e-bay

We're decluttering. I'm using e-bay to sell for the first time. There are two lots up for sale - a table and chairs, and a charger and batteries. So far the table has generated some interest - four watchers and a question about exactly where in Bristol the table was located - and the charger none that I can see. I'll see how these go before trying to sell my HP Omnibook 800 and maybe my Nokia n800.

Blogging from N800

I've just installed a Blogger client on my N800. This is my test posting.

iPhone fuss

Thanks to Kathryn for her illuminating comment about my previous iPhone post.

So, the first thing I take is that the Apple-AT&T deal has pulled down a garden wall. This is great and it may have taken the iPhone to cause this to happen - certainly if I were Apple, cutting a deal I'd have wanted the whole web available to my customers. I know that here in the UK, the mobile web has been opening up slowly for some time. At the recent Wireless 2.0 conference in Bristol one of the presenters said that a few weeks previously, for the first time all five of the UK networks were operating openly, passing over all the traffic that they should.

Secondly, the iPhone is a great PIM. I really like having my diary, contacts available on my "carry it at all times device" (a.k.a. phone). Are you listening Nokia - the N800, N810 needs a decent PIM.

Thirdly, there is some really great integration of applications into the iPhone - "clicking a phone number on a webpage and dialing it," checking my position on Google Maps" (my Nokia symbian E50 lets me do this - but I doubt many owners do it).

Maybe the coming together of these features in a neat package is a great leap forward?

iPhone - what's the fuss about?

I know the iPhone has a great user interface and feels lovely to hold but I don't understand why it is seen as a great leap forward. When I say "I don't understand", I mean "I don't understand"; I don't mean "it isn't a great leap forward".

I think the perception of the phone in the USA is distorted by that country having become a telecommunications backwater, and that the iPhone actually takes them into the 21st century. The Brits don't seem to be as enamoured as the Yanks - but maybe we're just cheapskates?

One thing is for sure, the iPhone has caused lots of websites to be redesigned (e.g. Google) for the mobile device form factor (e.g. IPhone, N800, Eee pc) and very good they look too. Someone is going to make a great mobile internet device - I don't know who yet, and everything out there is very much "first generation" to may way of thinking.

N800 thoughts

I've had my N800 for a little over half a year now and, as I'll shortly upgrade to the new operating system, I've decided it's time to produce a considered view of my experiences.

To start with, some personal information that might influence my opinions.. I've got large hands, I'm short sighted, and I've reached that unfortunate age where you need reading glasses. So how do I find the N800 to use?

The screen is very good and easy to read. However, at 800x480 pixels, there are problems with some web pages and applications designed for larger screens. I think this is a fundamental problem, increasing the screen size would impair portability and unfortunately increasing resolution won't help unless my eyes get upgraded. A bit of an impasse.

I used a Palm for many years so I'm perfectly happy with a stylus. For selection and scrolling it's better than using a fingertip (although iPhone kinetic scrolling, as in UKMP, is great). For typing I prefer the fingerboard to the stylus; it is less tiring, if a fraction slower. The biggest issue I have with the lack of a keyboard is not the ease and speed of typing, but the way the screen disappears when entering text. While this is not a problem when ramming in text that I'll edit later, it is real pain when using, for example, an x-termal.

I mentioned that I used to use a Palm. In fact, I first got an organiser ("pda") sixteen years ago long before I had a home PC. It was a Sharp, given to me as a christmas present. Slightly to my surprise, it was not a nine-day wonder; I used it for many years before it died and was replaced by a sucession of unreliable Palms. The key thing my Sharp did for me was to get my life organised - all my contacts, my diary and odd notes in one place and backed-up. Things got more complicated over time with the accumulation of home PCs and mobile phones. (I could go on about the problems of syncing multiple devices at length.....). I bought the N800 hoping that it would make a good pda replacement; it doesn't. I use GPE calender which is ok but GPE which doesn't sync with my phone or PC. I do use Erminig which will sync GPE calendar with Google calander but this only solves part of the problem. The biggest single improvement would be for the (Nokia) N800 to sync with my (Nokia) phone.

So, having established that the N800 is something other than a pda, what is it about? I think the N800 is all about the web and internet access. And that's what lacking in many places where I want to use the N800. In my office there is no available wireless connection; even at home the wireless connectivity is limited - the Victorians didn't place ease of penetration of 802.11 very high on their list of priorities. Things would be better for me if I could plug the N800 into my wired ethernet. Even when connected, the N800 experience isn't as good as it should be. The browser is slow and bit quirky. Although the screen is great, it isn't big enough to use Web2.0 applications easily, and there has not not been speedy progress in getting web sites which run well on the N800. For example, Google mail is just about OK, if a little prone to crashing the browser. On my (Nokia) phone the old (Java) version of Google Mail for Mobile looked better than Google Mail does on the N800, and the new, Native for Series 60 version runs fast too. Yes, my Nokia E50 has a better engineered Google Mail than my Nokia N800.

On the other hand, the N800 can be great platform when the application is build sympathetically. Meamomapper is great example - good looking. snappy and useful even when offline.

So what would I like to see changed about the N800? Firstly, a good PIM suite which syncs with everything under the sun. Secondly, a more robust, snappier browser. And finally, a keyboard. And then there are some things tha need to be changed about the world. Firstly, we need fast, cheap, ubiquitous wireless internet access. And secondly, web applications which work well when you are offline.

Wireless 2.0

Unfortunately I could only attend the second half of this one-day conference. I missed the keynote from Joe McGeehan and the presentations from Vodafone, Icera and Picochip. Although these were all reported to be very interesting sessions, I was pleased to have caught the presentations by Anders Carlius (TerraNet), Will Franks (Ubiquisys)and Stuart Scott (Intohand).

Anders Carlius described a peer-to-peer mesh communications network that TerraNet have deployed in Ecuador and Kenya. He labelled this as “communications for the last 4 billion” - developing nations where the users may be 60km from roads, power etc. The system makes money from incoming calls (from emigrants to the city calling home). Calls have a 90s maximum duration and the noise level increases as the call continues past 30s!

The TerraNet phone has a three button interfere. The concept of “identity” is built in. To make a call you scroll through your contacts and press “call”. To add a new contact you hold two phones together ("kissing"). This all sounded very carefully thought through to minimise customer care costs.

Will Franks is Founder and CTO of Ubiquisys. Ubiquisys was founded in 2004 and is now a market leader in Femtocells. Google have recently become a significant investor in Uniquisys.

So, what is a femtocell? A 3G network in box. No buttons. Idiot proof. Uses an existing broadband connection as backhaul – good value for operator – no backhaul or power cost. Offers 7Mbit/s in the home to 3G handsets. This can drive 3G phone sales – at last a reason to acquire a 3G phone. Content (audio, video, data) can be transferred to the phone at home and used away from home when (3G) network connectivity may be poor. “Sync at home; consume at will”. Radiated power is very low power in the home – 1 mW – gives very long battery life, decreases heath risks. Voice quality is very good, video performance is excellent.

Everyone I spoke to after Will's presentation wanted to buy a femtocell. But it was a very geeky audience.

Stuart Scott gave the final talk. Intohand are a software house working in the wireless space. Stuart described how grotty things are at the moment, close platforms, poor platforms (Intohand can crash some handsets from their Java sandbox). Stuart made an appeal for downloadable software, to make phones more like PCs. He said we need to have a sequence of connectivity; content creation tools – content will follow; services and mashups - service revenue will follow.

Finally, he made the observation that "The Web" will become "The Mobile Web"; most web access will be from phones.

So, overall an interesting conference. There were a mix of people there, mainstream technology, start-ups and start-ups, entrepreneurs and wanabees, VCs etc. Well done Silicon South West for putting it on.

Mozilla browser for N800

My life just got better. Maemo have have released an early access version of a Mozilla based browser for the N800. Installation was a little trickier than it should have been - maybe due to slow connection, but it works quite well. A number of Web 2.0 sites work much better than with the Opera browser.

Google Reader

I use Google Reader pretty much exclusively as my RSS reader on my PC. However, it doesn't work too well on my Nokia N800 - the interface is too complex. Google's own mobile reader is too primitive (and as for the N800's feed reader, the less said the better). So, what to do? The answer is Reader Mini. This provides the most important functions of the full Greader in a form that works great on the N800. And actually, it's not too shabby on a PC either.

In case John Tokash is reading, my only (minor) gripe about Reader Mini is that it does not remember the UI choices - e.g. - "show unread only" from session to session.

Problems with a slug

I run a fairly large IT set up at home. Five or six computers - mostly Windows - a couple of wireless routers, a switch, a cable modem and a slug (NLSU2) with a couple of largish usb disks. The slug is my network file sever - essential when you have so many machines. I chose the slug because it was cheap, flexible and let me do automated backups.

However, it is not the most reliable of beasts. I've had lots of problems with backups falling over, and find that I often have to rebuild the file system on another Linux machine. Recently things have been getting worse. I think the problem is that at least one of the USB disks - probably the backup one - is going bad. So, I decided to replace them with some new disks. "It must be easy to upgrade the disks". One weekend later and I'm not so sure.

I got the machine to boot with the new main disk once - and not since. I'm now trying the backup disk. 236 GByte copied so far. I don't think I'll get to know the outcome until new weekend now as I'm increasing my carbon footprint again this week. I hope to blog from the N800 from India.

In New York

Carolyn and I are now in New York City. We had a great time yesterday, walking around, seeing sights, and generally getting feel for the place. And this morning the wi-fi started working so I'm able to post this from my N800.

Challenges

I away for the weekend and I have given myself two challenges. First, to e-mail a photo to my family. Second, to write a blog entry while I'm away - preferably with a photo.

Is my N800 up to it?

Maemo Mapper

Maemo Mapper is possibly the best crafted piece of software I've used in ages, and I don't just mean N800 software. Not quite sure how to describe it. It can be used as if it were just a front end to Google Maps or Virtual Earth. It can be used with a bluetooth GPS to show current position and to record maps. But you say, surely when your driving around, your not connected to the net. Well, certainly I'm not, but MM will cache away maps it's already downloaded and reuse these.

The application uses the N800 wonderfully. According to its author, the application has been written from the ground up for the N770/N800 display and for the processor power and memory available. You can see the benefit. I've only encountered one bug/misfeature; the "downloading file" appears even when not connected to the net - and stays there stuck in this case. Otherwise, 10/10.

Blogging from the sofa

Well, I just spent a few minutes sitting on the sofa writing about how easy the "full screen" keyboard is to use on the N800. Then I hit the wrong button when trying to use the predictive text mechanism and wiped all the text I'd entered. So I´m now typing this with the stylus which I find much easier.

Amazon

I bought my N800 from Amazon. Not the cheapest but they had it in stock and could ship quickly. Unfortunately they used City-Link for the delivery. I have spent too much of my life waiting in City-Link's offices, waiting for various parcels which they tried to deliver when no one was in. This time, it seems - not that I am making an accusation - that they didn't bother trying to deliver.
The web tracking said they'd tried to deliver at 8:19 and that no one was home, so they'd left a card. There was someone home; they did not leave a card. So I found myself visiting their offices and waiting.

Using City-Link is not the quality I expect from Amazon. I told them so and had an apologetic e-mail back. And they refunded me my express delivery charge. Well done Amazon.

Nokia N800

I gave way to temptation.

So far, so good. No time to do much as have been doing work in preparation for this week's trip to Grenoble. Will blog more on this topic I am sure.

Is this genuine?

Well, maybe Nokia N800s aren't quite as cheap as they seem in the USA. One of the sellers on Google Base, Edward Woods, sent me the following mail in response to my query about shipping:

Hello Roger Shepherd,

Thanks for your mail.

The Nokia N800 cost $320 USD.

The Nokia N800 are all brand new,not opened factory sealed with 2 years and 6 months warrantties,They also comes with the full accessories,all in good and perfect conditions.

The shipments charges of the Nokia N800 are all inclueded in the price...$320 USD.

We can also ship and deliver the goods to your shipping address in the UK under 24 hours via fedEX or DHL.

Shipments is done immediately payments is confirmed by our accountant.

Our modes of payments are;

Bank wires.t/t.

western union money transfer.

Chose your method of payments from anyone of these two stated above.

How many units do you need?

How soon do you want them delivered?

Reply back asap.

Regards.

Edward Woods.(Sales Rep)

Mobiles4all Limited.

UNITED KINGDOM.

This doesn't fill me with confidence about Mr Woods. The spelling is rotten - and exactly the same as he used in a mail I found reproduced on a BenQ message board - the consensus on that board was that the BenQ phones he was offering probably didn't. For my part, I wouldn't send money by Western Union to an unknown person on the promise of an e-mail such as this.

Furthermore, Mr Woods e-mail address is mobiles4all.limited AT yahoo.co.uk which interesting, as

1. mobiles4all appears to have a reputation for being involved in some sort of pyramid scam, and
2. I would expect someone having a genuine business shipping lots of phones (Mr Woods has plenty of others on Google Base) to have a more reputable e-mail address.
   

This all smells rotten to me. I think I shall tell Mr Woods I am interested in buying a number of his phones and can he send me his banking details. If I knew which law enforcement authority to contact about this I would contact them. Maybe I'll contact Google Base.

N800 rip-off in the UK?

I have my eye on the Nokia N800 web tablet. But how should I get hold of one for a reasonable price? The best UK price I've found is £245.58 (MobilePlace.co.uk) as against £279 from Nokia (nokia.co.uk). Many of the usually cheap suppliers sell the N800 for more than Nokia!

In the US, Nokia sells the N800 for $399.99 (£202.95), there is a seller on Google Base who is selling at $320 (£162), and someone on US E-bay selling at the same price with a $40 shipping fee to the UK. Now, I know in the UK I'd have to add VAT, but it's only 17.5% which brings the cheapest price up to around £190.

Rip-off Britain? Or is there a cheap local supplier?

Divergence

I've written about why, although digital technology is converging, digital products should diverge. I've recently become interested in the Nokia N800 web-tablet. It's a small (think PSP) touch screen based computer which looks ideal as a portable web browser. It has bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, but no cellular connectivity; it is not a phone. A recent blog posting, "maybe your phone doesn't need to be smart" covers some of the good reasons why a bluetooth cell phone plus an N800 could be a really good combination.

My own analysis is that I want my cell phone to be small enough to carry with me at all times - in the pocket of my jeans. This means the phone must be small (thinner than my current Nokia 6822 which can unfold to reveal a qwerty keyboard); robust; work well as a phone(!); and have some non-phone functions (i-net, diary, ...) but it doesn't need to be very good at those things. The 6822 works just fine with the Google Mail Java app for instance. Ultimately, of course, the size of the phone will limit the screen size which ends up limiting its usefulness. I think carrying a second, larger device, with more functionality sounds just.

Of course, today the N800 seems to be lacking a key application, a diary which syncs with other things (Outlook, Google Calender). But I'm sure this will get fixed soon.