26 Nov 08 Twitter suspends SMS notification for Canadians due to SMS cost increases by Canadian carriers
Well, it was a matter of time with the few Canadian cell phone carriers having jacked up their rates for SMS text messages. Bell was the first one to do it, when they revealed that outbound text SMS messages would be $0.15 as of August 1st… and despite a huge consumer backlash and government involvement: nothing happened.
Now Twitter has officially announced they will no longer deliver SMS updates to Canadians (who use cell phone carriers in Canada such as Bell, Rogers, Fido and Telus) due to rocketing costs. They will still accept inbound Twitter status updates to their Canadian shortcode (21212)… but it sort of kills the functionality of Twitter for Canadians who were just getting used to the fast updates from their Twitter contacts.
I use Twitter Mobile in Canada on my HTC Touch with a mobile web browser to do status updates thanks to my Bell Mobility $7 unlimited data plan so if you have that you can set up a mechanism using a Twitter RSS to email feed system where you could get Twitter updates by email to your mobile device (presuming you have an unlimited – or generous – on-device data plan)…
Tags: Canada, HTC Touch, mobile, SMS, Telcos, Twitter, Twitter Mobile, Web 2.0, Wireless
29 Sep 08 Outlook Mobile on Windows Mobile 6.1 on the HTC Touch : getting Outlook to behave
Ahh, well I love my HTC Touch, but it certainly has it’s quirks – many of which are no doubt related to the Windows Mobile Operating System…. although 6.1 is definitely a great improvement, it’s still a challenge for Outlook Mobile to co-exist peacefully with concurrent requests from a desktop running Outlook 2007 speaking to the same POP3/IMAP SMTP mailserver.
There, enough tech venting for this evening 
Tags: HTC Touch, Outlook Mobile, smartphones, Software, touchphones, Windows Mobile, Wireless
19 May 08 Skype on HTC Touch from Bell Mobility – works fine but… not for voice calls (yet!)
OK, so my super-duper HTC Touch Vogue which I have on the Bell Mobility CDMA network is still in a serious love affair with me (or vice versa)…
I did indeed manage to install Skype Mobile (Pocket PC for Windows Mobile) on the Touch and it works great for Skype instant messaging but… not so great yet for outgoing Skype voice calls. I’ll be investigating to see if this is something that Bell Mobility has perhaps locked out of their ROM version on the touch because I know other people are indeed doing Skype calls from their PocketPC touchphones…
If you’ve got similar experiences, or solutions, leave a comment please!
Tags: Bell Mobility, Hardware, HTC Touch, Skype, touchphones, VOIP, Wireless
25 Jan 08 Bell Mobility recalls HTC Touch because it lacks French UI : Quebec Office de la langue française spotted the lack of French menus.
Well, I’ve been looking to renew my Bell Mobility account with a newer device and take advantage of a retention plan offer – Bell wanting to keep me with them – and was surprised that my current best bang for the buck device and plan; the HTC Touch combined with Bell’s $7/month unlimited data plan for that phone….
was out of stock “temporarily” on the Bell site.
Well I learned from a source that the device isn’t actually out of stock – in reality, Bell Mobility had to pull the HTC Touch smartphone because BellMo didn’t have bilingual (i.e. French) user interfaces on the HTC Touch phone.
This is kind of incredible… to think that a company as large as Bell Mobility would miss an obvious requirement of bringing a device to market with interfaces, manuals and the like in both languages.
In the meantime, my Audiovox 8910 CDMA camera phone is still MIA. 
Tags: Deals, français, Hardware, HTC Touch, touchphones, Wireless
