Blog by Train

Nigel Cooke (monkeynuts) was debating an eee PC or trying the iPhone out… So there you have it – full blogging on the train. I must admit I’m very impressed with how natural this feels. The whole post, including proof reading, has taken about 6 minutes (which includes ponderous moments of white wine intake) Monkey … Continue reading “Blog by Train”

Nigel Cooke (monkeynuts) was debating an eee PC or trying the iPhone out...

So there you have it – full blogging on the train. I must admit I’m very impressed with how natural this feels. The whole post, including proof reading, has taken about 6 minutes (which includes ponderous moments of white wine intake)

Monkey is gonna like this ! Oh and during this blog post I’ve taken 2 calls from the office, replied to 3 emails and sent a calendar invite to 10 people for Monday morning. Ladies and Gents I give you the future, and it’s iPhone shaped!

I’m impressed as well.

HerIndoors has decreed that no laptops will be making the journey with us on our two week holiday after the wedding. None. That’s quite frightening considering that I’m used to having a multipurpose computing platform close by at all times. And being stuck with something that doesn’t have a keyboard, can’t print, can’t really transfer files around and has finite storage (though 16 GB is an awful lot).

But two weeks without an iPhone sync? Or a refresh of materials?

See, my intent is to spend the two weeks blogging from around the world. I reckon it will cost me an arm and a leg in terms of mobile data but it should be worth it in the end. How better to mark an occasion.

Maemo now supports Twitter

Maemo now supports Twitter Still looks gawdawful. Especially compared to Twinkle, the latest of the iPhone Twitter apps: I still find it hard to justify breaking out my N800 when I have an iPhone. The UI is still like wading through molasses. Related posts: Nokia N800 versus iPod touch Google Calendar? 30 Boxes? Yahoo!? Entourage … Continue reading “Maemo now supports Twitter”

Maemo now supports Twitter

Still looks gawdawful. Especially compared to Twinkle, the latest of the iPhone Twitter apps:

I still find it hard to justify breaking out my N800 when I have an iPhone. The UI is still like wading through molasses.

The Office iPhone

Rob from SMSTextNews writes about the iPhone: I used to work for an agency that believed that Macs were better at everything. It would spend a fortune on a Mac and then only use it to do MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the interweb. It did seem like a waste of money, especially as the … Continue reading “The Office iPhone”

Rob from SMSTextNews writes about the iPhone:

I used to work for an agency that believed that Macs were better at everything. It would spend a fortune on a Mac and then only use it to do MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and the interweb. It did seem like a waste of money, especially as the company in question wasn’t the best payer out there.

Oh man, when you read this, you know that the article is going to be more fluff than content. Obviously you don’t need a Mac if you’re just using email, a web browser and office productivity applications. I mean why would you want a Mac – aren’t they just the same thing?

No, Rob, they’re not. Even if all I did was use Word and Powerpoint and Excel and Interweb, I’d still want to be doing it on a Mac. Inability to fathom the difference this would make just means that the rest of your post can be easily categorised into “He just doesn’t get it”.

You see, apparently the iPhone is now being adopted by more companies as an all-purpose communications device.

I’m not that surprised that it’s being adopted. Having tried both I think I’d still rather have the CrackBerry 8120 especially as it has WiFi on it. It’s not pretending to be something else.
I have an iPod (two in fact) and so never listen to music on the phone. I have a camera. I have a phone. I don’t really check the web on my phone because it’s rarely that urgent. So, that leaves me with the need for email and, quite simply, Blackberry is perfect for this. Especially as it has keys to easily type one.

Having used both BlackBerry and iPhone within the last two years, I see little evidence to suggest that having keys makes it easier to type. In fact, the presence of keys just seemed to eat up real estate on the device. For someone who wants to carry two iPods, one camera and a phone and who has no need to web browse on the phone, a BlackBerry might make some sense. For me, the availability of my media, the ease of use of email and the web, the flexibility of the App Store, the sheer screen real estate and even the fact it has a camera, albeit a poor one, make the iPhone the convergence device for me. I don’t carry other devices out and about (and when I do, it’s the full gamut of 17″ laptop, solar chargers, maybe even the N800).

I guess “He just doesn’t get it”.

Thorny Issues in Politics

Russell writes about the thorny issue of abortion. My bone of contention comes from the fact that the Parliment on England are trying to force this ammendment onto us, when all 4 churches and pretty much the whole Northern Ireland executive have said leave as is. There’s are two logical fallacies here, however: that any … Continue reading “Thorny Issues in Politics”

Russell writes about the thorny issue of abortion.

My bone of contention comes from the fact that the Parliment on England are trying to force this ammendment onto us, when all 4 churches and pretty much the whole Northern Ireland executive have said leave as is.

There’s are two logical fallacies here, however:

  1. that any Church should have anything to do with the running of a civil government.
  2. that the politicians in Northern Ireland have the best interests of humans at heart

I’m strongly Pro-Choice in this matter. It’s not something I choose for myself but until I’m able to carry a foetus to term myself, I’m not going to dictate how others choose to deal with unwanted pregnancies. I’d ask any man who has an opinion to consider not trimming any of his beard, toenails, hair, fingernails (or for that matter, ejaculate) for around 18 years before he considers the effects of bringing a child into the world. And even that won’t scratch the surface.

He continues:

My question is that, If we have (and its taken a long time to get) our own Northern Ireland executive with representives seated in the main UK Parliment, then why are the English trying to get invloved in our business? and force an ammendment our govenernment do not want?

This isn’t an English/Northern Irish thing. This is the government knowing that if we were left to our own devices our politicians would have us burning books and witches by the tonne. It has been shown time and time again that the political and social development of Northern Ireland is infantile in the extreme, that we permit dangerous memes of ‘difference’ and ‘culture’ which are divisive in our own communities: in short that we cannot be trusted to look after ourselves.

Don’t kid yourself; we don’t have a government. We have a couple of prefects looking after us and the teachers are hanging back to see what level of disaster we can make out of it.

I don’t want to live in a country that prides itself on bigotry and sectarianism but I’ve made my bed here and I’m kinda stuck. Northern Ireland has incredible potential because we have a lot of very smart people (I guess that proves that intelligence is recessive) but very few of the smart, educated people actually vote (and when they do, they don’t vote for big name parties).

The amendment is being forced because the people of Northern Ireland think with their bibles and not with their heads. And politicians pander to this weakness.

WordPress for iPhone: relegated

As I mentioned before, I think WordPress for iPhone really misses the mark. It doesn’t really add anything to the existing apps that are out there – look at iPhoneSlide which I’ve used a couple of times. It has much the same capabilities and works straight from your email client (and because it uses email, … Continue reading “WordPress for iPhone: relegated”

As I mentioned before, I think WordPress for iPhone really misses the mark. It doesn’t really add anything to the existing apps that are out there – look at iPhoneSlide which I’ve used a couple of times. It has much the same capabilities and works straight from your email client (and because it uses email, is available from within the Camera application on iPhone without having to take a picture, then switch apps. It also doesn’t have that nasty picture-attachment bug which causes crashing and means your post has to be recovered every time. In my opinion, this release from WordPress was not ‘rushed’ so much as it just needs a rethink about what features they were intending to put in.

I’d like to see an interface for comment moderation and replies. I mean, some of the web based mobile interfaces allow this. The software as-is is a posting machine. It needs to be a conversation machine. This part of it is completely missing and that’s somewhat inexcusable.

I’d like the ability to place an image (even just as an icon placeholder), center it if necessary and allow the user to place some text underneath the image. At this point it does no better than the email services as it just adds the content as an attachment at the bottom.

The app is now relegated to my back screens for “software I likely won’t use much” until there’s a significant update. The next step is simply removal.

Belfast Image Rip Off

This is an absolute disgrace, never mind that it seems this logo was probably ripped off from http://www.rebtel.com/en/ or http://babyboom.bigcartel.com/ Related posts: Holiday plans in June: Roaming Data Roaming in the EU. And not in the EU. Location-aware OpenGov & Crowdsourced Data Pixish: a new site where you can create image contests.

This is an absolute disgrace, never mind that it seems this logo was probably ripped off from http://www.rebtel.com/en/ or http://babyboom.bigcartel.com/


WordPress for iPhone, part 2

More bother than worth. Waste of time. Yes, I’ve hit a nasty crashing bug when it tries to add a picture. I think they’ve missed the point with this release. Very frustrating. Related posts: Developing for iPhone? iPhone. 4. WordPress for iPhone WordPress for iPhone: relegated

More bother than worth. Waste of time.

Yes, I’ve hit a nasty crashing bug when it tries to add a picture. I think they’ve missed the point with this release. Very frustrating.

WordPress for iPhone

The WordPress client for iPhone was released today. This is a test though as you can see, it’s missing a bit of spit’n’polish but otherwise seems to have hit the nail on the head. Maybe I’m a bit stupid but while I can add images to the WordPress library on the phone, there seems no … Continue reading “WordPress for iPhone”

The WordPress client for iPhone was released today. This is a test though as you can see, it’s missing a bit of spit’n’polish but otherwise seems to have hit the nail on the head.

Maybe I’m a bit stupid but while I can add images to the WordPress library on the phone, there seems no obvious way to add them to the posts.

photo

[Oh. That sucks. It just puts the images in at the end. There’s no formatting for them. Ew.]

iPhone 3G supplies still limited

( though O2 has a list of shops which have stock ) They also say: This list will be updated daily. The amount of 8GB and 16GB stock these stores have is still very limited and will therefore sell out quickly. We are expecting considerably more stock from Friday 25th July onwards. Soon after this … Continue reading “iPhone 3G supplies still limited”

( though O2 has a list of shops which have stock )

They also say:

  • This list will be updated daily.
  • The amount of 8GB and 16GB stock these stores have is still very limited and will therefore sell out quickly.
  • We are expecting considerably more stock from Friday 25th July onwards.
  • Soon after this date we are hoping to open our online upgrade shop for existing customers and online shop for new customers.

Going Solar: first steps

A couple of weeks ago I bought a FreeLoader solar battery which is expressly designed to recharge your little tech gadgets. This week, I added a supercharger to it (that’s the large green thing). The whole kit itself costs about £50. It’s not terribly sunny here but the freeloader battery charges in about 8 hours … Continue reading “Going Solar: first steps”

A couple of weeks ago I bought a FreeLoader solar battery which is expressly designed to recharge your little tech gadgets. This week, I added a supercharger to it (that’s the large green thing). The whole kit itself costs about £50.

It’s not terribly sunny here but the freeloader battery charges in about 8 hours by itself and in about 3 hours with the supercharger. This battery will then (in turn) provide about a half-charge to a Nokia N800 or iPhone 3G.


Having the unit in direct sunshine charges it quicker, having it behind glass in my living room (which is sheltered) makes it recharge much slower. You can also fast-charge it over USB which you would think defeats the purpose but this is about being able to get your gadgets power when you need it.

I think this kit will be very useful during the next few weeks and after that I’ll be looking at a bigger project. Like powering the TV at home.

Oh, it also comes in pink.