Category: technology

For ages now, I've been thinking of setting up a moblog, which is basicly a blog of interesting or not so interesting pictures which I snap with my camera phone through-out the day. Its kind of like my picture gallarys but less structured and pictures are uploaded via mms so they appear instantaly online no matter where you are. Which would have been extra nice when I was in America, except MMS didnt work on either Tmobile or AT&T while I was there.

The other thing which seems to becoming possible is vidblogs as operators allow for video messaging. Obvioulsy Orange havent yet launched there video service, but there on the brink and my SPV2 phone supports it. So realisticly I could send it over GPRS as a email instead.

Anyway, I've been meaning to look at textamerica for ages and have signed up now. Didnt like all there terms though.

14. Textamerica.com may use, sell and/or share with its affiliates any information provided by you on this website, including your name, e-mail address, usage patterns, and uploaded images and text

The URL is http://cubicgarde.textamerica.com and yes it looks pretty shite at the moment. But I'm thinking about writing my own moblog now rather than using text america as it seems very limited and ASP buggy. Then again i need to check out the other moblogging apps out there too.

Yes it works and I was so shocked when I saw the GPRS logo on my phone when I left Chicago Ohare airport, I just had to try it out on Tmobile and it didnt work too well. But worked perfectly on AT&T wireless through-out most of my holiday. Even Tmobile started working once I got outside of Chicago.
So at long last GPRS has come of age? Now if only 3g also worked…

Ok two issues are bugging me about my SPV. And these are huge issues…

The huge one for me,
It will not dial up a GPRS connection over bluetooth. What this means in english is that if I want to dial up to the internet on my ipaq or tablet aka turn the phone into a modem, over bluetooth. Forget it, it doesnt work. Orange have yet to solve the issue and my 14 day phone return is running out quickly… I'm going to scream. And now i am screaming. Microsoft you drive me nuts.

Secondly, no voice dialing. Which is not good as the new UK mobile phone law came into affect on the 1st Dec. Which makes using a SPV2 in the car pretty much not possible even with a bluetooth headset. Orange must sort out this problem soon, or there will be an external app which will solve this mess-up.

Did find this however – how to unlock the SPV.

I wouldnt exactly call it a review, more around-up based on the SPV E200.

Its almost been a week since having the SPV2, and its good – no seriously its very good. I thought the change from ericsson to spv would be difficult if not highly challenging. Up until SPV I have bought 7 different ericsson phones. So i thought long and hard before changing to another phone and company. Anyway, the menu system isnt awarked and you dont feel lost at any point. Kelvin ensures me that the SPV 1's Windows smartphone OS was terriable compared to the 2003 remake.

Some of the grips of my orginal post such as not being able to transfer my contacts via bluetooth have been solved. For some reason it now just works. Also you can send things via bluetooth using the beam feature, which is odd. For example when you want to transfer a calender, contact or task. You say beam over infrared, wait a second then it gives you a option to beam over bluetooth too. I think in that second it checks out what devices are near by. But yes it works well. Unfortually all software I have installed only uses infrared, so i cant transfer files over bluetooth yet. And on that same point, the SPV isnt locked at all, you can install what ever you like on it. I'm tempted to put doom on it. But for now I have file explorer, pocket mvp, tetrus and a few little utils. All taken from this great site. I havent yet experiemented with other apps, but will do when i get the time.

The text input could do with a tweak, but its perfectly useable and speedy. Much faster then my old T68 when you write long text messages. Havent tried picture messaging yet, as i got few friends who have phones which support it. Theres lots of references to Orange's Video messaging service which will be running soon. And I caught this the other day, which is about how orange are going to use packet video for there video service. So I'm expecting a Packetvideo player for smartphones soon, will also have to install it on my ipaq again i guess. The question I have though, is will orange allow people to create there own content using packetvideo too? At the moment the SPV doesnt save as Mpeg4, will someone create a converter or even mpeg4 video capture tool for smartphones? Hummm, would be nice…

I have yet to play with MSN messager as I think its evil, and I usually use my ipaq for instant messaging as its input is quicker and smoother than a phone will ever be. However I did see imov have brought out a jabber client for smartphones, so i may try it out soon. I keep forgetting to setup the gprs link with my ipaq and the SPV, so I'm reminding myself to do that after i finish this post.
The battery life is a stinging issue, which plagued my 3g phone. I'm am glad to announce that the SPV with bluetooth on all the time lasts at least one day if not 1 and a bit days. So as long as you charge it everyday your fine. Without bluetooth it will last a couple days at least. Oh and lets not forget I was using the camera quite a lot and I have a 64meg MMC card inside of it all draining battery life. On that issue, the SPV also supports MMC too, which is good for me as I have a few hanging around from my ericsson mpeg3 player, cant wait to see what will happen on the SDIO horizon in regards to the smartphone platform. Imagine wifi and flash memory on one card. No need to imagine its almost already here…believe the impossible

So to sum up, its all good…So good that I dont know what to do with it next… I think a dose of real digital shoplifting isnt out of the question. Specially seeing how I can record as much as my sd or mmc card can hold. About 700+ VGA shots on a 64meg MMC card. Easily enough for a small book dont you think?

After months of messing around trying to decide what mobile to invest in next, I made the jump to a SPV E200 today.

My first impressions are mixed, I love the phone its really good looking, nice to hold and use. But theres two things bugging me. First thing the operating system windows mobile 2003 is a little too much like my pocketpc os, so I keep wanting to use my stylus with it. Minor but ignoying for me neitherless. Ok then the bluetooth doesnt seem to work as well as the SonyEricsson models. So my SonyEricsson bluetooth headset works fine with it and I've partnered with my ipaq but I cant seem to send my contacts from my ipaq to the SPV2. Seems the SPV2 doesnt support the object push profile, which is stupid because how on earth would you send a business card to a SPV2? Plus Activesync doesnt allow you to sync to the ipaq and the SPV at the same time. The other thing which bugs me a bit is the lack of file manager for the SPV, I think I need to download one from somewhere. Which brings me on to the issue of getting software for the os. Where on earth do I go to get free software for it?

On the other hand, it does everything it says on the box. The camera on the SPV is fantastic, the camcorder feature is great and it records to plain avi with pcm audio. So it will be easy to edit the footage later on, say turn it into mpeg 4 or add it to another load to create a whole movie. Plus it will record for as long as you have on your sd storage card. I have 4.33 meg left on the 8meg storage card they give you with the sd card. I can record for 1min 12secs at 176px x 144px and 42secs at 352px x 288px if needs be.

Anyway, I wont host any video files right now, but heres a shot from inside the tram on the way home from basketball training today.


Quick note, there is no EXIF data saved with the picture which is minor problem. And I've investagated the video/audio codec a little deeper. Seems its saved with 8fps PVMJPG at 35kbps with the audio codec being 8bit PCM at 88kbps.

Oh yeah thanks Sam for the comment on the 3g walled garden issue on my other phone. I only saw it a moment ago.

David, one my 1st year students pointed me towards this site the other day. Its a follow on from my previous post about tshirts. Thinking of ordering some for when i go to America for xmas, then bribe or ask someone really nicely to do a print for me in the fashion department. Also should speak to Dave about it as he done it himself last year.

Surely there has to be a UK or European equal to american apparel? If you know, leave a comment please…

Ok I dont know if i'm old news? but I just found wired's beta rss feeds. When you do a search for example this is a search for string theory under wired. And there is now a rss link at the top and bottom. This simply puts a flavor or format on the end. http://search.wired.com/wnews/default.asp?query=string%20theory&format=rss. I've added wired to my feeds by adding this rss feed. It will not allow to do it without the query querystring.

The feature reports on personal technology, more comments when I got time…
But they not seen the bluetooth personal storage server and the Oqo

Saw this in my aggergater today Younger Generation Reshaping The Workplace . Interesting thoughts about how I currently live my work life. I for example dont usually do any kind of coding of any kind in the morning, thats usually reserved for reading and meetings. While my nights are spent coding and writing blogs. I could live with a game mid day, just before i get down to some serious work.

I know this will go up when I get back from holiday in a weeks time, but I just wanted to note that stanstead now has wireless networking in the form of BT Openzone. Now I'm thinking I'm got power from underneath one of those rack of TV monitors in the public departure areas. So wireless would be a god sent right now. And you know what I'm willing to pay the 15 pounds plus vat for 24 hour access. I'm going to be around stanstead for at least another 6 hours. Oh yeah wireless is charged at 6 pounds plus vat for 1hour otherwise. I just wish i could get a stronger signal from where i am.
I think the best form of action at the moment is wait and see how things go, as i got more than enough to do without wifi at the moment. Maybe pay the 60mins of access when I go into the departure lounge where the wireless signal is coming from. Then again, i know my flight will be delayed, so maybe the 24hr one wouldnt be such a waste.

Saw this a while back, Orange, Smart Launch Bluetooth car. Orange and Smart have added Bluetooth to the new range of smart cars. Nothing amazing, just interesting that customers will get a 6month contract to Orange free with a T610.
If I had the choice in a car, I would get a smart car not because of this but there the best for fuel and space generally. The extra bonus is just that.

Ok its coming up to a few months since my contract ended for my mobile phone. My Ericsson T68 is doing odd things when it comes to Bluetooth and GPRS. I want to change but I would like a phone with a built in camera, as I'm using it more and more for shots.

So I saw Orange are finally bring out the SPV2. Its the first Microsoft smartphone which has built in Bluetooth and a camera, all packed into the same size package as a SPV, which makes me very happy.

I always liked the orginal SPV, but the lack of Bluetooth wrote it off for me. There have been a few other Microsoft Smartphone's which are good but none of them have had bluetooth to date. I'm also hoping Orange will do what they did with the Orginal SPV, sell it very cheap on a new contract. I remember when it was released it sold for about 139 pounds then was quickly dropped to 99 pounds then 79 pounds. I think just before Christmas when I go on holiday I will get a SPV2 at a decent enough price.