On another note... does anyone know of any windows bluetooth integration type apps (he says without searching yet). Some of the stuff they have for macs is amazing. you can remote control music apps and all kinds of crazyness. oh, and anyway to manage contacts other than the freakin' Outlook sync. I can't stand Outlooks contact manager.

Bemused works with Windows. Comes with source code as well if you want to change anything. Only for UIQ (SonyEricsson P800) and Series 60 (Nokia 7650, 3650) currently though.

- Trevor

So far, AT&T is the only company that I have ran into that won't give unlock codes. And I found myself stuck with one of their T68i phones. So I bought the cable and unlocking services online from Virtual Dynamix. I'm tempted to use them again to do a remote firmware upgrade, though that tends to be a bit riskier.

For the record, I got the AT&T phone when my Nokia 8290 broke. I have a Best Buy PSP on it, and at the time all their T-Mobile phones sucked. So I talked the tech into giving me the T68i as a replacement. I got the PSP so I would never be without a cell phone if mine broke. I then found out T-Mobile has loaner phones from their stores, and I got one while I waited on the cable. In the future, I'll just get my phones right from T-Mobile again.

And on the Mac Bluetooth side, get the Salling Clicker app. It's well worth it just to amaze your coworkers with a proximity sensor that locks and unlocks your workstation. Beyond that, it's useful for the practical purposes of not having to manually unlock your station, and having a nice and secure way of ensuring it is locked when you are not around.

I have found absolutly no use for my bluteooth card so far. Admitedly, the drivers are so poor that I can't even get it to pair at the moment, but I figure that'll sort itself out in good time. All anyone has really tried to do is syncing which isn't that exciting. I'm looking for caller ID and remote pc controll and the like, but havn't found anything that even tries.

As to unlocking, there are ads on craigslist for people that will unlock them for about $20. I know I've seen listings for stores both in oakland and san francisco. http://www.esato.com/ had some fairly active forums a few months ago with some good information and explanations of what was involved in unlocking among other things.

Matthew

There are a few good pc apps that ive used for synchronization, playing music, and transferring files, i cant remember their names though right now. You should try out the animated gifs and themes that are out there.

I called last night and after about 50 menus i got to a person (for future reference... the good old Zero button works wonders). There's a 30 day moratorium before they'll unlock your phone for you. I asked to speak to a manager so he could push it through early, and i got cut off.... since i was on the line after their freakin' support hours i'm guessing. Anyhow... i'll try again tonight. He made it sound like it wouldn't be a problem at all. They DO ask what country you are traveling to so they can check it they have GSM compatability (almost all European countries do).

Damn... i need to get a Mac. I never should have sold my soul... especially now that Maya is on OSX.

Here is a sync manager for linux, don't know about any other sync managers I'm sure there are.... this website has an enormous amount of info. Here is a link witha bunch of small apps for the t68i, one that lets you control winamp.

So i've wasted most of my day reading through Esato.com (great resource by the way... thanks!). After hours of reading through repeat posts (why can't everyone have a FAQmaster?!)... it looks like the MSI USB bluetooth key (MS-6967) is the one to get for reliability and software. Problem is it's impossible to source in the US. I've spent hours searching online and i can't find anything. It looks like it's readily available in the EU. Anyone coming to the US from the EU anytime soon? Anyone wanna trade for a couple of LucasArts games? =]

Or if anyone more resourcefull than I could find one i'd be grateful. Why the hell isn't this model abailable in the US? Grrr.

Could post one to you if you want. Shouldn't cost that much for shipping since the actual dongle is tiny. It's best to use TDK drivers than the MSI ones.

- Trevor

That would rock! I'd really appreciate it. I could paypal you the $$ or figure out another way. PM me if you really wanna go through with it and it's not too much trouble.

Cool stuff. This thread motivated me to actually get my bluetooth card that arrived last week to work. So far it's great. The christersson.org remote program is pretty neat. The winamp integration isn't quite perfect, but scrolling through songs on my phone and picking them out is sweet.

Now I'm on to "floAt's Mobile Agen" ("fma" on sourceforge) which aside from the obnoxious capitalization seems to be a good program. It has a nice phone book management interface which is great for those of us who use our phone as our difinitive address book. It can also pop up a window with the caller ID information when people call. There seems to be some scriping interface with some sort of winamp script, so I'm on to that next.

Matthew

Floats is exactly why i want the USB Bluetooth dongle. That looks like what i've been wanting for years!

Yup, it's by far the best thing that i've run into so far. The winamp controlls are pretty good now that I've got them working. I've never done any VB scripting, but I might need to learn so I can get everything working just how I'd like. It does seem like it's going to kill my battery quickly however.

Now, reading the expansys web site for the tdk bluetooth dongle says that it supports audio functions? My $15 belkin card has no mention of audio, so i'll definitly have to reasearch that some more. I can't imagine actually using my PC as a headset would be any more convenient than holding the phone, but...

Matthew

I have the Iogear usb bluetooth adaptor, it works great and supports all the functions of the t68i.

Have you used it with Float's mobile agent and been able to send stuff from the phone TO the PC? I'm just hesitant because there seem to be a large number of folks on esato that have had a lot of problems with the IOGears as far as connectivity and software. Are you using the drivers that come with it?

never used float, I can do the outlook sync, and send pictures and such... I can try it though and let you know...

Cool, i'd appreciate it if you try it out. I'd much rather get something locally if i know it works. Thanks again for the help everyone!

The USB dongles all should be pretty similar actually. Nearly all of them actually use the same chipset but just have a different USB manufacturer/product ID. So if you edit the .inf file that comes with the TDK drivers you can use the better and updated drivers.

I've got a TDK Bluetooth PCMCIA card and a Mitsui Bluetooth USB dongle and they both work fine.

- Trevor

not the microsoft dongle... stay away from that one... I bought it at first cause it came with the mouse... the mouse and keyboard are the only thing that microsoft POS works with. Then again... It's microsoft right?

yup works with IOgear, actually works better then the outlook sync stuff... Once I put my phone in "discoverable" mode, it connected in less then 2 seconds which is awesome. The IOgear does the virtual serial ports which is how I connected.

Okay. Good point. Most of the other cheap dongles are identical apart from the Microsoft one

- Trevor

on a side note... i spent about 16 hours on airplanes this weekend and i discovered the game "Q" on my t68i... holy crap... i'm addicted. I got to level 49 just while on the planes. Anyone else playing that? I NEVER play games on my cell phones... but that one just hooked me. I love that type of puzzle game.

I've made it to 11 or 12, but not past that. It's the one I play the most, though that's not too surprising considering I havn't looked up the rules for any of the card games. I'm not a big fan of it though, and really feel cheated that it doesn't have tetris on it. Tetris is a game I can spend hours and hours playing. On seccond thought, it might be a good thing my phoen doesn't have tetris.

Matthew

Yeah, Q is great! I do a level a week when I'm on the train. Got really stuck on level 49 tho - took about three weeks maybe (hey, I'm only only the train 1/2 an hour a week). The T68 used to have tetris AND defender AND snake, then I upgraded the firmware - oh great battleships

I'm stuck on 49 too! heheh. I just need to stare at it for an hour, and it'll probably just hit me.

As for tetris et al, can't you just download them to your phone from your provider or one of the other pay per game type sites? Or can the t68i not recieve games...

Does the T68 have a "power up but don't activate the RF section" option? I didn't think you were supposed to power phones up on planes, mainly because it confuses the hell out of the cells that can your your phone (and maybe partially because of dodgy plane electrics which are very susceptible to RF)

Hugo

Yeah, i didn't think about that 'til today when i was reading about the Nokia N-Gage and an argument over whether it had that option. The t68i doesn't that i've found.... doh.

You're lucky that nobody noticed! Some guy got arrested for playing games on his mobile. Although the main problem was that he refused to turn it off even after a stewardess told him to.

- Trevor

That's messed up! It would really be a hit for combination PDA/phone devices if that happens. I wonder how understanding a flight crew would be if you promised that the phone was off and you were just using it as a PDA. The article doesn't mention if the man's phone had this capability, but it was still kind of dumb to continue to refuse to put it away. I'd be pissed as hell, but I'd put it away.

The issue with phones on a plane just seems to be overloading cells. There is a limited number of frequencies available and the system relies on the fact that you shouldn't ever be seen by more than a couple cells and thats during handover.

He had an Ericsson T68 I believe. Can't remember exactly as it was on the news so long ago.
Most of the PDA/phone ones can have the radio turned off but I've yet to find a normal phone that can. There is some software for my 7650 which does alledgely turn off the radio portion but I doubt the flight crew would trust it/me.

- Trevor