Posts Tagged ‘n95’

Chit chat

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Wow. Has it really been a month since I posted? Time flies and all that…

If you haven’t heard of identi.ca by now you must be living under a rock. Although my Twitter usage has been, well, zero for a while now I’ve made sure that my nick has been registered at identi.ca. Who knows – I might even get around to using it…

Of course the age-old problem is that I need to maintain accounts on Twitter and identi.ca (and all the others, but I’ve ditched most of those) whilst they remain walled gardens.

Much has been said already by others about identi.ca, so I won’t rehash any of that here. Of course they get brownie points for being Open Source and supporting OpenID. Once they add SMS and API support I think it will really start to take off.

Whilst browsing feeds today I came across the announcement for Nokia Chat. Initial reaction: oh great, another IM/Twitter clone. Their USP is the location information. If your phone has a GPS (like mine) it knows where you are, and with Nokia Chat you can let others know that. Nice, but there’s still something missing… So I read the FAQ and found this little nugget:

Can I connect with my friends on other IM services?
You can add friends who have Google Talk™ and other XMPP/Jabber based IM services to your friend list, see their statuses, and chat with them.

Now that’s a win. Chat with location services that’s not in a walled garden. I’m going to download the client and see what it is like.

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Running Naked

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

After much procrastination, and then frustration – the nice weather arrives, I want to get out there and do things, and I go and get sunburnt effectively curtailing physical activities for a while – I finally dragged myself out for a run again this morning.

I thoroughly enjoy running, although I admit to being a bit of a fair weather runner, but actually gettting out to do it can be a bit of a performance. First I need to locate all my running gear, then my pedometer, then my listening device of choice which of course needs updating with new tracks or podcasts, and while I’m at it I might set up a new playlist or tweak an existing one. Before I know it at least 30 minutes has passed since I made the decision to go out and actually getting close to leaving the house.

This morning I was better prepared: I knew where all my running gear was, and I deliberately chose to forgo the technological accoutrements that I normally take. No X300 Sports Tracker, no iPod Nano, no Nokia N95. I didn’t even take a watch.

Without all that junk, I found the experience quite liberating. I wasn’t worrying about my current speed, or which track was currently playing, and without the phone there were no other distractions. I just ran, and I definitely feel I ran better for it. Obviously as a card carrying geek I love the toys, and I love tracking my stats and performance, but it is easy to forget that they really don’t matter.

I’m not saying I’m going to be running ‘naked’ everytime, but I will be doing it again and I thoroughly recommend you try it as well. Just grab your trainers and go.

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Media Management Misery

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

I’m sure I’ll get some heat for this, but here goes…

Why is managing media so painful under Linux?

I have a significant amount of audio on my laptop, and a phone that is a fairly capable music player. However if I want to copy some of that audio to my phone, I have to resort to manually copying and arranging the files, as well as ensuring the tags are right (as the N95 relies on these). It’s an awkward, but manageable process that I don’t do so often.

Podcasts are a different story though. My phone is capable of downloading podcasts itself, but they are slow to download and awkward to manage. Copying podcasts from the laptop to the phone can be fraught with peril.

By contrast I had to reset my daughter’s iPod today after I tried to manage it under Linux.  The reset and re-population through iTunes was painless. I know it is because Apple control the software and hardware, but it can’t be that hard to get right can it?

Don’t even get me started on photos and movies…

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Posted in Linux, Listening, Viewing | 13 Comments »

Why pay more?

Monday, January 7th, 2008

A couple of years ago my mother bought us a dedicated photo printer – a Canon SELPHY DS810. It’s a nice enough printer, and it does exactly what it says on the tin (i.e. print photos). Being able to connect it directly to my camera or just use memory cards can be so convenient. I’ve even printed via IR from my phone before, which leads me to…

The other day I wanted to print a photo from my N95, which manages to support every function under the sun except IR printing. In all fairness it is a 5 Megapixel camera, so the image would be a bit large (and therefore slow) for IR, but still. The N95 does support Bluetooth printing, but Canon only supports their BU20 Bluetooth module which retails for upwards of £40, and I’ve never cared enough to get one. Fortunately the N95 also supports USB printing, so my immediate problem was solved.

When I ordered my N95 (and N800) I realised I’d misplaced my Bluetooth dongle so I promptly ordered another one off eBay for less than £4 delivered (and then just as promptly found my other one). It arrived this morning and on a whim I plugged it into the DS810 – lo and behold, it worked. I’m sure my other dongle never worked (although I just tried it, and it seemed to), but I had let myself be brainwashed by Canon into believing that only their (overpriced) offering would work and didn’t bother to research alternatives.

Lesson learned.

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Nokia N800

Monday, December 31st, 2007

After a rather late (or more accurately early) night, I was awoken by a text from my friend asking when my Nokia N800 was arriving. I forewent answering him in favour of more sleep, only to be woken again, but this time by a delivery man with the item in question.

After upgrading it to OS2008 (thanks mrben), I started playing with it properly. So far I’m loving it, but I’ve not done that much with it besides surfing, mail and Skype but then it is an internet tablet.

Things I would like to see:

  • Being to synchronise contacts with my N95 or Evolution
  • The webcam being supported by Skype/Flash

Are there any apps I should check out?

On a semi-related note yesterday I debranded my N95 and updated it to the latest firmware.

Oh, and of course this was posted from the N800! :)

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Posted in Browsing, Linux | 7 Comments »

N95, Flickr, and you

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

The photo in my previous post was taken with my shiny N95. The N95 is capable of uploading photos to Flickr (and other services), but when I tried to configure it it kept rejecting my credentials. It turns out you need to use a special one (not your normal Flickr/Yahoo! ones) which you can get by visiting their N95 configuration page.

Once I set my credentials accordingly, it all worked fine. I wonder if I’ll start using Flickr more now…

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