Earthling

I downloaded the applications and unzipped them to my desktop. When I ran the PC Sync installer, it asked me to connect my Kickflip to my computer via USB. The usual Windows nag screen popped up asking me to insert a drivers CD if I had one. I don't have the CD with me, so I let Windows do its thing and find it for me over the internet. Success! it found the right driver.

It did warn me that the USB driver is not Microsoft Windows XP certified. When you see that, don't freak out. It's fine to install. I accepted it anyway and carried on with the installation.

Update: I wanted to make sure, so I called Helio's tech support line, and didn't identify myself as an EarthLink customer. Heh, Sky Dayton himself is the recorded voice that greets you on the other end. I got through to a customer service agent without any wait at all, and they explained that the driver is, in fact, fine to install even though it doesn't come up as Microsoft-certified.

I went through the same installation process with Media Mover. Nothing remarkable there; it all worked like it was supposed to.

When I opened up PC Sync for the first time, it asked me for a username and password and also gave me the option to register. Hit register when you get to this for the first time. It wants you to create a *new* username/password of your choosing for the PC Sync application.

From there, it was pretty self-explanatory. In the "contacts" tab, I saw the five contacts I had entered on my Kickflip. I chose "Import" from the top menu to grab all of my contacts from Outlook. That loaded them into PC Sync, and then I chose "Upload" to move them to my phone. The fact that they all show up in red now tells me that they are all on both the phone and my PC Sync suite. Next, I moved all of my photos on to my desktop. It was nice to see them in full 1600 x 1200 glory.

Next, I wanted to see what it was like to drop music onto the Kickflip. I opened up the Helio Media Mover (HMM) application and chose the theme to the seventies show "What's Happening" from my desktop. I chose "add to queue," picked a destination (the phone's on-board memory) and then "transfer now." A few seconds later it was on my phone and I was doing the Rerun dance.

As a side note, you can create your own ringtones out of audio files but you have to convert them to a format called .mmf. There are a few free conversion utilities out there, but I don't want to recommend one until I've had a chance to try a bunch of them. If I find something that's truly simple and useful I'll post the recommendation here. If you know of a good one, please mention it in the comments below.