[Update 9/2/09: added CAB file at end of post.]

If you’re a long-term Windows Mobile user, it’s sometimes hard not to look at the iPhone or at Android phones and not get a little jealous at some of the cool apps built for those platforms. Sure, if you use your phone for work, we can laugh at the other people struggling to connect to an Exchange server or to open and edit Word or Excel docs. But once the workday is done or on the weekend, it’s hard not to envy your iPhone friends when they whip out the phone, take a picture of the SKU code on the new Wii game, and tell you that it’s cheaper 2 miles away at Target. Or, as happened to me, when we were sitting in a bar having a beer and a song came on and I couldn’t for the life of me remember who sang it. So my friend whips out his phone, and asks the bartender to hold it near the speaker behind the bar, and voilà — the name and artist is displayed. How cool is that?

Well, someone finally ported one of these apps to Windows Mobile. As I saw on the Wingster site (for T-Mobile Wing and TouchPro 2 phones) there is a Midomi cab running around out there, which I decided to try. If you don’t know Midomi, it’s a website that will identify songs by capturing a small segment through your system’s microphone. You can either play a song from the radio or TV or somewhere, or, and this can be the scary part, sing or hum a part of  a song. Because of this, Midomi has become something of a Karaoke site, with people recording their own songs. Most of which are horrible and painful enough that I wanted shove a dinner fork into my ears in the first few seconds just to make the pain stop. But we don’t really care about that — we care that Samsung apparently ported a Midomi app to Windows Mobile for release on some of their touchscreen devices and that the port works on Windows Mobile Standard, albeit with some issues.

The Problems

The main issue that I can see is that the app was designed for touchscreen devices which typically have much better resolution than the Dash 3G. So the screen is pretty distorted on our phone. And the ‘Menu’ command doesn’t work — it freezes the app. But otherwise, the app does what it’s supposed to do, and if you have the Task Manager mapped to a convenient key, exiting the app without the Menu isn’t so bad.

So, here’s what you have to deal with.

The main screen is severely distorted, but still usable.

Distorted Main Screen

And, it works surprisingly well. I tested it in a weird way and it actually worked — while watching the Road to Europe episode of Family Guy on my TiVo (linked below) I had it sample the Kiss song (starting at 4:33 into the linked video) by holding my phone near the speakers of my sound system. And even with some dialog happening it got the song correct:

Correct!

And the app even went on to suggest the correct links:

Correct Links

So, bottom line — as long as you can put up with quirky navigation and never using the Menu command, we can finally have a cool app like our iPhone friends.

Here’s a crappy YouTube post of the Kiss scene from Family Guy:

Update:

This evening, I tested the voice recognition with my 4 1/2 year-old. She sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. And the program figured it out with no problem and presented me with 7 or 8 different versions that I could download. Amazing!

Here’s the CAB I used: Midomi.cab

[Update: I've flashed my phone to ookba's 3volution ROM. See this post for the flashing procedure and this post for my initial review.]

Closely watching XDA-Developers member ‘ookba’ who has been cooking some new ROMs for the Dash 3G based on the Windows Mobile 6.5 core and his “3volution” design. (The Dash 3G ships with a Windows Mobile 6.1 core.)

ookba is on his second release as of today (Build 3VO.1.00.082609). I usually wait for the early adopters to find the most critical bugs (like a white text on a white background problem in the first release on the caller ID pages so you couldn’t see who was calling.) But I think I’ll be flashing my phone soon.

ookba’s released ROMs for the HTC Maple (T-Mobile Dash 3G) found here and for the HTC Cedar (Sprint Snap & Verizon Ozone) found here.

For those not familiar with cell phone software, here is a very basic primer, at least for Windows Mobile / HTC phones.

Operating Systems

Like any computing device, a cell phone has an operating system or OS. For the Dash 3G, that OS is Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard.

Unlike regular Windows XP or Vista, when a cell phone manufacturer and carrier decide to release a Windows Mobile phone, they have the ability to customize the OS to a great extent. Think of T-Mobile’s “My Faves” application as an example — this is something T-Mobile builds into the phone’s OS.

The OS for a cell phone resides in a memory chip on the phone that the phone itself can not change or write information to. So it is called Read Only Memory or ROM. The copy of the computer code that resides in this memory is called a ROM Image, or also simply a ROM. So, in the lingo of cell phone hackers, the terms ROM and OS are interchangeable.

Almost anyone can use a  Software Development Kit (SDK) (called a Kitchen) to build their own ROM (called “cooking” a ROM). Getting it installed on the phone is the hard part.

Protection

Cell phone carriers and manufacturers are notoriously protective of their OSes. So every cellphone is locked in multiple ways to prevent people from changing the software. The two most common locks for GSM phones (like the Dash 3G) are CID locks and SIM locks. The SIM lock prevents a SIM card from another carrier from working in your phone, so you can’t move to another carrier easily. More important to the OS is the CID (Carrier ID) lock, which prevents software ROMs not “signed” by the carrier from installing on your phone. This is why you can’t normally change the OS on your phone.

Luckily, there are some very talented people out there who are able to break this lock for most phones.

Bootloader

Every cell phone is equipped with something called a bootloader, which is a program that is designed to take the ROM Image from its memory and load it into the working memory of the phone (normally, this resets the phone to its factory settings, and can be invoked on the Dash 3G by powering the phone off, then turning it on while holding the volume up button).

This bootloader also verifies that the image its loading is a “signed” or authorized image. It does this with an SPL program (no idea what SPL stands for).

In order to replace the ROM on a phone you need to defeat this security check. One way is to defeat it permanently (a Hard SPL break). Another way is to change the routine so it can be bypassed as needed (Soft SPL break).

Updating Sequence

So, this means that the basic sequence to changing your phone’s ROM is this:

1. Change the SPL security.
2. Load or ‘flash’ a new ROM image to the Phone’s ROM.
3. Engage the bootloader to load the new ROM to the phone.

Of course the devil is in the details. A very good primer on flashing ookba’s ROMs is: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551959

The other day I wanted to track my progress on a walk across Boston. I started near Government Center and walked 2.5 miles down Boylston Street past Fenway Park to the Green Line stop at Fenway. Never mind that it took 9 minutes to get an initial GPS lock, but even on an open street the phone lost GPS signal 9 times in 2.5 miles. It would drop to 0 satellites on the display and take anywhere from 30 seconds  to 5 minutes to get a fix back.

That’s just horrible.

The ext day I broke out my OnCourse Bluetooth GPS. It typically gets a fix in less than 15 seconds and never loses a signal. So I’ve gone back to carrying an extra GPS receiver because the built-in one is simply garbage.

I grew up in New Jersey. I now live in Massachusetts. Many readers will stop right there asking themselves, “What can growing up in New Jersey teach someone about real bar-b-que?” Absolutely nothing. New Jersey in the 1970s and 1980 was utterly devoid of anything resembling real, slow-smoked bar-b-que. And modern-day Massachusetts isn’t much better. But this is the internet age and with the help and advice of many small-time pit masters on the web, I’ve managed to turn myself into a pretty decent pit jockey, if I do say so myself. For the last 15 years I’ve been perfecting my own backyard style, showcased each year for the last seven in my annual, end of summer, “Carnivore’s Carnival” where 40 or 50 friends gather in mid August to sample my specialties.

Over the years I’ve worked my way through several pieces of equipment, various recipes, and many changes in technique. This post will serve as my collected wisdom for others trying to work their way through all the issues that beginners encounter.

The Basics

Real American bar-b-que (also BBQ, barbeque) is, at its essence, simply the application of low heat to meat over a long period of time, and in the presence of wood smoke. Flavors are enhanced by applying various spices as dry rubs and wet sauces. All of the components are necessary: with high heat instead of low it’s grilling and without smoke it’s just roasting. As a cooking form native to many parts of the country, there are many regional bar-b-que variations which use different cuts of meat and different spice rubs. The most common and popular of these regional variations include:

There are, of course, hundreds of additional regional sub-variations and probably millions, maybe even tens or hundreds of millions of family recipes. But these are the main themes which run through the American bar-b-que landscape.

If there was an advantage to perfecting my style in New Jersey and Massachusetts, it’s that there are no preconceived notions of what bar-b-que is. So I was able to experiment with many different styles and my friends and neighbors ate it all. Try making a pork shoulder in Texas and calling it bar-b-que or doing a beef brisket over mesquite in North Carolina and having anyone show up. I’ve been able to play with it all and no one complains that “it isn’t real bar-b-que.”

But if I had to choose a style, I’d say that I tend to like the Memphis style the best, and that’s primarily the kind of bar-b-que I’ll be discussing here. I make my ribs and pulled pork with a dry spice rub on the outside and a minimum of “mopping” (basting) while on the grill. And when finished, I use a bare minimum of a tomato-based bar-b-que sauce to finish them.

OK you ask, so how do you get started? Here’s the collected wisdom of what I do, what I did, and what I’d do differently if I started over.

The Equipment

The Meat

I would love to say that good bar-b-que requires good meat, but it doesn’t. And that’s the beauty of bar-b-que and one of the reasons it remains popular. Bar-b-que usually uses the cheapest, toughest cuts of meat available. Pulled pork, for example, uses a pork shoulder (called a “picnic ham” when the lower part is used and a “Boston butt” when the upper part is used) in the form of a Boston butt. That’s one of the cheapest cuts you can buy. Pork spare ribs (though not baby backs) are also an inexpensive cut. So is beef brisket. That’s the good news: you can feed a lot of people cheaply with bar-b-que.

For example, I just finished buying the meat for my 7th annual Carnivore’s Carnival. The bar-b-que consisted of 24.5 lbs. of Boston butt (3 shoulders) and 12 lbs. (4 racks) of spare ribs. That’s 36.5 lbs of meat with little waste or trimming, which could conservatively feed 40 people — maybe 60 if they weren’t pigs — and the total retail bill came to $98.72. Where else can you order meat for 50 people for under $100?

Pulled Pork

American Pork Cuts (adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Pork_Cuts.svg)

Pulled pork is made from a pork shoulder (the “Blade shoulder” in the diagram here). In pork terminology, the top of the rear leg is called a ham. The top of the front leg is called a shoulder. The top of each of these pieces is the butt or rump portion; the bottom near the leg or foot is the shank portion. The shoulder and ham differ primarily in the amount of connective tissue present — the ham is leaner with much less collagen and other connective bits. The shoulder is much tougher with more fat.

To confuse the issue (and certainly the consumer and their wallet), butchers began marketing the lower part of bone-in shoulders (near the “elbow” — marked as the orange “Arm shoulder” in the picture to the right) as “picnic hams,” an inexpensive cut with the “ham” name. But make no mistake: picnic ham is not a substitute for real ham. Most bar-b-que uses the “Boston Butt” or upper part of the shoulder, though a whole shoulder or even a picnic ham can be used. Whether bone-in or boneless is up to you; some people believe that the bone-in cuts have more flavor. And I find the bone a useful way to gauge doneness — when it begins to move freely or even slides out you’re done!

Spare Ribs

Spare ribs are shown in blue in the diagram above. From that big rib portion, there are actually three cuts — the Baby Back Ribs, the Spare Ribs, and the rib tips. Baby Backs come from closer to the loin (spine) of the pig. As such, they are more tender with less fat and connective tissue. They’re also more expensive. The spare ribs come from closer to the belly of the pig. The bones are larger and they are tougher with more connective tissue. On a full rack of ribs, there is a flap of meat that comes from near the belly (the rib tips), where cartilage joins the rib bones near the sternum. Cut this flap off leaving just the rib bones, and you have a St. Louis style rib (see this YouTube video for a good demo:

Ribs have one extra optional step: removing the membrane. On the back of every slab of spare ribs is a tough membrane which, although it doesn’t affect the taste, is tough to chew. Removing it prior to smoking makes your ribs that much more tender. Here’s another YouTube video of someone taking the membrane off of a slab of baby back ribs.

You can find shoulder and ribs in most large supermarkets these days, but since you’ll rarely be cooking one rack of ribs or one shoulder at a time, you’ll probably need to look at local warehouse clubs (Sam’s BJ’s, Costco, etc.) or local meat markets, if you can find one.

Fairway Beef, Worcester, MA

Large primal cuts like these are typically shipped from the processor to the market in cryo-vac (plastic) packs, with two shoulders and three ribs per pack. When I shop, I get most of my meat from an old meat market in Worcester, MA called Fairway Beef. At a place like this you can actually talk to a butcher who knows what he or she is doing. And if you need something special, they are happy to cut it for you. Need 3 shoulders when they come 2 to a pack? No problem. They’ll open a pack and wrap one separate for you. As a backup, I sometimes shop at my local BJ’s Wholesale club. But I consider myself fortunate to have Fairway Beef so close.

If you buy spare ribs in the large packs, you will have to cut them St. Louis style yourself. The video above is a pretty good guide.

The Rub

So you have your meat … now what? Well, between 12 and 24 hours prior to hitting the heat you want to flavor it with your rub.

There is so much argument about what and how to rub the meat that a lifetime of bar-b-que experimentation could be spent just varying the your rub recipe. I’m not going to discuss all the possibilities, but give just a few recommendations.

One thing you will discover in the bar-b-que world is that many people have competitive aspirations, and competitive bar-b-quers will never divulge their rub recipe. I’m not that competitive, so I will.

Here’s my first major tip:

In the beginning, concentrate on the heat and smoking technique. Use a simple rub.

And there is no simpler rub than one you buy. Honestly – for the first few times you smoke, when you’ll be worried about monitoring the temperature of the pit and the meat and all the other factors, you don’t need to worry about whether the rub will enhance or detract from the flavor. So by all means, buy one from your favorite bar-b-que website, or even use McCormick Barbeque seasoning in the giant wholesale club size. Nearly any mix of sugar, salt, and other spices will taste good after smoking for a few hours.

But, if you really want to make your own, Alton Brown’s 8-3-1+1 ratio system works well. Use whatever measure you want: tablespoons, cups, soda cans — doesn’t matter. This is a very good starting point.

Lately, I have been using a two part system.

My Rub

First, pat the meat dry and then cover with a rub made of:

• 2 parts salt
• 1 part (combined) garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper, black pepper

Wrap in plastic wrap and allow to rest in refrigerator for at least couple of hours, maybe even over night, until the rub begins to moisten and dissolve on the surface. Then apply the final rub of:

• 6 parts brown sugar
• 1 part salt

Re-wrap and allow to sit for 12 hours (shoulder) or at least 4 (ribs).

If you want to try wet rubs, you can — many people use yellow mustard as a base on shoulder. Here in New England, maple syrup or molasses is a regional flavor that works well.

The Sauce

This is another area with as many variations as there are people who bar-b-que. And once again, I recommend that beginners start with something simple before taking on the challenge of making their own sauce from scratch. In fact, because I tend towards a Memphis style where the dry rub is the major flavor component, I usually put out a bottled sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) and let those who really want it use it. If I use a mop sauce at all (basting while smoking) I use cider vinegar or Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce diluted 1:1 with cider vinegar.

The Pit

This is where the magic happens. And unfortunately, there is usually no cheap way to get an effective pit unless you have both an abundance of metalworking tools and talent AND access to a source of scrap metal suitable for pit construction. If you do have metal talent and materials, then there are dozens of plans on the internet for barrel smokers and other styles. If not, then you’re going to need to buy your pit. There are several styles and options.

The secret to good bar-b-que is low, indirect, heat with the right amount of smoke. A good pit enables you to reach and hold the correct (200 – 250 °F) temperature without a lot of fuss. It also helps generate smoke and expose the meat to sufficient smoke to generate flavor.

Grills

In a pinch, a grill, either charcoal or gas, can serve as a bar-b-que pit. But I’ve found that they are often more trouble than they’re worth, though some new generation gas grills are able to hold the required low temperature. (See my post on the BBQ-Source message boards about making ribs on my CharBroil RED gas grill.) But I’ve found that grills suffer from rapid temperature changes of it’s even the slightest bit breezy outside (which is why I added 4 concrete patio pavers to my grill to support the racks — increased thermal mass equals more steady temperature). And most charcoal grills don’t hold enough coals to keep the fire burning very long so you need to keep disturbing the food all the time.

If you absolutely need to use a grill, you’ll need to search the web for instructions; I’m not going to cover them here.

Electric Smoker

Image taken from http://www.masterbuilt.com/prod_smokers.html

Electric smokers, especially ones from Masterbuilt (abbreviated MES – Masterbuilt Electric Smoker on many bar-b-que message boards) are very popular. If you need to make small batches of bar-b-que for fun and for a few people, a simple smoker like this may be the ticket. Especially if you intend to actually interact with your guests during the cooking. Although not quite “set it and forget it” in the Ronco rotisserie oven sense, an electric smoker requires little tending, certainly in comparison to a wood-fired pit where the fire needs to be tended hourly or even more often.

One area where these smokers excel is in being able to hold a really low temperature (down to 100°F), just on the high end but still good enough for cold smoking other meats like bacon or salmon. If you intend to experiment with smoking other foods, this may be the pit for you.

Bullet Smoker

The bullet smoker form was made popular by the inexpensive Weber Smoky Mountain series of smokers. I’ve owned two of these myself (still have a 10 year-old one) and I can say that a Smoky Mountain was my first wood-fired bar-b-que pit. Probably the best source of information about these smokers can be found at the Virtual Weber Bullet site. Again, for small batches, these are very well proven, reliable pits with mountains of information and support on the web.

Dedicated Pit

This is where the fun starts. A dedicated smoker usually has an offset fire box of some sort (off to the side or behind the smoking surface, as opposed to a grill where the fire is below the cooking surface). There is a path created for the smoke and a series of dampers to control the size of the fire and the amount of smoke in the pit.

Dedicated pits range in price from $200 to $20,000 or more. Even the cheaper ones will gove you better bar-b-que than a grill or even a dedicated electric smoker, but when buying on the cheap end you will really need to make some modifications to make the pits really work well.

CharBroil Silver Smoker (formerly New Braunfels Black Diamond)

The first dedicated charcoal pit I bought 10 years ago, and the one I still use today, was the legendary Black Diamond smoker by New Braunfels (the NBBD – New Braunfels Black Diamond – as abbreviated on the web). I paid $199 for one at Home Depot. New Braunfels was sold a few years ago to CharBroil, but the Black Diamond lives on, essentially unchanged, as the CharBroil Silver Smoker.

The NBBD is reasonably competent out of the box, but has a noticeable temperature difference between the end near the firebox and the end near the chimney. Most owners install a baffle plate between the firebox opening and the cooking chamber (see this for just one example). In addition, the stock chimney sits near the top of the cooking chamber, allowing some very hot air to fill the chamber, making it hard to keep the temperature low. The fastest way to fix that is just to extend the tube downwards (I used a rolled up piece of aluminum flashing to do this originally), but the best way is to enhance the chimney by cutting an opening low on the bottom of the cooking chamber to enhance the smoke flow. Here’s a picture of my smoker with the new chimney attached.

Modified NBBD Smoker

All it took was a few dollars in hardware store chimney pipe and an hour with my MIG welder and I have a really good pit with even, stable temperatures. Nice.

The Wood

Just like every other aspect of bar-b-que, people argue over what kind of wood yields the best flavor. There is some regionality to wood selection with hickory the predominant wood over much of the south, while mesquite is popular in Texas, and some other woods like pecan in parts of Georgia. Fruitwoods (apple, cherry, etc.) also have their followers. Frankly, I think choice of wood makes little difference (I know that’s going to generate all kinds of controversy) with the exception of mesquite, which has such a strong and unique flavor, you can tell anything which has been smoked in it and it’s usually reserved for beef only.

First, if you are smoking with a small pit or a grill, you’ll be using charcoal as your main heat source. And therefore, you probably won’t burn enough wood to make a difference in flavor. Second, the relatively short smoking time for ribs (4 to 6 hours) probably isn’t enough time for flavor differences to come out either. Finally, if you over-smoke your meat, it tastes like bitter smoke no matter what wood you use.

Since most of us working in smaller pits are going to use charcoal as the main fuel source, the choice if wood isn’t really as important as some people would make it out to be. I typically use hardwood charcoal (usually Cowboy charcoal) as a base with hickory chunks or split maple (a local New England wood) as the smoke. I don’t soak my wood first – it seems like a waste of time to me.

The Technique

This is where the skill and experience of the pitmaster comes into play. The recipe for shoulder or ribs is pretty simple. But the art is in the execution.

For good bar-b-que, stoke your pit with charcoal and get it to about 225 °F. Add the meat and some hardwood chunks or logs to the fire.

3 Beautiful Shoulders

For shoulder, smoke it for around 1.5 hours per pound. An 8 pound shoulder will take around 12 hours. You should get yourself a remote thermometer and work to keep the pit as close to 225 °F for the duration. This is the art … to keep the temperature, you’ll need to balance the air intake and outlet and the size of the fire to keep the pit at the right temperature. Smoke the shoulder until the internal temperature reaches 190 °F. Then pull it off, wrap it in foil, and let it finish cooking for an hour. The result should look like this.

Ribs can be done a couple of ways. The safest way to start is to use a method called 3-2-1. For fall-off-the-bone tender ribs, they are placed in the smoker (at the same 225 °F) for 3 hours, then wrapped in foil with a little wet mop for 2 hours, then placed back in the smoke for the final hour. Ribs are done when the bones can be twisted and start to move around in the ribs. As you gain experience, you can vary this recipe and work on your own style, but the 3-2-1 method is nearly foolproof if you can keep the pit at the right temperature.

Conclusion

This was my bar-b-que core dump. I’m sure I will refine it over the coming weeks. I hope it helps someone just starting out and contributes something useful to the body of bar-b-que knowledge on the web.

I found this in my inbox today:

****** CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE ******

NOTICE:

This e-mail message and all attachments transmitted with it may contain legally

privileged and confidential information intended solely for the use of the addressee.

If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified

that any reading, dissemination, distribution, copying, or other use of this message or

its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error,

please notify the sender immediately and delete this message from your system.

Thank you.

First, I want to say that it’s nice to see some progress being made. I applaud CSX & MBCR working together to get this project going only 2 months after the major problem.

But, what’s up with that silly disclaimer? I think the MBCR needs to re-think it’s ridiculous blanket e-mail disclaimer policy because I’m clearly in violation by re-posting this, but I think they would actually WANT people to know about this before it happens. Again – I don’t think there is anything beyond normal incompetence going on here. The person who sent this probably had no idea that stupid disclaimer gets slapped on the bottom of every outgoing message. But they could at least tell people to ignore it if they can’t remove it.

I was walking in by back yard the other day when I noticed the 3G icon in my taskbar. I never got 3G at my house. Sure enough, as I traveled over the weekend, I was seeing 3G in more places than usual. It’s possible that T-Mobile has recently added capacity in the Boston/Metro West area. That would be good news indeed. Stay tuned for updates to my coverage map.

In the end, the limitations were just too much to overcome.

After using my Dash 3G for a few weeks I began to wonder about “push” e-mail for my Google Apps accounts. This lead to looking for e-mail clients which would handle IMAP IDLE, and that lead to only two possibilities: Emansio and FlexMail 4.1. (No, I can’t use Google’s push client because I already have work e-mail syncing via Outlook Web Access/Exchange, and WinMo 6.1 can only handle a single Exchange connection via ActiveSync.) I initially tried the Emansio plug-in for Windows Mobile/Pocket Outlook, because I think the Windows Mobile 6.1 Pocket Outlook implementation is pretty good. But the Emansio plug-in was a disaster, throwing error after error and crashing repeatedly. So I moved over to FlexMail 4.1 for a trial.

The Promise

In addition to IMAP IDLE connectivity, FlexMail promises many of the features of a full-fledged mail client. A couple which jumped out at me were:

• Robust search.
• Full folder views by default.
• Reply from any account.
• Conversation view of SMS and e-mail messages.

There are lots of other features — this is a complex program — but I really just wanted a good mail client with IDLE support. Search was a nice-to-have, but not a must. The rest seemed cool, but not if it got in the way of being a decent e-mail client.

The Reality

I installed FlexMail which went mostly as planned. Several reviews commented about how easily the installation captures your existing settings, but that didn’t happen for me. Only my Exchange account auto-configured. My IMAP accounts required a manual intervention. Soon after getting going, some problems appeared, which, taken individually weren’t bad, but together added up to more than I could take.

Integration Issues

After getting through the configuration I noticed a couple of things. First and foremost, FlexMail didn’t integrate with my Sliding Panel home screen. This was a pain, because the new sliding panel structure is one of the fixes (admittedly kludgey) that Microsoft has put in place to make WinMo 6.1 work better until 6.5 is released. And for FlexMail not to work with it and it’s slick notifications is a problem for me. In addition, FlexMail doesn’t integrate with the stock sound notifications either. This proved to be a bigger pain for me because the FlexMail sound settings don’t allow for easy choice of decent sounds, only a few relatively useless noises. But because my main work e-mail remained under the control of ActiveSync (only displayed through FlexMail) while my IMAP mail was fully controlled by FlexMail, I ended up with two completely separate notification sounds for my two accounts. This was unacceptable.

Additionally, I’m not the only one who has noticed the lack of sliding panel integration. There is a good-sized thread about it on the FlexMail support board, and, while I have a great deal of sympathy for developers trying to build on this long-in-the-tooth platform, the author’s answer to people questioning the lack of sliding panel integration left me very disappointed. In fact it really left a bad enough taste in my mouth that, once I realized there were issues, it tipped the scale enough for me to dump the app. And I can usually overlook a lot of technical issues — hell I had a T-Mobile Wing for a year!

Display Issues

As soon as I started using FlexMail I noticed that some e-mails just wouldn’t open correctly. Particularly the ones heavy with graphics. For some reason the pictures just wouldn’t open. One of the features of FlexMail is supposed to be a robust HTML client, so I was disappointed at this.

Additionally, FlexMail had a continual problem with e-mails from my local newspaper (daily headlines, breaking news, etc.). For some reason that I never figured out, they would always sort to the end of my inbox and diaplay a date with a year of 1855! I’ve been getting these e-mails and no other client ever had a problem. And the ones thet FlexMail displayed incorrectly opened correctly in Pocket Outlook, regular Outlook, Google webmail, and Thunderbird. I even looked at the headers and they looked correct to me. Weird.

Threaded SMS Display

FlexMail has a threaded (conversation) display feature. Trouble is, so does the version of Pocket Outlook that ships with the Dash. And frankly, I like the Pocket Outlook version better.

Input Problems

I also noticed that FlexMail overrode the Dash’s XT9 input settings (as if XT9 wasn’t already a bear to get configured correctly). In fact, it created its own problems that were different than the issues I normally have with XT9 and just got used to! Most annoying was the fact that whenever I began typing a message FlexMail would act like the Caps Lock was stuck on. So I had to get into the habit of hitting the SHIFT key for the second letter of a word! That was ultimately the straw that broke my back.

Conclusion

All of this added up to a rather unsatisfying experience. There was a lot to like about this software, but in the end the negatives were just too much to ignore. I uninstalled FlexMail about a week after I installed it. And for what it’s worth, XT9 went back to normal the instant it was gone.

This is a bit embarrassing — mostly because of how long it took me to find the simple answer.

Anyway — so I can remember it and for anyone else having the problem, here’s what happened and how it was solved.

Problem

I needed to execute a query in an Access database which included a subset of user IDs in a table, by excluding the user IDs contained in another table.

Essentially, I was looking at login events in a table which captured all the users who logged into the system over a period of time. The data table contained two columns: one with the user name and another with the timestamp of the login. The problem is that mixed into the logins are numerous test accounts and employees that I don’t want to report. I keep a table of these test and employee IDs, and I wanted to extract only the actual users from the first table while excluding the test and employee accounts in the second table.

How To Do It

Essentially, we are creating a query to find unmatched records, and it can be built the same way that the unmatched records wizard does it. Here’s an example.

So, to make the exclusion happen, we need to build a query. Problem is, the standard query builder in Access isn’t up to the task. For this, we will need to write the SQL ourselves. Essentially we write a left join between the two tables equating the elements with the username, and find any rows where the value in the right table is NULL.

The syntax looks like this:

SELECT Login_Data.UserName, Login_Data.LoginEvent FROM Login_Data
LEFT JOIN Test_Accounts ON Login_Data.UserName = Test_Accounts.Name
WHERE Test_Accounts.Name IS NULL

OK. So I’ve heard many people on TV complaining that the health care reform bills are nearly 1200 pages and asking if anyone is really going to read them before voting. So I decided to accept the challenge and am going to read the whole thing. Here’s a link to the version accepted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It’s a 1017 page PDF, including the cover and table of contents. Don’t worry though — this isn’t some 8 point type printing like in a paperback book. This puppy is printed in 12 point font, with GIANT margins. I’ll keep the blog posted on my progress.

Day 1: Took about 90 minutes on the train today and got to page 86 of 1017. At this rate, another 15 or 16 hours to go. No suprises (no Gov’t Death Panel for example). Just lots about a health insurance connector for individuals and small businesses and the criteria for approved plans offered through the connector.

It’s been 1 month (as of tomorrow anyway) since I’ve owned my new T-Mobile Dash 3G. I figure that’s enough time to start to understand some of the ins and outs of the phone and give a decent summary of my thoughts so far.

Hardware

Hardware Summary

Parameter	Rating
Look & feel
Speed
Memory
Screen
Call quality
Battery
GPS
Camera

Overall, I’m impressed with the size, shape, and feel of the device. The keyboard is more compact than a blackberry or my previous T-Mobile Wing, but it didn’t take too long to get used to it. The phone feels solid — not plasticy. the keys press nicely, and for the most part the trackball rolls smoothly. I say for the most part because I did go through a period where it seemed like the trackball had some dirt in it and it would jam in the vertical axis. But that issue resolved itself after a couple of days and hasn’t come back since.

The processor is speedy and the data radio seems solid. I tether this phone all the time and run multiple applications while doing it and nothing seems to slow it down. I currently have my laptop tethered to the phone with GPSed, Google Maps, and Facebook running and I just sent and received a message like nothing is running at all. There is also plenty of memory, both program and storage. This is the first Windows device of this type that I actually believe could be run decently just with the built-in memory.

The screen is OK for what it is. And what it is a QVGA display. This is clearly designed to be functional rather than the selling point of the phone. It’s bright, and the color reproduction is good. But it’s small. There’s just no way around it — it’s 320×240. This is an iPod display, not an iPhone display. If there was anything I would improve about the hardware, it would be the screen.

As a phone, it works great. Call quality is clear, the speaker is loud and clear — the speakerphone works well. No complaints at all on the phone.

Battery life is pretty good — I’ve never been one to push the limits of a cellphone battery though. I usually charge each night and then plug in again at my desk at work. But on the few occasions where I’ve had to go a whole day without plugging in, the Dash 3G hasn’t run down below 55%, even with moderate use.

The GPS has me concerned though. Most of the time, and with most programs, I have a terrible time getting an initial satellite lock. Inside a vehicle it can take 10 minutes to lock, if you can get one at all. Under an open sky, it can take 2 to 3 minutes. But other times it gets a lock in 30 seconds. I’ve tried to be consistent in my use to narrow down what helps and what doesn’t, but I can’t seem to get any consistency out of it. This is an area I will continue to experiment with.

One thing that I find annoying, but may be a little too sensitive about, is the position of  the volume rocker versus the USB port cover. They are exactly opposite each other on the side of the screen and I can’t seem to do anything with the USB port without changing the volume. While this isn’t a big problem by any means, it is annoying.

The camera is decent for a 2 megapixel camera. It does an OK job taking pictures in decent light, but doesn’t stretch well when the conditions get tough. Cameras on most BlackBerries are definitely better. The camera controls are definitely lacking — the settings are few and difficult to find. The menus aren’t really easy to navigate and changing settings quickly just isn’t possible. But once set to some middle of the road settings, snapshots will turn out looking decent.

OS/ROM

Windows Mobile 6.1 is a decent operating system and T-Mobile’s implementation of it is solid. The phone isn’t loaded with too much crapware (aside from the obligatory Handango-in-hand app and T-Mobile’s TeleNav navigation app) and the apps that T-Mobile does provide are useful (like the account status app). Windows Mobile does certain things very well — it integrates with Exchange servers easily, it tethers to Windows computers easily, and has a decent implementation of Pocket Outlook for mobile e-mail. What it doesn’t do is look particularly good. The new sliding panel home screen helps, but there aren’t a lot of programs that integrate well with the sliding panels yet. So, it is what it is — a regular Windows Mobile implementation without a lot of bells and whistles.