>>>>>>My current question is on another branch of this thread, and has to do with sending email. If you know of a solution, I'd be glad to hear it. Otherwise, I'll run the update when I get home and see what happens.
>>>>>
>>>>>What ISP are you using for your email?
>>>>
>>>>I am using Earthlink, and I have an old netcom address "ix.netcom.com". I succeeded in sending one email, so I imagine that the automatic setup worked. The send/receive process reports no errors, unless I try it where the signal is weak. The error message saying "invalid recipients" appears in my inbox.
>>>
>>>Make sure your settings are correct & that you dont have anything sitting in the outbox, and try typing in another email address to send it too. I suppose this is something that might be in the update - I never had to do the update because the 6600's already have it.
>>>Also, make sure that it's POP3 that you're trying to do..its a bit tricky ... you have to goto the top where is says 'inbox' and exand all that out..make sure its not trying a picture mail or somethin....
>>
>>The version of the download firmware was the same as what I had, but I upgraded it anyway. Of course, it wiped my account, so I created a new one. This time, unlike last time, it couldn't get the mail server settings automatically. I put the values in from what I have on the desktop. When I tried to send/receive, it said the server name was wrong. I looked on support at earthlink.net, and it gave a slightly different outgoing mail server name. I changed it accordingly. It gave me some error message about the certificate, and asked me if it should continue anyway, and I did. I successfully received the test message I sent myself from the desktop.
>>
>>Then I tried to write a message. I got the same "invalid recipients" as before. After trying one or two ways to get it sent, I somehow made it so it won't send. I have a group of mail folders named "netcom" (the name of my account on the pocketPC) and other folders called "Outlook E-Mail" containing the folders I have on my desktop outlook. When I select "netcom" and write a message, it puts it in the "Outlook E-Mail" outbox. Then the "send/receive" menu item is disabled.
>>
>>So I'm going backwards. I suppose I should now download the instructions for pocket outlook which I saw somewhere (I can't remember where).
>
>This morning I was got back to where I was, where I would send a message and it would tell me I had invalid addresses. I looked at the Pocket Outlook instructions on pocketpc.com and it mentioned the address verification through LDAP and the errors it can produce. I removed the account from "verify names..." under tools-options-address, leaving that box blank. I also did a soft-reset, just in case. I'm getting the same result - "invalid addresses".

After looking on your suggested site - www.pdaphonehome.com, it seems that my emailing error is caused by my ISP refusing anonymous emails from a different ISP's server. In this case, Earthlink isn't dealing with emails that come from a sprintpcs server. The specific fixes mentioned there had to do with replacing the "outgoing mail server" with the one for sprintpcs, or with turning on authentication. My attempts to do that stuff got nowhere. Part of that process was setting up my sprintpcs email.

I called Sprint tech support (after talking to other departments about accessories). The "level 2 data tech" I eventually reached was very helpful. He straightened out my sprintpcs password and pointed out that instead of fiddling with "outgoing mail server" I should just select the sprintpcs account when writing an email message from my netcom/Earthlink account. That worked. I can even go to sprintpcs.com and make my netcom/Earthlink address appear as the sender, so people will reply to that.

I should say that this tech support guy was knowledgeable and helpful, and talked to me as long as I wanted. I was only on hold for a few minutes total when talking to various Sprint people at around 5:00 PM EDT. It did take a couple of tries for them to realize that I needed to talk to this guy.

One odd thing about Sprint: they are bad at selling accessories for their PDA phones. They don't seem to recognize it as a profit center. Many things are unavailable or out of stock when you call them to buy a phone. Their stores don't have PDA stuff, and some items are missing from their accessories website. I still don't know where to get a spare battery. Maybe a computer store.