The PC Ain’t All Bad

I have been trying to return my phone to T-Mobile for some time. It’s one of those MDA Vario II things with the slidey-outy-keyboard. Since last January, it’s made it possible for me to type out SMS without having to discard my quarter-century worth of typing experience in favour of a stupid teenager-oriented system. It also makes multi-part SMS and email a whole lot easier.

I’m not writing a commercial for this expensive toy, I’m writing about why I can’t return it. It has faults. The phone is awful. I fail to get signal in Oxford Circus and Bond Street. Can you imagine my facial expression right now? Ugly, isn’t it?

I can’t get 3G signal, or any kind of data connection sitting still in Grosvenor Square. You might ask why a Suspect Paki would be doing trying to get a 3G signal near the American Embassy. I was actually trying to work out the quickest walking route to the nearest mosque (the one in Mayfair) using Google Maps Mobile Edition. (I’m not really making this sound less incriminating, am I?)

The scroll-wheel jumps in the opposite direction randomly, intermittently and in varying amounts, which makes it about as useful as a heart surgeon with delirium tremens. The vibration feature sometimes takes a holiday without letting the boss know (I’m the boss) - and the latest joy, the keyboard doesn’t always listen to me, which is really rather insulting. I can understand why people don’t listen to me, but when devices play dumb (hold on…they are dumb) I get really cross.

These problems have been mounting and recently finally came to a head today, when I bit the bullet and decided to call the OTT cheery-by-script people at T-Mobile, who practically insist on calling you by your first name, even when they can’t pronounce it.

Having done absolutely nothing other than verify my number (it’s the one I’m calling from, the one you see on your screen, the one with the account allocated against it active for 14 years, shit-for-brains), they finally take two minutes to say goodbye, wishing you a wonderful life, a Happy New Year, a successful marriage and bon voyage. Just hang up the bloody phone already!

So I want to return the device.

Only I can’t. I made the rather dumb decision of insisting on synchronisation of my Windows Pocket PC phone with my Mac. Apple say it’s possible, pointing me to Mark/Space who sold me the software to do it. Only, it doesn’t sync everything. Most importantly, it doesn’t sync my SMS messages.

At this point, people around the world are losing their connection with me and falling asleep through a complete lack of empathy. That’s because most people don’t keep their texts. Not the way I do any way. You might be wondering why I don’t save the important ones to my SIM card? I do, but with around 6000+ of them, a lot of them multi-part, I run out of SIM space rather quickly.

6000+ text messages. Why? Well I love to keep all the texts my eldest sends. There are thousands. Even her missed call texts I keep. My kids are my life. Older readers know what I’m talking about. Let’s leave it at that for now.

Mark/Space promised that their Missing Sync software would do the job for me with version 4. I upgraded and paid them what they wanted for the second time

It didn’t work. I tried maybe half a dozen or more beta versions of their software after upgrading to version 4, simply for this single feature. I wasted my money and my time. It has never worked and I doubt it will ever work. I finally ran out of patience. Many ran out of patience far sooner than me.

If you have a Mac, please do yourself a favour and avoid using a Windows Pocket PC or Smartphone device if you’re going to let the Missing Sync software anywhere near it. It freezes a lot, can’t be bothered to sync half the time and most annoyingly, doesn’t do SMS properly. When it works, it does a good job of the contacts, address book, diary and other such simple stuff. It pretended to to music and photo, but never was reliable enough or flexible enough.

Having finally lost my patience, I also lost my integrity. I sold myself to the dark side. Opening a quarantined browser window, just in case, the hunt for PC backup software began. (Cue Psycho violin stabs)

I came across Sprite Backup and for once, the demo version of some seemingly useful software appeared not to be crippled. I read everything I could on it and even dropped the guys at Sprite an email. (They had been attempting to steer my down a web-based contact form, which employed a pet hate of mine - the insistence on user account creation before you are allowed to even contact them. There is nothing about this crime in shari`ah, but I would propose the same punishment as for theft.)

I took the chance and made a couple of backups. It appeared to make a full backup of the phone’s memory. The next step was to restore. This seemed to freeze half way through. I panicked because my phone was now empty, everything had gone and I was already imagining the type of swearing I would employ in my email to Sprite. I calmed down and realised that it hadn’t crashed, it was just taking its sweet time.

On the third attempt (I cancelled the first two), I let it continue. Three hours later, there was a perfectly restored phone.

Tomorrow, my phone goes back to T-Mobile. Thanks to the people at Sprite in New Zealand, I will be able to get my phone fixed, safe in the knowledge that on the replacement, I will still have the messages my beloved daughters sent me.