I am happy to receive a new laptop Dell Latitude D600. It is larger than my previous one – Dell Latitude C400. This is the third Dell laptop I used:

• Dell Latitude CPx H
• Dell Latitude C400
• Dell Laitude D600

The laptop become senior as I am growing to senior. :-D

Dell Latitude D600

This is a nice one. I don’t have time to check the details of this laptop yet. Here are some facts about it I discovered immediately after I get it.

Intel Centrino Mobile Technoloy

Since there is a Centrino logo on the right corner of the keyboard, I know it comes with built-in wireless network adaptor. So I am able to start the laptop for the first time in my bed room and it automatically connects to my Wireless AP and accesses to Internet via my FTTB+LAN from Shanaghai telecom. Oh. I love wireless. My wireless dream finally comes true.

Intel Pentium M Processor

It reads as Intel (R) Pentium (R) M proccessor 1600 MHz.

Other

1 G Memory + 55G Disk + DVD ROM / CDRW

Screen

It has a large 17′ LCD screen. It looks so nice after I get used to the small 14′ Latitude C400 screen.

Blue Tooth

There is a blue tooth indicator besides the disk, power indicator. It seems it support Bluetooth. I assume the blue tooth module is not included by default. So my laptop is still not bluetooth enabled.

Conclusion

I am excited about this new laptop. I can run complicated Virtual PC images on this laptop, including running a large domain with three domain controllers and Exchange Servers on the same laptop. Bravo!

Eric kindly lent me his Sony Ericsson GC75 GPRS Wireless Modem.

Image in courtesy of Sony Ericsson

With this card and my GPRS enabled China Mobile SIM card, I can access Internet at any time. Here is the driver (download from jbhg.com.cn). It has pre-entered all the information needed to connect to China Mobile network.

After downloading, simply open the GC75 Manager and I am connected to the next work in few minutes. Now, I can update my blog from home. It is great!

Screen short of GC75 Manager

Speed is good

Hehe. Wireless + Pudong is a great combination.

© Canon.com

I returned from the Canon Expo Asia 2004 in the Super Brand Mall in Pudong, near the Pearl Tower.

The most interesting thing in the expo is the WebView Internet Camera. It is simple – just a camera with a 15V DC electricity power line AND a network cable. Plug it into any working network port and people can control the camera to move left/right/up/down and zoom in and out. There are some very interesting demos at their website. This is exactly what I was looking for and what I have tried to create one by myself. However, it is not available in the market in China and it is far to expensive for tech funs and home users. According to the staff in the expo, it is sold at around 100,000 10000 RMB in Japan now.

Ha. Life is beautiful. I colleceted three new toys in the last three days – the toys I dreamed in my childhood, but those never been thought about in recent 10 years.

Old Style Clock

Look at this. This is a old style clock. It is completely machinical clock. I need to wind the springs every night to keep it walking. :-) It is so interesting. I hate electronic things recently. This clock, like followes, are something you need to take care of everyday. I had dreamed of this toy when I was eleven years old – it was a magic toy for me at that time. Today, I was really excited to see this old style clock with alarm in IKEA. The price for this clock is only 38 RMB (about 4 USD). Nice toy, isn’t it?

Radio

The second toy I bought for myself is the FM/WM two-band radio. This is also an old style radio set. There are too many mini radio set in my life. I have many tiny radio that are very small – that can be easily put into my pocket without being noticed from outside. They also provide automatic tuning. Now I think it is boring – the radio is just as cheap as paper and I can just through them away – only serveral Yuan each.

This radio is different – it is similiar with the large radio set I used to receive the children program in 1980’s. The large speaker and large battery made the voice very good and more importantly, loud. It costs me 40 RMB (about 4 USD).

Black and White TV Set

Guess what? I even bought me a small 5.5 inch black-white TV Set.

After I bought it home, I still didn’t find out what I can do with it. The only reason I bought it was, it was cheap. Guess how much it costs? 90 RMB (10 USD). There are some other TV that are smaller and cheaper.

After I put it into my bed room, I felt it was really an amazing toy. I even find it more enjoyable to watch some program on this small one than the large full-sized color TV in my living room.

I bought the radio set and TV set in the Xiandai Electronics Mall at the corner of Xiangyan Rd. and Fuxing Rd.

BTW, Wendy loves the clock but didn’t comment on the radio set and TV set yet. :-)

Top Commenter of the Month

Sorry that in the last three monthes, (Aug, Sept and Oct), I didn’t send out the Top Commenter of the Month Award. This award should not be paused since I’d like to recognize my readers who contributed most to this site by sharing your ideas and giving feedback.

Today, I am going to announce the Top Commenters of the Month award for this website for the last three months together.

Augest 2003

The Top Commenter of the Month Award for Augest 2003 goes to:

toufu 13

Xu 10

Dan 6

Carroll 6

Top 10 list:

Jian Shuo Wang 69

toufu 13

Xu 10

Dan 6

Carroll 6

ricky 5

Jay 5

David 5

Chris Mikeson 5

Anya 5

September 2003

The Top Commenter of the Month Award for September 2003 goes to:

william 8

tutu 8

Xu 5

Pete 4

Top 10 list:

Jian Shuo Wang 34

william 8

tutu 8

Xu 5

Pete 4

Tofu 3

Christina 3

Zain Ahmed 2

ur daddy 2

toufu 2

October 2003

The Top Commenter of the Month Award for October, 2003 goes to:

tutu 10

WilliamW(combined with previous nickname william) 9

Carroll 7

Top 10 list:

(Actually Top 15 since there are 10 persons posting 3 comments)

Jian Shuo Wang 53

tutu 10

WilliamW 9

Carroll 7

Xu 5

steve 5

Sizwe Mpontshane 5

Preteen 5

Phentermine 4

sundeep 3

Steve Savitt 3

JL 3

Jayel 3

David 3

History

In July, 202 visitors contributed 354 comments to this website.

In June, 117 visitors contributed 216 comments to this website.

In May 2003, 175 visitors contributed 453 comments to this website.

In April 2003, 157 persons (distinguished by display name) posted 437 comments.

In the first 5 months of this blog (Sept 11, 2002 to March 31, 2003), 216 persons (distinguished by display name) posted 478 comments.

Many people are seeking Alcatel OT715 software, as can see from the hot discussion under my previous OT715 page. I have bought OT715 and enjoy the wonderful OT715 phone and the software. I’d like to introduce this model of business mobile to my friends. Regarding the OT715 software, there is no where to download on the Internet. They can not even easily got from Alcatel. That is bad. I can not publicly share the software on the Internet since I am very serious on the copyright and license issue. Let me see how I can help you on that.

The Package

Here is the Directory structure of the OT715 disk.

Volume in drive D is Data

Volume Serial Number is 6C27-48E1

Directory of D:\Download\OT715

07/06/2003 03:08 PM <DIR> .

07/06/2003 03:08 PM <DIR> ..

07/04/2003 06:07 PM <DIR> Acrobat

02/19/2002 10:18 PM 57 AUTORUN.INF

07/04/2003 06:07 PM <DIR> Customization Tools

07/06/2003 02:33 PM <DIR> Desktop Tools

07/04/2003 06:10 PM <DIR> Documents

07/04/2003 06:10 PM <DIR> IntelliSync

07/04/2003 06:13 PM <DIR> Mobile Phone Tools

07/04/2003 06:14 PM <DIR> OpenObex

07/04/2003 06:14 PM <DIR> patchIrCommW2K

07/04/2003 06:14 PM <DIR> Quickbeam

06/13/2002 11:28 PM 1,760,523 setup.exe

02/24/2002 05:49 PM 17,021 setup.ini

Component

The whole CD is about 350Mb in size or 311Mb as Zipped file. Not all the components in the disk are useful.

As I marked above, the Adobe folder (95.4Mb) contains Adobe Reader to read the content of the help document. So I can safely remove this one.

For OpenObex, patchIrCommW2K, Quickbeam, I don’t know what it is so it shouldn’t be important.

For Desktop Tools, it is basically useless – just give you an interface to launch the other three key components. For the documents, it is not well written.

Custmization Tools

This is the tool to help you create customized background and idle screens and transfer it to the mobile via IR port or COM port. It is 27 Mb in size. I have shared it on my website. Click the link in the directory list above to download it.

IntelliSync

This tool help you to sync between your mobile and your Outlook. It is useful – the only problem is, it is not compatable with Windows XP. It is 35Mb in size. Since I don’t have disk space on my ISP now and I cannot share it. I will put it online after I remove the Custmization Tools.

Mobile Phone Tools

This tool helps to send SMS and fax via the mobile. I haven’t made it work yet, so there is no comment for it.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

The copyright of the software belongs to Alcaltel Business System. Please read the license carefully before you install – it requires you have a OT715 mobile phone and can only be used for this mobile.

Support needed

In the last week, I tried to setup my computer in my home to provide download for my friends who sent mail to me. However, we encountered technical difficulties and the files are too large.

I don’t have enough disk space to hold it, so I choose to seperate the software and provide download for one component at a time. I have to remove the last one to put a new one.

If anyone want to sponsor me the disk space, I’d like to share more stuff – including more pictures about Shanghai, video about Shanghai and other software – if license permit with you.

I need $50 (Fifty USD) to rent a larger disk space to hold the disk. Maybe you can sponsor and I will give you credit for it. Use the award-winning PayPal service to donote. Even one USD is good for the site.

Update Oct 12, 2003

Actually, there is only one file on the disk that is so important and the file is only a plain text file – the Modem Configuration File – OT715.inf

The file will help to install the OT715 driver on Windows XP. Click the link to download. I doubt to have time to write more on how to make it work on Windows XP yet. Try yourself. The result is, you can use this file to turn your OT715 to a moderm and access Internet if you subscribed GPRS service.

My digital camera

You know what, finally, I bought Sony DSC-P8 today. I am choosing between Sony P8 and Nikon E4300. Thanks for Christina from Chinese tea and Li Jinyi to give me the suggestions. I feel a little bit embrassed that although Li is suggesting that Sony is so-so, I still paid for it and get one.

Nikon is good, expect the Purple Fringing

I like Nikon since it sounds more professional – actually it is profession in terms of image quality and the lens. But it is completely unacceptable for the Purple Fringing. Check the photos on dpreview.com. I found the same thing in many Nikon 885 photos on many other sites.

I am excited to have Sony DSC-P8

I proudly announce that I have digital camera now and I can add more pictures of Shanghai into this blog. My plan includes a series of photo for Starbucks – according to Luo, there are 26 Starbucks in Shanghai.

Many other friends also suggested me to take something and put it online, for example, the new Suzhou rivier, the new Lupu bridge… a lot of pictures. Now I can show more rich and informative Shanghai guide soon.

My new digital camera – Sony DSC-P8.

Annie in Pudong airport

Nice to hear from Annie. She is at the Pudong airport and she is able to access this webpage! Isn’t great. Read her comment and check out how she did it.

Note that there is a new Internet Cafe near the Gate 20 of Pudong airport with 6 clean computers.

Update: October 07, 2005

After two years, I still enjoy Sony P8 and took thousands of pictures and post it onto this site. It is a very cute camera. The best part is, it does not require any driver to transfer photos to a computer.

Check out Sony DSC

Chitika | Owna

It has been 7 days since I bought my new mobile Alcatel OT715.

Resources on OT715 are very rare on the Internet. Wow. How can this happy? David has been wondering about what Alcatel is. Well, Alcatel is not that famous as Motorola, Nokia or Siemens… It is a Franch company that runs very good business in China. I think it may also run good business in Russian since 1/2 of the content on Internet about Alcatel OT715 returned from Google are either in Chinese or in Ruassian.

I am curious to know how many people in the world are using the same mobile as me. But the number should not be large, which can be reflected from the results of Google search for Alcatel OT715 – 6K entries at the time when this page is created. How about Nokia 3650? There are 161K results.

There is an official website about this mobile – but the site is among the slowest company sites I have ever seen. I am very disspointed about the site since it only contains beautiful pictures but don’t have the user manual and function description that I need.

After long time seeking, I decide to share some of my experience. I have to say I love the mobile although I don’t like its web site. It is a pity for a good mobile without a good page — I mean a good page that can be find easily in Google.

BTW, at the time this page is created, my previous page on OT715 is at the 10th place in the returning result of Google for “Alcatel OT715“

Background

Alcatel OT715 is launched in Hong Kong on July 15, 2002. It is available first in China and Hong Kong market, European market follows. At the time it is launched, it costs about 2500 RMB. At the time I bought it, its price drops to 1850 RMB in Shanghai.

Features

Here are the key features as listed in Alcatel’s offical web site for OT715. My comments are added under each feature.

Infrared interface & serial link

Well. This is a very good feature. I use it to

• put the pictures of my house and girl friend into the handset, and show it as standby screen.

  

  and

  This can be accomplished via Creation Studio that comes with the mobile. The Infrared port is very handy to get the image from my Acer TravelMate 360.

• Transfer contact information to and from other mobile and laptop with Infrared Interface. I always think the connection between computer and mobile are too complicated. But the transfer of contact information of Alcatel OT715 is an exception. Here are the simple steps:
  • On the handset, click Tools -> Infrared.

    The mobile will report “Infrared is activated”. Meanwhile, a small icon indicating Infrared will appear at the taskbar.

  • Put the mobile phone near the Infrared port of a laptop computer.

    The computer and the mobile should connect with each other automatically.

    OT715 should show “The infrared has been connected successfully.” and the laptop computer should show “Another computer is near by”, then change to “Wireless link with Alcatel OT715 at 115220 bps” .

  • Choose a contact person on OT715 and select Transfer from the menu.
  • Answer “Yes” when the Infrared manager on laptop computer ask you whether you want to receive the document.
  • The file will be saved on the laptop in the format of a VCard. (Typically it will appear on your desktop). You can open the VCard using notepad if you don’t have any VCard Management software like Outlook. Here is the content of a VCard.
    

    BEGIN:VCARD

    VERSION:2.1

    N;CHARSET=UTF-8:Jian Shuo Wang;

    TEL;WORK:02163352266P6656

    TEL;CELL:13916146826

    TEL;HOME:XXXXXXXXX

    END:VCARD

• For the serial line, I don’t think it is useful since the software IntelliSync always crashes on Windows XP that I cannot complete a sync with my Outlook.

There should be more functions other than transfering VCard or Image. I will post for more functions after I discovered it.

Built-in GSM/GPRS (class 10) modem

What is this? I have to admit that I don’t learn new things as quick as I do 10 years ago. I have no idea about the GSM/GPRS modem, let along the term of “class 10”.

I noticed that when the mobile is connected with my laptop via Infrared Port, an additional modem called “Modem – Standard Modem over IR link (COM4)” appeared on my Windows XP laptop. I can create a Dial-Up connection using this modem, but whenever I dial, it will fail. The encouraging message is, when I dial-up using the connection, the mobile will dial out as I am using the dial-pad to dial and the mobile displays “Outgoing Call 8163” (8163 is the Internet access number in Shanghai). However, it prompted “Service not available” very soon.

I assume that it is because I don’t subscribed the Digital Data service from my NSP (network service provider). I plan to apply for this function and have a try later.

Vcard & Vcalendar exchange

I have covered this in “Irared Interface” section before. Thank God that the standard of VCard is reached so it can communicate with other mobiles and other applications.

PALM & Windows CE devices compatible

Not sure what this item means. I happen to have a Palm PDA. Let me give it a try to see if there is any possible connection between the two devices.

EMS release 4.0

I was told that I can send music with the message to my friends. It can also attach some 32×32 icons like these:

However, this does not help me a lot since I don’t want to waste time to attach a piece of music before I am very sure the my friend also have EMS 4.0 functions.

Ring tones & animated icons messaging

Here are some of the pictures shipped with the mobile.

Download facilities

I am not very sure about what the download facilities means. It may be only available when WAP service is available. I didn’t pay for the WAP service yet. It seems that the download here refer to downloading from a computer instead of downloading from Internet.

Interactive games

The three games come with Alcatel OT715 LOOK interesting:

• Killer Expo
• Run Run Run
• Botwar

But I have to say the games are too fancy to be put into this small screen — although Alcatel OT715 has the largest screen of a mobile phone, it is still too small to play games. I don’t play any of the games. Sorry for the hardworking programers who created them.

Two-player network game

I don’t know how to use this feature yet. The users’ manual are just like the help document of Microsoft products – professional, well formatted but does not help at all. My quesiton is, why a mobile phone designed for “the high-end market” has so many game feature? Do they really expect business man to play games? Or will they play a two-player network game with another business man?

Multi-field directory

Yeh! This is the killer feature of OT715. For each individual, there are fields like Name, Mobile phone, Work phone, Home phone, Email, Address, City, Fax. These features are so handy to store two or three numbers under a single contact. When I want to dial out, two or three options are shown and let me choose to dial to his/her mobile or phone at work or phone at home. This works great for me. When I was using SIEMENS 3508, I have to create two seperate entries: Mr. Lin (HOME) and Mr. Lin (MOBILE) for the same person. The nightmare is finally over.

Scheduler, To Do list

I may be a good feature but nothing is impossible before I can setup the IntelliSync work on my Windows XP. As I have stated, it always crashes when I try to sync.

PC & Over the Air synchro (SyncML)

This feature seems fantastic. But give me some time to make it work. I may ask the helpful hotline guy to find out the answer.

I read about SyncML Server from time to time on Internet. Can I setup my own SyncML Server on home.wangjianshuo.com? There are too many questions in my mind.

High resolution display

Look at the mobile. It looks so nice!

Up to 10 lines of text (100×150 pixels)

This feature is self-explainary. I don’t need a color-screen mobile which is exteremly popular nowaways. All I need is information, instead of colorful pictures. This design of OT715 just works for me.

4 gray scale quality

EL film with blue backlight color

Very nice features that makes the modem look cool. It is announced that this mobile is “Men Mobile”. Exactly.

Zoom function & landscape viewing

Where is the Zoom function? I cannot find it anywhere on the mobile.

WAP 1.2.1 (Openwave micro browser)

I am afraid I will use GPRS instead of WAP. WAP is expensive!

Updated March 19, 2003

After another 7 days of this entry, I found the WAP function of Alcatel OT715 very useful. I have subscribed to GPRS service and can browse all the WAP sites. Further more, I added WAP function to this blog. That means, I can check who left comment on my web site and the hit counter of the page in real time. If you also have a WAP-enabled mobile, just try to browse http://home.wangjianshuo.com/wap/. I do feel “Information At My Fingertips” now.

SATK Class 3 Release 99

What is the new term of SATK again? Even Google cannot answer this question. SATK Class 3 seems to be the place on Internet to mention this term. Will keep investigating this.

Updated March 19, 2003

I see. It is SIM Application Tool Kit. I remember the service provider once asked me to change to another SIM card for free. It will add a new item under my main menu — services. The application is burned into the SIM card and can be accessed by the mobile.

Location services enabled

Does it mean the mobile can tell me where I am? The altitude and longtitude? If it is the case, it will be super cool. But I don’t see any interface on the mobile yet.

M-Services compatible

I have to doubt the propose of this spec: why there are so many hard-to-understand terms in the spec? I have never heard of M-Services, do you?

With the help of this webpage, I guess the M-Services are something like downloading service with OpenWav’s WAP Browser. Does it mean I can download a wall paper via WAP and show it on my mobile? It seems good. I can put my pictures on my web site and download it using my phone.

Key Benifit

Xtra large display.

Personal assistant.

GPRS.

Networking games.

Photograph download.

PC Software Suite.

Resources

Nice sites about Alcatel OT715

• Alcatel OT715 on Funfone.net
• Photograph download feature
• http://www.threegmobile.net/gallery/alcatelot715/

Fee of China Mobile

Here is the fee of China Mobile Communication Corp. (a.k.a CMCC)

Monthly subscription fee: 50 RMB/month

Local call: 0.4 RMB/min

Long distance call: 0.4 RMB/min + 0.07 RMB/6 seconds = 1.1 RMB/min

Good way to save money:

Dial 17951 + Long distance number: 0.7 RMB/min

Alcatel OT715 Specification

Dimensions : 116x43x20mm (L x W x H)

Weight : 88 g

Talk time : Up to 6h30 (Pmin, 50%DTX)

Standby time : Up to 250 h (Paging 5, static)

Dual band : E-GSM 900 / DCS 1800

Standards : GSM Phase 2 / Phase 2+

Speech codec : EFR / FR / HR

Patch antenna

Standard battery : Lithium Polymer

DriveKey?: 5 positions

Enhanced blue backlight

Speech Codec : EFR/FR/HR

SIM card : 1.8 / 3V SIM, 3V SIM, 3 / 5V SIM. Not compatible with 5V only SIM.

SATK : SIM Application ToolKit Class 3 Release 99

WAP : WAP 1.2.1

Update: July 9, 2003

If you are looking for software for OT715, try to look at this entry: Alcatel OT715 Software

After SIEMENS, MOTOROLA, NOKIA, SIEMENS, my fifth mobile is Alcatel OT715. I bought one today – I am very excited about it.

Mobile phones

I believe China, Korea and Japan are among the highest population of mobile holders. Take me as an example, I know persons around me all have mobile phones – my friends, my classmate, my colleagues, my friends’ friends – all have mobiles. It seems mobile numbers are just like Social Security ID number – everyone has one. Don’t get me wrong. I just talk about my life and people around me. Don’t assume anyone in China has a mobile – after all, I am living in one of the most modern city. If I can, I should also be something like middle class.

Alcatel OT715 is just designed for me

I am not a fan of mobiles. I just need a mobile that just works. I do have some friends who know every details of almost every model from various manufactures. Obviously I am not that kind of person.

However, this model made me exited when I first saw the introduction from a magzine dedicated to mobiles.

Functions

Image source: PCOnline.com

More pictures from Google

My Pictures

The image I used in my new mobile. @ price of 1850 RMB

Resources

• http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030311_alcatel_ot715.htm#000172

Today, my friend told me that he had somebody crack his XBox for 150 RMB.

There is already some venders in Shanghai to crack XBox for people. It takes about 2 days and cost 150 RMB (about 20 USD).

After that, all kinds of piracy disks are open for your selection. The original disk costs 49-59 USD, but the pirated disks cost only 25 RMB.

Update Buying an XBox in Shanghai December 26, 2003

To answer your question to get an XBox in Shanghai, I have discovered a small shop with XBox in stock.

Room 339, Pacific Computer Shopping Mall, 1117 Zhao Jia Bang Rd. Shanghai

3rd Floor of Exit 10, Xujiahui Metro Station

Mobile:13601833873

Tel:63908171

Information source: Their Advertisement in Metro Station

I visited the store. They are selling the model on the Hong-Kong’s market. It is sold at 1750 RMB