I didn’t ask for this job
Apparently I’ve been mistaken for an advertisement board. The phone I bought contained a pre-installed software for a wrong service provider. When I turn off the phone, it first displays this huge red logo for that wrong service provider and then Nokia (which I don’t mind). I guess when I turn on the phone it displays the same logo. The software is for easy-to-use WAP services which I wouldn’t mind, if they weren’t from the wrong service provider, thus unavailable to me. I wrote an angryish comment to the company (which sold the phone, not the wrong service provider) asking if the software could be removed, and the response was “the software must be updated, which costs 25 €”. So, I’ll just have to live with it. Perhaps one day I’ll make the wrong service provider a right one, if they offer good prices (I haven’t got a bill from my current provider yet — that’s how inexpensive they are), and can actually use the services already installed on my phone and flashing that annoying red logo in my face. Until then, I just have to keep my phone on all the time.
Hindsight is 20-20; I maybe should’ve asked if they had a phone without the darn pre-installed software. Or maybe I should’ve taken my money elsewhere. Agh, I’m so stupid. (But I still love my phone despite its huge red flaw!)
That’s odd. I’m guessing the store that sold you the phone gets their phones from another provider or something like that? Here in the US (as far as I know, you know how I feel about phones), phones are usually made especially for their service. There are lots of “basic” phones that will work for all, but the “good” ones are usually produced with the service it’s intended for in mind.
It sounds like you have a more “basic” provider, so it’s curious that they a) have that phone to begin with or b) don’t have a “basic” version of the phone, stripped down to only what the provider can, well, provide. Is that true or do you just have a more basic plan? Is your provider able to provide the WAP service?
25 Euros?! (Is there a shortcut key for that symbol? I’m far too lazy to open a character map right now. I’d Ctrl+C/V, but I’d still like to know if there’s a shortcut.) I’ve never gotten a phone updated, but I can’t imagine it’s too much work. Are you able to download the update from Nokia directly? Most phones are able to connect to the PC (wildly overpriced data cable not included). I wouldn’t be surprised if you couldn’t; phone companies/service providers will take any $CURRENCY they can get their hands on. But c’mon, you can do it for digicams and such.
And you call that advertising? Here, a lot of people gladly pay top dollar to put brand names all over their clothes. That is pretty genius, though. Take a $5 t-shirt, put your fancy logo on there, easily charge $35 for it, and people pay YOU to advertise your brand name. God bless America, and all the ways to make money doing nothing.
The cell phone & accessory stores often have made a deal with a cellular network provider (or whatever it is) so they are able to sell (and manage) GSM connections (is this the ‘plan’ you talk about?) of that provider. As Nokia doesn’t have a direct re-seller (that would be nice!) we’re forced to buy phones from these — biased — stores.
I’m not sure what you mean by this (because of perhaps cultural difference and my embarrassingly small cellular phone vocabulary). I don’t know about American phones and GSM services, but I’ve heard about phones and connection being pretty “fixed”. I mean, you get/buy the connection and the phone together? Perhaps able to switch the phone from time to time? This isn’t what we have here. The phones and connections/plans are sold separately, but some places (nowadays probably most, actually) have thought it wise and convenient to have pre-installed software for the GSM service provider of their (the store’s) own choice. I just find it very inconvenient; I don’t think my GSM connection provider has any software to put into phones (which is perfectly fine by me). And what am I going to do with the software when it won’t even authenticate me and my WAP connection? I think the store clerk (jerk?) should’ve asked if I use their provider of choice. My GSM connection has WAP service readily available.
The 25 € is for a “minimum work”. I’d guess phone software installation is quite a drastic operation but I’ll have to read about it. Most likely, I’ll cool off soon enough and the logo won’t annoy me so much.
It irritates me that whenever I get really excited about something there must he something that goes wrong.
My keyboard has euro symbol below E, so I can type it with Alt Gr + E. Try if that works. Alt + 0128 should work. I just use €
I’m sure Finns are as brand conscious as Americans (as I told you, Finland is supposedly the most American country in Europe); I’m just one of the odd ones out – a black sheep? Or a black capricorn?
(Jamiroquai has a song Black Capricorn Day – whatever that means.)
It all sounded so clear at 3am. Hmm, I think I just meant to ask if you had a very basic service provider, like they really only do flat cell service and SMS.
But yeah, that’s how it is for the most part here. Businesses want to keep their stuff proprietary so they have control. Samsung (for instance) will make a bunch of phones. A few of the models will be Sprint-only (for services like Vision[multimedia]), then they’ll have other models for other service providers for their respective protocols or whatever.
There are some phones you can buy free of any of that, but they will usually just be basic (cell service, SMS, contacts) phones.
I don’t know enough to say, but I guess it would depend on your store. They might have to crack it open and reflash a chip, which wouldn’t be hard, but they might not have the equipment or the training at the ready.
I always forget that the common HTML symbols are easy. A lot of them have numerical names.
What’s the “Gr”?
Alright, now you’re just screwing with me.
You don’t have a Alt Gr to the right of Spacebar? Here’s a picture of one sort of layout. Oh, shoot
it says US keyboard doesn’t use Alt Gr. My bad. What a crappy keyboard layout you have.
Alt + 0128: If you keep Alt pressed and press 0128 on the numpad (with NumLock on) you should get an Euro sign.
What OS are you using?
Wow, our keyboards are terrible. I don’t know why they call them US keyboards, they’re really just Microsoft keyboards. I neglect a lot of those symbols just because I hate having to open my character map. I didn’t even know there was a US-International keyboard. I don’t think I’ve even ever bought a keyboard… just always had one lying around or, of course, you get the US-Microsoft keyboard with any new PC.
“AltGr” stands for Alternate Graphic, which was my question. I thought maybe it had a different name or had an equivalent. Instead we just have two Alt keys. Brilliant!
I wouldn’t have guessed to enter them in order. Maybe if it said “Alt + 0-1-2-8”. But whatever, I get it now.
Here at work we use mostly XP. I built 5 of the machines here that all use Win2000, as well as our backup server. At home I dual-boot XP and Linux, but I’ve only booted into Windows once since, to export some financial data.
I’ve been easing my boss into the idea of free/open source. Then he had this nutjob come by to take away some printers or monitors and he totally bombarded him with Linux, and not all of what said was true, but definitely paranoid.
Now I’ve gone from throwing in a couple cents worth of info here and there to trying to explain to him that it would be a major change for the whole office to go to Linux. Still a lot of things that need explaining. The guy just kept recommending sites that are very anti-Microsoft and kept implying that Bill Gates is the spawn of Satan and the entire country is run by three people.
[sigh] I love geeks, but I can do without zealots.
In the USA most GSM phones are typically sold “SIM locked”, i.e. the phone will refuse to work with a SIM card from another provider. This is why the phones are so much cheaper there, as the providers pay for a part of the phone price.
Just lookup “unlocked” or “not SIM locked” phones on Amazon and see the huge price increased compared to the phonese sold with service plans.
In Finland (and I would guess in most other countries) phones are never SIM locked. They cost more, but you can change providers anytime.
Of course, you can use Google to find unlock codes for most phones now. Also, at least T-Mobile/VoiceStream/Omnipoint (that’s just 1 carrier — I used them when I was in USA) offers to give you the unlock code for your phone if you are leaving them (or at least they do so if you tell them you are moving out of the country).
I can’t help feeling that all this SIM locking business sounds so very similar to the DVD region codes — mandated by the movie industry of which country…
Fortunately you can use Google to “unlock” most DVD players sold today as well (“region free” is the best search term).
Kory, if they do start using Linuxes at your work, the others will probably need quite a lot of training. Make sure they pay you extra
Although, at least the Linux versions I’ve used are very Windows-like (GUI-wise!) and the console is just a quirk. I was shocked to see the main menu pop up when I
instincticallyinstinctively hit the Windows button.I guess phones are a little expensive here.
At work they asked what my phone had cost and when I started “two hundred and…..” they asked if I’d got a raise. 
Hmm.. “carrier”. Kimmo, is that operaattori? I’m clueless when it comes to mobile phone vocabulary (among many others). “Plan” is apparently liittymä.
I don’t think it would require that much of them. They use a lot of Firefox and Thunderbird. OpenOffice would be great for them, they don’t use any of Office’s proprietary features. Scanning software, something to handle PDFs. All comes with the distribution. They would never need to see a command line, they don’t do any administration. It would be much easier to customize for their needs, instead of the one-size-fits-all approach. Plus a lot less time spent doing maintenence.
That’s good to hear. Sometimes people are so intimidated by (not to mention clueless with) computers. Ha, I still get the chuckle out of one of the people at work shouting “oh no, I got some warning message here: ‘WinDVD is not your default DVD player. Do you want to set it as default DVD player now?'”.
That always drives me crazy. I can appreciate that the computer is just a tool, more important to some than others, but it’s like people don’t even bother to try and understand what’s going on.
Yup, “carrier” is “operaattori”, and I guess “plan” is “liittymä” — hmm… yes, it is. Finnish is weird…
Really, why is a “plan” called an “attachment” here??
Anyway, Finland has some of the best plans for cell phones, definitely. I was roaming with my cell phone in Germany last summer and racked up an awfully high phone bill that month. But now I’m being “reimbursed” for it, as it elevated me to a higher rewards class. I get 60 minutes of free outgoing domestic calls every month. In practise that means I’m only paying the monthly fee in most months, and no call charges! (Remember: no air-time charges in Finland for incoming calls.)
Unfortnately this means I’ll lose the benefits later this spring, as the rewards are based on total billing every 6 months…
I think it’s just an extension of meaning. The regular phones are physically attached to the phonelines outside and even with the Amazing Mobility, it’s still more or less the same thing.
“Plan” isn’t very good word either. Who can plan how much they’ll be using a phone any given month? Unless it’s a plan that makes your phone unusable when you’ve talked and texted enough.