Hello Impressionistas! My story and my heartfelt thanks!!

Greetings everyone,

I am moved to tell my story because of the great experience I've had here. Thank you to everyone who maintains and contributes to this site. I'm so enthusiastic about my experience I would have bought a Samsung-Impression.org t-shirt, and worn it, if they were sold on the site!

Here's my story, for those who care to know it. I have a Samsung Gravity Touch (T669) with T-Mobile service. One day, my mobile Google Maps stopped registering the GPS signal, saying "location unavailable." That service came pre-loaded with the phone, and had worked OK since day 1. (There's a good chance I made it stop working by my hacking around in the internals.) The subscription TeleNav service registered the GPS just fine.

I spoke to a T-Mobile tech support person for nearly an hour, without success, and she finally said she would create a "trouble ticket" and someone would get back to me in a few days. I forgot about the problem for a month, and then phoned back. The same thing happened: a long conversation, the creation of a trouble ticket, a promise that someone would get back to me shortly, and then nothing. If it represents a systemic problem, it's a poor business practice on T-Mobile's part that will catch up with them eventually.

Anyway, I decided to try to fix it myself, even though I am far from a computer whiz. I noticed a report suggesting the T669 could be hacked in much the same way as the Impression. Thus I was led to this site. Some of the T669's internal menus are in different places, and the process for changing volume didn't seem to work the same, but otherwise I had tremendous success. I now have a newer version of Google Maps, with GPS restored (and even optimized!). And a better browser. And a bunch of cool games.

I am very impressed by how organized, comprehensive and user-friendly this site is. I consider those who have worked on it to be the best sort of public servants--those who are not in it for the pay.

Thanks again!
John

Thanks for your kind words about the forum John.  The members appreciate your post.