I don't like to use the same topic for a column two weeks in a row. On the other hand, I like to write about what I see and do in a timely manner - and the continuing war against poorly written software has pulled me in again! This time it concerns our new cell phones.
My wife and I got new cell phones recently. The batteries in the old ones were getting weak, and we wanted some of the newer features. Off to the cell phone store we went, and came home with some phones that we like thus far quite a bit. As this topic comes up later, I should explain now that these phones were NOT camera phones. I am not much into that, but the deciding factor was that you can only exchange photos from phones in the same network - since my kids and other relatives are all on different networks, this feature could rarely be used anyhow. They do support screen images, however, but they must be downloaded.
I don't care too much about this stuff, but my wife wanted some cool ringtones. I found that my cell phone company did not allow third-party ringtones to be downloaded - you could use their own facilities to buy ringtones but they made you purchase up-front prior to even sampling the available tones. She also wanted to get photos into the phone so she could see the picture of who is calling. My interest in phone software was to be able to manage the phone's phone book from my PC.
After a bit of research (well, probably not enough), I ordered a kit from DataPilot that included software and an interface cable. The software installed easily and connected to the phone with no problem. Now the software wars began…
Skirmish 1: There was an "update" button on the software. I clicked it, and downloaded the latest software updates. Subsequently when talking to tech-support, I found out that I did in fact NOT have the latest software. It seems their update facility is not cumulative, and that you have to continuously click the update button, updating one version at a time, until you get to the final version. It took me five or six times to get it right. Dumb.
Skirmish 2: The interface to the phone seemed to work fine. I was able to download images into the phone, but when displayed they were all blank. Two calls to tech-support confirmed that this was a known problem with my brand and model of phone, and that I would have to get a software upgrade from the phone company. But this was confusing as you can in fact download images using the phone company's internal facilities, so it had to work somehow. The phone company knows nothing about it and says there is no available upgrade.
Skirmish 3: The "phone book" facility that comes with the DataPilot software worked very well, and most importantly it correctly imported my address book from Microsoft Outlook. Contacts could be uploaded and downloaded to the phone with no problem. However, one item was not available - setting the Speed Dial function for each contact. Thus I was able to read and write contacts with ease, but had to manually go to the phone to set up the Speed Dial for each one.
To give credit to the software, the ringtone composer and download facility worked well.
So, what do I have here? I paid about $50 for a program with three primary functions (ringtones, phone book, image download) that fails outright in one function and is incomplete in another. I contacted the vendor that I brought the software from, only to learn that they do not accept returns on software if opened. Their advice was to contact the manufacturer, which I am in the process of doing. The software wars continue…
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)