Got an old Sprint Phone?
Today we learned that cell phones don’t do well when run through the wash. My son’s 2 month old phone is kaput after a tragic series of miscommunications that ended in a laundry debacle.
So, before I trudge through the joy that is eBay, I thought I’d ask you readers: Anyone have a Sprint phone that you’re not using? With so many people stampeding to iPhones and BlackBerry’s… can’t hurt to ask, right?
Recently upgraded or switched networks and tossed the old one in a drawer?
I’m willing to pay a bit for a working phone, and shipping too. Just drop me a note from the Contact page if you have a phone that you might be interested in getting rid of.
Thanks!
[err, my son asked me to mention that it'd be nifty if it has a camera of some sort...]
The Easy Way to Try Google Apps
It’s been a long time coming (and discussing) but last month I finally began the process of switching the company from our old Exchange E-mail servers to Google Hosted. I can’t express how excited I am about this. Less to maintain on my end and a heckuva lot cheaper to boot. And way better spam management. And I get to decommission two very old servers that are a bit of a pain to maintain (and poorly backed-up as well!).
Initially, there was a lot of concern about doing the change-over. One day you’re an Outlook / Exchange user and the next day you’re web browser and Google Mail — that may be jarring to some folks! Fortunately, trying it out is very very easy, no need to switch over the MX records right away.
[note: I'm not offering folks the option to use Outlook and Gmail via POP3. Our Outlook seats are Outlook 2002 (blech) and I don't care to spend money to upgrade 'em. If someone absolutely has to have a desktop client, I'll point them at something like Thunderbird]
When setting up users for hosted Google, each user gets a temporary email address in the format of username@yourdomain.com.test-google-a.com. Once I realized that, I sent a note out to all the folks in the company soliciting beta testers. I got about a 50% response rate which I think is pretty cool — that’s half the company that won’t be panicked on the day we make the big switch. 
For each interested beta tester, I logged into the Exchange Administrator and created a new “Custom Recipient” using that temp. email address. Then I opened up that user’s Mailbox settings and set it to forward to their custom recipient. Thus, all new mail from that point on goes to their hosted Google account.
Our Exchange version is very old. My terminology in the preceding paragraph may not match what more modern versions have, but conceptually I’m sure it’s the same.
I helped each tester export their contacts from Outlook and import them into Google. Then I helped them import their Outlook Calendar to Google as well. A brief overview of the wonders of “labels” and they’re off and running.
Know what I personally really dig? I love how easy it is to use my Pocket PC to read my mail and check my calendar. As long as I’m near a wi-fi connection, I can quickly check either with the browser. Who needs a BlackBerry?
My Cheap Alternative to the BlackBerry
This is a follow-up to “I Want One… No I Don’t“; an article in which I vacillated aimlessly between lusting for a BlackBerry and denying the obvious attraction. In hindsight, perhaps a bit pitiful to read.
After calming down and spending time on proper reflection I can say that I do not want a BlackBerry (or a Mogul ). Their respective geek’ish siren songs are strong, but I’ve realized they would just tie me up with work more than I already am.
In fact, I’ve realized that the real need is a way to be notified when important emails show up — not when any or every email shows up! That way lies madness. Once I realized that was my goal, the solution wasn’t far behind.
Poor Man’s Notification System
I’ll put the word out to folks that if there’s something considered an emergency to use a different email address. Something clever like eeks@mydomain.com.
I configured my Hosted Google account to have “eeks” as an alias — otherwise known as a nickname in Google-ese:
(no, “eeks” isn’t the address I really used, and it wasn’t on this pictured domain either — so save the joke emergencies!)
Google Mail has a pretty decent little filtering setup, so catching these and handling them is easily done. For example:
A click on “Next Step” shows:
I’ve opted to run it straight to archives since I’m labeling it as Emergency, so unread items with that label are quite simple to find. I then also forward it to my phone’s email address — the important part.
Cool, huh? Anything coming to that address becomes a message on my cell phone.
An alternate email address isn’t necessary either — it could just be done by keywords in the title as well. “[Emergency]“, for instance, would be easy to filter for as well.
My first go around at this didn’t work out so well. I was using my phone service’s “short mail” email address. One problem with that method: to read the email I either need to be near a web browser or have a data plan.
Fortunately, the Wikipedia article on SMS Gateways discusses easy ways to forward emails to SMS. That works much better! It also give me the message immediately with a bare minimum of button-mashing to read it.
In delightfully retro sort of way, I’m excited about my new alpha-numeric pager. I also have several hundred dollars still in my pocket and my cell plan didn’t need any additional services added. I call that a win.
I Want One… No I Don’t
For quite some time, whenever the topic of BlackBerrys comes up, I’m always the smug one proclaiming, “No way in hell do I want one of those. Too much like a leash.”
Of course, every time I see one in use I get a little twinge… Come on, how can you not?
Today I left work a bit earlier for some family stuff (an all too rare event) and missed an important and time-sensitive email.
That’s all it took, suddenly I was hell-bent on having to run out tomorrow and get a BlackBerry. I even took time to confirm that it would work with Google Apps email.
It’s now a couple hours later, and I think I’ve calmed down a bit. Instead of dropping x hundred dollars and adding data to my cell plan, maybe it would make more sense to just have people call me on my cell? After all, it’s always with me.
As a self-avowed geek, I’ll confess that I’d much rather deal with folks via email or IM instead of voice; perhaps it is time to overcome that little weakness?
Then again, maybe tomorrow I’ll wander over to the Sprint store and have a look at my upgrade options…. 
Yeah, I’m on the fence. Don’t you hate it when something gets into your head and won’t leave?
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