Archive for the ‘Smartphones’ Category

Calm After the Storm? We’re Still Testing

Monday, January 12th, 2009

Client Support is testing out the new BlackBerry Storm. Smartphones are becoming more prevalent on campus and we want to be prepared when users come to us with questions. After his first day using it, Client Support manager David Ecker had the following to report. We’ll check back in with him in a few weeks to see if his initial impressions have changed.

"I like the device, but the learning curve is big," said Ecker. "With the old BlackBerry, I was used to a little scroll wheel and the keyboard being right in front of me. This device is completely touch screen. The screen is phenomenal and I love reading e-mail on it. What’s frustrating is that it has so many more features that I want to use, I just don’t know how to use them yet."

 

Ecker’s Pros and Cons of the New BlackBerry Storm

Pros

  • Bigger screen size and touch screen allow you to view a complete e-mail message simply
  • Screen resolution is impressive
  • Integrated 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus is very nice
  • Terrific zoom feature
  • Using the Web is much faster than on the old BlackBerry and the zoom feature helps this. I hardly ever used the Web feature on the old BlackBerry because it took too long and you had to scroll all over the place. I can’t live without it now.

Cons

  • The full keyboard is not accessible very easily
  • There is a learning curve to use the keyboards. You have to turn the device sideways to get the full keyboard. The vertical keyboard has two letters on one key, which I don’t like. You have to learn how to type by pushing the screen. It would be nice if you just clicked the letter and it understood your touch.
  • It takes more than 20 minutes to figure out how to use all the features
  • Fingerprints show up easily and the screen gets dirty quickly. You definitely want to put something on it to protect it

If you have a BlackBerry Storm, let us know what you think!

Posted in BlackBerry Storm, Smartphones | 4 Comments »

Check Your Lotus Notes E-Mail on the iPhone

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

inotes on iphone

Even though our office does not officially support iPhones yet (we do support BlackBerrys), we thought this post might be informative for those Lotus Notes users out there who have in their possession an Apple smartphone and have been waiting patiently for a way to access their Notes e-mail, calendar and contacts. This information was sent to us from one of our Lotus Notes administrators on campus:

"You can quickly access e-mail, calendars, and contacts by typing https://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/login.nsf directly into your Apple iPhone Safari browser. You will be asked to log in with your Lotus Notes username and password."

In most cases your Lotus Notes Internet password is the same as the Lotus Notes password that you use to access Notes from the computer in your office. If at any point you change your Notes password, the Notes Internet password does not automatically change. If you would like to keep your Notes Internet password the same as your new Notes password, or if you just don’t remember your Internet password, you can go to SUNYSB’s Address Book and change it (.pdf)

Read through our Lotus Notes - Web Access page for some more helpful reminders.

IBM has a Lotus Domino eMail Web page that may also interest you.

 

Posted in Lotus Notes, Smartphones, iPhone | 3 Comments »

iPhone Mania Hits Stony Brook!

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Members of the Client Support staff enjoy friendly, back-and-forth banter about which is better … Mac or PC. We have three staff members, in particular, who laud the prowess of all things Apple.

Lindsay is one of those people. She had everyone in the office talking when she returned from her vacation out west with an iPhone. For many of us, this was our first time seeing one LIVE, up close, and in person. I sheepishly asked if I could hold it. She told me not to feel embarrassed. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who made such an odd request. Lindsay pointed her way through different screens like she was Steve Jobs. I watched in awe as she tilted the phone to its right to show me a video being played in horizontal screen mode.

"Where is this all going?" I wondered to myself and will I one day own an iPhone of my very own? Not for another two years, at least. I just renewed my Verizon Wireless contract and upgraded to an LG VX8600. I’m so yesterday’s news.

Anyway, we urged Lindsay to blog about her iPhone discoveries because students will undoubtedly be coming back to campus as proud owners of iPhones this fall. Lindsay agreed to share her test results with me, so here is what we’ve learned.

The iPhone will connect to AirNet, the service that provides campus wireless access to Stony Brook University faculty, staff and students. You can log in through the web for limited network access with no problem. This will let you surf the web a lot faster than AT&T’s Edge Network will allow you to. The downside is that you can’t send or receive email while using AirNet’s limited network access.

You can connect to Stony Brook’s VPN (virtual private network) to gain access to your email through the mail client on the iPhone.

This is how you connect to the VPN:

  • Hit Settings on your iPhone’s main menu.
  • Scroll down and select General
  • Next, click on Network

You will come to a screen that looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Click on VPN
  • Select Settings underneath
  • Choose PPTP
  • Enter server address:  pptp.airnet.stonybrook.edu
  • Account name is your NetID
  • Password is your NetID password. You should get an alpha/numeric keypad to type this in.

There appears to be a glitch that occurs when your phone goes to sleep (when this happens you lose your connection to the VPN) or if you leave the VPN and come back to it at another time. When you go in again, you have to turn your VPN on and repeat the above steps. Otherwise, you will only get a numeric keypad to type in your NetID at the password screen when you try to use the VPN shortcut. You will not be able to type in alpha characters.

Lindsay’s way around this was to go into Windows and change her NetID password to all numerics. You don’t have to do this. In fact, we do not encourage it. You can go back into the VPN Settings each time to put in your NetID password without changing it. Our Division of Information Technology Security Officer advises that an all-numeric password is very insecure and should not be used as a password on any Stony Brook University system.

Lindsay said a lot of people with iPhones are encountering this bug. It is currently being discussed on some forums.

We’ll wait for the software update and in the meantime keep asking Lindsay if we can hold her iPhone!

Posted in AirNet, Passwords, Smartphones, VPN, Wireless, iPhone | 23 Comments »