New (First!) smart phone (OT_

[Stan Goodman]

As per Subject, this is my first smart phone, and I am engaged in trying 
to discover if I myself as smart as it is; the outlook is bleak. More 
than it should be because the documentation seems to be written for a 
reader who already knows the score and needs only a bit of memory 
nudging to recall the drill. As OT as this is, I hope I can ask here for 
answers to a few questions.

The instrument is HTC Aria. The two questions that are bugging me at the 
moment are:

1) The on-screen keyboard for writing messages defeats me, because the 
"keys" are absurdly narrow, certainly more so than my fingers, and there 
is absolutely no chance that I would ever be able to peck out even a 
short coherent message with them. This suggests that there must be a way 
to type with a stylus, rather then directly with fingers. I have tried 
to use objects made of various materials, but so far nothing works. How 
do people type on these things?

2) I succeeded in telphoning to a friend this evening, to his land-line 
phone. For a while, the sound I got was quite good and distinct, but 
after a bit, it began to fade in and out, so that cconversation became 
intermittent and impossible. There is a cell-phone tower less than a 
kilometer away from my home. Is this the level of service that I have to 
look forward too? The fading suggests that the communication may be 
affected by passing vehiles; is this possiblle over such a short 
distance?
-- 
Stan Goodman
Qiryat Tiv'on
Israel