My Night with Abdul

I've been itching to replace my clunky Samsung pocket PC phone. It has neither voice recognition nor Bluetooth, both of which are really handy on the Merritt Parkway, and I really want to text message (to whom, besides my daughter Kate, and Al Gore, I don't know, but I want to.) I want an external keyboard and live Internet and emails like everyone with a Blackberry has. I really wanted to get a Treo, but not for $600. Then I saw it--in David Pogue's column one Thursday--the Motorola Q--$199 and it does all of the above, and is as sleek as a Razr phone. It was only a matter of time, and my time came last week in NH. The battery on my Samsung finally gave way. To replace it would have cost $130, and what better place to buy a new phone for just an additional $70, but the land of "Live Free or Die?" The "Q" was mine, and with no sales tax. I could talk with Connecticut and New Orleans while in NH. The only thing missing was the sync, but I knew that when I got back to the office I'd be able to get the contacts, calendar, and notes on my desktop synced into my beautiful new Q.

Hence my night with Abdul Aziz. After arriving in the office following a two and a half week hiatus, I became obsessed with syncing. I installed the Active Sync 4.1 software that came with the Q, but nothing happened. You know the thing about pushing and, when that doesn't work, instead of pulling, pushing harder? I was starting to realize why David Pogue, although he couldn't say enough good things about the Q's hardware, couldn't say enough bad things about its Windows pocket PC software. It was now almost 6:00 pm, and I had been pushing harder all day with no sync in sight. Who you gonna' call? I dialed Microsoft (after a good half hour spent trying to find a phone number.) I got connected to a live person who offered me a deal--for no money, he would lead me to a website where I could work through my problem step by step, (which I had been doing all day) or, for $35, (which won’t even buy a decent pair of shoes) I could talk to a person.

Then came Abdul. For the next three hours he methodically and sanely eliminated each potential home wrecker in the syncing process. Finally he diagnosed Microsoft Outlook as the culprit. (For some reason this elimination process resulted in Al Green's "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart" being synced to my Q. "Have you ever heard Al Green?" I asked Abdul. "Oh yeah!" he replied. They have Al Green in India?) Then Abdul asked me if I knew David Pogue (because I had a note on my calendar to call David Pogue to speak at CLC's October Trendspotting symposium.) It turns out that Abdul also reads Pogue's column in the New York Times as well as his blog. (And I bet he gets a lot more out of it than I do!) So now it's 9:13 pm and we know the problem is Outlook. Abdul makes a copy of all of my 1113 contacts, etc. and starts to re-install MS Office. Then the computer asks us to insert the Microsoft Office CD. (I guess it’s not just Apple who gets proprietary about their software.) Do you think I can find the CD? "No problem," says Abdul, "I'll call you back tomorrow when you'll have the CD." And damned if he doesn't, and right on time. Except, I, of course, am not back in the office yet when he calls promptly at 2:00, so Jan Gluz tells him to give me 20 minutes. He did. He re-installed MS Office. My desktop computer and my Q synced. I once again have everyone's phone number with me at all times, and I know where I'm supposed to be going when. And it is all because of Abdul Aziz at Microsoft India, where it has been raining for the past two weeks, who has never been to Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and who likes to read murder mysteries. I'm glad it’s a small world!