mobrec

So
With my aging Nokia 6620 beginning to give signs of giving up the ghost, I began looking for a replacement mobile phone. I was hoping that Cingular would finally get around to releasing the N73 but that was not to be. Cingular briefly teased the market with the on again off again release of the N75. A week later, they put the N75 back on their site, so I dove in and purchased one.

I didn't spring for express service because deliveries usually show up within 2-3 days anyway. I didn't realize that they were going to use a FedEx shipping method that would wind up sending the phone to within 40 miles of my home address, then 100 miles away so that it could then be put on a truck an delivered. Enough about shipping logistics, you probably want to hear about the phone.

First blush: the N75 is a very impressive phone, probably the best mobile I have owned. I typically don't care for clamshell phones, but this one is very solid with a very usable display on the outer cover in addition to a gorgeous bright, clear main display inside the phone. The keypad layout is a bit different from the 6620, the biggest differences being in the tight layout of the utility keys and the addition of a music key to the right of the four-way keypad. The close proximity of the utility keys has caused me to accidentally press the Music key more than a few times. I also find it a bit awkward to highlight text for copy and paste due to the proximity of the 'pencil' key and the directional arrows.

Before talking about applications on the N75 it is worth noting that the phone ships with no external memory, only the built in RAM, of which around 40MB is available to the user. While Cingular and Nokia are more than happy to sell you a 2GB microSD card for nearly $200USD, you can get a SanDisk 2GB microSD for around $25USD from Amazon. I have the SanDisk 2GB and it works just fine with the N75.

There have been a few challenges in migrating some of my Symbian-based apps to the N75. My SlovoEd Spanish-English dictionary would not install until I upgraded to the S60 v3 version of the application. The problem is that the dictionary apparently takes a differently formatted license key than the one I have. As of yet, the vendor has not provided a resolution to the license issue. Profimail is the app that I depend on to keep up with my various POP and IMAP accounts while on the go. Profimail was a simple upgrade, but I ran into a hitch with the license key as well. A posting on their support forum yielded a response that an email to customer support should have an updated license key on the way. I use Papyrus as a more functional tool for keeping track of appointments on my mobile. The Papyrus install was straightforward after I worked out that the correct version to install was the '9.1' version of the software and not the '6.1' version — no license key issues with Papyrus. Apparently Nokia refers to the 9.1 version of the Symbian OS as 'S60 v3'. Handy Weather upgraded and registered with no issues. Handy Weather lives up to its name, especially when I am traveling abroad and need to get an idea of the weather. I huge proponent of Java, I am happy to mention that the three Java-based apps that I use most frequently Google Maps, Google Mail and Opera Mini downloaded and installed with no issues at all. Sadly, my daughter's favorite game Frozen Bubble, will not install on the N75. It was such a fun and simple game. I have yet to find another free (or otherwise) replacement for it.

Update 19 May 2007: Both Profimail and Papyrus have resolved their license key issues via email. Epocware, however, wants me to re-purchase the software minus a 'loyalty discount' — not very enlightened customer service.

Phone reception on the N75 I would rate as better than the 6620 as I tend to get more bars and better sounding audio with the N75 in the same places that the 6620 would struggle. The ringer is quite loud, owing to the two external 'stereo' speakers on the phone. I have not had an opportunity to tryout the speakerphone quality.

The N75's camera has been something of a mixed bag. I was looking forward to having a decent (2 MegaPixel) camera on the phone, but it seems a bit quirky. One annoying behavior is that when you click the button to take a photo it presents you with a still frame of the image you think you are capturing. However, the actual image isn't taken until a second or two later. For me, this has resulted in several pictures of blurs because the actual photo takes as I am bringing the camera back to have a look at the image. I guess it just takes a bit of patience and getting used to.

The Nokia N-Series site advertises that the phone can upload photos directly to Flickr [can't link because of annoying flash-only site]. Great, I thought, I have been a Flickr participant for a few years now. However, it appears that Cingular has chosen to disable this feature out of the box on the N75 (shock!). A quick troll through the NSeries forum on Flickr reveals that you can download the configuration file to your N75 via Bluetooth that will re-enable this feature.

Another initial frustration that was soon alleviated was that neither Apple nor Nokia provides an iSync profile for the N75 to work with OS X. It only took a few days for one to surface — the only unfortunate thing is that it is hosted on the hateful file sharing site rapidshare [no link]. I have considered hosting it on my site, but have not had time to work out the logistics.

This is as far as I have gotten with the N75 with very little time to explore it's options. Hopefully, I will have more time to explore (photos, video, mp3 player, included apps, and more) and report in the coming days and weeks.

Technorati Tags: nokia, cingular, n75, mobile, review

So
There is a pretty slick feature in Google Spreadsheets that allows you to lookup and embed data into your spreadsheets using the GoogleLookup function call [from google Docs blog]:

One is GoogleLookup, which attempts to answer your questions by using information from the web. You can use it for all kinds of party tricks, like looking up the population of New York City [=GoogleLookup(“New York City”, “population”)] or when Google was founded [=googlelookup(“google”, “founded”)]. Try it to see what other things you can look up. I'll warn you in advance, it's a bit addicting. If you mouse over the cell, you'll see links to the source pages where we found the data, so you can always check out the primary sources. And don't forget you can copy/paste (ctrl-c / ctrl-v) the formula to other cells to easily have a bunch of GoogleLookups in a sheet. Don't expect to change the world with this function, but have fun with it.

While GoogleLookup covers a little bit of everything, its sibling GoogleFinance focuses just on financial data from Google Finance. Using a similar syntax, you can look up the price of Google stock [=GoogleFinance(“GOOG”)] or the 52-week high of Apple [=GoogleFinance(“AAPL”, “HIGH52”)]. And since stock prices tend to change more often than, say, the capital of California does, we update them in your spreadsheet automatically. So if you leave your portfolio spreadsheet open, you should see numbers get updated as you would on Google Finance itself. Of course, we also have the same 20-minute delay on financial data.

This is certainly above and beyond any feature or integration that you get with the expensive, commercial spreadsheet application available from your nearest monopoly.

Technorati Tags: webtools, google, googledocs, googlelookup

So
Apparently one of the JavaOne announcements this week is that Java EE 5 development is now officially supported by Sun. Get your Mac-ready download here.

Technorati Tags: sun, javaee, osx, apple, java

So
It was recently reported that Google cedes Chilean village to Argentina where a mis-drawn country border is the culprit. One of many such mishaps in my experience.

Closer to home, my wife was trying to get directions to a roller rink were one of my daughter's friends was having a birthday party. When the in-vehicle navigation system failed to find the destination, she called me on her mobile. I plugged the info into Google Maps, only for Google to display three different destinations all with the exact same address. None of which, by the way, was the actual venue. Curiously, if you searched on the actual address that it returned, a more forthright response of “We were not able to locate the address” was given.

Granted, there has been some growth in that area and Google might not have caught up with the change. It would also be nice if they had a link on the page that would let you indicate that the directions are bogus and even offer a correction. While I could see that such a feature could be abused (a competitor could modify an address to point to it rather than the actual business) it would certainly go a long way toward fixing misdirected directions.

Newness doesn't explain all of the anomalies. The in-vehicle navigation system claims that there is no such place as the Cincinnati Zoo (established in 1875 and the second oldest zoo in the country) but thoughtfully directs us to 'the nearest zoo' in circileville, west virginia. Google gets the location of the Cincy Zoo horribly wrong as well — 'A' is actually the entry gate to the zoo (though curiously listed as “Cincinnati Zoo Academy High School”) and “C” is clearly no where near the actual zoo location. Room for improvement, indeed.

Technorati Tags: google, maps, gps, navigation, suckage, cincinnati

So
Spain's Solar Power generation tower is an amazing piece of engineering that can generate 11 Megawatts of power without emitting any greenhouse gas. Apparently it is quite a thing to see as well.

Technorati Tags: spain, solarpower, alternateenergy

So
This came up in the Olympus E-Systems Community on Flickr in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek discussion on “How to Dramatically Improve Your Photography With Ease”. It is so spot on that I had to repost it here:

I've done the Flickr circle of life myself (like I think you've done), the 12 step process so to speak...

1. join Flickr
2. take pictures & post
3. hope to get feedback
4. get feed back
5. give feedback
6. make Explore for the first time
7. join some “theme groups”
8. strive to get on Explore so more
9. become disillusioned with all the steps above
10. become jaded
11. stop giving a sh!7 what others say.
12. start taking photos for *you*

I have seen a number of people who seemed to really enjoy photography then jump on the Flickr treadmill and become absolutely obsessed. It's as if photography becomes hard work and they think that the only 'good' photos are staged black and white shots with lots of photoshopped blurs and streaks in them. Basically, rather than doing something creative they wind up copying what is supposed to be 'fine art photography' which personally I find to be stilted, self-referential, overly nostalgic and ultimately monotonous.

Granted, my photos aren't going to win any awards any time soon, but then again, I am at step 12. I enjoy photography, it hasn't become my new identity.

Technorati Tags: flickr, photography, ideas

So
It's like 'take you camera to work day' (assuming you have a job outside the house and work on Saturdays). It's 24 Hours of Flickr. Basically, document your day in photos on May 5th, 2007 and then post the best shot to the pool of the same name on Flickr.

What happens around the world in one day? In a word – life. Here on Flickr, photographers are sharing what they see: snapping daily moments, recording history, telling stories, capturing beauty.

To celebrate this global community, we invite you to join us in “24 Hours of Flickr” – a day-long global photo project. On May 5, 2007, grab your camera and whatever else you need, and chronicle your day in pictures. The group's photos will be featured at Flickr events around the world this summer and in a companion book, which will contain a selection of photographs chosen from the group (more about this soon!).

It's interesting that they intend to publish a companion book of shots — so this may be your chance for fame and fortune (if thats your thing).

Technorati Tags: flickr, photography, 24hoursofflickr, community

So
I think the outcome of this would have been very different if this happened somewhere in the US like New York City or Los Angeles.

Technorati Tags: news, crime, outcomes

So
Wired has a longish story about how the CIA used a made-up science fiction movie to smuggle six Americans out of Iran. Strange, but true (I presume).

Technorati Tags: cia, movie, iran, strange

So
Not sure I completely buy the premise of this post: 'Is iPhone Anticipation slowing Cingular Smartphone Sales?'. Sounds like the Osborne Effect, applied to mobile phones. While I am confident that there is a lot of interest in the coming iPhone — I, for one, would have bought a Nokia N75 last Friday (though I prefer the N73) if Cingular was able to keep it up on their site for more than a few hours before pulling it for some undisclosed reason.

The iPhone is slick looking, but how well does it work as a phone? And when will the closed nature of the iPhone be addressed? Nokia has always delivered a solid product that never loses site of the fact that it is a phone first.

I look forward to moving my existing apps on my aging but still functional Nokia 6620 over to an N-series phone once they become available. The extensibility of the Symbian platform used by Nokia is a big plus for me and one that Apple is going to need to match if they want my business.

Technorati Tags: nokia, nseries, apple, iphone, cingular, n75