Close Meditations of a Visual Kind

Testing is proceeding again today. This is good. Evidently whatever we did preparing the testing scenarios, is working.

Reporting on the Treo Smartphone Migration is lacking, on the other hand. Still unable to achieve a successful sync between Outlook and Treo. Proved entirely unable to achieve a successful export of Palm OS Calendar information. Wound up hand-transcribing things from one to the other, while doing laundry on Sunday.

Called ATT support line yesterday to work this out. Kudos to the ATT support person, who ran through the entire process with me. Granted, what we determined is I've done everything which their web site, and Palm's web site, says to do. So there isn't any more support to be had from teh web sites.

So, she gave me the number for Palm's tech support, then forwarded me to them. Kudos not so much here. First, we are definitely dealing with tech support people for whom my native language is not their native language. Second, the first fellow took nearly 10 minutes to determine that the number to which the ATT rep forwarded me is for the Palm OS. Oh, you must call the Windows Mobile people for this, yes, must call someone else.

Why thank you. Never did get that number. Did get forwarded again. Once more, we are definitely dealing with different langauge situations. Which version of ActiveSync are you using? Oh that is very bad, very bad. You must use version 4.5. Download and install 4.5.

Downloading now. Installing now.

Click.

Hello? Um, haven't tried it yet. Hello?

To be fair, this could be due to bad phone connection. To be honest I don't care. To be brutal, received the same error message after trying to sync after the upgrade that I'd been receiving before.

Called ATT back, quite over it and ready to trade the Treo 750 for a Treo 680 (which does use the Palm OS). The hapless ATT rep this call discovered that why no, despite selecting a new plan while upgrading phones (because I had to select a new plan to upgrade the phones), my calling plan isn't upgraded. And features are turned off. Maybe that explains why the Treo won't sync?

Well. Maybe that explains why the voicemail isn't working, and I can't reset my voicemail password, but sync operations with PC located applications shouldn't be affected by the phone service plan.

At this point I completed the call to ATT, and went home. During the evening I tried some more things from the ActiveSync help files to get teh phone to sync, unsuccessfully. Thus neither Microshaft nor Palm are playing particularly well with this process. However, I've calmed down overnight and will spend a bit more time today trying to get the sync to work before calling ATT back. First thing there, where is my calling plan? Since I couldn't find any files on what I selected, I'm now working on the premise that the selections didn't transmit.

However, I do not quite yet have functional Treo. Ordered two new phones for Herself and I, and the one for myself is a Palm Treo 750. The phones arrived on Wednesday according to the shipper's web site/tracking page. We didn't find them until yesterday afternoon, early evening. They'd been left on the back porch of Studio 318, inside, leaning against the back door. Probably the delivery fellow arrived on teh Ranch when Herself was off making a feed run. This is OK, overall, as the phones arrived.

I haven't activated the new account/numbers (they're the same numbers, and the old phones are still responding to them) quite yet. The instructions that came with both phones indicated getting the batteries fully charged first (done), and for the Treo installing the synchronisation software and synching the device first.

Herein lies the current dilemma. I ordered the phone under the impression it is using Palm's operating system. This proves not to be the case. It's using Windows Mobile, and so the software is Microshaft's Active Synch. I've installed that. It appears to have installed acceptably. However, the PC won't find the device, even when the device is connected via the hot-synch cable. What I can see of the configuration setup is that it's all set up correctly, but I don't have the time right now to trouble-shoot in depth.

Maybe later.

Meanwhile, the old phone is connecting, the old Palm Tungsten is still working though with wonky colours (and not Willy Wonka either) on the display making it very difficult to read. More on the saga as time permits.

Because Hospital wants me to do things, other things, than getting my new phone toy working.

::sigh::