jcuervo's Journal: Sorry for the inconvenience

My Sidekick II has been unable to get a decent GPRS link for the last two or three days. I called T-Mobile, they said there's an outage in my area, gave me 50 bonus minutes for complaining, and apologized for the inconvenience.

Now, I like T-Mobile. Even in the wake of Paris Hilton getting pwned. They get free coffee or something, they're always cool people to deal with. I could get seriously loaded, call up half-coherent, ask something like "duuuuuuuude, how weird is it that our ears are on the sides of our headdddddddds, and our MOUTHS! Our mouths are all sideways 'n stuff, and I wanna punch God in the face", and get a response along the lines of "haha, right on, dunno what you're drinking but I'll take two, is there anything else I can help you with today? Okay, thank you for choosing T-Mobile, [have a nice day]".

It seems like it's not so much GPRS is down, as Danger's servers are... For those unfamiliar with the nature of the Sidekick II, there is a very small section of the main screen (and any application that doesn't do fullscreen) that serves as a network connection status icon. One, then two, then three dots arrange into a pyramid, and then into a slick-looking "G" (for "GPRS"). As far as I can tell, one dot means GPRS, and hanging after that point means something's wrong with Danger's Sidekick servers; I've been stuck on two dots.

The My T-Mobile helpy thingy for my Sidekick reads:

Q: The Service Connectivity Indicator (the dots and G next to the antenna icon) is stuck on 1 dot.
A: The device is having trouble connecting to the data network. Turn the device off and on to register on the T-Mobile network again. If the problem still occurs, contact Customer Care at 1-800-937-8997 or dial 611 from your Sidekick device.

Q: The Service Connectivity Indicator is stuck on 2 dots.
A: The device has connected to the data network, but is not getting a response from the Sidekick servers. Try turning the device off and then on.

Q: The Service Connectivity Indicator is stuck on 3 dots.
A: Sidekick services are not allowing users to login at the moment. Try turning the device off and then on.

Come to think of it, one wonders if this actually has something to do with the whole Sidekick security incident that's been so thoroughly plastered around the web, and two or three times, by my count, on Slashdot.

Anyway, even trying to get to the "desktop interface" (what you've been reading so much about with Paris Hilton's account lately -- the web interface where all the Sidekick's data is remotely stored) gives me a Connection refused.

Interesting... but a major bummer. I didn't throw down $800 [0] for a cell phone, I wanted to check my email and talk to people on AIM with a QWERTY keyboard. *sigh*

Here's hoping they get it fixed soon.

[0] Sidekick II == $250 - $50 mail-in rebate - the $500 deposit I had to throw down when I gave my ex-girlfriend[1] my old cell phone for her own account.

[1] I could seriously go off on a rant while this is still fresh in my mind, but I'll spare you -- I have other places to vent online. :-)