dm93 * home WearableGizmo

An important part of the PerfectOffice is a gizmo that you can wear around to supplement your brain. Of course, they cost a lot, break, get lost, etc. Is anything better than paper?

Handy stuff: t-mobile, danger info sidekick docs

why I love it:

I also like my RadioWatchGizmo pretty much.

30Oct2004: the wheel on my CSK has gone bad; called T-Mobile about upgrading to the SKII and they want full retali ($300) for it. Come on! I've been a loyal customer for 3 years! They're encouraging me to go elsewhere. Maybe I'll try a treo.

21Sep2004: the side-kick II is triband. I might have to go for the upgrade offer.

8Aug2004: I was able to pay bills using my sidekick a while ago; it's not working this week. nor is proxyweb. What's going on? I've known for a while about their goofy CSS support (why not respect the handheld media type?) The Danger Inc. Web Site Optimisation Guidelines, formerly at http://www.danger.com/web_guidelines.php, have gone 404.

hiptop vs web stds

WaSP slams hiptop

forum discussion of CSS, E-Tags, etc.

Jun2004: I left my gizmo outside overnight and my new dog ate it. I still have my old black and white gizmo, and the nice thing about the sidekick is you just move the SIM chip from one device to another and presto! all your data comes with you. Before I call and ask for a replacement, I wonder what's new in the market?

Danger's new gizmo � exclusive� er� sketch By Andrew Orlowski in Cannes Published Wednesday 25th February 2004 18:24 GMT

6Dec2003: idea: bookmarklet for: take a yahoo yellow pages listing and add it to my sidekick addressbook. hmm... add it only if there's not already one that has this phone number. how to maintain the backlink... updates/sync?

29Dec2003: picked up a Franklin RF-8013 (UPACode 084793993763) from Microcenter for $10 for Mary. Let's see if it's any better than a pencil...

In Oct 2002 I saw an slashdot review of the danger sidekick. Dec 2002: Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas to me! (anybody else remember the birthday web?) I got a T-Mobile Sidekick with Camera Attachment from Amazon.

Short history of my wearable gizmos:

Features I miss from earlier gizmos:

other quirks:

21Oct2003: sidekick is in trouble: treo 270 is free-after-rebates and t-mobile offers flat-rate data.

Some more wishes... Wiki integration... Post by email?

Aim screen names in address book.

Mapping software. SVG maps?

argh! really frustrating that I can't connect calendar events, address book entries, and todo items. The dentist office called and proposed a 13Jan appointment; I just want to make a record of that call that

6Jun2003: XMLRPC interface! woohoo! user data calls

Feb 2003: on my TAG ftf trip, I forgot the charger. built a usb charger from parts at radio shack.

20Jan2003: wishlist... for hipAgent... move pictures: copy picture content, date, title/caption... hmm... to where? to WEBDAV properties? jpg comments in RDF? hmm...

3Dec: got it!

CueCat? data: from fedex package Type: 128 Code: 36621040110000036232410301312012

from amazon order

Type: 128 Code: Seeqw12769

from box: pcs phone kit Type: 128 Code: 610214608628

handset Type: I28 Code: 010106000271828

ok, registered... danc at something... off to t-mobile to see what's up there... hmm... can't log in. wrote to customer service; reference number 021203-000695. Eventually changed passwords and such a few times and got in.

29Nov: Ordered the thing. Hoping to get it in time for my trip to San Antonio next week. Amazon estimated 30Nov-2Dec ship date; I'm planning to leave 3Dec. Keep your fingers crossed!

I called the local voice stream store; they stock it, but their price is $300. I got a $220 quote from t-mobile customer service, via handset upgrade (I've been a customer for a while). Then, after investigating the amazon deal a bit, I called customer service again and Chris (#122501) told me that I could get these web site prices even though I'm an existing customer. So I went with the amazon deal.

These sharp Zaurus linux PDAs? look pretty cool. But I sure like having just one gizmo.


comments:

MIT holidays --connolly, Tue, 09 Nov 2004 03:23:25 +0000 reply
Mary got a palmpilot, so we're moving the family calendar from paper to the web. So mit_holidays.ics is more useful now.

MIT holidays --connolly, Tue, 09 Nov 2004 19:15:45 +0000 reply
mit_holidays.ics is derived by machine from an official MIT calendar. See also: notes on the conversion

Nokia 6800 for Mary? Or Sony Ericsson? --connolly, Thu, 11 Nov 2004 17:29:33 +0000 reply
Went to the nearby t-mobile store to pick up a sidekick-II. They were out, but I saw the Nokia 6800 which looks like what I want for Mary: a gizmo that works as a phone and a calendar and does IM.

Did some research, found... "Sadly, it does not work with Apple's iSync. Given that no other Series 40 Nokia device does work with iSync, I'm not holding my breath. If they can't get the 6310i working with iSync, I can't imagine they're breaking their skulls open trying to make a 6810/6820 work with it. That doesn't make it right, however. I'm still beside myself. The Series 60 devices have a completely different method of communicating via mRouter. I can understand that making mRouter work on a Mac OS X workstation is easy, since it's developed by Symbian anyway. But I'm confused why Nokia doesn't just use IrMC? over Bluetooth like Sony Ericsson does for their handsets to make Series 40 viable for Mac users. True, you can use the EDGE or GPRS connection with your Mac via the Bluetooth connection to the device. You can even send/receive SMS in the AddressBook?. But if you can't sync your contacts and appointments to it, it makes it awfully hard to justify. If you're a Mac user that doesn't want a full-blown Smartphone, stick to Sony Ericsson for now. (I can't believe I just had to say that!) Sony Ericsson can't tell Mac users to go pound sand, they need all the users they can get." -- mobilewhack

sidekick II --connolly, Fri, 12 Nov 2004 02:45:14 +0000 reply
Called around and found another t-mobile store that had the sidekick II in stock; around $200 after rebates and such.

Works nice! The camera has more pixels, so it might be useful for so mething, but it's still not good for taking normal photographs. The speakerphone seems to work.

They moved the arrow key wheel from right thumb to left; that'll take some getting used to. And the semi is alt-G now; the key left of l is del; they moved enter down. ah... but you can make a pipe (|) now; ssh was kinda useless without it.

The web browser groks intra-page links; they fixed that bug. The addressbook accomodates photos now, so I get a picture of Mary when she calls me Otherwise, it's just like a normal sidekick. i.e. awesome :)

From the flash demos of the nokia 6800 and the other "IM phones",
they look horribly klunky in comparison to the sidekick.

sidekick II not receiving email --connolly, Fri, 12 Nov 2004 22:14:06 +0000 reply
Reported the problem to t-mobiel: "Thank you! Your case, number 041112-001284, was successfully submitted. A Customer Service Representative will contact you within 24 hours."

multi-day events --connolly, Wed, 15 Dec 2004 14:49:07 +0000 reply
In iCalendar, all-day event may start on one day and end on another. The sidekick groks this, but the palmpilot doesn't. A work-around is to use a daily repeating event. But I haven't updated my expense reporting scripts to grok. hmm.

WSDL for PDA driving directions --connolly, Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:24:31 +0000 reply
The sidekick knows how to look up street addresses from the addressbook in mapquest. I actually prefer yahoo's implementation; they share an interface... hmm... ToDo: study WSDL for things like choice of driving direction services on a PDA

Norm got one too! --connolly, Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:26:03 +0000 reply
Norm got a sidekick and he's now asking me questions about all my little hacks: dangerSync.py, aimbridge.py, etc. Maybe I'll write some docs...

email interruptions --connolly, Fri, 04 Feb 2005 21:35:09 +0000 reply
My gizmo raises an interrup when I get personal mail. At work, I get my mail when I'm done with one thing and ready to start another. I think I'd like to poll for my personal mail too. Hmm.

linux on the sidekick --connolly, Sat, 05 Feb 2005 02:20:09 +0000 reply
uClinux on the Danger Hiptop. Is that crazy or what?

t-mobile/danger problems hit home --connolly, Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:12:19 +0000 reply
I heard about this break-in...

and I heard about the Paris Hilton stuff. But I wasn't worried; I don't store anything that sensitive in my gizmo (er... or do I? hmm...). Plus, I audit my credit card statements and bank statements religiously.

But now I'm in Minneapolis for an IETF meeting and I can't sync the schedule on my gizmo with the rest of my world. Ouch! Now it hurts me personally. And I'm not alone... Danger inadvertantly cuts off Sidekick data Posted Mar 8, 2005, 9:40 AM ET by Peter Rojas

signalstrength collects outage reports. Who knows if it did any good, but it felt constructive to report my outage there.

series 60 symbian stuff looks tasty --connolly, Tue, 08 Mar 2005 22:36:29 +0000 reply
python for series 60

argh! Electra ate another one! --connolly, Sun, 15 May 2005 06:00:41 +0000 reply
I set my gizmo on the table in the back yard while I played soccer with Kyle and Brennan. I was comfortably watching a game on TV half an hour later when Mary said, "Is that your electronic gizmo in the grass?" Yes, it was, and it was chewed up. Electra looked really guilty when I picked it up. I was so mad... mostly at myself; I should know better by now... but it was her fault too and I let her know. She came wagging up to me a few minutes later and I yelled "GIT!" It wasn't until after dinner that I let her out of the dog house.

Hmm... interesting... in the gogogle ads on this page, there's one for a "free" sidekick... I have to take up 2 offers... maybe a month trial of blockbuster online and an entertainment book. I wonder if/when I would get the thing. Before my Amsterdam trip? And how to I connect it to my t-mobile account? Maybe I'd better just pay t-mobile the $70 handset replacement fee and be sure?

resetting too often --connolly, Mon, 16 Jan 2006 16:49:14 +0000 reply
The darned thing resets itself way too often lately; just when you really need it, of course. I see vaguely similar problem reports, but no solutions. I reported the problem to t-mobile. Here's hoping...

sync problem, general reliability --connolly, Mon, 06 Feb 2006 19:30:43 +0000 reply
I just tried to add an event to my calendar; I added it on the device, but it wouldn't sync with the "desktop interface". I called customer service and got escalated to "tier 1" and then to the guys that actually know what they're doing. We did a hard reset. There's some issue with the device that the manufacturer has acknowledged; if my problems persist, I may be able to get a replacement.

I called today because earlier web/email support seemed even slower than waiting on hold. Let's see... case #987220 is the one I opened 16 Jan about resetting too often. I see that they actually advised a hard reset in email on 25 Jan, after notifying me on 23 Jan of a transfer to wireless data support.

I also have case #1005537 about not being able to login to the desktop interface, opened 21 Jan.

meanwhile... 

Jan 30 13:47:23   crap; my phone just spontanously rebooted
Jan 30 13:47:58   these sidekicks take about 20 minutes to get all their marbles back after rebooting
Feb 01 00:04:19   phone rebooted AGAIN. argh!