Google Android and Vodafone..

When I first heard that Google was bringing out there own Phone Software, I was over the moon! I use Google.. a lot! Not just for search, but email / calendar .. everything! I am what you call a Google Fanboy..

Being a T-Mobile Customer, I was really looking forward to going down to the store and seeing what the G1 was like.. They had a big hype and a great advertising campaign, but when I saw it.. I HATED IT!

I played around for some time, trying to build up some love but I couldn't.. It was the keyboard, and the general clunkiness of the whole thing.  However, I rested in the knowledge that this isn't Googles hardware. They supply the OS - Google Android. HTC had bought the first model out, and there would be more soon.

Christmas came and went, and still only rumour on who would be bringing the next phone out. In February, the Mobile World Congress was over in Barcelona and I heard about the next HTC Android phone ... the G2, and it was exclusively with Vodafone in the UK! GREAT!

It was due in April, so I went over to the Vodafone site to find some information... after all I had looked comprehensively through both o2 for the iPhone, and T-Mobile for the G1. What was Vodafones site like?? Rubbish. they didnt have any info at all..

It wasn't until the beginning of April that they started putting pictures and more info on there minisite http://htcmagic.vodafone.co.uk and I had to wait until near the end of the month, to try and get prices.

Finally, they released pricing and you know what.. I could actually save £5 a month, on the potential £35 a month contract by pre-registering! Free Phone! Free data! What more do I need?

How about the ability to transfer my old number to the new one? Isn't that what most people want to do? Apparently not, according to Vodafone. I phoned for clarification with the number on there microsite, only to be told I had rung the wrong department. I explained my predicament, and they said "No - not possible" i mentioned it to them, that this is going to be quite popular, and they didn't even care.

Now that Samsung have announced the i7500 -  a better phone, with a better camera, an OLED screen, all with a bigger battery! So, now I might just have to wait till June for that to come out.. just need to know who the carrier is! The rumor is currently sitting with T-Mobile, but its just as likely to be o2.. We will find out soon enough!

UPDATE - The ability to bring in your PAC (Port Authorisation Code) has been enabled.. i guess I am going to order!

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My history with Smartphones..

I love smartphones! Why?? It all started when I damaged my first phone back when I was in the Army. It was an Alcatel, I think! I lost all my phone numbers, and I made it a condition that any phone I get from now on *HAD* to support the ability to back up my phone numbers.

At first it was a manual job. I had a piece of paper I kept in my wallet, with all the numbers, but I knew there should be a way of doing this. I didnt want to do this manually anymore..

I left the Army, and went to University. I discovered the ability to create my own logos and ringtones with a piece of software, but wasn't entrepreneurial enough to make money like a lot of people did back then. I just did it for friends! This software, also allowed me to back up my phone to a database where I could actually adjust the numbers.

I was using Nokias a lot. I had a business grade Nokia for a long, long time and it was a perfect phone. Nokia was clever enough to realise that the Interface had to be intuitive, and tried not to change it to alienate there growing customer base. I remember when everyone had a Nokia 3310 at one point!

However, Nokias still didn't do it automatically. Thats when I discovered Smartphones.. well actually an Orange SPV C500 running the Windows Mobile OS. I could use ActiveSync to sync not just my contacts with Outlook, but also my calendar. It was brilliant, and as a longtime Orange User I was over the moon.. It even allowed me to download programs onto the device, but they never seemd to work that well.

A bonus of this phone, was that the back-up cable was USB to Mini-USB and it also charged the phone. It was a no brainer, to use this lead as the charger. I had this phone for about three years, and its still my backup phone sitting in my drawer just in case it all goes wrong.

When I got back from travelling, I used a friends old Orange SPV C550 for a long time, and I had discovered the ability to surf the web using my phone. I was always hoping that Orange would give me a decent data package, so it wouldn't cost me much but it seemed to be about £10 for 1mb per month. It just wasn't good enough. I switched providers..

When I joined T-Mobile I opted to move away from Windows Mobile, and back to Nokia with the Symbian S60 OS. It was pretty simple, and had an extremely easy to use intuitive OS. I could even download programs onto my Nokia e51. When my business phone came up for renewal, I even chose a black e51.. why?? Well, if the battery died on one then I could swap them out really easy. A 2gb micro-SD card is great to store some music on, and I even discovered th pain of using Bluetooth headsets. I still swear by a single headphone at the end of a wire for my handsfree kit!

Anyway my contract has lapsed about four months ago and I have been on the lookout for a new phone... you are probably thinking the Apple iPhone..

No, I want the Google Android..

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Google Chrome .. five weeks on

Five weeks to the day since Google released its browser, Chrome and I thought I would give a quick update. 

I think the best thing you can say is that I am still using it! It wasn't a fly by night browser, try it out for an hour or so and never open it again.. its used for everything I do on my PC thats related to ME!! .. I don't use it for anything work related. For that I use IE7 and occasionally a very clean install on Firefox v3. 

Its still blindingly fast.. I have application shortcuts on the desktop for Gmail, Calendar and Gmail Contacts... I use the incognito feature, when I want to check my other Gmail account... I have used the Tabslock feature, so that whenever I press CapsLock it opens a new tab with my nine most used webpages on. For the record, its my company homepage, Facebook, Gmail, BBC News, Amazon, Google Reader, Wikipedia, My Wikipedia Watchlist, and at the moment it also has National Rail. I also love the search bar.. its called the onebox,a nd you can have custom search set. For instance, everytime i press W > space > SEARCH TERM.. it normally brings up the wikipedia page on it.. Would someone please tell me how I can search Amazon.co.uk the same way?? I have tried loads of ways and none of them work.. All in all though, I love it! 

But what do I miss?? I miss my delicious adding, but have managed to fudge it using a bookmark. Its not the best, but it works and Del.icio.us is 100 times better than Google Bookmarks. but thats about it. I now have a very fast browser, and its only crashed on me once. It opened up again so quick though, that I hardly noticed. 

The trackpad still doesn't scroll up, but I understand Google have fixed it on the nightly betas ... I haven't signed up for those, as I want a pretty stable release. One thing though Google, of you are reading this, please make it easier for me to upgrade to v0.2.149.30 or whatever the most recent one is by a click of a button. I don't know which is the most recent stable release.

Anyway want to know more?? go and view the comic at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html and download the browser from http://www.google.com/chrome

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Who uses Digital Pens?? saw the zPen reviewed on fives GadgetShow

After watching UK channel fives Gadget show tonight, I was really impressed with a new digital pen that has just been released in the UK. Part of the show is called the 'Focus Group' and tonight they did it on Computer Peripherals. They included:

• Optimus Maximus Keyboard - Fancy keyboard with OLEDs


• 3D Connexion SpaceNavigator - 3D mouse, great for architects looking round 3D images.


• Dane Elec zPen ... (shame the website is down!)

Anyway I have been looking for a digital pen for some time, so was really happy to see this on TV. Everyone likes to write things down.. telephone calls, meeting notes, brainstorming. Trying to use a Wacon tablet with OneNote was a real PITA. Also when I attend my monthly team meeting, all of us are sitting behind laptop screens, checking email and not engaging with the meeting.

Digital pens have been around for some time, but have always needed a special tablet, or special paper. I don't mind putting some money down upfront, but I do NOT want to keep having to buy new paper everytime it runs out. Also, it needs to be portable.. The Dane Elec zPen should be, and according to theUS Amazon site you should be able to:

• WRITE with the pen, on any kind of paper (with the receiver on top of your page)


• DOWNLOAD your handwritten notes on your PC and view them on screen


• FIND keywords back on your handwritten notes


• CONVERT your handwritten notes in digital text, to use it on your standard word processing software applications

It takes standard biro refills, and apart from one downside - the battery life does not seem to be that great - it looks a sure fire winner! It has the ability to upload 1Gb of data (using a proprietary .eli format) which creates PDFs, and these can then be OCR'ed to your text editor of choice.. Maybe I can convince the boss to buy 25 of them and tell everyone to turn the laptops off!

So I need to know if anyone has used this yet?? Any US or UK customers willing to point me to a couple of reviews? google didnt bring much back I'm afraid.. and there is no zPen wikipedia page (there is one for digital paper)

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Welcome connected internet readers

A big welcome to all readers who are coming here from Connected Internet!

I first discovered Connected Internet back when I was travelling in Australia, as I was searching for ways to get extra features in gmail.. Connected Internet were linked to and I had been browsing the site whilst in my IT Support job in Sydney. I let Everton know that you could turn on features in gmail by changing your settings to English US, away from English UK.. He wrote a post, thanking me and I have been a loyal reader since!

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Happy New Year 2007

Welcome to a New Year and new starts.. I just want to want to let you all know I had a great New Year weekend, and spent it with friends from Uni and Reading on a Canal Boat. 48hours of boozing and generally cruising up the Kennet and Avon Canal in Berkshire!

I didn't feel particularly great on Monday, with a total lack of energy and complete loss of communication skills, but I feel a helluva lot better now!

So Resolutions?? Any planned? I do.. but then I do every year. Last years were similar to what I wanted for my life after thirty, and this years are extensions onto these as well.

So my thirtieth Birthday Resolutions were:

1. No More Smoking! - I have given up now since the day I got on my flights over here.. A couple of days I have really wanted a cigarette but I have kept up to it!!


2. Get Fit & Stay Fit - With a season ahead of me, I should lose this belly of mine, but I also need to get fit & stay fit.. sit ups.. press ups.. swimming..


3. Manage my cash - Those of you who know me well, know that I am terrible with my dollars.. from now on I will manage it so much better!


4. Keep a life journal - While I am away I am keeping a journal of my travels as well as this blog… I intend to keep this going..

And my 2006 Resolutions were ... exactly the same! So what am I going to do this year?

1. No More Smoking.. - I restarted smoking in November, as me and Zena were having troubles. But as its a New Year, and me and Zena have broken up now then I am stoppng again. My last cigarette was on the boat back, two puffs and I threw it away!


2. Get Fit & Stay Fit! - This is alwasy going to be a resolution for me. When friends call my JaidaFiveBellys its embarrassing. I am now living just three miles from work now, so there are no excuses not to run in. Plus I want to do this half-marathon in March in under two hours...


3. Manage my Cash & Life Better - So I have added extra to this. My cash is sooo much better managed now (thanks to Zena). Its simply a matter of having two accounts. One to get paid into, pay all the bills and it also pays into a spending account. So I am going to save more money, but the most important is to manage my life better. Looking at GTD (Getting Things Done) and its something I want to have in my life, so I aim on starting this month and putting my progress into this blog!


4. Keep a life Journal and Photo365 - I am going to keep my blog running, I really enjoy writing to it! More people than just Friends and Family read it now, and I want to put more interesting things in as well! It will never be about work, apart from a general sense! I am also going to start Photo365 (linked to my vox blog  and my flickr page) which will be a photograph taken every day, also I am going to take one of myself, to see what a year does to me!!

So a few new things.. Photo365 and Manage my Life Better should make 2007 a much better year!

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the future of smarthouses

Now I wish I had the technical & business skills to be able to approach someone for Venture Capital. I have this kickass idea, that one day we are all going to be going "Why didn't I think of that!" .. and as I have no chance of getting the cash together, I am gonna write it up here and look back in ten years..

Its all about computers / smartphones / internet / networks and our homes.

Basically at the moment we have one, maybe two or three, computers hooked up at home connected to the t'interweb. Each of these computers have there own internal harddrives, and all require significant power to keep running. They all require a degree of knowledge to operate, so if something goes wrong, you have a rough idea of what to do. If something goes drastically wrong, then you have to start again, or pay a significant amount to you local computer store to get things working again.

So whats the most important thing on your computer? Its the data. Everything else is covered by insurance, but you can't replace the data. Its like if your house burns down, you can't replace your pictures can you? The future of computing resides in backup. Not just in one place either.

Home Servers. Fireproof/thiefproof and totally secure. Nothing is totally secure, so the data will be backed up offsite. So, if you are going to have a home server, why bother with PCs. Why not have virtual machines.

VMWare are a company that have seen profits rise by 60% each year (can't remember where I read that) and its helped by Dual Core chips.. or quad core .. or n-core.. On a server you load a copy of the operating system, and all the software you are going to require. From there you run out to Thin Clients (TC) and they show and allow you to operate all of your applications, on a cheap computer. Yes, thats right cheaper computers.

For those users whose computing requirements are office/email/internet/music/films/photos, a TC will be fine. Even if you want to create images, or write programs, as long as you add some more memory, it should work no problems. And thats with todays TC machines. You can attach a TC to the back of a flat screen monitor, attach some USB ports for Keyboards/mouse etc, and a a decent networking connection, and there you go all set up. How much money will this save you? Less money on the machine in the first place, and even less energy costs.

Each user authenticates with a fingerprint, and they get logged in to there profile. This is stored on the house server, and backup up remotely. Oh did I mention your mobile use? You use a smartphone. It logs into your profile, and with WiFi you can make calls, or browse the net, write some IMs or emails, do some work. It will be that simple.

With IPTV not long away now from being everywhere, we are soon going to have all entertainment on a screen near by. Oh and another thing, you will be able to control the house. Dim the lights, turn on the washing machine, set the cleaning robot on its way, CCTV when you are away, all these things..

What do you think? The best way for this is the ISPs create a service, where they set it up and lend you basic equipment for free. You want something better, then pay for it yourself! You will have a service plan, and a Technician can be at your house in four hours to fix things, or they may be able to do this remotely. This obviously needs some kickass company to be able to get these things together, but I have heard that the Freebox in France, is going in this direction. Perhaps my favourite company, Google can make a google box, and get it installed where ever there is a monitor in your house...

anyway like I said, its only an idea!!

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