Day: June 9, 2003

Phone success

Yes, there was happiness at the end of the road. After obtaining a Bluetooth adapter for my home machine, I experimented with trying to sync my contacts (using iSync and trying to send one at a time from the Address Book) with no luck. I then turned to the web. MacFixitForums were unhelpful, but the MacInTouch reader reports on iSync pointed out something I had missed, namely that the phone tries to use port 3004 for the mRouter discovery protocol, and that opening ports 3000 through 3004 enables the communication.

I made the change, turned the firewall off and on, and then had to reboot—I suspect because I had to force quit iSync when it failed the first time. After the reboot I was able to synchronize my address book to my phone, all 1471 contacts processed seamlessly.

Remaining issues:

  • What’s up with mailing photos from the phone? Worked yesterday, doesn’t work today.
  • Bluetooth File Exchange doesn’t work. At all. Can’t move a file, can’t create a new folder.
  • Why won’t iSync transfer iCal items to the phone? There’s a calendar on there after all.

Phone update

So a little quick update on my phone drama: I splurged a little over the weekend and got a Nokia 3650. This is the phone that’s been in a few carriers’ commercials—the one with the built in camera on the back. So I wanted to figure out how to get some of the more advanced features enabled, and I tried to sync the phone up to my PC via infrared.

Nothing. I never got the phone to connect—every time I tried, the software on the PC reported a failure in the sync layer. And now I can’t send emails from the phone, which worked fine before.

I think there’s a law of increasing complexity in cell phone technology, and I think I just crossed over the line between usable and crazy with this new phone. Of course, I can always try putting a Bluetooth adapter on my computer and seeing whether that works any better’adding another layer of complexity.

Realistically it will be a while before I can blog or send photos from this thing…