(pt.1 here)
(pt.2 here)
After many hours of research (ha!) it really came down to two choices which could potentially fulfill my needs for style and capability. The first choice was the Nokia N91, including its own 4Gb hdd, mp3 player, wifi etc…unfortunately Nokia have a tendency of announcing their products years in advance of their actual release dates. Then not telling anyone when the release date actually is, or simply lying or being vague about it…I had actually been waiting for this phone since early june, the release date that had been announced back in april came and went, my patience wore out…
The o2 xda mini s was the next choice, more of a pda than a phone it resembled my old 7650 and seemed to do everything I wanted. The only problem is that it runs Windows Mobile 5, do I really need another version of windows in my life? I am seriously thinking about installing osx86 on my pc so I can avoid windows and microsoft altogether (techie bliss!). So would getting a mobile phone which runs windows be a huge mistake? Will it inevitably lead to many hours of hair pulling and shouting at the inanimate gadgetry.
Nah, cant be that bad I thought…so I ordered the xda.
(to be continued)
mmm…impulse blogging, Ok…this is (heaven forbid) perhaps a slight gripe with osx, but it would be really nice if I had some kind of option to kill applications that had not been used in many hours automatically.
For example, I just noticed that InDesign is still running in the background, mainly because I was using it earlier in the week (my laptop is not one that gets switched off very often, it sleeps a lot as a good mac should).
So the program is sat in the background, using it’s resources with no documents open, why can I not have some application or feature of the os to simply kill it after 6hrs of inactivity?
It definitely shouldn’t do it if the program has any documents open, I think I have a copy of bbedit open which I first opened a couple of weeks ago (you cant save sessions, so I don’t close it until I have to). But for something like Word, which opens when I open a .doc, then remains after I have closed it and (certainly with older versions) tends to go a little senile after being open for extended periods of time, this would be very handy.
This actually goes the same for all of the macs at work, they are not used by the most technical of people and so by the end of the week pretty much every icon in the dock has a little black arrow. These aren’t exactly powerful computers either…
I guess it is probably possible in applescript…ugth, better get out my hat with the propellor.
(pt.1 here)
So anyway, I have been thinking of getting a new phone…Well, it is probably upgraded to planning to get a new phone. I have compiled a short list of the things I would really like to be able to do with this new piece of technology (apart from phone, txt and image).
It would be nice if…
- I could connect to wireless (WiFi) networks and use the internet connection without paying through the nose for a mobile internet connection.
- I could (probably paying through the nose) use the phone as a wireless modem for my laptop. No reason why this shouldn’t be possible using bluetooth. Preferably without having to remove the phone from my pocket…
- Store a reasonable amount of stuff. Why carry a usb key as well as a phone? Again, being able to access this wirelessly is a benefit, there are already too many cables in my life!
- Take photos and upload to my ftp server or Flickr, would be nice to have a moblog.
- Actually, while I am at it…would be nice to be able to blog from the phone too…
- Basic control of my other computers, for example my current mobile can make my PC play music (using bemused) as well as control keynote presentations on the powerbook (well, it did once anyway). Would be neat to be able to run vnc, although a 1600×1200 resolution might be a little tough on a mobile screen.
- Have an alarm that works!! and does not simply give-up after 30 minutes, or just fail altogether leaving my body-clock to fend for itself (ala Handy Clock).
- Vibrate!…ring tones are for northerners
- perhaps have Tetris, you can see I am expanding the horizons of mobile usage here…
- Would be nice if the phone had an in-built httpd, so it could be administered from any computer, perhaps serve content to other phones
- oooo…voip, the majority of calls I make are either in my house or in my office, both of which have wireless networks. mmm…money saving.
- OCR, I don’t really understand why any phone with a camera cant do this…would be useful to have, kinda like the cross-over cat5 cable I have had in my bag for 3 years…gotta be useful at some point.
- A ToDo list which can be updated offline then synchronised with my Mac at work, the powerbook and the PC.
- That also goes for a calendar. Preferably something which will sync with iCal and Sunbird
- Video? Music? not really a priority, I am yet to be convinced by the joys of watching video on a 2″ screen.
That pretty much wraps it up for the time-being, it actually boils down to a few distinct features. The phone has to have an operating system which can run applications (duh), as well as Bluetooth and WiFi capability…The rest is just a case of finding the software to do it.
(to be continued)
Anyone that knows me probably knows that my classic old 7650 is not exactly the most reliable phone on the market. It has about 6hrs battery life (if not used), meaning that most afternoons I am out of contact.
I have kept it so long because I remember how long it took to set it up and get it working the way I wanted…that was in my student days, so I had a lot of time to budget for such frivols. Now it is not quite the same…but it is also really time to upgrade.
So, what do I need in a mobile phone?
Top priority should be to make phone calls…one would think anyway, I have actually survived about 8 months with a phone that doesn’t work in the afternoons, but being able to talk to people is of reasonably high importance. Tri-band?, Quad-band?…blah, working in Goodwood seems to be tough enough…
Next one down should be txting, although whether it is through querty or 1abc, I don’t really mind…
As much as I originally disliked the concept of having a camera attached to the phone, it has become something which I actually do use quite a bit (when the phone has batteries). It is nice for those inebriated situations where having a digital slr is simply un-realistic. Hence my mobile phone image collection conjures up somewhat blurry memories of evenings gone by. Which I don’t want to loose the ability to do.
I would, however, prefer the camera to be as discreet as possible…no irritating digital *click* sound, no eye-piercing white light and no strobe-like flash should be features written in big letters on the front of the box.
(to be continued)
I was idlly browsing a.wholelottanothing.org (pretty high marks on the domain name) and found this post about a real-time, search-as-you-type amazon search.
I have been playing with amazon searches quite a bit recently, tracking down sculpture books associated with particular artists to use on the sculpture website. I have noticed that amazon doesn’t really seem to have a good search algorithm, and most especially irritating if it doesn’t find an exact match it will give you a page of something which is ‘close’ to what you were searching for. For example, I search for ‘Jonathan Loxley’ one of our brand new artists and I get results for ‘Jonathan Lesley’, irritating when it is the fourth search in a few minutes and you aren’t reading the page, you are looking directly in the position that you know the first result will be in and thus miss the part where this is explained.
hmm, guess I have to add this post to the ‘rant’ bin after that…
Anyway…to continue…I thought it might be fun to chuck my name into MyBigRiver, amazon returned ‘Hill Street Blues’ while I was typing, and settled on ‘Death Wish 3′…does amazon think I am depressed? or a crime fighter? or simply a gun toting hard-case…?
Try It Out, any unusual recommendations about your life?