Alice and I have the remarkably bad luck of always living in a place where there is no cellular reception. As a result, our phone options are limited to getting a land line (not going to happen) or using T-Mobile's WiFi calling. Since we almost always have access to WiFi at home and at work, it's really a great solution to cellular reception woes. We're firmly in the fixed-mobile convergence camp.

The downside of UMA over WiFi is that it isn't always rock solid, with the chance of annoying latency and dropped calls. If you google UMA problems you will find a bunch of "solutions" ranging from opening ports on your router, enabling IPSec, changing router channels, and putting aluminum foil on your head. In our current living situation, we don't have access to the router, so our options were a bit limited. Both my Blackberry 8120 and Alice's Blackberry 8320 were dropping out of UMA constantly and we were on the verge of buying a Verizon prepaid phone to get us through this. Note: Verizon prepaid plans really suck, so you can see the level of desperation.

Finally I ran into a forum post somewhere suggesting reconfiguring the phone's WiFi connection to static IP address from the default of dynamic. Well, it worked! Both phones are rock solid on UMA now saving months of frustration for just a few minutes of work.

• Options > WiFi Connections > Edit (ConnectionName) > uncheck "Automatically obtain IP address and DNS".
• Enter in a valid IP, subnet, DNS and Gateway.
• Save, exit, and restart the WiFi on the phone.

Good luck, and long live UMA.

For a list of phones that support UMA or WiFi calling, Smart-wi-fi.com is a reliable and complete reference.

Update: In my excitement over UMA working all day, I may have posted this a little prematurely. Alice's UMA dropped the next day. It seems to be an improvement, but it isn't a final solution. The UMA error code is W006.3 - ISP or T-Mobile network error.

Meaning: The phone is unable to establish network connectivity: This could be a problem on the ISP side or the network side.

1. The connection to the WAN port of the wireless router is down: either the cable is unplugged or the DSL/Cable modem (whichever applies) is turned off. This could also be caused by an outage of the DSL/Cable service.

2. Check if MAC filtering is enabled on the wireless router. If it is, check that the phone MAC address is on the Safe List, if not, add it.

3. The network that the user is trying to connect to uses Web Redirection: this means that when trying to connect to the network in question with a laptop, you are required to enter username and password or pay to use the service. The phone cannot connect to such networks.

4. IPSec is not enabled on the router you are trying to use. Enable it in the router settings and try again.

5. The problem can be caused by network issues. At this point, the user might want to try at a later time.

I can rule out 1, 3, and 5 since my phone was still connected. There is no reason for MAC filtering to be enabled, leaving only #4 as a likely option. I am going to take a wild guess and say that we still need IPSec enabled on the router.

This makes the stuff Apple puts out look dull in comparison. Nice job Dell!

According to Engadget it's to be released before the end of the year. I'll take one in red too.

In the land of computers there is never a shortage of annoyances, issues, and problems. I have been having a weird one recently that has been beyond diagnosis, let alone solution.

ijustwanttofitin.com (follow link = funny article!)

In Firefox, the right mouse button stops working AND I am unable to click the menu bar at all. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. To further complicate diagnosis, it isn't just that I am running Firefox on Linux, but also as a virtual machine inside Oracle VirtualBox on Windows 7. So is it my mouse driver? VirtualBox's Hardware Abstraction Layer? Well, I still don't know but I did find a way to fix it every time it happens.

ALT-F10
That's it. Problem fixed. Alt-F10 seems to toggle full screen / windowed in Firefox. That's not something that should have anything to do with my mouse but for whatever reason it does. If you are suffering from intermittent mouse issues, try it. Hopefully my posting this will help someone else out with the same problems!

--Jack

Windows Live Writer is one part of the Windows Live suite.  Windows Live includes client side programs, web applications as well as mobile services.  I recently got interested in the mail portion of Live: Hotmail.  Hotmail has been undergoing a lot of changes recently and it is shaping up as a competitive mail app.  Hotmail is closely bundled with other web apps including Messenger, Photo Gallery,  Office web apps, and a 25 gig storage cloud - the 'SkyDrive'.

 

The client side programs include Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Movie Maker, a Bing browser toolbar, Family Safety (an internet filter for your kids' online activities), and Writer - this blogging tool.  Writer would certainly like to post to Microsoft's own Windows Live Spaces blog, but it also claims integration with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, SharePoint, 'and others'.

Since we use B2evolution here at Jackrabbitscrewball, I am just going to hit the publish key and see what happens.  I'm crossing my fingers and now wondering if there's a mobile version of Writer too cause that would be pretty cool!

 

--Jack

I recently got a cell phone that for less than the cost of a normal voice plan will not only make phone calls but do "smartphone" type things. I used to avoid any extra service that nickel and dimed me to death (I'm looking at you T-Mobile). Now I can actually snap a photo and upload it with no hidden charges. This is cool. What's even better is that there are a solid handful of good photo sharing sites out there to choose from. My plan is to upload photos to these and do a comparison of features and usability in the coming weeks.

from The Frugal Yankee

Here's the ones I'm signed up for and playing around with right now:

• Flickr: The venerable workhorse now owned by Yahoo!
• Photobucket: Awful name but has been around for a long time. It's a solid contender now.
• Picasa: Where would we be without you Google?
• Windows Live: aka the old Hotmail. Now rejuvenated with a plethora of features and serious competition to Google's suite of apps.
• 23HQ: A relative newbie, offers solid features and a nice interface. Of all of these listed it has the most generous "free" plan.

I'm using the $25/month unlimited plan from Virgin Mobile and snapping photos with a very untrendy LG Rumor Touch phone. I don't have a contract, but I certainly have a plan on how to carry out these photo sharing tests.

Stay tuned for more to come as I explore cheap photo sharing and the free services of these 5 providers.