Blogging IT

Back in August, I posted an article on my personal blog about Microsoft Windows Phone, the cellular market in Canada, and my desire to try Windows Phone on a decent device.

 

With the launch of the Nokia Lumia phones in Canada, the time has come. DigiVie’s senior technician now has a Lumia 710 (unlocked from Rogers and working on the Telus network, replacing his old HTC Windows Mobile), and I fired up a Telus-bought Lumia 800 2 1/2 days ago.

 

First impressions:

 

• This is a huge departure from BlackBerry. The interface is completely different, and there is no ‘hard’ keyboard on the Lumia – going to take some getting used to.
• There’s no charging ‘dock’ capability with the Lumia – something I have very much enjoyed having with my last 3 BlackBerry’s. Fiddling with a USB cable to charge your phone overnight had become a thing of the past for me.
• I have no place to carry the Lumia except my pocket. Yesterday, I literally drove across the city looking for a decent holster case, and had no luck whatsoever. This was extremely frustrating, and a mistake on Nokia’s part (not making such an accessory). A holster case with a good belt clip is a must-have for me.
• Although the Lumia screen is bigger (3.7” vs 2.8”), the resolution of my BlackBerry 9900 isn’t much less @ 640 x 480 vs 480 x 800 (w x h), and everything looks really big to me on the Lumia. I would like to be able to change the tile size to get more on the screen at once, as I do on my BB by reducing font sizes. There will probably be other options, such as  tile-grouping in WP’s future though, so I may have to just get used to it.
• The social media integration with WP is very nice – add Facebook, LinkedIn, Windows Live, and you can then choose to post to any or all of them at the same time.
• The screen on the Lumia is fantastic with its clear-black OLED display. I was watching Netflix on it last night via Wifi and bluetooth headphones, and it was definitely watchable.
• The Zune software needed on the desktop is OK, but is in desperate need for someone with a business head at Microsoft to force some changes.
  • In one fell swoop, I rendered my main Windows Live ID unusable as my main Windows Phone Live ID by not changing the default billing country from US to Canada. There is literally no way to change it after the fact, which means you can’t attach a credit card to the account to be able to buy apps. So I had to use a secondary Windows Live account (after resetting the phone and having to set it up again – 2 hours wasted), and I’m unsure how that will change my experience with SkyDrive and other Microsoft services moving forward.
  • I was still able to connect my main Windows Live account to the phone as a second account, but the first account has to have a billing address that correlates with the country you are in (and your credit card’s billing address). Apparently, Microsoft forces this due to copyright issues, but frankly, that’s a cop-out on their part. If I ever move to another country, I’ll have to set up a new Live ID in order to work with a Windows Phone (and I’ll have to reset the phone again). Yep, really. There’s an EU petition that is trying to get Microsoft to change this, but they should absolutely fix this issue long before the problem goes to court. Microsoft is assuming responsibility for the actions of anyone who owns a Windows Phone.
    • They can argue it’s the same for iTunes, but 2 wrongs don’t make a right.

 

Overall, I am intrigued, and want to continue trying WP, but it’s not going to be with the Lumia 800. The Lumia 900 is just about to be released in Canada by Rogers, and it will be slightly bigger @ 4.3” (but at the same 480 x 800 resolution), with a couple of extra’s like a front-facing camera, and apparently might even cost less, so it seems like a no brainer.

 

I’ve also found a few online sites that sell decent cases made specifically for the Lumia (e.g. www.noreve.com, www.pielframa.com). eBay won’t have anything good for these yet, and as these phones are one nice piece of engineering, they deserve a good case.

 

Something that also has become very obvious – RIM makes really good hardware, and knows the importance of good accessories. The BlackBerry 9900 is one solid phone and just feels good in the hand.

 

So why I’m I testing the waters away from BlackBerry? Aside from the obvious issues RIM is having in the news, we always need to be looking forward at all the technologies available to us to be able to know and recommend what might work best for us and our clients. Windows Phone is a solid and secure mobile operating system, and they just might have something here. RIM on the other hand has some work to do. It seems lately that RIM’s AppWorld is very slow, and if I were RIM, the first thing I would do is throw all the needed resources to make their back-end servers work better and faster than their competition. Updating apps on my iPad2 happens very quickly (and I’ve got a PlayBook too, which is a subject for another time).

 

Sorry Telus, the 800 is coming back tomorrow (under 14 days and less than 30 minutes talk time). If you’d had a decent holster case to go with it, I probably wouldn’t have considered it. If I can buy a 900 outright from Rogers and unlock it and use it on your network, I might do that. I also might be taking my business accounts to Rogers. Now that we have local number portability, and no huge penalties for breaking contracts (other than device costs), I can do that. Competition is good. Exercising my options will make service better for everyone.

 

In the end it is utility as well as functionality that count most. And if the 900 doesn’t cut the mustard when I get it, I’ll probably be looking at my options again in a few months (when BlackBerry 10 is out, probably). And no, I’m not a big iPhone fan – too much like NT 3.51 (and my wife has a 4s). As for Android, I haven’t tested those waters yet, and probably won’t until they have a solid and secure O/S in the market. The problem is that’s unlikely to ever happen.

Tags: wp, windowsphone, blackberry

“Phreaking” is the telephone system’s version of computer hacking, and in today’s world of IP telephony, there is little difference.

 

Many VoIP and traditional phone systems include the ability to make outbound phone calls from your voicemail, so you can ‘toll-hop’ (i.e. avoid long distance charges on your own phone bill). It’s also a convenient way to call business contacts so they see your business number as your caller-id instead of your home or cell phone.

 

Using weak passwords on your voicemail is all too common, and I constantly urge my clients to choose passwords that are NOT common (1234, 0000, 1111, etc.).

 

Even if you have a ‘unique’ password, there’s still only 10000 options with a 4-digit code, and given that users rarely, if ever, change their voicemail password, the chances of someone gaining access to your voicemail are higher than nil.

 

Here’s some quick rules-of-thumb:

  

• Do not use consecutive digits (e.g. 1234)
• Do not use repeating digits (e.g. 1111)
• Use a password LONGER than 4 digits – each extra digit increases the number of possibilities 10x (5 digits = 100,000 options)
• Don’t tell anyone your password.
• Change it (have you ever changed it?).
• If your phone system supports it, turn off the ability to make outbound calls from your voicemail, and force users who have the function to use longer passwords.
• If you manage phone systems for other businesses, take the time to educate your clients about these ‘rules’ and turn off the toll-hop features unless they want it enabled (and then tell them about these rules again).

 

As we’ve seen in the UK news recently, voicemail hacking is real, and it can happen here too.

 

I have a client (whose Norstar phone system we do not manage) who was a recent victim of a ‘phreaker’, and the phone company called them up one day and said they owed something over $50,000 for calls to Tunisia.

 

They turned off the toll-hop feature and changed their passwords.

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