Category Archives: sidekick

I found very nice sneak peek of upcoming Sidekick pager OS 1.1, which will add more applications (calculator), terminal which is Telnet and SSH client for the hiptop device that allows you to connect remotely to other computers, copy/paste features, and improved AOL Instant Messagner such as images of smiley face.

Sidekick is alive and better than ever!

I have been using T-Mobile Sidekick (black and white screen) since November 2002, which is almost two years old. Since then, I have a little problem with this device – it is way too slow when opening and processing the applications, due to large memory of information (email messages, contact lists, photos, etc stored into my Sidekick).

Right now, I felt my pager is outdated. It’s about time, I am looking the better and best deaf-friendly pager found on the site (Thanks, Grant!)Yup, it’s easy answer: T-Mobile Sidekick 2. I ordered it through a1wireless.com, it cost 200 dollars to have an affordable for me to spend. This pager is getting improved every time this device was released: faster processor and improved interface design buttons. What I really like their features:

• Built-in camera. However, this is 0.3 megapixels, and picture quality doesn’t look better in dim places.
• Intellisync. Now I can synchronize my Microsoft Outlook/Exchange Calendar, contacts and to do list with my Sidekick 2. No need to transfer via USB.
• Instant Messenger. Supports free application program, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Yahoo Messenger.
• Wireless Relay Service. I can use wireless relay to call someone’s voice phone, it’s absolutely free.
• Two shoulder buttons. It is the most useful part of buttons for AIM. When I have more than two AIM conservations, I can swap an instant messenger from one screen to another by clicking either shoulder button once.
• Wheel and their two buttons. Notice SEND CALL (top wheel) and END CALL (bottom-wheel) buttons? It is very useful if you are in deep down scroll page, you can click wheel button to jump the next screen up or down. It is similar to keyboard’s ‘Page Up’ and ‘Page Down’.
• Unlimited free applications. I can download applications from skdr.net and install it into my Sidekick 2 to get nifty free applications.
• Existing account. The neat feature which I can transfer the contacts from my old Sidekick to new Sidekick II: With the GSM-enabled SIM card (containing the contact info) in my Sidekick device, I can pull off my SIM card from old Sidekick and put SIM card into new Sidekick II, and everything you got contacts, organizer (memo, calendar, to-do lists) and applications has been transferred.

Life is easy and good to have Sidekick II.

Wonder what it looks like using Sidekick II at nighttime:

The picture is worth thousand words.. and you get an idea.

I read the very good article: Lormar Logic Software Solutions: Which pager/phones are the most deaf-friendly? These includes: T-Mobile Sidekick, Blackberry, Handspring Treo270 & 300, Palm Treo650, Palm Tungsten, RIM series, Motorola T900, PagerWriter and Timeport. I really like this article, for comparison between different pagers.

There are few missing not listed in Lormar Logic Software as most recently new two-way pagers released this year: Ogo Pager.

One of my friend from Minnesota showed me there is yet another new deaf friendly pager coming soon this year or next year: Motorola A630. This pager includes:

• Integrated full QWERTY
• 176 x 220 resolution, 8 lines
• 65,000 color display
• Integrated Bluetooth wireless technology
• Internet access
• Downladable games, pictures, wallpaper and applications via J2ME technology
• Multimedia messaging service (photo, voice text, email, sound, AIM)
• Email support (PoP3, STMP, Imap4)
• Support virbation
• Features: alarm, clock, calculator, organizer
• Battery Standard, Li-Ion 850 mAh. Stand-by: 200 hours; Talk time 5 hours.
• Not announced: date, prices and service plan.

There have been rumors that it cost $550 on the website, and my friend says pointed that it is cheaper, does not say how much.

Technologies are expanding beyond and forever, I always can’t wait to see new pager, Sidekick III coming soon next year or two, in my wildest dreams.

I just ordered SkinIt's carbon fiber gray for my Sidekick II. SkinIt have several different patterns (animal skins, bricks, steel, stone, etc) for the reasonably price to skin it on your device. Even they can skin on MP3 player, PDA, phone, video game handhelds & systems, and TiVo remote. Yet again, they'll even pay you royalties on yours if you submit your skin design and they sell it.

Now, I don’t have to worry myself for identifying who’s the Sidekick II device are.

I posted the entry #524 about Skinit on my Sidekick II a month ago and today I promised one of you want to know how it goes.

It has been a month since I had Sidekick II skinned, it was pretty good, and is it worth? You decide.

I bought SkinIt’s pattern: carbon fiber gray for five dollars, plus shipping, bring the final cost: 8 dollars. Today, I just found out recently that SkinIt it cost 9.95 dollars, I guess I am lucky enough to buy this bargain. I received this skin a week later in mail, and there are just a receipt and a flat, sticker of skin pieces. There is no enclosed of instruction or manual book. I even tried to find through their website, and it did give very little details how to skin on my pager.

I decide to figure myself how to put skin on my pager. First of all, I inserted back side of Sidekick 2, which is very difficult to put one piece of skin to fit in correct align and angle. I decide to cut a skin piece into three pieces, making it less hard to assembly the skin. After three tries to remove and put back on the skin, I successful put the correct align and angle skin on back side of my Sidekick II. Then, I am about to assembly skin on front side of Sidekick II, and I noticed there is miscalculation width measure of the screen on Sidekick II, which is too big for skin to fit in front side of the device. There is no way for me to fix this, and I decide to peel off the skin on front side and just leave skin on back side. Also, you are wondering about pager gets sticky coming out skin peeled. It doesn't not get sticky because of the skin has been on there for two hours after peeling this out.

I am curious to see how the quality status for skin on back side of Sidekick II for long periods of time whenever I use my pager. One month later today, I am still happy with this skin, and I don’t see any scratches, torn and peel on this skin. This was because of I have been take good care of my pager (It never been dropped, hit, bang, etc.) I just learned that Skinit says that this material has been tested to last over 4 years. I know my pager takes average of least two years to recycle.

Overall, I have short final comment about this -- I do like this skin. I don't have any compliants about that, and I might leave it for longer time, make me look as cool guy with sidekick skinned.

I have been using my Sidekick for three years and half. I spend heavy amount of my time using AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and email service on Sidekick II. Sometimes, I do put the schedule to remind, take notes to remember and rarely surf on small web browser for maps and other stuff.

Via Crazy Deaf Joe, he showed us the good sites that fit perfectly on Sidekick web browser such as weather, Yahoo, TV listings, Amazon and AOL mail. I have been using AIM to talk with IM bot, SmarterChild. I asked their bot for the forecast in my hometown and I get the two-second result for five-day forecast. Compare that, I tried the browser weather as Joe suggested. Once I went there, it usually take between 10 and 15 seconds to open the browser and enter the zip code for forecast, it leads to another 10-15 seconds to get the result for five-day forecast in web browser.

I rather to choose AIM's SmarterChild over web browser for weather forecast because AIM is much faster and less bandwidth than the web browser. Also, the TV listings and Amazon are not bad idea to have in web browser bookmarks, since SmarterChild bot does not support those features. I'm glad that I can't live without Sidekick as my primary gadget to get in touch with people and gather the information on site.

It's worse kept secret that you can hack Sidekick II - breaking into key guard/privacy lock by using buttons in Sidekick II.

This is purpose only for the users who forgot their three-digit numbers of privacy lock, and got a help from customer support center to past into Sidekick II from key guard/privacy lock. Here are few steps how to get through:

1. Press MENU and ENTER same time to unlock the device. You will see the privacy lock screen.
2. Press MENU and JUMP same time, (you might see the same caption shown in privacy lock screen, follow this instruction to do.) Emergency Phone Call screen appears.
3. Press 'JUMP', 'SYM', 'S' and 'SHIFT' at same time (SYM, S and SHIFT can be found in QWERTY keyboard).

If you see the strange looking lines of SYSLOG (System Log), and you made it through. Press ENTER to go to main menu screen.

Here you go. Don't even think of being a prank to sneak the someone's Sidekick II with privacy lock turned on. This is ideal for high school and college with popularity of Sidekick users.

Since you might heard the picture leakage over website showing poor quality picture of Sidekick III, it does look real to me. Hard to believe.

I hate to talk about this on my blog when this gadget is not becoming officially yet, but I really want to. I received the email that the Myspace blog, Rdsteveo (He has shut down the SKIII information in his blog entry recently) claimed that he spoke with sidekick developer on AOL instant messenger for this new device to come out in X-mas or first quarter of 2006.

Since I am not satisfied with Sidekick II, because of signal problems over some areas, and the spammer found the way to send junk emails to tmail users. The only satisfaction is having Sidekick II's QWERTY keyboard, ultra comfortable to use (even fits so well with my big hands), and fast to type than Blackberry and Tero 360 QWERTY keyboard (see the USA Today's Blackberry Thumb Painful)

Is Sidekick III worth? Here is my wish-list that I would like to see on Sidekick III:
- wi-fi
- more than one megapixel camera with improved picture quality in dark places
- manage email accounts more than once
- sync like Outlook

Today, I received a message from my friend, he said the Hiptop, Sidekick operating system finally releasing the updated version today, which you can allow to have Javascript enabled on web browser and can access to check Gmail on Sidekick browser; AIM improvements and few more.

Oh, one more thing to show you - is there a real hiphop3.com web site? UPDATE: hiphop3.com has shut down the DNS server.. I remember when I saw the only one page, with full background of color white and there is one little bigger than 640x480 image, a cat is snarling in front of the palm hand holding Sidekick III (this one looks much like the picture above) on floor. This is pretty funny, but it's still too hard to believe.

I bought first Sidekick in fall 2002. Hiphop operating system (OS) run fast on Sidekick. One year later in fall 2003, Sidekick Color launched, and I still stick with original Sidekick. Also during same time Sidekick finally sent out the firmware version upgrade to improve Sidekick content and its functionality. After firmware, I realized Sidekick OS is slowing down after upgrade. It frustrated me and I have no patient with this over the time, and another one year later in fall 2004, Sidekick 2 (SK2) came out. I bought it, and the OS and its processing speed was very fast.

Until last week, Hiphop sent yet another firmware release version 2.3 for its OS, updated it, and is slowing down again! Does it make me to buy when Sidekick 3 (SK3) comes out for faster performance new CPU?

It suspected me that SK3 is near upon us, trying to make customer to get new model version of Sidekick and wanting to have better performance speed. Each year, Sidekick recycles their model version, to attract the customers? I suppose so.

Sidekick recycles new model every 1.25 years. The PC desktop and console gaming (Nintendo/PlayStation) recycle every 5 years. The car recycles 10-15 years.

Every month or year the technologies always improve their innovation for the strategy to have better market and competition against each other over the time.

Some deafies posted the petition for providing Sidekick to deaf people with low income; titled "Sidekick Price Skyrocket". It sounds so ridiculously to me, I have known several e-commerce website offering the 100-200 dollar discounts for Sidekick II. DeafBiz.com pointed Sidekick II sales are still bargains around over the sites for now, and upcoming Sidekick III won't be cheap for another 4-8 months after releasing the launch date.

According to my previous entry comments, rumors are flying that 3rd generation of Sidekick will make an announcement in February 2006 (that's next month!) Rumors to be true? Time will tell!

Received an anonymous comment in my entry (55 comments and countin') about Sidekick III blog, MobileHipster and it is more worth for our time to watch this year to come out in 2006 (really!). SKIII will have edge/Wi-Fi, a Detachable battery, a Mini SD Card Slot, a Music player and instead of the scroll wheel there is a ball. I don't think this is bogus to me, it looks like we are starting to believe in them, just like 6th AFC seed Steelers winning Super Bowl.

Looks like it's going to be 2006 Gadget of the year, don't you agree?

I hate spam. We all hate spam. Even more worse, I hate it when it gets to my Sidekick. Since T-Mobile doesn't offer us any spam filters. The only opinion is to change your email address for Sidekick, you will always get SPAM later no matter - it does not help.

I learned Tayler's blog an year ago and shared with me the ways to stop spam from invading your Sidekick. I think this is wonderful idea, so let's get a picture in the head what diagram looks like (my home-made hand drawn):

Here are the simple, easy step by step how to set up new Sidekick email change to prevent the spam:

1. Look for free web mail to create new email account as primary for Sidekick. My choice: Google Gmail because they have stronger spam filters.

2. Contact T-Mobile customer service representative to ask them to change your Sidekick email address. This should be long and uncommon. Rule: Never, never give anyone your new Sidekick email address, even your soul mates or relatives.

3. In Gmail inbox, go to Settings in the upper right corner. Go to "Forwarding and POP" tab.

Then, select "Forward a copy of incoming mail" to fill new Sidekick email address. Personally, I selected "archive Gmail's copy" so sender email messages can saved in my Gmail archives.

4. Once you get the email from T-Mobile service that your new Sidekick email is activate, Take road down to Menu icon > Settings > Accounts on your Sidekick.

5. You will see simple Email Accounts window. Go to EDIT button.

6. Change to Gmail email address in two fields: From Address and Reply-To Address, and you're DONE!

My SK/Gmail went effect on September 2006, and ever since today, I never gotten single SPAM messages. It worked like peace. This is way better than TESC.