Saved by a paperclip

On Thursday, the most expensive MP3player that I have ever bought refused to work as my mobile phone as well. Hmmph MP3 player working as a phone ? Yah, that's the O2 Atom I am using.

I broke 8 stylus because of my butter fingers

You see, on the 8th of August 2006 (that's a easy to remember date for the fellow patriots to remember right?), I was shopping for a mp3 player that can display a full playlist. However, none of the MIC Ipod clones could do that. My Nokia 6610 keypad was already malfunctioning, and I still have a burning desire to get another PDA after my old Palm III gave up the ghost 2 years ago.

PocketMusic is a clone of Winamp, my favorite MP3 player.

All the ingredients of the perfect storm were ready. So I purchased an O2 Atom, a PDA phone. As the term PDA phone suggest, it's a good PDA with lousy phone functions. I got Pocket Music installed and slapped a 2GB mini-SD card to get my 2GB MP3 player that can show a full playlist. Therefore, 8 August 2006 went down into my history books for the day that I spent the most $$$ on an impulse purchase.

Fast forward back to 8th May, the O2 Atom started to give me problems. The headphone jack was malfunctioning. It thought that a headphone was plugged in, so it could not take any calls without a hands-off kit.

I went around look for a shop which can get it fixed but none stocked replacement parts for the O2 Atom. That's what you get for buying a non-main stream phone. Getting desperate, I started to look for new PDA phones but I was trying very hard not to because I wanted to look at the upcoming G-phones first.

This is unrelated but I can't resist. Ta da !The annoying Microsoft Office 97 paper clip which is a classic example of bad UI design.

And so I went for the best cure all solution of all, performing a google search in hope of a solution. Well, I got what I wanted in 5 minutes. There is a post in a forum that pinpoints the problem to a stuck switch inside the earphone jack. By inserting a paper clip into the correct spot, the problem is resolved!

The morale of the story is ...

• Don't buy a non-main stream phone
• PDA phones is a PDA with phone functions, not a phone with PDA functions
• Google is your best friend
• And lastly, keep a paper clip around you always, you will never know when it can save the day !