So I've been REALLY busy with school (and now work) the past few months and havent really had time to "play" with my phone as much as I'd like...(or be active on here) but unfortunately for the past 3 months or so my phone has been sort of wacky.

I tried a trial version of PhoneAlarm, which I suspect might be the cause of *some* of my problems. After the trial expired my notifications and alarms were out of wack, so I ended up uninstalling it completely, only to realize there were still some irregularities (yes, I re-enabled my standard notifications).

Here my small list of problems I currently have, some of which I can fix, others, I'm not so sure.
-- After sending a SMS message, I get the SMS notification icon on the top of my screen, as well as a popup on the bottom (dismissable via soft key) saying "Message sent". If I don't touch it myself it will go away (including the icon on the top, and the popup) after about 10 seconds. I believe there is a registry fix for this issue.
-- Sounds are weird sometimes. For example, the "Volume" buttons on the left, it usually makes the default "Volume" sound, with the highest being slightly higher pitched than the middle and lower settings. The end button also makes a sound when pressed. I've found that recently (at seemingly random times) my sounds on the phone (everything except the actual VOICES during phone call) are slightly higher pitched (specifically the end button, notification sound, volume tones) and sound off. Another possibly related issue is that the digits have all "short tones" instead of the regular length. I'm not sure if its always been like this or it just started.
-- Outbound smtp for e-mail was broken ("Your message(s) could not be sent, check that you have network coverage or service, then try again") -- I actually just fixed this issue today (after about a month or so of not having outbound emails) by applying a microsoft cab hotfix.
-- Storage Card problems galore. I believe I have either a 4 or 8gb microSD card in my phone right now. Haven't removed it in a LONGGG time (5 months). It seems that it somehow has named it "Storage Card2", and ALL my programs which are on the storage card no longer work within the "Programs" folder. Also, all my pictures from my phone camera are not viewable in the camera program. I can still navigate to Storage Card on the device, but now everything seems to have defaulted to Storage Card 2. this is REALLY annoying.
-- In general, I have a bunch of programs on the phone that I don't need or don't work.

Unfortunately, I recently moved back from college, so I'm going to have a hard time finding my USB cable for the phone. So I'm asking you guys since you're the only other geeks out there with the Saga.. should I do a hard reset and hope most if not all of these issues will be fixed?

Also, would it be possible to backup my contacts to my SD card? (I think vol.pim works? but im not sure), what about my MMS and SMS messages, could those be backed up or not (if not, i can save teh pix in teh mms on my storage card, and sms isnt a huge deal).

I havent hard reset the device yet, so im nervous ill lose stuff and/or have a hard time getting it back on teh network.

let me know!

windows mobile smart phones (and Palm os too so i suspect pretty much all) are basically 2 computers in one. One computer handles the radio for the cell phone the other runs the OS for the PIM/PDA side of things.

A hard reset basically nukes the windows mobile side of things only and doesn't touch the radio firmware or settings. So no need to sweat getting back on the phone network.

my 2 cents:

USB cable- whats that? laughing. I've used smart phones for like 6-8 years and I basically never use the USB cable.

First thing I'd recommend is finding some sort of OTA (over the air) contact sync that works for you. MS exchange is pretty much the big dog but if you dont work for a company that runs an exchange server then that's no good for you- so maybe once you get into the workforce. in the mean time I'd look into google sync. you can get a free email account from gmail and then try their googly sync on it. Basically they mimic a windows exchange server and it's all free. Your contacts will all sync in the backround to and from googles servers- always availible on the phone or any web browser in the world all the time. Change one and the other's change too. If you like MS outlook too I beleive they now support that too on pc's. BE CAREFULL as I'm not sure if when you set that up now if it will try to overwrite the phone or if it will pull the contacts off the phone and put them back up on the cloud. Besides access anywhere on your phone or any browser if you need to nuke your phone you just set it back up and it will effortlessly download back to the phone. that will sync up your contacts, calendar and email.
Google Mobile | Sync for your Windows Mobile phone

another option is microsoft myphone- it's a free beta and basically will do over the air backups (and restores) of the contacts, calendar, AND sms (maybe mms too)- but i dont think email.
My Phone
I dont use this but sounds like might be exactly what YOU want since it will do your sms.

another similar option for FILES ONLY is live mesh.
www.mesh.com

to me, I'm not all that into sms so i use my company's exchange server (via goodlink) and live mesh. I can nuke (hard reset my phone) and get all my files, contacts, calendars, and emails back with about 5 minutes of work (and then probably an hour more downloading after I set it all back up). WIth that anything I touch on the phone automatically syncs back up to my pc's.

The phone itself- it's a windows OS- reinstalling the OS (which is basically a hard reset) is your friend and almost a necessity on a regular basis- laughing.


WHenever i get a new phone I try out all the free trials and see what i might want. Then I hard reset to clear all the other left overs of free trials (it's windows so NOTHING uninstalls like it should- laughing at MS again). Anything I want to install i put in a folder on my SD card that I check to remind myself to install them all and so I have the cab's handy quickly after a hard reset.


Dont forget the KB cab to fix the sending email issue.

I think the sent SMS notifications is something you did- either a reg edit or you selected "request delivery notification" under the messaging account options for text messages. Maybe one of the trials set that. That's not the default setting.

there's an issue with the storage card on this phone (and I think ALL WM phones)- if you install programs that run themselves or in the background to the card. Basically if you install something that will automatically run onto the card- the phone wakes up and tries to access the card instantly. But the thing is WM sucks about multitasking and prioritizing things right after wake up. So it doesn't actually start the SD card driver back up in time. So you have a program that the OS things should start right Now on the card. THe OS wakes and tries to run the program on the card and THEN tries to wake up the card. It fubars the card settings. So next time- after you hard reset- anything that might start on it's own you should ONLY install to the phone.
Myself- I keep no data on the phone- I save it ALL to the card (you can even set the camera to save all photos and videos right to the card). THen I install ALL programs to the phone itself. Avoids the card issue and if i hard reset all my files are right where i left them. And avoids any space issues of trying to keep files on the phone itself.

all just my opinion so take it for what it's worth. good luck!

Thanks I'll probably work on this tomorrow when I'm home from work.

Once every month or so, my storage card does that. I've installed only games + have the opera/messaging cache onto the card. I'll open up the file browser and there will be a folder marked storage card just about the actual storage card (labeled#2). Because it's just cache files that the phone is trying to access/store, i find that deleting the "storage card" folder and soft resetting fixes the issue.

There is a regedit that you can tweak that adjusts the timeout on the card, but after playing with the different possibilities, i've found that not having any programs running from the card seems to be the best possible option. cards mounting and unmounting themselves is an issue for many wm phones, often tied to background services running and trying to access the card while the phone is sleeping. Sprite Backup caused me massive issues with the card when i accidentally installed it to the card and not the device.

IF you decide to hard reset, I'm going to recommend you do it twice before reloading your stuffs. Both times i've hard reseted (too many installs/removals n such of iffy programs) it didnt seem to take on the first try and left me with an even buggier install. Good luck, a hard reset is only painfull the first time you ahve to do it. after that it's just annoying. I keep all my cab files in a folder on the memory card, so reinstall is easy (and they're so small you can fit oodles of them without using much space).