I'm a long time computer user. I was comfortable playing around in DOS, then most Windows versions. I'm not a "techie" but I'm more computer literate than most (maybe a semi-geek).

I just got the HTC Imagio with Windows Mobile 6.5 and I feel intimidated. I read these forums and people talk about adding this or that software which may or may not be fully compatible, making registry changes, disabling this or that, etc. I look at the phone and it's such an itty, bitty computer that I'm afraid of really messing something up.

Is there a "primer" somewhere, a "windows mobile for dummies" that I can read through to make me more at ease with my phone? Just about everythng I read assumes that the reader has lots of prior experience with these phones.

Thanks for any help.

DAB

Well from first read of your post I'd definitely say be less afraid of messing up something. If you do you can hard reset back to defaults easy enough (worse case). Also to ease that I would highly suggest something like spb backup or sprite backup to do backups to a flash (guessing the phone you bought has microSD which is what most do now a days).

If you do a small bit of searching on hofo here you will find plenty of good how-to's for various tasks (big and small).

I just entered the world of smartphones recently myself with the Touch Pro. I know what you mean about things being a little intimidating, and I'd imagine more so since the Imagio is such a new device, there isn't a lot of material out there for it yet.

The good thing is that Winmo is an OS, and though there are differences from build to build and device to device, many principles remain the same.

Things you read about the TP, TP2, etc, etc may very well apply to other HTC devices. Every time you have a question, I'd suggest googling it, and searching it here. Also, you can try out sites like ppcgeeks and xda-developers which are more smartphone-centric than Hofo (though the atmosphere and community here on Hofo is preferable for me personally).

After you've searched and read, feel free to post threads asking questions. If you have any general questions that are on your mind now, you can post them in this thread and I can try to answer or point you in the right direction.. or (better) someone more experienced will come along and answer it.

We all started out noob, and it's nothing to be embarassed about. Just do your homework, then ask questions.

Also, just to reassure you.. you have to be somewhat reckless to really do any real damage.

I think you're being too hard on yourself. I've been using WinMo for nearly a decade, and I don't do half the stuff I read about, particularly any of the "performance enhancing" registry edits. ("Oh, man, you've GOT so change the 'glyph cache' in the registry from 8,192 to 16,384- it really sppeds things up!"- that kind of stuff really doesn't do much if anything.)

It IS an itty bitty computer, so treat it like your home computer- you probably don't run half the software on it you've read about, or hack its registry either.

WinMo is pretty good about not letting you screw things up completely- most incompatible software refuses to install, installing software designed for older devices generally generates a warning message. So, just like your PC at home, if someone mentions a program you want to try, go ahead and try it. If you don't like it, or it acts weirdly, uninstall it- no harm done.

Thanks, guys. I guess it's more psychological than anything else.



Thanks for this. I read all the enthusiastic entries about how awesome this or that hack is, or this or that add-on program is, and I wonder if I'm a dummy for not investigating and pursuing each one.

What I'd like to accomplish is to just set up the phone with the "best" available software in a very stable environment and then just LEAVE it like that and not change anything else. Two things I'm investigating now are whether I want/need any of the SPB products (shell, PIM, editor), and the best way to set up the browser (IE, Opera Mobile, Opera Mini, Skyfire, etc,). Of course there doesn't seem to be any agreement on what's best.

DAB

It'll never happen.

First, you'll never find "the best", 'cause "the best" is always around corner.
Second, you will change things, because despite what your telecomm provider or phone vendor tries to tell you, you do know what you like on/off your phone.
Third, as stable as different versions of WinMo are, someone is always going to find one or 10 critical problems that must...be...fixed.

But this is all the more reason why we love WinMo phones.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I have at least a small amount of faith in the phone OEMs- they want to create decent phones to better their reputations and increase word-of-mouth advertising. Some of these "wonder hacks" are years old. If they actually worked, they'd be incorporated into newer models. It's not like HTC, etc. doesn't follow what the user community is doing.




Try them all, note your favorites, then for maximum stability (since not all third-party programs uninstall themselves cleanly, just like desktop programs!) hard reset the device back to "out-of-the-box" condition and only install your favorites.