My Fun New Toy.

A few years ago (3, maybe?) I was given a cellphone by my company. The company offered to put $100 toward any phone I chose. Being frugal (some call it cheap), and liking to think of myself as sensible, I chose a few-frills, pretty much bottom-of-the-line phone. I got the Nokia 6200. It was sufficient, but not very fancy, and I was envious of other folks with their Treos.

For the last couple of years people at my office have occasionally asked me to get their various smartphones/PocketPCs/etc... working properly with our Exchange server. Properly in this case means that the phones should be able to sync the phone's Outlook with the Exchange server, wirelessly. Any new incoming mail messages should arrive at the phone, and of course the user should be able to send outgoing messages from the phone. When the phone syncs with the server, any contacts, tasks, calendar items, or messages should all synchronize between the phone and the server.

According to Microsoft, this is such a simple operation that it will 'just work', and there's nothing to really do configuration-wise, so there isn't a whole lot of documentation as to making it work.

According to ME, this is a really tough thing to get working.

So, for at least a couple of years people at my office wanted this functionality, and although I tried to get this working a few different times, I never managed to succeed.

Over the last few weeks a client of mine has needed this to work, and asked me to make it happen. This client had purchased several Treos for their staff, and wanted the Treos to do email wirelessly.

After a handful of visits to the client's office to try and get their phones and server communicating, I was hitting nothing but brick walls.

So on Tuesday, June 5, I spent some quality time with Lentworth, over at one of the multiple T-Mobile kiosks in the Rockaway Townsquare Mall, and went home with a brand-new T-Mobile Dash. For any readers outside of the US, the Dash is the HTC S620.

I think this phone is amazing - I love it. The reception/coverage has been nearly perfect everywhere I've used the phone since buying it. The only problem spot is in an area that has no coverage of any cellphone, from any provider.

Vindicating the purchase, at about 3AM Wednesday morning, I managed to get the phone synchronizing perfectly with the client's Exchange server!