Symbiosis60

Listen... I am alone at the cross roads

2008-11-21T01:31:00.008-06:00

…that's how I feel at this moment. Listen to the lyrics of "Dream Girls" song "Listen" and it will pretty much describe how I feel about Nokia right now. With the recent release of Android OS I was faced with the harsh reality....I've been waiting for T-Mobile US' 3G network launch and wanted a kick ass device that Nokia has been gracing the world with for a long time now. Unfortunately Nokia chose to "disconnects people" once again and completely ignored the T-Mobile US crowd and its new yet-to-be-popularized 3G frequency and instead churns out 3G devices for at&t frequency only. I dearly love my carrier and will not make a move to the MONSTER of at&t. So because of that I chose to put my beloved N95-3 to the side, part my ways with an excellent 5MP camera, heck of a good OS and made a leap to Android.

YES...I ditched S60 for the time being. I'm truly sad to say it. I will not sell my N95 for now but who knows in the future. My relationship with that Android started on a low note... I said to myself "First I want to finally ride the 3G wave". Then I will only "flirt" with the Android to see what the fuss is all about. And then it hit me like a lighting...my Google account typed in, password entered..and voila...no over bloated PC suite installation required and within 1 minute 160-some contacts were in my phone, the calendar synchronized and the e-mails started pouring in. I was honestly afraid that I will like Android. After all I've been a devoted S60 user since my first S60 based Nokia 3650 device. By the time I realized it, it was too late. I was falling in love already. The first thing that struck me as an ingenious invention was the notification bar. For as long as I can remember I have been annoyed beyond description with the way S60 (even v3) does the tasks of e-mail send/receive, calendar synchronization etc. Basically the phone is useless while those tasks are being performed as the "progress bar" takes 40% of the screen and prevents the phone from doing anything else until it's finished.

This is the area, in which the Android shines. EVERY SINGLE sync is done absolutely in the background. Unobtrusive, calendar, e-mail, contact sync. WHY hasn't Symbian and Nokia implemented this approach a long time ago is beyond me.

On one of the forums not too long ago one participant said that that the Android is a flop and that Nokia will never implement it in their phones as it's too tightly attached to Google's services. That individual though neglected to pay attention to the fact that Android is a completely open source OS and Google said that anyone that wishes to dissect it to their likes will not be stopped. I replied with a comment that Nokia can strip down Android from Gmail and Google services (contacts, calendar, e-mail) and replace it with their own Ovi services. Ovi now has ALL parts to complete this puzzle; Ovi contacts instead of Google Contacts, Ovi Calendar instead of Google Calendar, the recent Nokia Mail instead of Gmail... and even more services to stuff into the device....Ovi Share (photos, video), N-Gage games first ported to Android and then dumped into Android Market, and finally Ovi Chat, which is basically the same service as Google talk - XMPP compliant (so the users of OVI Chat can talk to Google talk members)...and on top of that Nokia just acquired OZ Communications so the IM client that's on most mobile phones these days is now owned by Nokia. I hope the big N will look at this as an opportunity and see the great things that Android can be. I deeply like S60 but Nokia's reluctance to evolve is just too depressing. Opening the source of S60 to the world may not be enough at this moment. People are used to S60 being "done" by Nokia. It's so tightly tied to Nokia that many people keep forgetting that until recently it was a separate company, with a major stake holder being the big N, which recently they completely bought out in order to release the OS to the public. It just may be too late for Nokia now - which sadly I have to say, would not be a bad idea if S60 would start losing market share. Android could be a great opportunity for Nokia. Slowly phase out dated S60 and focus on a new Linux based OS which has a huge potential - with Nokia's potential it could be designed to resemble S60 in "looks" department as possible AND guess what...all those thousands of S60 applications could run on Android with a bit of S60 engine emulation love implemented.

Now as a last note I would like to say again how greatly disappointed I feel with Nokia for not releasing a SINGLE device supporting T-Mobile's frequency. There is a starved T-Mobile population here in the US which could easily fork out $400 for a good device. Unsubsidized Android sells for $399 and people are buying it. Nokia could easily churn out N85 for T-Mobile now, and with the right advertising (even going against Android) could gain a large market share. T-Mobile started to offer "decent devices" such as G1, and then the two 5 MP shooters (Samsung Behold and Moto ZN5) but not even one matches the photo quality or the functionality of a good ole' Nokia. T-Mobile US may be a small chunk of Nokia's market but it should not be neglected either. I wonder how many "Maciek's" are out there...how many of you have given up your Nokia device because you cannot get love from the phone manufacturer you fell in love with and then you realized that you may actually stay "married" to your new Android device... Nokia, wake up...smell the turf. You are losing your long time customers.

It pays to be a geek

2008-11-19T01:07:00.009-06:00

On a recent trip to Sam's Club store in Evanston, IL this past weekend I had a funny encounter. First of all let me state for the record that I'm not a big supported of such behemoths as Sam's Club, but due to my current condition (herniated lower back disc) I wanted to see if I could get an inversion bed cheaper at Sam's Club.

So my painful story aside, I walked in to the store with my friend, looking cool, feeling sexy, wind in my hair I pulled out my G1 to play around with Shop Saavy. After passing some LCD TV's I asked my friend to stop by Sam's mobile phone stand as I wanted to look at the new Samsung Behold. So after a few minutes of browsing I aksed about Behold. Unfortunately they did not have them yet. The girl I spoke to noticed G1 in my hand. The first question that the nice girl asked me was how I like it. It struck a brief impromptu conversation about this and that, the goods and the bads. After a few minutes of chatter the nice girl said "I got one too but I have to send it back to T-Mobile for service as I locked it up". She pulled the phone out and to be honest I was expecting to see a phone locked due to an improper SIM card password. This was not the case. Her G1 was locked because of too many incorrect password attempts at the initial screen. The issue here was that I believe this was a T-Mobile provided device for the reps to use but also to show to the potential clients. What surprised me was the fact the this nice innocent girl was told by T-Mobile that she had to send the phone back to have it unlocked and restored back to the factory settings. I asked her to show me the phone after which I did the "Power + Home button" reboot into safe mode and restored it back to the factory settings. At the booth there was a young guy working together with her. Both of them were simply amazed and almost kissed my hands to thank me for doing this. The girl took a piece of paper and wrote down exactly what I did just for the future. What amazes me is that T-Mobile did not provide such a basic information to their own reps and instead they had to rely on a stranger's help which definitely does not make Sam's "Techy" people look good. At the end the girl REALLY appreciated my help and offered a discount either on a new activation or on an accessory. Since I already have a car charger, I asked my friend if he wanted one so he scored a few bucks off :-) Happy ending.

The morale of the story: Geeks Unite :-)

Android synchronization

2008-11-16T18:08:00.004-06:00

With the recent release of Google Android phone on T-Mobile the forums have been flooded with a lot of complaints from people who swear by Outlook (or any PIM application for that matter) and have complained that the phone does not come with any desktop synchronization software. To be honest I find it quite interesting that the same people who use Gmail, and give up on desktop e-mail clients complain that they can not get Outlook synchronized with their Google phone.

It’s almost as perplexing as the fact that people suddenly want a soft keyboard on a device and praise iPhone for having one YET were swearing at iPhone for not having a hardware keyboard. I’m about to loose my marbles in this mixture of decisions. My personal opinions aside I do have to say that I did find it quite annoying that I could not synchronize my Outlook contacts with T-Mobile G1 somehow right out of the box and instead had to enter them manually…that was until I did a little search on the net for some kind of program that would allow me to sync Outlook with Google services. To my surprise an application called CompanionLink popped up in my searches. I read the brief description and thought to myself "this sounds like a solution…but what’s the catch?" Well for starters the program is about 10 MB. Second it’s a paid application which costs somewhere around $30.00 - true not much but still it’s something you have to add on top of the price of the phone itself. And last and the best - it’s a free trial for 30 days. I have to tell you something - this application is a marvel and worth absolutely every penny. Google has the option of importing the contacts from a comma separated file (exported from Outlook) however I’ve noticed that the file would have to be mapped properly in order to transfer every field from Outlook contacts into Google contacts and I was not going to sit in front of my computer trying to figure out the proper mapping of fields. If you fear that you will have to enter every phone number manually into your android, think again. Companion link (the trial version) has a full functionality for 30 days and believe me - it was a painless procedure which, unlike exporting from Outlook and importing into Google contacts, worked amazingly well and moved every field properly, including the addresses. One negative that I found was the way the phone numbers were transferred. I’m a "neat freak" when it comes to my phone book organization so every single phone number that I have on my device is entered the international format like +1 (773) 555-1212 so as you see I have the plus sign, area codes in the parentheses and the dash between the main number. When Companion link did the transfer, It truncated +1 and the parentheses. For a regular John Doe this most likely would not cause a problem since most people enter the number in +17735551212 format. For me though it was just a neat factor but not a major issue. After fixing the minor issues my Android had EVERY single contact ported from Outlook. One thing worth to mention is the fact that the CompanionLink for Android DOES NOT synchronize Outlook to your phone - instead it syncs them to Google account which takes over from there to sync with your phone via OTA transfer.

It’s also not a one way road…the software can be setup to synchronize both ways so if you update your phone’s calendar or Google calendar, it will synchronize to Outlook. So on a final note, don’t be cheap - if you depend on Outlook for all your daily scheduling needs, that $30 will be a well spent money. If you only need to do a one way transfer, then get the trial version, however if you’re reading this AND debating on how to port Outlook contacts to your Google android phone, my guess is that you’re the kind that will indeed be smart enough to get the full version which will allow you to use your phone and Outlook in harmony.

Gay Chicago Magazine

2008-11-15T21:25:00.005-06:00

Gay Chicago Magazine,
originally uploaded by ordxpres.

In a recent Gay Chicago magazine I wrote an article about QR codes. The magazine's issue #46 can be downloaded from Gay Chicago website or by scanning the below QR code shortcut. The file is 10 MB. Check it out and share your thoughts.

If you'd preffer, you can download only the article which is about 800kb (not the whole issue) by clicking here.

11042008369

2008-11-04T22:53:00.002-06:00

Today was the time to vote. Luckily my polling place never had the lines so I was in and out in 10 minutes. That's all it took to elect Obama.

T-Mobile G1 photo

2008-11-01T11:30:00.003-05:00

This is a cool looking shot posted directly from my G1

Cool mix by Andrew McDonald (aka. bravehound)

2008-10-18T14:03:00.006-05:00

Andrew is a hot geek, cell phone freak who also happens to be a great DJ. Head to his site and download the mixes. Make that Nokia hum with cool beats. To download directly to your phone, just scan the QR code.

digg story

Pussy versus Printer

2008-09-11T15:57:00.001-05:00

Normally I'm not too crazy about cats but this one made me laugh. It's not really cell phone related but it's funny as hell. Watch how pussies interact with the technology

SymbianGear Apps Giveaway Days!

2008-08-06T16:48:00.005-05:00

Ok, so here's the deal:

SymbianGear shop has just started some kind of happy hours, but this time it's not just hours...
All you have to do is go to the SymbianGear's Shop and register. Then you can use a few promotion codes...
The codes are valid until:

Wednesday 6.08 - Advanced Device Locks - redeem voucher: ADL100
Thursday 7.08 - X-plore - redeem voucher: xplore100
Friday 8.08 - EUROPAinfo - redeem voucher: EUinfo100
Saturday 9.08 - Advanced Brain Trainer Edition 1 - redeem voucher: ABT100
Sunday 10.08 - Handy Alarm - redeem voucher: HandyAlarm100

To download the software add selected item to your shopping basket and choose redeem voucher as a payment method.

Porting T9 dictionary

2008-08-05T08:55:00.004-05:00

On his website, Vaibhav Sharma recently posted a nice link to porting S60's dictionary to another device. For the longest time I have been annoyed with the fact that it's impossible to customize your device's dictionary. It would be so nice if S60 gave us, the user, a choice of which T9 dictionaries to install on the device. For example when you launch the setup wizard on your device you should be given an option to choose lets say 3 or 4 T9 languages. You put a check mark and voila...the phone downloads the dictionaries OTA and from there you're all set. W-H-Y do we need to be at the carrier / manufacturer's mercy when it comes to our texting habbits? I text both in English and Polish but disabling T9 just so I can send an sms in Polish is just a plain annoyance. Sure there are the device codes which many have played around with but that works across the same hardware only (as in N95-1 in Poland vs N95-1 released in India...change the product code and the firmware update will install with the desired language pack). This unfortunately puts N95-3 or any N, E or whatever -3 users out of luck since the hardware of the device is completely different.

Now with a little hackery as shown on Vaibhav's blog I opened the ".dat" file in Windows notepad" but it's not just a simple list of words one after another. There are some weird characters (HEX perhaps) which lead me to believe that it may not be as ease to add the words to this file and put it back on the phone. Perhaps someone can figure out how to add more words manually and create a custom T9 dictionary????

OpenAtOwnRisk.com Really driving me mad!

2008-07-30T07:19:00.009-05:00

Today OpenAtOwnRisk.com has finally been opened.

What now? To crack the mystery of any need to go to download! and download files. And what if we live in Poland? Of course, we have no way of downloading files...

Here is the screenshot from my phone:

Good luck at breaking the seals... >:-(

4GB MicroSD HC Deal

2008-07-28T12:33:00.005-05:00

Buy.com has a 4GB Dane Electronic MicroSD HC card for $10 after the rebate with free shipping. A Great Deal...

Click below link to get the deal.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=207498748&adid=17070&dcaid=17070

Sportstracker activity

2008-07-26T00:33:00.002-05:00

Nokia Nseries Widget

Symbiosis60

In order to view the Nokia Nseries Widget you need JavaScript and Flash Player 9+ support

Today I went biking...for the first time a while it was a such a long trip for me. I shall see tomorrow how my bum will feel. Along the way I had my N95 with Sportstracker software running. Unfortunately the phone was not fully charged so it died on my way home (about 10 minutes before reaching the destination.

The phone was in my pocket all the time yet the signal was acquired pretty much 99% of the time. All I can say is that it's a cool program. Now I wish it was paired with some other work out program that I could follow while at the gym. Next thing will be a steering handlebar holder for my N95 so I can look at my phone while biking and a solar powered charger would help too :-)

Nokia BH-604 Review

2008-07-24T19:54:00.008-05:00

Today our shop will take a look at the flagship model of wireless headphones straight from Finalnd; Nokia BH-604. At the first glance the headphones appear to be quite large and heavy. That’s exactly how they are! This is not an equipment for everyone and not everyone will like the style either. I’m one of the people that like such design and that is the reason I picked this model over another one. I had serious doubts in selecting the model (BH-604 vs. BH-501) but finally placed my bet on the newer one..so let’s get to the point.

What’s in the box?

One can say it’s all the usual… Obviously you’ll find BH-604 headphones, mini charger AC-5E, a velvet pouch and an instruction manual.

Handling and Functionality

Thank to its size and ergonomic design the headphones stay put on one’s head quite well. The materials used in production are a hard (strong) quality plastic and leather-like padding which houses an adjustable and flexible metal plate which lays quite well on top of head.

All control buttons are located on the right earpiece. You’ll find the standard music-controlling buttons (FF, REW, Play, Stop, Volume). The same earpiece also houses the microphone and charger port.

It also contains a multicolor LED indicator which changes the color depending on the mode:

Blue (fast blink) – Bluetooth discovery mode
Blue (slow blink) – Bluetooth connection established
Green – Power on
Red short blink – during the power-off

The earpieces twist left and right and slide up and down which makes them very accommodating for „larger heads” such as mine :)

During my few months with the headphones there was only one negative thing I’ve noticed. Placement of the buttons is quite good however the FF / REW buttons should be designed in a different way; something easier to press. Example: To advance to the next song the button has to be press quite hard which can cause the headphones to slide off the head. Instead one has to hold the earpiece with the whole hand while pressing the advance button instead of tapping the button with one finger.

Sound...

...That’s exactly what I was afraid of when I was buying my first A2DP headphones. Luckily Nokia did not disappoint me. Quite opposite…I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately I can not compare them to any other product but I don’t think it’s possible to improve the sound quality over Bluetooth anyway. Myself, an average “John Doe” did not notice any static, cracking etc. The voice quality is good and loud and the bass is clear. I do not recommend to listen to the music on full volume on these headphones – not everyone likes the same kind of music as the person wearing the headsets – these headphones simply rock and you have to hear the sound to believe it.

Battery and Sturdiness

Nokia claims 18 hours of battery life. Usually these specifications are a stretch in real life conditions. Not in this case. I did not look at my watch exactly but the fact that over the period of a few months that I’ve had them, I had to charge them only a few times – this speaks for itself.
Generally I take good care of my gadgets but in case of headphones it’s hard to do it... with these babies I carry them everywhere and do not really pay the attention to the way I handle them; I carry them in my back pack with books (not always in velvet pouch), biking, excursions etc. They even fell on the ground a few times…yet they stay attached to my head very well – no scratches at all.

To sum it all up...

Judging by the above statements one could say that I over exaggerate these headphones, but I have to tell you that I’m not. I’m really amazed with the quality and can easily recommend this hardware to everyone that is on the hunt for Bluetooth headphones and can not make up their mind. It’s worth the price.

It's been seven hours and sixteen days....

2008-07-22T22:37:00.004-05:00

Like Sinead O'connor's song "Nothing compares to you"...however in this case it's been more like almost two years but our belover N95 is going strong. Today after uploading some pictures to Flickr I started browsing EXIF data and found some interesting news.

Basically after almost 20 months since the original launch date (November 2006) Nokia N95 is still one of the most powerful devices on the market. Sure there's N82 which is a beauty as well (I had a pleasure of testing the device a few months ago thanks to the courtesy of WOM World) but the camera is downgraded to 3.2 MP. If you look at the below chart N95 is the MOST popular device in Nokia line-up of camera phones. There have been a few devices launched after however none of them seem to be as popular. And let's face it with the latest firmware updates on N95 it's one snappy phone. Even the original N95-1 (aka Euro version) which had a POOR battery life and was as speedy as the first digital cameras with shutter lag of 5+ seconds got the update and is now on par with the current N95-3 and N95-8GB due to on-demand paging and in general a better memory management. Sinply said - N95 still rocks despite the fact that by now according to mobile trends it should've been long forgotten (Average user replaces their phone every 18 months) but us geeks..well..we do it more like every 2-3 months. If you look at the chart below; that's another story.

iPhone is one shi**y device in my opinion. Sure - it has a gorgeous design and a nicely polished GUI but that's about it. Under that GUI it can't send an MMS, no copy / paste, still no HSDPA and it's locked tighter than medieval chastity belt.
. After almost two years N95 is on TOP. It may be #2 after iPhone however i highly doubt iPhone will even be listed on this chart in two years. First of all it takes rather BAD pictures unless you hold it absolutely still and second...the obvious..in two years that same iPhone will be DEAD due to the fact that its battery is not user replacable. So Hail to N95. Our Good old friend. Old doesn't mean bad.

Leak: FIRST S60 VGA! Screenshot leaked! (update: landscape screens added)

2008-07-19T04:15:00.008-05:00

It finnally happened. K FLYER have got an screenshot from upcoming Nokia S60 VGA Touch Interface. Screen was made by ICEman_c81 in withdrawn version of Carbide.ui (tool for theme makers). As you can see, there is a few buttons on the top for navigation. I don't know how about you, but I'm speechless :) VGA in S60, finally... :) I can't wait to get my hands on it.

(click on image to zoom in)

update:

New, landscape screenshots added! Again thanks to ICEman_c81!

5 Things You (and I) Didn't know

2008-07-10T08:21:00.001-05:00

Recently I started to hunt for the shortcuts which would allow my to browse the web more efficiently on my N95. Finally some clever soul did my homework...follow the link to learn some trick and shortcuts.

read more | digg story

New to the crew

2008-07-04T10:12:00.005-05:00

Hello everyone!

My name is Matthew and I'm 16 years old. I live in Poland and accurately in Legnica. Together with Maciek here I will wrote reviews and news. Maybe some of you know me by my nickname - rodak69. I do not know too much about what I could say more. Watch for my first articles :-)

Yours,
Mateusz (Matthew) - rodak69 - Rodak

Afterparty...N95-3 edition

2008-06-20T23:07:00.004-05:00

Not too long ago North American users of N95 (aka N95-3) were blessed with the long awaited update to our beloved phone. I wasn't going to be left behind so I jumped on the bandwagon and updated the firmware to v20.something... Not realizing that a few features were removed from the US edition (PTT client and IMPS client were some of them). Overall the firmware seems to be a worthy update HOWEVER...one of the things I've noticed is the slowness of SMS inbox. It takes much longer to open the inbox, then click on the message..wait another 2-3 seconds. This is becoming quite annoying. To the rescue comes a good old forgotten friend called SMS Accelerator. This little piece of software was released originally for N80 to remedy the slow performance of SMS messaging. I decided to give it a try and install it on N95-3 v20. All I can say is GO FOR IT. It doesn't just work...it works like a charm bringing the original speed of SMS imbox. Scan the code to get the application directly to your toy.

Nokia N85 in the wild!..could this be my next N-Series

2008-06-09T11:56:00.001-05:00

Engadget scored some spy shots of N85. I think I could go for it under one condition...it must have WCDMA 1700 as I'm not planning to ditch my fave operator..T-Mob.

read more | digg story

Pierogi Fest 2008

2008-06-06T08:54:00.001-05:00

Not a technology related event but definitely one close to my heart..or rather a stomach..be there

read more | digg story

WOM World Chicago OTA Get Together

2008-05-29T12:34:00.004-05:00

Recently the funky bunch of WOM World crew invaded Chicago. I had a chance to hang out with Amy, Tom and Robbie when were a wonderful hosts. The even took place at a cute restaurant in Buck Town area of the city.

Everyone had a chance to mingle and talk...and such event would not be complete without a galore of Nokia devices. Mind you that there were certain "less desirable" :-) brands (Samsungs) but let's not hate the less fortunate ones...their time will come. After receiving the invite from WOM crew I was invited to do a little demo on two of my favourite applications that I can not live without. I was to do this with "another" secret blogger whom later on I found out was Jeremiah from www.nokiausers.net

I met Jeremiah previously in during the LA Unlock event in September 2007 so it was nice to see him again and chat about the geeky stuff. Unfortunately he stole my 1st favourite application from the list of things to talk about so I was forced to talk about my 2nd one :-) Jeremiah demonstrated Sling player for S60 which worked better in his case as his carrier of choice is at&t allowing him to ride N95 to its full potential (HSDPA) while I'm on T-Mobile (therefore limited to EDGE or WiFi). Prior to the event I coordinated with Tom, Amy and Robbie whether I could invite two of my friends. Both of my good friends turned were happy to attend. Patrick (Northwestern University Professor) is a technology buff and geek just like myself while Russell (Rusty) (Colorado University Doctorate student) is like a child in an amusement park..his eyes light up when he sees kick ass gadgets. There were supposed to be about 20 people at the event but only half showed up...To those who did not show up...that means no more toys for you from WOM World...just kidding. The crowd that showed up was a good mixture..people "In the know", geeks, technology adopters AS WELL AS a the regular "every day users". It was nice to demo the applications and the possibilities of the N95-8GB (the star of the event) and see people's reaction to various possibilities. Sling required some explanation as the "regular" crowd was under the impression that this was a TV services for the phone. A quick clarification and everyone realized that this was "Your home tv on your phone" kind of software / hardware. I do have to admit I'm bad when it comes to remembering the names so I apologize for not remembering everyone's names. One of Chicago bloggers had a "Non S60" device... HTC piece of marvel with a full VGA screen, 3.2 MP camera, slide out QWERTY keyboard...a true piece of gem. Now if HTC would start manufacturing S60 devices we would be in heaven. The hardware workmanship is amazing, the devices feel sturdy like a brick and have a hardware specs to match. Perhaps in the near future we may see them start using their S60 licensee status. Co-writer of Nokiausers.net had Nokia N90 which I had to touch and see and play with for a moment (a review will be coming up as WOM is supplying me with one soon). But back to N95... My demo part involved 1: Nokia internet Radio. The radio selection in Chicago is a garbage in my opinion. There are no decent dance music stations here so N-Radio is a savior and allows me to get my daily dose of Euro news (Radio ZET from Poland) and music. Amazingly it works quite well via EDGE connection so no issues there. The second application I was demoing was Nokia Maps. (Un)surprisingly we had a signal inside of the restaurant thank to assisted GPS (A-GPS) so I was able to demo pretty much all aspects of the software. Again the "regular" crowd wowed and ooohhhed :-) It's a good feeling when one can wow someone with a piece of technology... it's so hard to do it within the geek crowd.

The whole event had a very relaxed atmosphere and due to the fact that there were only about 10 of us we could touch a lot of subjects. One of them was "The connections wizard" on S60 devices. Personally I did not have anything against it until a few drawbacks were pointed out to me...such as access point prioritisation.. . Now I see the point. Usually I launch the internet radio on my phone while I'm at home and thus it streams over WiFi. It would be nice if the phone would switch automatically to EDGE (or 3G) upon departure from WiFi coverage and then switch back to it as soon as it would sense an open access point. Sometimes one doesn't realize something is missing until another person makes a mention of it. It's good to network with other technology lovers. Overall the event was a success and the host restaurant owner (also an airline employee like myself) was a hoot. The event ended with a trip to Down Town for a late night snack and more geek talk. It was nice to be the "part-hosts" of WOM World crew and I hope we will be able to have another event like this in Chicago. I even recommended a beach bash...now that would be fun. See you at the next event.

Hail to Heaven...

2008-05-29T12:30:00.004-05:00

After a L-O-N-G wait Nokia finally released long awaited update for N95-3 (the US edition of N95 basic). Unfortunately Vista users are out of luck as Nokia removed vista support temporarily from the updater software. Sweat no more...there's always an XP machine around so yesterday I stayed long(er) at work just to get the update rolling. The update itself was flawless...it took about 5 minutes to download the 113 MB file and then about 5 more minutes for the update itself

The first thing that I noticed was the start up time. GREATLY reduced; around 20 seconds from power on to a "ready for take off" mode. The new firmware introduced demand paging. I won't get into the explanation of it (just click the link to read more) but essentially what it does is it gives you more memory to run the whole OS / applications. How much more you ask... I'd say as much as 90% more. Before I had only about 30-40 MB of ram left after a clean restart with Shozu running in the background. After the update I now have 81.30 MB free. Amazing. One thing I need to mention is that I downloaded the most recent version of Shozu which seems to be updated (now it boasts 4.0.56 version) recently where the previous one was a step or two older. Either way demand paging rocks. Another great improvement is the camera start up. As most bloggers have reported this was reduced by a GRAND number of seconds. You no longer need to wait 8-10 seconds for the start up. Press and hold the camera button and voila...a 2..that's TWO seconds of time to get the camera up... Lights, action...rolling....now you can do that. This will allow you to capture your child before the food spews out of its mouth vs capturing the vomit dripping all over their bib.

There are other things which I like. One would be the "semi standardization" of the home screen. The old firmware did not have search or share online plug in appearing on the stand by screen. I wrote about this in my previous posts (N81 review) and hoped that such features (home screen plug ins) would be uniform among all devices. Well...we're slowly getting there. You can't select which plug ins appear on the stand by screen just like it's possible in the E-series) but it's a step in the right direction. The menu structure has changed a bit where Podcasting application is now a part of music player; it's no longer a stand alone application and is nicely implemented into the player. Some folders were moved around. Before there was an Office folder on the main menu screen; this was moved to applications and is now replaced by N-Gage shortcut. It's not a very drastic change - no worries - nobody will get lost. And if it's not to ones liking, it's possible to move everything as needed. Interestingly Nokia did not include share 3.0 or Maps 2.0 applications which are now Nokia Labs graduates but again it's S60...it's a PC in a phone form factor so it's very easy to update everything. Web browser has been updated as well with Flash 3.0 which allows you to watch YouTube videos on the desktop version of the site (not the mobile one). As I'll be using my phone in the next few days I'll try to pinpoint the changes and will add them but for now I give it a thumbs up
and recommend that you find that old fashioned XP machine and get the update on your phone asap.

Dorota Radzik 10/04/1949 - 04/16/2008 RIP

2008-04-18T13:01:00.002-05:00

As some of you already know on April 16th my Mom passed away. Fortunately the end was like we were praying for; she woke up in the morning on Wednesday to welcome the day and then went to sleep forever a few minutes later. Today, April 18th was the service and the funeral. Our mom has touched many hearts and was loved by MANY people. The proof could be the crowd at the church. There were at least 200 people; all of her friends, family and people that knew her. It's beyond me to even try to describe how SAD I am that my Mom is no longer with Us but at the same time I'm SO HAPPY because she no longer has to suffer. Our mom has been bed bound since September of 2007 and has been slipping away little by little. There have been many days that we though she would not survive the night, but as the doctor kept telling us, she had heart as strong as a horse. Sadly cancer relapse was taking its toll and our mom had to be on morphine since the middle of October. As we made a choice to keep our mom at home instead of the hospital, we were lucky enough to have met a retired doctor who runs a home hospice. Our home became the caring place and together with the help of our angel, Ela; a home hospice nurse-volunteer, we were able to provide peace, a better than hospital care and plenty of love and the most importantly a pain free days. Ela was coming to our house EVERY SINGLE day since October 7th to help us with caring for our mom. Our mom has not had a single bed sore which is a miracle considering the amount of time she spent in bed. I know that now our family has two more members; Ela and Ms. Irena who organized the whole home hospice organization. Today was a SAD day but again we were so happy to see how many people love our mom and have been there for all of us throughout this hard time. My Mom liked Tom Jones' song "Green, green grass" and told us she wanted this song at her funeral. So we did...it's not a usual thing in Poland to play "your own" music during the service but heck with it - our mom wanted it and we did it. This is an "easy calming" song and not some jumpy pop but even that surprised a couple of people. During the ceremony some religious songs were sung. One of them was a kind of "chant". I noticed my sister was crying - I told her to imagine our mom singing this song and making jokes of the words (the chant had a phrase "bottoms up" referring to drinking the Vine as Christ's Blood". That made her smile. Our mom was a joker and that's how we want to remember her. It will be hard to forget how much she suffered in the past few months but she will ALWAYS know that we did EVERYTHING we could and that she was surrounded with LOVE. I'd like to send a BIG THANK YOU's to everyone for your support and memory. Even It's good to know that we are surrounded by so many friends who were there for all of Us. I thank You all from the bottom of my heart and even though the end was painful for all of Us, our Mom has won the battle in a way...she was fighting cancer for almost twenty years - which is a twenty additional years we were blessed with.

Mama - I will ALWAYS LOVE YOU

Viva la resistance....stick together...

2008-04-01T16:17:00.004-05:00

In a recent posting on Engadget Mobile editor Ryan Block revealed a letter "EM" received from Deutche Telekom, a parent company of T-Mobile family of companies asking to change the color magenta used in blog's logo. Thank Heavens Ryan and the crew came to their senses and for now have flipped a finger to my favorite mobile operator (in the US that is) and unintentionally started a campaign that goes exactly according to T-Mobile US motto..."Stick Together". To show my patriotism with Engadget Mobile I am joining the fight...Viva la resistance

I suggest that you do join the fight as well and change the background of your blog to color magenta. T-Mobile somehow managed to trademark the color and not it's obvious they're on a rampage to go after everyone that uses the color. For the patriotic ones - the color code is #ed008c. Let's all stick together against stupidity.