Tips and Tricks for the Ericsson T18z

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Many of these tips come directly from the T18z manual. Some of those are plainly obvious if you read the manual, while others are far less obvious. The remainder of the tips are not in the manual to the best of my knowledge. Last Updated: 07-Apr-2000

Faster Voice Mail Access

07-Apr-2000 - To access your voice mail you must dial a special number that is stored in the phone. To make life easy, Ericsson automatically assigns the voice mail phone number 1, so you only need to press and hold the 1 key to activate your voice mail. However, once you get through to your voice mail, you must enter your password and a pound sign manually. There are two ways you can automate this process. First, you can create a phone book entry called "Messages", and assign it to:

4168221123p5555#

where the "5555" is your password. The "p" is entered by pressing and holding the star key. This tells the T18z to wait until the call is connected, then pause for 2 seconds before sending the remainder of the code as DTMF tones. This approach works great, but it still requires that you assign the "Message" phone book entry to one of your speed dial numbers, or you have to manually look up the number first.

There must be an easier way, and sure enough there is (SORT OF). The T18z does not allow the entry of a PAUSE symbol (a lowercase "p") when entering the voicemail access number. However, if you can pop your SIM into someone else's phone that does, you can store a voicemail access string with a pause in it. The T18z will honor this pause, it just won't let you enter it yourself.

So, keep the "Messages" phone book entry you just created, then use a different phone to program the following as the voicemail access number:

4168221123p5555#

As above, replace the "5555" with your access code. Now when you press the 1 key you not only dial into the voice mail, you also get your password dialed automatically too. The bonus for having the "Messages" phone book entry is that the phone identifies the voice mail number as belonging to that phone book entry, and it displays "Messages" as the last dialed phone number (instead of 4168221123).

Quickly Switch from Ringer to Vibrator

25-Mar-2000 - Although the T18z does not support Profiles as does the 6190, it does have one quick shortcut that acts like a mini-profile. At the idle display screen, press and hold the CLR for about 1 second. This will switch the phone from ring mode to silent mode. If you have also activated the vibrator when the ringer is silent, then this single key press acts as a quick ringer/vibrator switch. Just press and hold CLR again to reverse the process.

Thanks to Marc Steiniger for pointing this one out to me.

Closing the Flip Without Ending a Call

24-Mar-2000 - You may close the flip without ending the current call by holding down either of the volume buttons while you do so. Opening the flip later will have no effect on your call, but closing it a second time will require you holding the volume button again. Note that opening and closing the flip does not affect calls when you have a headset connected to the phone.

Rejecting Calls when the Flip is Closed

24-Mar-2000 - You may reject a call simply by pressing the No button, but if the flip is closed this would be impossible. Opening the flip to get at the No key would answer the call. To reject the call without opening the flip, merely double-click either of the two volume buttons. Remember that rejecting a call will pass that call immediately to your Transfer on Busy call forwarding number. If you don't have that forward set up, then the caller will hear a busy signal.

Quickly Access to Your Phone Book

23-Mar-2000 - You may quickly access your phonebook either by name or by index position. The quickest way to begin scrolling through the list alphabetically is to press and hold one of the numeric keys. For example, if you press and hold the 5 key, the first entry in your phonebook beginning with a J will appear (or the next available letter if you have none beginning with J). You can now use the left and right cursor keys to move through the list alphabetically.

If you know the index position of the entry you want, then type in that number and press the pound key. Once you have done this, you may use the left and right cursor keys to move through the entries in the order that they are stored. Note that this approach works only for recalling entries on the SIM card. To recall entries from the phones native memory, press and hold the pound key until the phone logo appears on your display. Now entered the location you want, followed by the pound key.

Efficient Entry of SMS

23-Mar-2000 - That T18z does not include Predictive Text Input that you've heard about on some of the new high-end phones. However, it does offer one feature that can make typing text messages much quicker than pressing the same key multiple times. By pressing and holding the volume up button, you immediately gain access to the second letter on any key pressed. By pressing and holding the volume down button, you gain access to the third character.

Although this can be inefficient if each letter in your word alternates from the third to the second to the first letter of each subsequent key, this approach is enormously efficient when you have a string of letters that are all at the same position on each key. Take for example the word "click". To enter that on most phones you would have to press the 2 key three times in a row, followed by the 5 key three times in a row, followed by the 4 key three times in a row, followed by the 2 key three times in a row, followed by the 5 key twice in a row. That is a grand total of 14 keystrokes just to type out a five letter word.

With the T18z however, you can press and hold the the volume down button, and then press 2, 5, 4, and 2 to get the first four letters of the word "click". This particular approach does seem awkward at first, but once you become accustomed to it, I believe the you'll find it to be a very efficient method for entering text. It may not be as good as Predictive Text Input, but it's surely the next best thing. It almost makes you forget how horrible the keypad feels.

Friendly Ringtone

23-Mar-2000 - The T18z does not include any native ring tones that are particularly friendly for use at meetings, or at dinner parties. You could use the vibrator, but if you don't wish to leave the phone in your pocket then it really isn't the perfect solution. The answer to this is quite simple: just use one of your 4 user-programmable ring tones and place a single note in it. The phone will now ring by quickly beeping once every second or so.

SMS Delivery Reports

23-Mar-2000 - The phone does not apparently support the standard request for a delivery report, as does the 6190. However, the Microcell Connexions SMSC does support a secondary method of retrieving a delivery report. Simply begin your message with 111, followed immediately by your desired text. The string of three ones will not appear in the message when it arrives at its destination, but it will instruct the SMSC to send you a delivery report once the message is either picked up or deleted from the SMSC.

Text Message Manipulation

23-Mar-2000 - Many people think you have to scroll to the end of the message before you can get to the "Erase?" prompt. Not so: at any time while reading a message, simply press the CLR key to display the "Erase?" prompt.

You can scroll 3 lines at a time in a Text Message. Press the 3 key to move forward by 3 lines, and the 1 key to move back by 3 lines. You can quickly return to the beginning of a message at any time by pressing and holding the <Arrow Left> key for about 1 second.

When scrolling through your stored text messages (prior to reading one) the top line of the display shows the time the message was received if it came in today, or the date if it came in more than 1 day ago. You can quickly switch between the display of date and time by pressing the star key.

Dates and Time in the Call Log

23-Mar-2000 - By default, the T18z displays the time of messages in the Call Log if they occurred today, but it displays the date when the calls are more than a day old. This doesn't mean you can only see this one piece of information. By pressing the star key while you are looking at the Call Log, you can switch between the date and time of any entry.

Meaningful Message Addresses

23-Mar-2000 - As you may already know, Fido voice mail notifications are sent as text messages. These messages are identified as coming from "+03". Wouldn't it be nice to have more meaningful address tag for these messages, such as "Voice Mail" or "VM Notify". Well you can, and it's really quite easy.

The T18z matches message return phone number with entries in your Phone Book. All you have do is create a phone book entry with the phone numbers +03. When messages arrive from these internal Fido locations, they will be displayed on your "Inbox" list as the names given to the associated Phone Book entry.

This idea also works with address +02, which Fido uses to identify numeric messages. Create a Phone Book entry called "Call Back" for example, and assign it to the phone number +02.

Unlike the 6190, this idea does work with the +1002 address Fido uses when it sends text message from its web page.

Touch Tones During Conference Calls

23-Mar-2000 - As you well know, you can send touch tones during a call by either pressing keys on your keypad, or by choosing the Touch Tones options to send from a stored Phone Book entry. During a Conference Call however, you CANNOT send touch tones. This is apparently a security feature of GSM to ensure that you don't unwittingly pass along secure information to other callers in the group.

All is not lost however, since GSM supports the ability to have a private conversation with one of your Conference parties. While in the secure domain of a private chat, you can once again send touch tones.

Speedy Message Sending

23-Mar-2000 - Do you have one particular SMS DESTINATION to which most of your text messages are sent? I personally send almost all mine through FidoPro, so I just had to find a way to make the process as easy as possible. First of all I created a phone book entry that I call "+E-Mail". The plus symbol at the beginning is important, since it ensures that this entry is sorted to the very end of the phone book. However, note that numbers sort beyond all characters, so you may have to use a digit if you also have other phone book entries that begin with numbers.

Now to send a text message you can do it only 4 keystrokes. Just press YES, <Arrow Left>, <Arrow Left>, YES

If you have more than one number you commonly send text messages to, you can use the same technique to store multiple names at the end of your phone book.

I also have only a handful of e-mail addresses that I commonly send message to over the Gateway, and to save me typing in ".EM.SM.name@doman.com" at for each message I send, I simply store the necessary templates in my personal messages store. I then only need to find the template in the list and edit it. I add the body of the message to the pre-written header, and therefore save myself a lot of time.

Pre-stored Call Forwarding

23-Mar-2000 - Although you can activate or de-activate call forwarding from the menus, you may have numbers to which you commonly forward your phone. Since all supported technologies use code sequences that you can type in from your keyboard, it is possible to create phone book entries that perform various types of call forwarding or unforwarding. For a complete list of codes for the T18z, see GSM Features.

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