My First Venture Into The World Of Macs
I’ve been purely a Windows user for the last 15 years but back in January I started to think about maybe purchasing a Mac to see what they were like. This was round about the time I started using my iPhone as my main device, and how well MobileMe worked with it.
Two weeks ago I decided to do it and purchased a white MacBook, I would have liked one of the new aluminum ones but couldn’t justify spending an extra £200 on something that I might not like. So off I went to the Apple Store in the Trafford Centre, Manchester, spent 15 minutes talking to a very helpful guy there who talked me through some of the pre-installed software and had a demo on one of the in store MacBook. I did mention that I had also been considering the 13” aluminum model. As soon as I said it I thought “you idiot, now I’m gonna get the hard sell to go for the more expensive once and I’ll have to listen to why it’s so much better”. I waited and waited but it didn’t happen. He did briefly mention the differences between the two, but never tried to get me to spend more money than I had planned to do. This was a nice refreshing change from if I had been shopping in PC World or Curries where I would have had to listen them talking shit to try and get me to buy what they wanted me to have.
I’ve had the MacBook now for 2 weeks and I love it, I wish I had bought one a few years ago. I had been concerned that some of my hardware might not work with it. A few things haven’t such as TV Tuner and Nokia Digital Pen but I never expected those to work because of the software they use, everything else has worked fine, including the Sony Reader which I didn’t thin would work with DRM’d books but it does.
The bundled software beats anything I’ve previously had out of the box on a Windows machine, iLife 09 is a fantastic suite of applications. One of the things I was pleased with when I first turned it on was no crapware. It was so pleasant to just turn it on and be greeted with a nice blank desktop. Nothing like when I’ve bought Windows laptops in the past, when I turn them on for the first time my initial thought it “OMG how much crap is on here, its going to take me ages to delete it all, and even then the registry will still be left full of crap, fuck it, it would be quicker to wipe it clean and do a fresh install of Windows.”
I haven’t found anything that I can’t do on the Mac that I did with Windows, all my frequently used programs either have a Mac version or I’ve found an alternative. Other than when I’m at work I have hardly touched a Windows PC in the last 2 weeks and I’m not missing their clunky interface and slow shutdown speeds at all.
A Week With The iPhone As My Only Mobile Phone
After network unlocking my iPhone last week I started to use it more as an actual phone, rather than just as an iPod Touch with an always on internet connection. This made me aware once again of the faults and restrictiveness of the iPhone, so I set about looking for ways to overcome them. Once I found ways round most of what bugged me about the iPhone I decided to use it as my primary phone for a week to see how well I coped with it.
My main gripes with the iPhone and the solutions I used to get round these limitations are listed below, all of them require jailbreaking, so out of the box with just apps from the app store the iPhone is still a POS in my opinion and there is no way I would be able to use one as my main device.
Copy and Paste – I have used copy and paste for years on mobile phones, mainly to copy text from an email and paste it into an SMS message, or to save an SMS/email as a note. To get round the lack of copy and paste I installed an app called CopierciN, this allows you to copy text from SMS, contacts, notes and emails and paste them into a new SMS, note, email or safari object. It isn’t as good as true copy/paste but it’s good enough for what I need it for.
No SMS Forwarding – This really pissed me off, I’d receive a joke in a txt from a friend and couldn’t pass it on to others. I installed biteSMS which allows sms forwarding as well as adding smilies and adding a contact from your address book all with a swipe of the finger.
No Background Tasks – Backgrounder solved this problem though apps that require a lot of resources and memory will still close after they have been sent to the background.
No Video Recording – Not that I would record video much because of the crap camera (no jailbroken app can fix that) but if I want to I now have Qik for recording and streaming live video and Cycorder which is a standard video recorder like you would find on any phone released within the last 5 years.
No MMS – WTF is that about, I don’t send as many MMS as I used to do but I do still receive quite a lot and having to log into the networks website and view the MMS online whenever I received one was a PITA. Thanks to SwirlyMMS that’s a thing of the past. I can now receive any MMS sent to me straight to the phone AND can also send them. This is a paid app, it has a 14 day trial, after that I think it cost $8, I’m still on the trial but will be registering it next week, it’s worth every penny.
So after fixing up the iPhone to more or less work like a mobile phone should, what are my view…… well it kicks ass. I love it now, I haven’t missed using my Nokia’s at all, well except for the camera on the N98-8GB, I have really missed that. I’m going to carry on using the iPhone as my main mobile device, I’ll be leaving the E71 at home gathering dust and I will probably still take the N95-8GB out with me but only for the camera. Whereas before, my iPhone was only used as a media player/web browser, my N95 will only be used as a camera with a data connection.
I have been a long time user of S60 Nokia phones ever since the 7650, but I’m afraid it looks like that is going to change, well until the N97 gets released any way, but I have a feeling that that won’t even pull me back to Nokia.
iPhone 3G Unlocked And Working On 3UK
Two days ago the dev team http://blog.iphone-dev.org finally released a beta version of the iPhone 3G network unlock tool. I didn’t have any luck with the first couple of releases but today they updated the beta version to 0.9.5 and with a bit of trial and error I finally got my iPhone unlocked from O2 and working on the 3 network.
They have named the unlock application yellowsn0w and it is available from both cydia and installer, visit the dev team blog for the repos. It is still in beta so it may not work first time for everyone (it didn’t for me) but it shouldn’t be long until they have a fully working foolproof version.
Congratulations to all the guys in the dev team for all the hard work they have put into liberating our iPhones from a single network.
– Post From My iPhone
Sony Reader PRS-505 Ebook Sale In The UK At WHSmith’s
For anyone that’s got a Sony Reader for Christmas you may not realise that Waterstones is not the only store where you can purchase books for your new reader, there are several others with a much larger selection of books than the few thousand over priced titles that waterstone sell.
At the moment WHSmiths have a half price sale on all ebooks. Just be careful what you buy though because they sell books for a number of readers and not all of them with work on the Sony. Epub is the main format that it supports but it will also work with secure pdf’s, though these usually need the text size setting to medium and the page layout isn’t as good as it is with epub books.
You can also buy books from US sites. Several ones that I have found that sell books for the Sony PRS-505 are
Ebookmall.com they sell books in secure PDF format.
Ebooks.com they sell books in secure PDF format
Booksonboard they sell books in both ePub and secure PDF format
Fictionwise they sell books in secure PDF format as well as some as regular PDF’s
Fictionwise is my favourite site but their payment system takes a bit of getting used to.
Gorillapod Go-Go
At long last I’ve finally got a Gorillapod tripod. It was one of my Christmas presents, I chose the go-go version that has a suction cup and self adhesive plates as well as a regular tripod mount so that I could use it with other devices, not just a camera.
With a Casio Exlim camera
With a Nokia N95-8GB
With an iPhone, this will be handy for watching movies
– Post From My iPhone
A Review Of The Nokia E71
A Review Of The Nokia E71
My Nokia E71 arrived on Tuesday, I’ve had a few days to play around with it so thought I’d write up my impression of it so far. There will be a few negatives within this review but that’s not to say its a bad phone, its just that there are already lots of reviews out there focusing on the specifications and features of the phone so I’m not going to go over ground that has been covered by others, and much better than I could do. If you want to read a really good review check out the one by Steve Litchfield on allaboutsymbian.com
I had never seen or touched the E71 until it arrived, it looks slim and nice in photos but they don’t do it justice, it isn’t until you have one in your hand that you realise just how nice it is, and the build quality is the best of any phone I’ve used. Compared to my old E61 which I bought it to replace its in another league, it beats the E61 in every aspect except maybe the keyboard. So on to my likes and dislikes.
Likes:-
Look, feel, build quality, form factor are all amazing. Its a very solid device, so squeaks when using it, no rattles when you shake it, its the best built phone I’ve used, and probably the best build quality of any s60 Nokia EVER!
The auto word completion and word suggestion work really well once you get used to it. If I type theyer it automatically corrects it to they’re but with an option to choose exactly what I typed if I wish to chose it. It isn’t perfect but it comes very close and makes email creation much quicker and easier if you are wanting it to look professional and not just something you entered lazily to sent to a friend.
The keyboard once you get used to it is very nice and responsive, though the keys may be a little small and tightly packed for anyone with large thumbs. Due to it being more compact than the E61/E61i or the E62 entering text one handed is much easier, on its predecessors it was possible but awkward, not so with the E71, its just as easy as doing it with a regular numeric keypad.
Now for the negatives.
Things I don’t like or could have been improved:-
I said the keyboard was a pleasure to use but this is only if you have slim to average size thumbs, for people with large thumbs I can see them struggling with the compact nature of it. Also a lot of the symbols that were previously on the keys of the E61 etc are no longer there, £ $ € had a place on keys A S and D but now you need to go into the character menu to select them, just like you do on an N series device. Also the right hand shift key has been removed, not a problem for most people but for left handers like myself who used to highlight text using right shift and move the dpad with our left hand we now have to adapt to the right hand way of doing it.
The ports. It uses a micro usb port and a 2.5mm headphone port. Now I know the device is thin but surely they could have squeezed in a more standard 3.5mm and mini usb port. On the back of the phone where the camera is it bulges out slightly, this is directly in line with the headphone socket. All they needed to do was run this bulge the full width of the phone, move the usb port in line with it and they could easily fit in 3.5mm and mini usb.
That’s it really for negatives, it would be nice to have a better camera etc but for a phone that’s mainly aimed at the corporate market the camera is more than adequate, it just doesn’t match up with the likes of some of the N series phones with 5 mega pixel Carl Zeiss optics.
Everything else about the phone has been covered elsewhere so I’ve only focused on things that I have experienced but not seen mentioned elsewhere. The E71 is a fantastic QWERTY phone, I absolutly love using it, but would I have it as my only phone? Tough question, probably not. I do like my N95-8GB and the multimedia power that it has over the E71. On the first 2 day of owning it I would have definatly said no, but the more I use it the more I grow to love it. If it wasn’t for the 2.5mm headphone port and the inferior camera to the N95 then yes I could quite easily live with the E71 as my only phone.
This entire review was created on the E71 using the built in version of QuickOffice and the phones keyboard.
Review Of The Polaroid Pogo Photo Printer
I ordered a Pogo printer from Amazon on Tuesday and it arrived today. For those that don’t know what it is more info can be found here.It’s a pocket photo printer that uses special ZINK photo paper 3×2 inch (slightly smaller than an average business card). The paper has three layers of coloured crystals that are activated during the printing process by firing pulses of heat at the paper. This means that there are no ink cartridges to refill or replace, you just load it up with a 10 pack of paper and you’re ready to print.
The printer is Bluetooth enabled so photos from most camera phones can be sent directly to it, or you can print via USB from any PictBridge enabled camera or phone. Polaroid quote it as being able to print a photo in 60 seconds, this maybe the case via USB but using Bluetooth it will take longer. I did two test prints today, both from my N95-8GB using Bluetooth, the photo’s were 956KB and 983KB and both took just under 90 seconds to print. A break down of this time was roughly 40 seconds to send the photo to the printer, 15 seconds while the printer processes the data before it starts printing, 25 seconds to print the photo.
It can be powered from the mains or from the built in (replaceable) rechargable battery, a fully charged battery should be enough for 15 prints, I can’t confirm this though as I have only done 2 prints.
If you are wanting realistic prints like you would get from a full sized photo printer then the Pogo is not for you. If you want a small compact printer that fits into the back pocket of a pair of jeans and allows you to print out photos/stickers wherever you are and have a bit of fun then the Pogo is perfect. Of the two prints I have done so far the one of the pink flower is the best, it has near perfect colour reproduction and the clarity of detail is fantastic. The other one is not as good but it’s not poor either, the bread roll is a bit yellower than it should be but other than that the photo is fine.
As a fun little printer the Pogo is a fantastic device, I really hope that it takes of so that Polaroid will continue to develop the technology.
——–Update——–
I’ve now tested the battery life of the Pogo. Polaroid claim it will do 15 prints, from a full charge, I got 20 prints and the battery was still going. As I was using it away from a power source most of the time I didn’t want to risk the battery going flat on me while I was out so after the 20th print I recharged it. Even if the battery had died at that point it still exceeds Polaroids quoted number of prints by 25%.
I’ve been trying an application called Wavelog, it’s a blogging application for s60 phones. I wish I had tried it when I did a mobile blogging comparison test then I could have written about it earlier. Other than Shozu it seems to be the only option of composing a blog entry which includes images and easily uploading them from a phone. There is a trial version available but it only allows text to be uploaded, if you want to include any kind of media (images, videos, sound) then you need to register it which costs $10, quite cheap, well it would be if it was any good.
The trouble is that the trial works fine, once you have written the blog entry on your phone it uploads fine and everything looks great. It’s once you pay for the full version and include images that the problems start, and because there is no way of testing its media upload function without purchasing a licence you have to pay for the privilege of finding out how crap it is.
Below is a screenshot of a post I made earlier with an image, the text doesn’t flow across the full width of the page and the image is tiny, it looks ridiculous. I’ve tried all the different layout options, with the image below and to the right of the text but they all give the same result and look like shit.
It does work well if all you want to upload is text, but http://m.wordpress.com does it better because it allows tags which Wavelog doesn’t support.
A Fantastic Upgrade Offer From 3UK
One of my contract ends this month so in May I phoned up to cancel it, the guy I spoke to tried his hardest to get me to upgrade rather than cancel but as I already have another contract with them I stuck to my guns and went through with it.
On Monday I got a phone call from their 10day retention team, as soon as realised who they were I thought well I’ll see what you offer me but I’m not going to change my mind and I will go through with the cancellation, how wrong was I. If I hadn’t already been sitting down I would have fallen down with shock at the offer. If I continued my contract they would give me for £10 per month, 600 cross network call time minutes, 100 text messages and a FREE Nokia N95-8GB. I was speechless, I already have an N98-8GB but for £10 a month that was an offer I just could not refuse. It arrived today, so now I just have to decide whether to sell it or keep it. I had intended to sell it but now I’m probably going to keep it as I always carry more than one phone and could use this one for high power consumption tasks like video playback, push email, mobile web server etc, saving the battery on my other one for calls, text and internet.
Nextlink Invisio G5 Bluetooth Headset Review
Yesterday I bought a new Bluetooth headset to replace my aging Plantronics Discovery 640. I wanted something small, without an ear loop and preferable one that had a portable charger. This limited my choice dramatically but I finally decided on the Nextlink Invisio G5.
The Plantronics I had been using could be worn with or without an ear loop but I found that after a while the weight of it started to pull it out of my ear if no loop was used, particularly if I tilted my head or moved it sharply. From reviews I’ve read about the Invisio G5 this wouldn’t be a problem because of the soft rubber spring that fits inside the groove of your ear to help hold it in place.
The G5 measures 3.3cm in length and weighs just under 6grams. Read more…
