Yup, that’s right, I did it, I finally moved into this decade – I’ve got myself a brand new Blackberry Style 9670 Smartphone – eeks!
Now, you would think that perhaps that was an easy decision and that my relationship with my new device is a love in. So not the case, people. Mostly because it’s been a very long three week journey to get the right smartphone and to get it all nicely synced with MS Outlook.
I think I’ll start at the beginning. I’ve been carefully researching smartphones for several months and added the associated cost to my budget all ready to roll for 2011. Now, the trouble is ‘they’ keep bringing out new devices faster than you can figure out what the little buggers can do, or not do.
So, I had my eye on the LG Windows 7 Smartphone – loved that big screen and the slide out keyboard with the nice size keys on it. So, of course, I went to the phone store and purchased myself this little devil after asking several ‘techie’ types if the Windows 7 would sync properly with my Outlook Contacts, Calendar and Tasks – “of course”, I was told by various people.
Long story short, after many hours of phone support attempts and two very nasty men at LG who treated me like a complete idiot, I turned to the online community hiding under my Google search bar – just wish I’d thought of that before I bought the phone. Therein I found a YouTube video which showed me how to download the software and install it in order to have my new LG phone and Outlook talk nicely to each other – cool, I thought to myself.
However, what I discovered upon successfully getting everything up and running is that they don’t really talk nicely to each other at all. You need to download a Windows Hotmail Live Connector in order to have your Contacts and Calendar talk to your phone. Tasks were completely forgotten altogether by our friends at Windows – apparently they think we have nothing to do all day long except go to meetings and email people- geez, get a life! Anyway, once I figured out that I now had to maintain two sets of everything, I nearly lost it. Yup, that’s right every time you add an appointment to your Outlook calendar, you have to add it to your Hotmail calendar and ditto for Contacts. All I have to say is, “I don’t think so …bleep, bleep, bleep …!”
After a final call to the nice people at Bell Aliant, off I went with the phone back to the store to be exchanged for the Blackberry. And, low and behold, it only took me a week to get the Blackberry Desktop Software onto my computer and finally get it synced – gee whiz, just my luck. One techie friend told me that 99% of the time the software downloads perfectly, you plug in your BB and you’re off to the races. Why did I have to fall into the 1% who downloaded it 5 or 6 times, called various techie people, got really frustrated, took it out on my husband (sorry, honey!) and then talked to my husband’s amazing friend Andy today who had me up and running in 30 mins. flat. Andy, you rock!
Just goes to show you that I should stick to organizing and let other people set up my technology. Rest assured I will have all kinds of things to say about managing time effectively when you own a Smartphone.
Ha haa ha… so funny. I haven’t joined the new age yet due to stories like this. Maybe this year I will tread into the “new phone” life.