A challenge to all gurus: Help me keep my phone!

[Cmass]

Originally Posted by JonV

Perhaps I missed an answer but one of your original complaints was about the "ridiculous dangling" stylus.

I trust you've gotten over it by discovering it's not needed any longer. Like all ex-users of Treos and Samsung i760s and the like, we were all used to grabbing the stylus when needed. When I unpacked my Omnia I dutifully hung the thing though I hated everything about it.

A few minutes of little research later and I discovered what a great thing the optical mouse is. On top of it, there's an app floating around that toggles the mouse on and off when run. By assigning that app to a long keypress of the camera key, I am doing the equivalent of pulling out the stylus using it when needed, then putting it back away. I took the stylus off my phone and hung it on my keychain "just in case". I haven't used it since and there it has sat ever since.
Even when you need to reset your phone, 99 of 100 times, it can be done by holding down the power button on top and not needing the paper clip or whatever.
Between finger-friendly software and the optical mouse I think the stylus has gone the way of high-button shoes.

It is the teensy sliders I have the most trouble with - and they are used extensively. I am very surprised nobody has created an app that doubles the width of them - there is plenty of real estate to do so without interfering with programs.
I hate using stylus and refuse to do so - especially on a phone - so the dangly thing is not an option.
I have used the mouse but found it barely functional. The problem is that it is too small. As my fingertip moves across it, the arrow moves but then we come to the edge of my fingertip and the arrow stops. This means I have to reposition my fingertip again and usually while doing this the arrow moves a bit out of alignment. I have tried both the fast and slow arrow settings. The fast is better but then it jumps around more.
BTW: My wife has a Saga and the optical mouse is twice the size. It works great.

[Cmass]

Originally Posted by Adrynalyne

Yes I use iContactBE. Its always installed without issue for me. Make sure nothing is running in the background, maybe.

Hard reset phone to make sure it was clean....
I'm still getting a fatal error message saying it is unable to open. I tried both the icontact.exe as well as the icontactcfg.exe ....am I missing something??

[Adrynalyne]

Enter reghack #121233443532412354567

How to increase your scrollbar width. My bars are finger friendly.

HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\

Change the values for cyHScr and cxVScr to something like 17 or 18.

Soft reset.


Or import this reg file.

[Adrynalyne]

Originally Posted by Cmass

Hard reset phone to make sure it was clean....
I'm still getting a fatal error message saying it is unable to open. I tried both the icontact.exe as well as the icontactcfg.exe ....am I missing something??

Just throwing this out there, but do you have .netCF 3.5 installed?

[Cmass]

Originally Posted by Adrynalyne

Enter reghack #121233443532412354567

How to increase your scrollbar width. My bars are finger friendly.

HKLM\SYSTEM\GWE\

Change the values for cyHScr and cxVScr to something like 17 or 18.

Soft reset.


Or import this reg file.

OK, now I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I imported the file and tried to run it. "There is no program associated" with this application.
OK.

However, I did finally get the iContacts program to open without an error message. But if I click on it, it just brings up a black and white version of my regular contacts program. Hmmmm....
Perhaps I'm wrong but when I visit the download site and the forum where this is discussed, this program appears much like a program made by developers for developers. I find myself spending a lot of time trying to figure out what the hell they are talking about.

[Adrynalyne]

You still don't have a reigstry editor installed.

You MUST do this to import the files. A couple would be Resco Explorer with the Registry editor addin (excellent) or the free http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/RegEdit/.

As for iContact, Im not sure what the issue is? Is this not finger friendly? Or do you prefer white?





I am starting to think you are not cut out for a Windows Mobile phone. No offense, but it seems like a complete uphill battle for you. It doesn't seem worth it, if I was in your position.

[Cmass]

Originally Posted by Adrynalyne

You still don't have a reigstry editor installed.

You MUST do this to import the files. A couple would be Resco Explorer with the Registry editor addin (excellent) or the free http://www.phm.lu/Products/PocketPC/RegEdit/.

As for iContact, Im not sure what the issue is? Is this not finger friendly? Or do you prefer white?





I am starting to think you are not cut out for a Windows Mobile phone. No offense, but it seems like a complete uphill battle for you. It doesn't seem worth it, if I was in your position.

* I will install the registry editor.

* The iContacts DOES come up and it does look like the above screen shot - but only if I use file explorer to wander over to it's folder and click on the application to run it. I'm used to all the other apps I've downloaded where, after downloading and installing, they appear as an icon in the programs menu. Obviously, I want this thing to be my contacts app that runs when I tap on "contacts" and not have to hunt it down to run each time. I remember reading that same question before but don't recall which forum so I have been google searching looking for it.....

* Not cut out for it? Perhaps not. Or perhaps I'm just struggling to learn and am frustrated because of the overwhelming amount of information that I'm having to absorb. (and the often conflicting opinions and hidden bugs etc...) When I bought this phone, I did not anticipate I would have to learn to hack a phone registry. I've never done it before except on a PC - with disastrous results. I am also having to learn the vocabulary that is used to describe various activities associated with customization. The actions may be simple but if I'm missing the meaning of a few words, I'm dead in the water. I think it is easy for experienced people who have done this for years or who mess with these as a casual hobby to forget what it is like to not know......

Besides, my pleading ignorance may help a frustrated Omnia newbie sometime in the future.......

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Update: A perfect example of what I run into:

I downloaded the registry editor to a folder on my PC that I'm using to store the dozens of trial apps I'm looking at. I then copy and paste it into the Omnia and attempt to run it. "There is no program associated..." Well, sometimes this technique works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I can copy and past a "CAB" file that I'm setting up and everything is find. Other times the Omnia unzips the whole file on it's own and sets it all up just fine. Sometimes I can even launch the program setup on my Omnia from my PC, and sometimes not. For the iContacts I ended up doing something different again: I unziped it, copied and then pasted it into the Omnia. I couldn't drag and drop because for some reason, this time doing so locked up my PC.
In the case of the registry editor, I've just run into a situation I've not encountered before: The editor neither opens on the Omnia nor on the PC. It begins to open on the PC but is then halted by an error. So....now I'm back here begging for help from people who are becoming weary of my stagering ignorance. But honestly, I have nowhere else to go to learn...........

Here is the error I'm now getting: "There is a problem with the Windows installer package. The program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor." This may take a long time to find out what is going on.......... and thus the rabbit hole that frustrates me....

[Adrynalyne]

I guess I am confused. The Omnia is very usable, out of the box, imo. The ability to tweak is a love of mine, but not a requirement to use the device.


As for iContact, it became the system default for Contacts for me. However, you could always use something like Keyswop and remap your soft keys, one of them to iContact.

For example, this is my setup. Contacts (icontact) on the left, Calendar (thumbcal) on the right.

[Adrynalyne]

Here are my settings shortcuts, my phonebook, contacts, and calendar. All very intuitive and finger friendly for me. Unless futzing around, I do not have to get into any non finger friendly windows mobile internals. Even my file explorer and registry editor are user friendly.

[Cmass]

I guess I am confused. The Omnia is very usable, out of the box, imo. The ability to tweak is a love of mine, but not a requirement to use the device.
As for iContact, it became the system default for Contacts for me. However, you could always use something like Keyswop and remap your soft keys, one of them to iContact.
For example, this is my setup. Contacts (icontact) on the left, Calendar (thumbcal) on the right.

Right out of the box, the Omnia is "usable" but not particularly "good". (I'm not the only one to say this, I have read reviews where it was stated as well) In order of importance, the things I will use most are the phone & contacts, camera, MP3 player, Email, Internet and navigation. I don't like the interfaces for the phone, MP3 player and Email nor do I like the way the menus are laid out in general or the tiny buttons. There are also a lot of what I consider very strange things I find frustrating as hell such as the difficulty in entering passwords or other data on websites when you often cannot see the box you are typing into. Perhaps many of these issues are "just the way it is" but if some can be fixed or improved I want to try. I'm just not experienced doing so.

What sold me on this phone was the number of things it does. Now that I know the GPS is indeed a real GPS and that Verizon may allow me to use it someday, I'm even more impressed with it's stash of capabilities. I also like the idea that this phone could be tweaked and customized. But I didn't know what can of worms I was opening when I decided that was a cool thing to do. I did not anticipate the problems associated with this being a new device which requires more expertise to customize it due to various bugs in the new apps. Nor did I anticipate the sheer volume of information I would have to learn very quickly....and part of my hurry was that my 30 days is about up and I need to make certain this phone is going to work for me.
Make sense?
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I know the iContacts is finger friendly. That is not the issue. The problem is that iContacts did not take over my system automatically the way Mobile Shell did. It still exists as an icon in the folder where I placed it. Running it starts it but when I close it, the only way I can restart is if I hunt down the icon in the folder again. I tried a soft restart with no sucess.
I do remember reading about someone else with this problem but can't locate the conversation anymore.
Until I can figure this out, I'm at a dead end for this app.
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NOTE: I located another freeware registry editor (PHM from PPC.com) and it took all of about 30 seconds to download, transfer to the Omnia, open and install. It appears to work fine. I don't have any idea why the other didn't install properly, but it didn't.
So, now I have a working registry editor......god knows what Panodra's Box I'm about to open.......