Martin Heller
Contributing Writer

Stupid Verizon Cellphone Tricks

analysis
Sep 10, 20072 mins

Ed Foster mentions a number of frustrating problems with Verizon Wireless (VZW) in his August 20th blog entry. I have to agree with Ed and his readers about the clumsiness of and lack of coordination between VZW's sales and support organizations, but I have a cure for one small complaint. As I mentioned July 5th (No iSoup for You), I gave up on getting an iPhone after it was announced for a variety of reasons, a

As I mentioned July 5th (No iSoup for You), I gave up on getting an iPhone after it was announced for a variety of reasons, and upgraded my VZW phone to an LG-VX8300. This isn’t the most attractive phone in the world, but it does what I want and works where I am.

I bought a USB cable and ear buds for the phone from VZW, and I bought a 2 GB microSD card for the phone from an Internet site that had them on sale for $21. The USB cable lets you connect the phone to your computer, but only gives you access to the music directory for purposes of downloading music to the phone from Windows Media Player or VCAST Music Manager.

You don’t, however, need to spend 25 cents a picture to transfer your photographs, no matter what VZW tech support says. It’s just that the USB cable is no help.

If you want access to the picture, video, and sound directories, the solution is simple. Power down your phone and remove the microSD card. Put the microSD card into its SD adapter sleeve, and put that into your computer. Then, assuming that you use Windows and want your pictures, either use the photo manager or Windows Explorer to copy or move your photos from the memory card onto your PC. You can also move video, music, and sounds around, but be prepared for issues if you try to copy DRM-protected music to your phone via the memory card.

Martin Heller

Martin Heller is a contributing writer at InfoWorld. Formerly a web and Windows programming consultant, he developed databases, software, and websites from his office in Andover, Massachusetts, from 1986 to 2010. From 2010 to August of 2012, Martin was vice president of technology and education at Alpha Software. From March 2013 to January 2014, he was chairman of Tubifi, maker of a cloud-based video editor, having previously served as CEO.

Martin is the author or co-author of nearly a dozen PC software packages and half a dozen Web applications. He is also the author of several books on Windows programming. As a consultant, Martin has worked with companies of all sizes to design, develop, improve, and/or debug Windows, web, and database applications, and has performed strategic business consulting for high-tech corporations ranging from tiny to Fortune 100 and from local to multinational.

Martin’s specialties include programming languages C++, Python, C#, JavaScript, and SQL, and databases PostgreSQL, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database, Google Cloud Spanner, CockroachDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, and Couchbase. He writes about software development, data management, analytics, AI, and machine learning, contributing technology analyses, explainers, how-to articles, and hands-on reviews of software development tools, data platforms, AI models, machine learning libraries, and much more.

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