Motorola Phone Tools is the worse software I have ever used

On 28 Nov 2006 05:39:13 -0800, [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>The real shame of the world is that aside from Microsoft few companies
>can write decent software. ...

<cough> <cough> Microsoft software is no better than "good" (IMnsHO at
least), and often worse than that. There's _lots_ of better quality
non-Microsoft software on the market.

>Bluetooth was a nightmare before Microsoft released a standard driver,

Widcomm Bluetooth is much more capable and robust.

>the list goes on and on. It's almost all rubbish out there. Windows GUI
>software is hard to write, it's a great shame.

Actually not so hard -- I've managed lots of such development.

The all-too-common problem, with Microsoft as well, is software that's
developed by coding first and documenting later, an endless process that
never results in quality.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

---

› See More: Motorola Phone Tools is the worse software I have ever used

Bob Martin <[email protected]> wrote:
> in 126063 20061128 023349 [email protected] wrote:

> >Hmmm. None of them worked. MPT does work. Hmmm.

> Please don't make provocative statements like this. Many people here,
> including me, have have listed problems which give the lie to your claim.
> It may work for some people, in some circumstances, but that is not enough.

MPT works well for some people. Other people have a lot of trouble with
it. I know of several things that can cause problems, such as changing
the USB port used for connection. The phone needs to be rediscovered, and
shows up on a different comm port, and people get annoyed.
Maybe the new comm port is above #10, and can't be used by MPT.
Windows updated the USB drivers, and MPT stopped working.
It may or may not work with MS drivers for some Bluetooth adapters.

It does work for me, and presumably for most people, or Motorola would
change suppliers. It could certainly be made more robust in the face of
unexpected configurations, but that is a problem for a lot of software,
even from very large companies.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

[email protected] wrote:
> I don't think not doing both phone books at the same time is such an
> issue. The problem with the SIM memory numbers is that you don't have
> first name, last name, email fields etc. So these numbers are pretty

The small SIM fields truncate names, and there aren't any categories, so
you can't have "home", "office", "cell", etc.

> simple SIM memory. Personally I don't want to store my telephone
> numbers in Outlook, it's hassle for little gain - happy to keep my

You could store in the BVRP database instead, or just "Backup" which is a
csv file.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:52:38 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>Bob Martin <[email protected]> wrote:
>> in 126063 20061128 023349 [email protected] wrote:
>
>> >Hmmm. None of them worked. MPT does work. Hmmm.
>
>> Please don't make provocative statements like this. Many people here,
>> including me, have have listed problems which give the lie to your claim.
>> It may work for some people, in some circumstances, but that is not enough.
>
>MPT works well for some people. Other people have a lot of trouble with
>it. I know of several things that can cause problems, such as changing
>the USB port used for connection. The phone needs to be rediscovered, and
>shows up on a different comm port, and people get annoyed.
>Maybe the new comm port is above #10, and can't be used by MPT.
>Windows updated the USB drivers, and MPT stopped working.
>It may or may not work with MS drivers for some Bluetooth adapters.
>
>It does work for me, and presumably for most people, or Motorola would
>change suppliers. It could certainly be made more robust in the face of
>unexpected configurations, but that is a problem for a lot of software,
>even from very large companies.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Windows treats each USB port
separately, so if MPT is configured on USB port #1, it won't immediately
work on USB port #2, a common mistake/problem that I warn my clients
about. It's the fault of Microsoft, not MPT (BVRP/Avanquest).

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On 28 Nov 2006 05:39:13 -0800, [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>... Personally I don't want to store my telephone
>numbers in Outlook, it's hassle for little gain - happy to keep my
>phone numbers in SIM and email address in Outlook. If I had a
>blackberry with email it would be different, but I can't see many users
>of the RAZR, SLVR etc sending emails from thier phone.

Email can be made to work quite well with RAZR and SLVR, not to mention
my V551. For example, Gmail (Google Mail) has an excellent WAP
interface; works well with embedded cell phone email clients; and also
has a new downloadable Java (J2ME) client, all for free. The key is
learning how to use predictive text (e.g., iTAP) effectively.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:24:32 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote in <[email protected]>:

>[email protected] wrote:
>> Motorola Phone Tools is the worse software I have ever used, as well as
>> constantly crashing and I have to reboot every time I try to use it and
>> it doesn't recognize SIM Contacts.
>
>It's very unstable software. It seems to decide whether to work or not
>based on lunar tides. It's always an adventure to predict whether or not
>it will recognize your phone, and if it does, which features of the
>program will actually work during that session.

It's actually quite stable _if_ installed, configured, and used
properly.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

in 126097 20061128 182411 John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:24:32 -0800, SMS <[email protected]>
>wrote in <[email protected]>:
>
>>[email protected] wrote:
>>> Motorola Phone Tools is the worse software I have ever used, as well as
>>> constantly crashing and I have to reboot every time I try to use it and
>>> it doesn't recognize SIM Contacts.
>>
>>It's very unstable software. It seems to decide whether to work or not
>>based on lunar tides. It's always an adventure to predict whether or not
>>it will recognize your phone, and if it does, which features of the
>>program will actually work during that session.
>
>It's actually quite stable _if_ installed, configured, and used
>properly.

Then perhaps you would like to give us a few hints on how to install, configure
and use it properly?
Before I retired a few years ago I spent 40 years fixing, testing, designing, building
and programming all manner of computers, but I've never come across such a
frustrating and annoying piece if software.

John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 17:52:38 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
> >such as changing the USB port used for connection. The phone needs to
> >be rediscovered, and shows up on a different comm port, and people get
> >annoyed.

> The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Windows treats each USB port
> separately, so if MPT is configured on USB port #1, it won't immediately
> work on USB port #2, a common mistake/problem that I warn my clients
> about. It's the fault of Microsoft, not MPT (BVRP/Avanquest).

I think that is a lot of the problem. It happens both with USB cables and
the Bluetooth adapters. It should be handled more gracefully by MS, since
they don't have the same problem with many other USB devices. It could
also be handled more gracefully by BVRP, which has (or had) limitations
that prevented them from using legitimate ports at higher numbers. If the
phone appears on any port, it should be usable, but they have tied
themselves to using the comm port that was previously configured.
F12 shows detailed phone communication, F6 leads to a port selection.

My newest computer has four USB ports on the back, and two on the front.
My friend's laptop has two ports on each side.
Plenty of opportunity to misplace what should be a plug-and-play device.

No problem with flash drives, hard drives, GPS, MP3 players... just MPT and
maybe GPRS.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

In article <[email protected]>, John Navas wrote:

> The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Windows treats each USB port
> separately, so if MPT is configured on USB port #1, it won't immediately
> work on USB port #2, a common mistake/problem that I warn my clients
> about. It's the fault of Microsoft, not MPT (BVRP/Avanquest).

Right. IT support is a huge portion of my day job, and Microsoft's hare-brained
USB lunacy drives me insane.


--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:

> No problem with flash drives, hard drives, GPS, MP3 players... just MPT and
> maybe GPRS.

I've seen the problem with some printers...


--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

Steven J. Sobol <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've seen the problem with some printers...

Would that be the bidirectional printer/scanner type?
I think I've rearranged some HP photosmart and office-all printers without
difficulty. No problem with the Samsung Free-after-rebate laser printer.

I presumed that flash drives and external disks could move about because
they have unique IDs on them, but that's also true of a cellphone, or maybe
the IMEI or some unique identifier isn't presented at USB plug in.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5

Call me another nutter, works great on my V3I,V3 & V400 .
...
bamp

"BruceR" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Well, I'm one of those "nutters" who has no problem using MPT. Works like
> a champ via cable or BT although I usually use BT. I have the latest
> version and no problems with my v3i.
>
> [email protected] wrote:
>> I tried again and MPT sees no numbers on my SIM card. Are you 100%
>> sure it can read the SIM card numbers? If so what is the setting to
>> allow this? (Note I have GSM phone with SIM memory, not a CDMA phone
>> with no SIM).
>>
>> Also to all those nutters saying Motorola Phone Tools works OK... Here
>> is a selection of quotes from posts on this user group....
>>
>> **********************************
>> I did get my bluetooth working...tt works great. I would however like
>> to use
>> Motorola phone tools since I did purchase the dang program. I at once
>> had it
>> working for like a day about a month ago. Don't know what changed but
>> I was on
>> with tech support for like ever and they could not even get the
>> bluetooth to work.
>> **********************************
>>>> Does anyone know where I can download phone tools 4.0?
>> REPLY: It's not worth the money, unless they charge 10p for it, and
>> that's debatable
>> **********************************
>> I find the MPT package incredibly temperamental to the point of being
>> useless.
>> **********************************
>> recently got a brand new v300 phone. I also recently bought Phone
>> Tools. Once I got it installed, it worked fine...for about half
>> an hour. The next day, nothing. I've reinstalled countless times, on
>> two separate machines (and yes, I installed everything before
>> connecting the cable).
>> **********************************
>>
>> All it takes for me to crash (freeze) the software for me is to close
>> one of the windows. And it has so many process running I then have to
>> reboot as I can't find and kill them all in Task Manager.
>>
>> And then lets look at it's interface... It's dreadful. Why don't
>> Motorola pay Microsoft to write them some software? Or get the WinZip
>> team.. I think they asked the worst developer on the Lotus Notes team,
>> told him to make it as complicated and ugly as possible and then only
>> gave him one day to write it...
>>
>> All we actually need is a button for backup and restore. The backup
>> copies all the files on the phone onto the c drive (turning contacts
>> into .csv, .txt or .vcf). The restore does the opposie. Thats about
>> all we need!!!! Instead these tossers have written the worlds worst
>> and most crash prone junk. Depressing.
>
>
>

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 08:24:32 -0800, SMS <[email protected]> wrote
this with the utmost thought:

>[email protected] wrote:
>> Motorola Phone Tools is the worse software I have ever used, as well as
>> constantly crashing and I have to reboot every time I try to use it and
>> it doesn't recognize SIM Contacts.
>
>It's very unstable software. It seems to decide whether to work or not
>based on lunar tides. It's always an adventure to predict whether or not
>it will recognize your phone, and if it does, which features of the
>program will actually work during that session.

That, in my opinion and usage, is utter bollocks. A caveat that I haven't
used the software on every conceivable Windows installation available but on
98SE, 2000 Pro and XP it works fine and is stable every session. I always
install as per the recommended instructions and it works.

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 19:30:46 +0000 (UTC), [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>Steven J. Sobol <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I've seen the problem with some printers...
>
>Would that be the bidirectional printer/scanner type?
>I think I've rearranged some HP photosmart and office-all printers without
>difficulty. No problem with the Samsung Free-after-rebate laser printer.
>
>I presumed that flash drives and external disks could move about because
>they have unique IDs on them, but that's also true of a cellphone, or maybe
>the IMEI or some unique identifier isn't presented at USB plug in.

That's actually because support for drives is based on _shared_ access,
whereas cell phones are essentially _dedicated_ access devices, a legacy
of their modem heritage. Support for multiple connections on dedicated
devices is non-trivial, and likely problematic due to the Law of
Unintended Consequences. Shared connection support in the cell phone
could be a solution except that it would greatly complicate design of
the cell phone, and obsolete existing software (including Windows).

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:56:35 +0000 (UTC), "Steven J. Sobol"
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>In article <[email protected]>, John Navas wrote:
>
>> The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Windows treats each USB port
>> separately, so if MPT is configured on USB port #1, it won't immediately
>> work on USB port #2, a common mistake/problem that I warn my clients
>> about. It's the fault of Microsoft, not MPT (BVRP/Avanquest).
>
>Right. IT support is a huge portion of my day job, and Microsoft's hare-brained
>USB lunacy drives me insane.

This comes from its roots in serial device support. If you really want
to blame someone, you'll have to go all the way back to original
designers of serial devices.

--
Best regards, FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS:
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>