all the time) or expansion bulging (because it has one free edge), and because of the way the curves sit it looks like a nicely recessed USB port. I'm not certain the tiny little piece will stay put, but if it falls off (and I can still find it) I could easily put a spot of glue on it - it doesn't look too bad without that little bit anyway. If I did it again I'd probably leave a little bit more rubber on the side closest to the centre, so that the USB port looks better centred in the hole. (see attached pic)
CLOSING THE CAMERA/ALBUM
I found that pressing the X on the camera only minimised it. Fortunately there's a registry tweak called ok_minimize which you can change to make it actually close the app.
IE
Internet explorer is a dog for scrolling big pages. Replace your webview.dll file and it's much better.
.lnk FOR 'PROGRAMS' FOLDER
If you make an .lnk to the programs folder normally, it opens in a file explorer window - not cool. The solution is to make it point to the HTC app 'folderview.exe' and it works a treat. 'Settings' is not so simple though. You can map to individual control panels but not the main one with them all in there. A bit of a weird one.
Anyway, all in all I can't wait to put my dual to work now that it's been primed and readied - my wishlist at the moment would be:
* map double/triple/hold functions to the phone keys
* get slideclose to send a 'close current app' command rather than just go back to today screen
* align clauncher to the bottom of today screen (easier to thumb, and looks neater)
* figure out an .lnk file for the 'settings' control panel (this seems surprisingly difficult - in fact I installed some software that remapped the start menu and I couldn't get into 'settings' to remove it!)
* find a taskmanager or utility that actually kills activesync while it's connected
* to get faster at typing with the dang half-qwerty keyboard!
* I reckon a taskswitcher that used the touchflo 'across' gesture to scroll between open apps would be really cool.
There you have it - hope some or all of that is actually helpful! Thanks to all you guys out there cooking ROMs, writing software and thinking outside the box.
Cheers
jbng
jesus christ are you competing for the longest post of the year award??
holy crap !! i read it from the very beginning and never read such a post before ..... well done dude !! and keep up posting ;-)
re : * find a taskmanager or utility that actually kills activesync while it's connected
i searched such a tool a long time ... never got something which lets me charge niki without syncing on the pc.
workaround: i placed the network connection of my niki on my xp taskbar . when i want to sync then i enable network connection - if not, disable . not the best solution , i know , however - it works and since then i got used to it.
cheers
I take my hat off for these post's! Great job man!
nice post, even better to know there are people out there that search for answers before posting question after question
jbngar said:
I found that pressing the X on the camera only minimised it. Fortunately there's a registry tweak called ok_minimize which you can change to make it actually close the app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did you try changing the setting in settings -> task manager -> button -> to end program by tapping x, works ok for me
WEEK 2
Week 2 of touch dual has been a whole lot of fun. I'm still looking for an absolute 'killer' of an app that will make anyone and everyone go 'oooh, aaaaah - that's SO much better than your o2 mini could ever do'... but I'm yet to come across it. The most impressive thing is the voice activation, but whenever I show someone and tell it to 'play track twenty' it always seems to try and 'ring jack henty' or something like that.
AEBUTTON PLUS
I thought I'd try a trial full version of AEButton plus. I began by mapping a double centre-nav press for 'ok/close' and several other cool things to the left and right nav buttons. Worked great, for a time, until I tried typing. It turns out the 'enter' key on the slider does exactly the same thing as the centre press, and so every time I'd make a new paragraph I'd close the window! Not to mention all the weird and wonderful things that would happen when I went to correct a mistake. Click back... click back... click and hold... and the screen is rotating and all sorts of applications are launching!
So I realised the reason that most button mappers don't let you map the nav keys.
The camera button had issues too - even though it was mapped to let a single press do the default action, it wouldn't take a photo. No good.
The red button wouldn't work for some reason either, I can't remember why, but all I know is that I was left with my button mappings on the green button only:
single press = default action, double press = ok, triple press = switch application, hold = close application.
3G, GSM, INTERNET and MMS
The big news this week was the arrival of my 3G sim card. Both of them. I'd ordered one from Optus about a week and a half ago with the promise of '2-3 days'. It didn't come so I rang again and was told 'there's no record of you being sent one, we'll send you another'. And they both arrived on the same day - one at work and one at home.
Then I rang at lunchtime thursday to activate it, and then spent most of the rest of the day restarting the phone to see if it had provisioned in the '15 minute to four hour' window they gave me. I ended up slipping the card into an old Nokia 3200 when I got sick of waiting for the dual to boot up and hang when it was looking for the network. The Nokia flashed up a much more informative 'sim card not registered' message, which it continued to flash up until I gave up late on Thursday night. But in the morning, wonder of wonders, it was working! My family breathed a sigh of relief because they didn't have to listen to the dodgy Nokia startup tune any more.
The first thing I did was try the internet and it performed very respectably. But MMS messages refused to work.
I made a couple of calls to Optus to get the settings and was told 'you have to enter them manually'. So I faffed around with that for ages. The problem seemed to be that MMS would work if 'mms' was the default setting, but then internet wouldn't work. If I changed the default to 'internet', then MMS stopped working. Rah!
Then I discovered in the connections settings an icon called 'network wizard'. I thought it was for WiFi or something. But after clicking it, selecting the provider and restarting, everything worked just fine! Thanks for the heads up, tech support guys! I'll be sending them an email shortly.
3G tends to use more battery, so I tried a tool called bandswitcher to easily change between GSM and 3G, but it didn't help my config problems. And I thought that if I lock it to GSM, if someone tries to video call me it won't work; and if I lock it to 3G, if I go out of coverage it won't switch over. So 'Auto' it was.
BLUETOOTH RANGE
The bluetooth range seems to be a bit paltry on the dual. I tried switching off 'secure connection' and it was marginally better, but I couldn't connect from the next room like I could with my o2. Once the connection is established it seems to be better, but I have to say activesync via bluetooth has been flakier than I'd like - with lots of dropouts etc.
KEYSWOP
Try as I might, the shortcut path '\windows\poutlook.exe calendar -new' that was working for 'new appointment' on the touchflo cube would not map to the right softkey using the registry. So I found a free utility called 'keyswop' which makes .lnk files and helps you to map them to the softkeys. So everything in the software side of the touchflo cube is now in clauncher, a softkey or something else:
* New SMS/MMS/email - open keyboard, press first few letters of name, press 'send message'
* New appointment - press right softkey, enter details
* New note - open notes from clauncher, press left softkey
* IE/comm manager - clauncher icons
CLAUNCHER
Speaking of Clauncher, since last week I now have 15 icons (3 rows of 5) and less screens. It's very seldom that my appointments push it off the bottom of the screen, and if they do it's easily scrollable.
Further to my last investigations about needing to access the options via the today settings control panel to get the keyboard, I've found that you ALSO have to use the bog standard WM6 'keyboard' option - the other HTC keyboards will only give numbers. This seems to be the case in some other applications like Visnotes too. Visnotes is an awesome free application for storing encrypted numbers like bank accounts etc which uses an innovative 'password' - you press three times on a picture in preset places.
TYPING and XT9
I tried out an application called 'touchpal' which advertised itself as 'typing faster than a hardware keyboard'. But I think the dual's 2.6" screen is just a bit small for it to be effective. I've decided to stick with the half-qwerty keyboard and just keep practicing - and it seems to be paying off. My goal is to get to the stage where I can type without looking at the keys with either two hands or one.
XT9 is actually incredibly intelligent software. It uses complex algorithms based on what keys were near the one you actually typed, and combines them with its dictionaries to guess what you were trying to type. And it does very, very well. Anything that can guess the word 'friend' from the keystrokes 'ddeuabd' or 'thorough' from 'ggoedoujgg' is pretty darn clever.
The issue I had was that the default keyboard kept going back to 'ABC' aka multitap. This was fixed by switching the registry key CarrierDefaultTextMode as outlined here:
http://www.ppcsg.com/index.php?showtopic=97265
A couple of other xt9 tips:
* I found I had to use thumbnails (not thumbs) for the keys to avoid double pressing etc.
* For two handed entry, the 'Alt' key is quickest to access numbers and symbols on the top of the keys. For one handed entry, pressing and holding does the same thing.
* every so often XT9 uses a strange default word. My issues were 'boy' for 'not', and 'st' for 'at'. You can fix this by typing and selecting the word you want three times in a row. This seems to 'teach' it and sets it as the first word it chooses each time.
* the first row of symbols can be quickly accessed by holding down * and the relevant number (e.g. *7 will give you a smiley).
I *wish* there was some way to change the symbol matrix. The first three in the first row are already on hardware keys (.,?!) and the next ones are smileys. I would like to at least put a hyphen in the top row so I could access it without leaving the hardware keyboard. I've found the easiest way to enter symbols is to scroll to the row and use their numbers.
ACB TASKMAN
This software tells you which actual PROCESSES you are running. Quite useful. I used it to close down AEButtonPlus when it was mucking up.
I think that's about it for now - the main outstanding issues are still a shortcut to the settings control panel, and a way to align clauncher to the bottom of the today screen.
Otherwise, enjoy!
PS. A fun app I found is called 'guesser' - it basically gives you random numbers for all sorts of things like heads/tails, yes/no, agree/disagree, A/B/C/D, alphabet, 1-100 etc. We were with some friends the other night and everyone picked a number between 1 and 100 and the winner was the first one to have guesser pick their number. Fun in a bizarre kind of way...
Blimey, Claunch is nice, but I swapped to Ultimate Launch, just for the Today plugins within Tabs and animations, plus lots of Icons for it. If you do swap, remove cLaunch first as it buggered up my UL when I removed it afterwards.