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Yes, boys and girls, my first cell phone came in a lunchbox (does anyone under 40 even know what THAT means?) sized nylon ‘case’. It required an external power source (cigarette lighter plug) and an external antenna.

I have fond memories of dropped calls whenever I crossed a state line (pre-roaming) and per-minute charges approaching today’s gas prices.

Back in the fabulous 80’s AMPS was the technology in use for all cell phone networks in the US. Technology has marched on and AMPS has fallen into the same category as floppy disks and carbon paper. The two carriers with remaining AMPS coverage are scheduled to de-activate their networks next week.

The vast majority of folks won’t notice; we’ve since moved on to GSM and/or UMTS networks. However, there are still a goodly number of devices using this technology, namely alarm systems, older GM OnStar systems and ‘remote monitoring’.

If you’re alarm system has a cellular back-up option, or you have an old GM a bit of investigation would be prudent. GM has an info page up here.

Can you hear me now? Analog cellular networks shutting down next week
Wireless disruption | Santa Rosa Press Democrat // News for California’s North Bay and Redwood Empire

I’m not really a fan of Outlook.  I find it to be overly complex for most users, hell, even for seasoned technology professionals, but it is the defacto standard email/contact/calendar tool for corporate America.

This free plug in from Microsoft (free?  Microsoft?  Wow, Bill musta been distracted that day.) alegedly allows sending SMS messages via an attached GSM phone (such as my much loved Audiovox 5600).

I’ve not yet tested it and considering the source I take it’s operation far from granted.  I don’t send many SMS messages but I can see the utility in such a function.

Download details: Microsoft Office Add-in: Microsoft Outlook SMS Add-in (MOSA)

According to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 daylight savings time is extended by 4 weeks beginning this year.  I’ve already patched my Windows XP and server machines to recognize this change but I forgot about my beloved Audiovox 5600. 

Ok, so I’ve gotten so lazy that I put stuff in my blog just so that I remember to do it later.

Is that Windows Mobile in your pocket? : 2007 Daylight Savings Issues for Windows Mobile 2003 and 5.0

That’s “command line interface” for the non-geeks in the house; aka ‘cmd prompt’, aka ‘dos box’, aka ‘C prompt’…

I saw this bumper sticker the other day.

It will come as a surprize to no one that it was not attached to an American car.

I think I’m going to start an new catagory, ’smartphone’. My trusty Audiovox SMT5600 is always by my side. I originally purchased it (used on eBay and unlocked from the tyrany of carrier chains) because it was the first, and only (at the time) phone that played Windows DRM protected content.

I use it on a daily basis to listen to podcasts on my commute. I have a cassette adapter for my truck and then switch to the ‘buds for the train ride. I can burn through a good 2+ hours of content on a daily basis. I’ve up’d the storage card to a 1GB device and although I get the occasional ‘jitter’ in playback it has worked well despite the fact that the specs for the phone indicate a limit of 512MB.

Lately I’ve greatly increased my use of the on-board camera. With the addition of an app from ShoZu I can now directly upload my phonecam shots to my Flickr account immediatly after taking the shot. No need to sync the phone, attach the pic to an email, or other thumb-wrentching exercises, just a simple ‘Yes’ to the ‘Send this to Flickr?’ prompt.

Sweet.

Anyway, what I really wanted to mention was a good description of several of the icons that appear on the status bar of the phone. This entry goes into some detail about the antenna and data connection type icons. I always suspected that the ‘G’ indicated a GSM data connection but now I know for sure.

Windows Mobile Team Blog : What Are These Arrows (and why are they still here)?

There about as many FM transmitter accessories for the iPod as there are smells in the T but this one has something different. This unit from Kensington transmits Artist name, track and album titles to your RDS equiped FM receiver.

For those non-geeks among us this means that your car stereo will now display artist, track and album names while they are being played back from your iPod. Sweet.

Now if only they made A2DP compliant car stereos so that I could playback from my beloved Audiovox SMT5600…

Kensington RDS FM Transmitter/Car Charger for iPod

I love my phone. Ok, so love may be a bit strong but I really, really like my phone. One of the many trécool features is a 0.3M pixel camera. Yes, I know, the 0.3M pixel is pretty pathetic in today’s world of 5-10M pixel cameras but there is no beating this little gem for portability and spontaneity.

I’ve combined this with the mondo-popular Flickr photo sharing service and the new Shozu camphone publishing service. Shozu provides a downloadable application for my (and other) phones that will automatically post my camphone shots to Flickr. It does require an Internet data plan for your phone and since you will love this service to death, an unlimited data plan is recommended.

In addition to uploading pics directly from your phone, it will also download any comments posted on your Flickr pics back to your phone and display them in the album. Sweet.

This is a long introduction to a new feature of my blog, a view of my Flickr photostream on the left sidebar. You can click on any of the images to be transported to my Flickr site and an enlarged version of the pic. The sidebar will display the 3 most recent camphone shots I’ve uploaded with the most recent at the top.

Ain’t technology grand?

Secure Digital Container is a Java based DRM that has begun to get some traction in the mobile market. It proports to work with any device that includes a Java JVM with ‘the Java Media Environment’. According to stats on their website, SDC claims that 80% of mobile phones and 90% of PCs sold in 2003 qualify. I’m more than a bit skeptical of those numbers; 8 of 10 mobile handsets purchased 2-3 years ago have a JVM? That seems like a stretch to me. And, what 10% of new PCs do not?

What they do have going for them is a platform independant (Mac, Windows, Symbian, Palm, etc) solution that has been ‘blessed’ by the major labels. They also have real commecial deployments, albeit exclusively in Europe.

However, it is not the holy grail of DRM as it does not support the ubiquitious iPod. In my mind, the world certainly does not need yet-another-DRM techology. What we do need is an open standard ([cough] OMA [cough]) with the support of the major content providers (labels and studios) and device manufacturers. Without it the market, both for devices and content, will contiue to be fragmented and limited. In a modern economy markets flourish not because I’ve built the best widget but because my widget works the best with the Acme thing-a-ma-gig and the MorbidCo pop-o-matic.