[discobay]

Originally Posted by vmlinuz

I have a third-party email app on my Treo which handles pushed email just fine, from any (decent, IMAP/IDLE-supporting) mail server.

Technically speaking that is not push email. The push has to take place at the source and unless your email server has push software from RIM or is a MS Corporate server running Exchange then you are relying on timed pull of emails.

[vmlinuz]

Originally Posted by discobay

Technically speaking that is not push email. The push has to take place at the source and unless your email server has push software from RIM or is a MS Corporate server running Exchange then you are relying on timed pull of emails.

Um, no, it's push. It's entirely possible to do push using nothing but free and open standards - RIM and Microsoft don't have a monopoly on it - however many other monopolies they have.

It's done using the IMAP IDLE extension, which is defined in RFC 2177 - okay, you have to poll once every 30 minutes to tell the server that you're still there and listening, but otherwise it's 100% initiated by the server.

[vmlinuz]

Originally Posted by YOHAN

vmlinuz, is there a treo650 app where i can do text messaging via my pc? so that i wont type on the thumbpad too much while at home or in the office.

Honestly, I'm not the person to ask about that - end-user desktop applications aren't my area. If I wanted such a thing, I'd probably just write my own, talking to the Treo over Bluetooth, running on the command-line, and not running on Windows

That said, I'm 95% sure that there is something like that out there. Couldn't really tell you where to look though.

Also, for what it's worth, I'm pretty picky about keyboards, and I find the Treo650 thumbpad pretty decent, considering the size. I have written medium-long (100s of words) emails on it, and I regularly have SMS conversations with it while sitting in front of a PC...

[discobay]

Originally Posted by vmlinuz

Um, no, it's push. It's entirely possible to do push using nothing but free and open standards...okay, you have to poll once every 30 minutes to tell the server that you're still there and listening, but otherwise it's 100% initiated by the server.

Interesting. Who provides this free push email service and can it retrieve email from GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo?

[vmlinuz]

Originally Posted by discobay

Interesting. Who provides this free push email service and can it retrieve email from GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo?

No-one/anyone provides it - the mail client (Chatter Email) will quite happily collect it from any mail server which supports the extension.

In my case, I run my own mail server, so I just connect to that. If you want a third-party mail server, Fastmail provide various levels of service priced from free upwards - they certainly have instructions for plugging it into Hotmail, and you could use GMail quite easily either pull (POP3) or push (forwarding all incoming mail to fastmail). For Yahoo it's apparently possible (as per the fastmail FAQ) if you sign up for some marketing scheme...

This forum post on the Chatter Email forum is a discussion of which providers and servers support IMAP IDLE - amongst the interesting examples are AOL and Exchange 2000 and 2003

For what it's worth, I use my gmail account as my contact address here, but I have a filter which forwards all mail from the Geoexpat forum to my personal account, so it appears on my phone

Caveat: obviously, if you're using an intermediate server, and that server is polling something else like Hotmail, you're not getting true push - your phone isn't polling, but something is polling on its behalf. With GMail, you can forward mail, so it's all immediate, but I don't know if Hotmail or Yahoo allow that sort of thing.

[discobay]

Fastmail for free has tag lines and paltry storage.
I'm happy with GMail and POP3. Can't see how forwarding from GMail can help me if I use my phone. Where would it forward it to?
Both Hotmail and Yahoo charge for POP3 access.
Thanks for the info.

[vmlinuz]

The point is that you need access to a server which supports the IMAP IDLE fuctionality. As I said, I run my own server, with webmail, IMAP, POP3, SMTP-auth and so on, so I don't really care about free providers - and you're unlikely to find any webmail provider giving out free, untagged IMAP accounts since there's no way for them to make any money on it because you'd never really have to login to the site. You could just pay fastmail US$15 one-off to get rid of the tags and get a little bit more storage...

The problem with Gmail and POP3 is that it is 100% impossible to do push with POP3 - there's no way to get the protocol to do it. POP3 is a generally sucky protocol anyway - fine for offline use, but I have a permanent connection at home, work and on my mobile now, so why would I use an old protocol designed for dial-up times? I use gmail for 'broadcast' mail - mailing lists, and the odd time I want to give someone an address which doesn't really connect to me, as my personal address at my personal domain does.

[cb1118]

Originally Posted by YOHAN

Is blackberry that good compared to Treo650?

oh...you must not confuse the blackberry as a PDA...

blackberry is more like a "function" (a software) that notify you when you have an email.

today, blackberry has decreased the investment in hardware(handphone)

blackberry now makes its software for other brands of handheld, such as the Nokia 9XXX series..., Sony P9XX PDA series!!

(the only trouble is HK market has no such model with bb function yet) **but you may wait for the January model Sony Ericsson P990i...this will be a 3G phone, with 2mega pixel camera + video recordinig + blackberry...


and for your question...
no..blackberry is not a PDA, and cannot be as good as a true PDA, as its built in decoder for pdf, MS word, and MS excel files..
everything works fine except the MS excel files (which upsets me alot)

if you get a number that's less than "0", it will only display as "0"!!!

it happens that my price quotation is always something like US$0.05 (example) and the Blackberry only shows it as "US$0"

drive me crazy!! (never have such problem in my SE P910i phone)

anyway, I am waiting for the new O2 with blackberry PDA

[tx75070]

Originally Posted by trpfeifer

I had a 7100T from TMobile when I moved out here. Before I left I got the unlock code - just told tmobile I was moving out of the coutry. This also worked for getting out of my contract. The phone works fine here with the new SIM. I use CSL but they are pretty expensive because I have to roam so much (travel a lot).

Why do you pay CSL the roaming charges? I just looked at T-Mobile's website and they offer unlimited international E-mail add on. Couldn't you have kept your T-Mobile and use it for data only? Seems like it would be cheaper if you travel a lot.

http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/addons/...Sub_BlackBerry

[cb1118]

I bought a Treo650 long time ago (note that Treo650 is running Palm OS)

anyway, I had a hardtime to sync it with my Window XP notebook (SONY VAIO)
and it crashed 5times in 4days (which I have to soft-reset the Treo650 4times)

after the 5th times of crashing, I had enough...
and luckily, I bought my Treo650 from Fortress (10days return guarantee)
**the important thing is you must return the unit to the shop that you bought it...because the computer sales record stays in that store.

so I went back to the shop....discuss with the shop sales for a very long time...and finally, they accept to take the Treo650 and gave me the SONY P910i

the P910i is the most stable and best PDA (kind of) that I have owned!!
too bad, I dropped the phone few times...and the phone plastic case costs HK$1200 to replace.
(I did replace it once after it has too much scratches on surfaces)

I did not do the 2nd time of case replacement and traded the phone in for HK$1750 after over 1 year of usage.

still the best phone I have owned.

the BLACKBERRY is great business companion..except the very expensive service charges.

after one year of using the BLACKBERRY (8700)
I decided to stop the service and bought myself a PDA phone (2G network only, DOPOD 818Pro)

I am now a happy man..
(and no, I won't use anything by Palm OS again)

**I still want the latest P990 (3G network + Blackberry email function)
but I think it will probably cost at least HK$6500.....too much...
I would buy a 12" slim notebook instead...


{PLEASE NOTE}
you cannot resell your BLACKBERRY unit. there is no second hand market.
so when you choose the BLACKBERRY service, you may want to consider the latest NOKIA or SONY ERICSSON PDA 3G phone.....(which has the BLACKBERRY email function built in)**but not yet available in Hong Kong market.

this way, at least, you can sell your phone.