09/22/06 - 17:38Love my new cellphone
It took me a while to figure out how to deal with several things I wanted to apply on my new cellphone (Motorola E816/Hollywood). The CD came with the cellphone is useless, except containing a simple guide of the cellphone. It was not easy to find some information I needed, but I love this cellphone.
One of the things I like is the music player with shuffle option. I can use this as the substitute of my old MP3 player which does not have shuffle option. Now MP3 player and cellphone are combined together.
Although this cellphone is a little bigger and heavier than the one I had before, but it is still more convenient than carrying separate MP3 player and cellphone. A 128MB micro SD card came with this cellphone, which is small (so I bought a 1GB card today). But the problem was when connecting the cellphone with the computer, the card was not recognized. After trying several times, and installed some drivers downloaded from internet, it still gave an error.
Fortunately, the card came with an adapter, which can be used on my desktop which has 9-in-1 card reader. So I put out the micro SD from the cellphone (turned off), inserted into the adapter, then inserted the adapter into the slot on the desktop. The computer could read it as a removable disk, so I copied several songs onto it. Then I put the micro SD back into the cellphone, and turned the cellphone on. It recognized the files. It showed all the files together although they were stored in different folders on the disk. It does not bother me anyway.
However, it was not convenient to copy files this way. I wanted to use the USB cable came with it to transfer data directly between the cellphone and the computer. Today, after tried several times, it worked when I turned on the cellphone after it was connected with the computer. So the key is to power on the cellphone after the connection. (The drivers installed last night might also have helped.)
Then the second thing I wanted was to use my ringtones I like. The cellphone supports MP3 ringtones, but the problem was to convert the songs I like to the ringtone it could recognize. Although those MP3 files were on the micro SD disk, they did not show up when I tried to choose ringtones. I used Wavepad to cut a short piece, about the size of a ringtone, from a MP3 file (faded in the start, and fade out the end). The self-made ringtone was ready (it is just that easy). How to install this ringtone to my cellphone? I did some research using google, and tried several times, and it finally worked! This is what I did:
First, I copied the ringtone from computer to the micro SD card. Then played it on the cellphone, while it had an option to "send in message". So I tried to send it to my own phone number (itself), but it failed. Then I changed the filename, but still failed.
Second, I changed the file type to ".mid", and send it to my number again. It worked! I received the message. While reading the message, I chose to save the attached sound file, and applied it as a ringtone. Bingo! Then I tried a ".mp3" file again, it worked this time. So the failure might be due to the network problem.
Then I realized that I could also read the messages in outbox, and could also save the sound file there, even the ones that were failed to sent out! Oh, my! I should have noticed this earlier, so that I could save some money on the messages
It did not cost much though, which was worth trying.
(Update: For the failed messages in outbox, you can read, but can only save the sound file to the micro SD card. It cannot be saved to phone and applied as ringtone. Another thing, once you push the button "send", it will be sent out. You cannot cancel it).)
So the key was to view your mp3 ringtone file, and "send in message" but cancel before it actually sent out. (If you cancel in middle of sending process, it will still be sent to you.) Then go to the outbox, read the message, save the sound file to phone, while apply it as ringtone.
Now I'm happy. Then I can make many ringtones I like, and assign them to my cellphone whenever I like One ringtone costs $0.50 (out $0.25 + in $0.25). I'll probably make 20, so it will cost about $10. I think it's much cheaper than buying the ringtones online. And these ringtones are from my favorite songs, I will enjoy them.
(Last Edited at: 09/23/06 - 10:39)
six comments:
Just found that web surfing is also free for prepaid service unless you download some stuff It’s cool. The following thing is how to tether my laptop with the cellphone so I can have free internet anytime It seems some people are working on it, hope they can get it done soon
Dreamer - 09/24/06 - 20:10 - Reply to Dreamer -
Uploading ringtones free: First, turn on the “airplane mode”. Then send the sound file as a message to any number (eg. my office number), and it will definitely fail. Then go to outbox and read the message, save the sound file to phone and apply as ringtone. After that, delete the message. Finally, turn off the “airplane mode”.
Dreamer - 09/24/06 - 22:34 - Reply to Dreamer -
I have to doubt “web surfing is also free for prepaid service unless you download some stuff”. They charge by the amount of your data transfer. As you web surf, data is constantly transferred. So you’ll be charged for this. However, because of the pricing structure of Amp’d Mobile, it might look nominal.
Yasuro (URL) - 10/28/06 - 07:48 - Reply to Yasuro -
Yes, I agree. I found out that they charge a tiny amount after surfing web several times. But comparing to 10c/min, it is ignorable
Dreamer - 10/28/06 - 10:20 - Reply to Dreamer -
when you are trying to put .mmf, .mid, or .mp3 files onto your micro sd from your computer, do you copy and paste it under the first ins, second ins, or somewhere in motorola? Thanks for your help.
skatemerica7 (Email) (URL) - 11/05/06 - 16:29 - Reply to skatemerica7 - Replied by Dreamer
I copied to something like “multimedia, shared, audio”. And I created sub-folders for the music, but it seemed E816 does not support the sub-folders. It shows all the files together.
Dreamer - 11/06/06 - 10:14 - Reply to Dreamer -