Monday, December 31, 2007

Nokia 770 and Bluetooth Keyboad

Got a dell branded igo slimline keyboard as a present from the wife. She in return got a yamaha digital piano. We both love our respective keyboards. Using mine right now to type this. Have also used it paired up with the HTC phone. Bit pointless really as the thumb keyboard on that device is adequate.

Central Heating doom redux

Just about to go away for the Christmas Holidays and Wife points to puddles of water below boiler (furnace for non Brits). Since this is next to the loo I get ready to tackle the issue of pointing with number one son. He is however blameless.When not heating water or the house a steady drip every 20 secs or so is emerging from the wall mounted boiler. Nothing I could do about it there and then so I put a bowl underneath and hoped for best. On return no disaster but I have to do something. Rather than dissasemble it and risk no heating over the new year period I gamble 8 quid on some screwfix brand no nonsense leak stop and throw it into the header tank for the system. Bottle claims a fix within 24 hours. Yeah right! 3 days of contemplating the horrific cost of a boiler replacement and then suddenly, praise the lord, all is well. Drip has stopped.It is going to be a happy new year after all!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

My next mobile phone

I have an HTC TyTN from Vodafone I originally loathed it. However de-branding and putting the HTC Windows Mobile V6 on has made it much more stable so I tend to swear at it much less.

Like all 'do everything' phones it is a compromise.

What a I have realised, in using such a device, is the phone I really need has:-

3G for connecting another device (laptop or pda) to internet
Bluetooth for connecting headset and laptop pda
Fantastic voice control like orange wildfire.
fold out keyboard like a Nokia 6820 for texting
and a black and white e-ink display I can read in daylight that shows the time without me having to use a back light.
A 2.5mm stereo headphone / mic connector
and a standard mini/micro USB cable connector /charger.


Equally important I don't want to :-
browse the internet on my phone
read e-mail on my phone
take pictures /video with my phone
view anything in colour
listen to mp3's or radio.
Use a stylus on my phone

I used WAP once 5 years ago and have never sent or received an MMS

also

For mobile media / internet applications the Nokia tablets are great and paired with the phone I imagine would make me happy. If only they had coupled the latest tablet hardware with the psion MX 5 case and keyboard.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Piertopier neeeds you! Because it can't have me!

Piertopier the Brighton free wireless hotspot network has been a hobby for 3 or 4 years now. However expanding family commitments mean I can't do what I used to do. So if anyone want to sign up to helping with a worthwhile community project please let me know.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Nokia 770

OMG ! After years of proudly showing off the £400 zaurus I go buy a £70 toy for the wife and it is better than the zaurus! Right now I have a Nokia 770 tablet in front of me. Using its wifi connection it is vpn'd into the office network via a cisco PIX firewall and is showing me a windows xp desktop via vnc. 800 x 480 display so it is actually usable. This is so cool.

The opera browser works great with gmail (if you switch on the javascript). Lets say this again 800x480 display and fits in your pocket. Oh and it has decent battery life.

Downside is my better half is wondering what happened to her new 'palm'. I am going to have to buy another one. Then work out how to make it accept Chinese character input for her msn friends. The joys of open source!

My mate Sevan has probably done more with his 770 in a shorter space of time.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Hugh Grimwood arrives

June 26th 2.56 am 7lbs 12oz of baby boy. Well done a very proud Mum. Two weeks paternity leave. I will be looking after James full time. Hmmm two week to break 3yrs of mind conditioning that has turned him into a neat freak.

Monday, March 05, 2007

42 isn't the answer

Well hurrah I made this far. 42 years on the planet.

The good bits of the last year :- Expecting another baby summer 2007. Just found out last week it was going to be a boy! Been to Taiwan and on their new super fast train. 180mph. Started an new business to deal with voip termination/PSTN breakout. Sipswitch.co.uk. Flat convesion completed in the summer 06. So now pround parents with actual space to live. James isn't yet 3 but his spoken english is good. Worringly his spoken chinese his just as good. Chistmas present was a digifusion PVR. Which I have been tinkering with. New firmware uploaded via a serial cable. New laptop hard disk installed and noisey old hard disk and fan removed = Silence. Cheap flights to Hong Kong with oasishongkong.com. Marvelous . From Gatwick airport as well !