Connecting My Tilt Cellphone To The Computer

It is very easy to connect the AT&T Tilt cell phone to the computer. Basically, you attach the cable from the phone and plug the USB end into the computer. Here is a screenshot of the connection:

Viewing Web Pages On The Tilt Cell Phone - Opera Web Browser - Part 2

We are now revisiting the topic of installing the opera Mobile browser on the At&T Tilt cellphone. We had an unsuccessful first attempt.

After trying the same steps on my phone, I see on the opera.com website (please note that I'm using a desktop computer becuase the Opear site does not appear as intended on the AT&T cellphone) that in order to download the browser, I am supposed to download the file from Opera.com onto my desktop computer first, then connect the phone to the computer, and then double click the file on my computer's desktop.

I do not have the cord to hook my phone to the computer with me, nor the CD with me now so it looks like I can't install the browser at this time.

Stay tuned for another blog called Installing Opera Part 3, where hopefully we can finally get this will finally work!

Viewing Web Pages On The Tilt Cell Phone - Opera Web Browser - Part 1

We tried to download the Opera browser for the AT&T tilt cell phone today. It was an undertaking that I was trying to put off but not being able to surf the web like a computer on such an advanced phone like the Tilt Cell phone was frustrating. We decided to go with the 30 day free trial to see how hard it was to install and because some of the questions we were unsure of the answers on. We found no relative results when searching for Installing Opera On AT&T Tilt Cell Phone.

The first step was to go get the browser (www.opera.com). I thought that I would just go to the website and download the browser on the phone. Makes sense right? Wrong.

The first thing I noticed was how user unfriendly the website was for mobile devices. For a company that offers such a sophisticated browser, their website should at least detect that I have a smart phone or mobile phone and send me to a different page. Oh well.

Once we got to the download page, we had to choose between two different versions of the mobile Opera Browser. I was confronted with a question about which version of Windows Mobile was running on the phone. This is not an obvious question for most newbies but most advanced users should not have a problem with this question. The AT&T Tilt Cell phone uses Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 (to find out on most windows mobile devices go to Start, Settings, About).

The next question that is asked is what type of phone do you have. The choices are for a Smart Phone and a Pocket PC. Most average consumers might not know which one to choose. If you have questions I suggest you Google your phones model number. They say that if your phone has a touch screen, you need the Pocket PC version. Since the AT&T Tilt cell phone has a touch screen my choice was easy.

The toughest question in the download process and most confusing was they wanted me to choose what type of device I have. The cryptic options that were presented where:
All Devices (CAB) or All Devices (MSI). This was a little confusing because both say “All devices”. I would suggest Opera put something online or in the download process that explains this choice a little better but we choose the default one, and clicked “download”. The page changed to a blank webpage and appeared to load a new page. I could see progress in the download bar of the browser, and all appeared to be well.

About 45 seconds passed while we waited for the download, I wondered if I should have done this on a desktop machine, and then synched the phone to the computer, and moved the file over this way… Again Opera should have detected my cellphone and sent me to an error page if this is the case. Anyways, I convinced myself to wait it out, sometimes pages do take a while to load on the phone.. The cell phones’ screen did its automatic “sleep” function; we made the display come back on by pressing the power button a couple of times.

A few moments later, the browser appeared to be done. I could see the “Back” and “Menu” buttons on the bottom, which usually means the page is done loading. We were a little confused since nothing ever asked me to install. We went to “Programs” and didn’t see the new browser listed.

We will return to this later, I have invested more than an hour in this install and documentation process so stay tuned

Do Not Pay For GPS

You do not need to pay the monthly fee for the GPS software (Telenav) from AT&T. There is a great program called GPS Utilities (http://www.efficasoft.com/gpsutilities.html) that sets up the GPS connection ($17.95) (Com 4 and 4800) and free Google maps which integrates with the GPS to track your location, give directions, real time traffic, sattelite views, etc. (http://www.google.com/gmm/gps.html) It is awesome. Also, Windows Mobile 6 is a great improvement over WM5. The performance is so good with the new processer and 3G, I could make international phone calls via Skype (http://www.skype.com/download/skype/mobile/) I like the iPhone UI better, but its lack of Voice Dial, the Limited Keyboard, and lack of 3G made it impossible for me to switch to it from my HTC 8125. I did spend 2 hours at the Apple store trying to talk myself into it. I also recommend Bandswitch (http://commmgrpro.com/_wsn/page2.html) to automatically disconnect your data connection and maximize your battery life. I also removed the PTT software and reclaimed the button for Voice Dial (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1570125). I also recommend an alternative to the included dialer because the buttons were too small to use (http://www.paulya.com/Projects/EtDialer/Cabs/PaulyA_E-Ten_Vista.cab) Best phone I have ever had, though I loved my HTC 8125.

Viewing Webpages on your AT&T Tilt

Well we found out there a browser out there they say is as good as iPhone's Safari and works with the AT&T Tilt.

You can find it at http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/

I will make sure and have a report on it as soon as we can figure out which version to download. It's not obvious.

Where Is The Stylus !

That was the first obvious question when I got the phone. I had read that it did not solely really on your finger to do everything (which can be very annoying from someone who has the iPhone). Well embarrassingly enough it took me over 5 minutes to figure our the what I had thought was a notch for a strap was really a notch for you to pull out he stylus.


DOH!