Chris Drumgoole

I was checking my RSS feeds today, and one of the Official Google feeds that I subscribe to had a posting about the new Google Calendar Sync tool!

Sure enough, then I accessed my Google Calendar, I found this nice link at the top:

I always wanted to use Google Calendar, but I;ve been kind of stuck using my work Outlook Calendar to manage my life as I have my phone syncing to it, and it worked quite well, but I was missing the online aspect.

Downloading the tool and running it, the initial screen looks like this:

The initial sync took a while as I have a lot of calendar data in Outlook.

Thanks, Google!

Well, sort of.

I’ve got an S60 mobile phone (the Nokia N82). This application, JoikuSpot, when installed on my S60 device, creates a WIFI Hotspot which shares the GPRS connection. I can then connect to this hotspot using my iPod Touch while, oh, sitting in Beijing traffic!

This solves the only real complaint I had with the iPod Touch (no bluetooth for internet connection sharing).

Rocking!

Buy Data!

Those of you in China, be sure to buy a data plan from China Mobile or China Unicom! Otherwise you’ll be surprised with a rather large bill at the end of the month (or your employer will be surprised, which ever the case may be).

I have the 100RMB a month for 800 MB of data. I’ll monitor this to see how it goes. I hope this is enough…

Some Initial Concerns

As this is “beta”, there are some deficiencies worth mentioning. First, the hotspot it creates doesn’t have any security yet. Yikes! Joiku, the software maker, states future versions will add security. Let’s hope this becomes a reality sooner rather than later. Second, I am curious what the battery consumption on my N82 will be after a 30 minute cab ride. I’ll report back if I notice any excessive consumption. What’s probably more of a concern is me hitting, and then bypassing my monthly limit of 800Megs.

GigaOm suggested not to use this application unless you had a nice 3G service for your phone. But in actuality, now that China Mobile has Edge, the speeds are acceptable, at least for the time being.

Here are some screenshots I created from my S60 device:

It was a very small download and quick install. It automatically placed the icon in the Applications folder.

After running the application, it first asks whether you want to share your connection. When you select “yes” it will ask what connection to share. For me, I shared the “CMNET” connection (note, this is only valid for China Mobile).

Now, you can see the Wifi Hotspot is connected and available for your device(s) to access.

After selecting the JaikuSpot Wifi hotspot on my iPod Touch, I can began accessing Websites. On the phone, it shows you how much data is being sent in both directions.

You can also see what devices are connected - a useful feature, at least until security is added to the app.

I’ve been back in Beijing for a few days and have had a chance to play with my new gadget, the iPod Touch. Here are some observations:

• I jailbreaked it. Currently at version 1.1.2 - waiting to upgrade to 1.1.3 until the jailbreak process is more fullproof. Here are my jailbreaking notes.
• It’s slick - nice interface, and Safari + Wifi makes it a nice toy while at the coffee shop.
• I am surprised why Apple decided to make 2 partitions - the first one is around 300 MB, the 2nd one, for lal your data, spans the rest of the storage (in my case, almost 8GB). The problem with this 300 MB limitation on the first partition is that is where the applications are installed to. I am already full! I have read though that people have simply moved the Applications folder to the other partition and created a symbolic link. I’ll try that today or tomorrow. But, why bother with 2 partitions?
• I wish it had Bluetooth (and consequently Bluetooth-enabled internet access). I’d love to be able to pair it with my mobile phone so I could access the Internet in the taxi. YES, I know that an iPhone is essentially this! But I didn’t buy an iPhone, did I?! (besides, unlocking would have been a pain, more expensive, etc.)
• The build quality and packaging is surpurb. Nice all-metal casing, glass scratch-resistant face - gadgets are getting somewhere!
• I haven’t gotten music and movies to sync properly yet with gtkpod or amarok. I’m following this guide, and am getting close! Will hopefully get this working soon. The files transfer, but the iTunes DB doesn’t get updated properly. But, I won’t be using this as my primary multimedia device. I want it primarily for these two reasons:
  • Internet Tablet
  • Big(ger) screen movie viewing during travel

Well folks, I think I have out done myself this time.

Really…

As some of you may know, I had to make an unexpected trip to the U.S. for a funeral. Well, I am currently on my way back to China - I am at the Minneapolis airport waiting for my flight to Narita.

Well, on the way to the lounge, I found this neet ZoomSystems vending machine selling ipods, among other things. Here’s a photo I borrowed from anoither website, click on the image to go to that Website.

Just for fun, I went to it and played around with the touch screen interface. Hmm, they have iPod Touch’s. It sure would be nice to watch my videos on that nice 3.5″ screen instead of the smaller 2.5″, or whatever it is, that I have on my 5G iPod Video… Hmm, the 8GB model is US$279.99… I figured I could transfer my videos over between the two iPods during my almost 3 hour layover. The plan was perfect!

A quick impulsive credit card swipe later, I was the new proud owner of the iPod Touch. And because it wasn’t an iPhone, it wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) have any nasty activation issues.

Ha!!

It turns out that this bloody thing REQUIRES you to “activate”, or initialize it using iTunes. And, of course, iTunes runs only on Windows and Mac.

The world is not fair for us freedom loving trouble makers…

Here’s a picture of my currently useless iPod Touch plugged into my old Appe PowerBook G4 running Ubuntu. Oh, the irony. I just had to have Linux on this thing, huh?

As you can see, it requests a connection to iTunes. Grrr…

So, I’m stuck not being able to use my new toy until AFTER my long flight - which was the main reason I bought it in the first place!

And here’s a random tidbit… For fun, I decided to scan the lounge for open bluetooth devices. Here’s a screenshot:

Steve is my phone, but it’s interesting to note the 3 computers with bluetooth and the 2 BlackBerrys. Is it normal for BlackBerry to have Bluetooth open? Maybe it’s those people with the stupid bluetooth ear pieces with the annoying “I’m Cool, But Not Really” blinking blue light…

Oh well, time to go to my plane…

Ok, I only took 3 photos… Here they are (click on them to see them in flickr)

Ray requested I post some photos I have taken with the N82.  Well, here are some, but go ahead and check out my flickr site for all photos tagged “N82″.  There aren’t many yet, but I intend on changing that!

Oh, and it seems that Shozu is getting much better at geotagging the photos automatically!

That may be true, at least when it comes to technology.

I bought a Nokia N82.

Oh, here we go….

What happened to the iPhone idea? Well, I’ll give you the short straight-to-the-point explanation so as to avoid boring you to death.

First of all, signs aren’t pointing to a complete solution to unlocking the newer iPhones by this Friday. It may happen, but I don’t want to risk it. The last thing I want is to go to the U.S. this Friday (yay!), buy it, and then, just look at it for a month while I wait for the crack.

Plus, it looks as Apple will be releasing a minor and major update to the iPhone in 2008. (yes yes, you can end up waiting an eternity for the “right” gadget”)

So, I pretty much nixed that idea over the weekend.

I was pretty happy with my N95, really…. Especially with the latest firmware, it was pretty speedy. BUT, I couldn’t buy the same one. So I was looking at the N95 8GB model - more SDRAM, larger screen (but same resolution as Dutch Tom brought to my attention), better external key layout, and a cool black color.

But, I would have to spend around RMB 5,000 for it. Do I really want to spend that kind of money? It is awfully bulky, too.

Eureka! I remember a former sort-of colleague of mine, Michael, was looking at the yet-to-be-released Nokia N82 (this was back in November or October of this year).. He eventually settled with the iPhone (whcih kind of started the whole iPhone thing for me…) and couldn’t be happier, from what he has told me. Michael: feel free to leave a comment trashing the iPhone…

I did quite of research yesterday on the N82, including comparing it with the N95 8GB. The essential comparison points for me are (in favor of N82):

• Smaller screen size, but same resolution
• Not as bulky
• Same processor and SDRAM (whcih is a major improvement over original N95)
• Same camera
• BETTER flash - Xenon!
• All the other bells and whistles, GPS, etc.

So, the N82 is essentially the N95 8GB, just repackaged as a candybar, and without the restrictive 8GB of memory (you can get 8GB microSDHC cards now, so this is a moot point).

Best of all, the N82 is priced RMB 3,900 here in Beijing.

As a tradition of mine, I went out during lunch today to buy it, you could say, on impulse.

First Impressions

1. Solid as a rock! The build quality is way way improved over previous N-Series devices. (Ok, it’s a candy bar, but, hey….)
2. The smaller screen with the same resolution improves visual quality.
3. The keys are small! I need time to get used to these…
4. The flash is sweet!

Ok, that’s it for now. Will post some more info about it later…

So I guess I should retire the ‘ol “N95″ category for this blog.

“Wait, What?!”

…you may be asking yourself… Yes, I did just buy it in June of this year, so that’s… 5 months and a few days of ownership. Man, I think that’s a record for me!

Here’s the reason:

I want an iPhone. There. I said it.

My dutch friend (yes, the fact that he is Dutch has just about zero relevance here) accused me of “flip flopping”. Yes, I would agree with that….

I went from using an Apple for my first computer, to hating Apple, to buying an iPod, then Airport Express, then a Powerbook, to hating Apple again, to installing Linux on my Powerbook (a post is in the works), and now back to wanting to get an iPhone.

Can I not just make up my mind and stick with it?!

Simple answer: No. With technology, I cannot make up my mind. 

Great, but didn’t I just buy the N95? Money don’t grow on trees, son!

Read the title of this entry: I sold the N95 for RMB 2600 (yes, he did a good look over today and found all the nicks and scratches….). I’ll be in Portland, Oregon on the 21st of December. I’ll buy the iPhone there for US$399. Tax free. That’s around ~2950 RMB. So, it’s a NETT ~300 (depending of exchange rate fluctuation from now ’til then) for a new phone.

The ONLY two things I am going to miss are the 5mpx camera and the GPS mapping. But I can live with that. I have a nice 6mpx Canon point-and-shoot, and maybe I’ll get the Garmin Nuvi. Maybe not…

China don’t have no 3G, so don’t need that shiz.

One of the things I critisized theiPhone was in the past was the lack of earth-shattering technical advances - specifically that it only packed 2.5G (Edge).

The N95 worked on just about any network available on earth. quad band GSM, UMTS, WCDMA, X59TQP, AJAX75, POS1000, whatever blah blah. (Ok, not the U.S. 3G network, but I don’t live there, so…) I now realize: who gives a crap!? I don’t travel much outside of China…

Seeing that China won’t be getting 3G (or at least a western-standard for 3G) any time soon, it doesn’t make any difference.

Also, let’s not forget that Beijing just upgraded to EDGE. So the iPhone fits perfectly here.

So, Chris is a Mac geek now!

Not so fast there. I am perfectly happy with my Linux set-up at home. I still don’t like OSX, for various reasons. And I still don’t support Apple’s sadistic genius business model(s), as a consumer, that is.

But remember - I won’t be using the iPhone in the states. I’ll be hapilly using it, unlocked, on the China Mobile network. No profit sharing from me! I’m sticken it to the “man”!

About 20 minutes after I posted my blog post on Google’s new Google Maps Mobile client, I noticed I got a pingback, or whatever it’s called. This pingback goes to a website http://0d1.info/gps/, which looks like a Google Adsense farm rss aggregator. This means, they’re taking other people’s blog posts and putting Google Adsense adds on them.
Here, have a look (click on the image to see the full size screenshot). Look at all the ads! They didn’t even keep my photos! I wonder if they’re spidring the net for any post with “gps” as a tag?

I don’t think so…

Time for a cease and desist?     (See here for the infringing URL)

Google’s new mobile client for Google Maps, Google Maps Mobile, is pretty sweet. It’s now native on the S60v3 devices (whcih my N95 has).  It also has a pretty neat feature called “My Location”.  Now, with the N95’s internal GPS turned on, it will show you pretty darnd acurately where you are on the map (or satellite image).

If you don’t have GPS (or turn it off), then it will, using the cell towers, give you a chabuduo (translate: close-enough) location.  While at work, I did a quick test:

The image on the left is a zoom-out, the image on the right is a zoom-in.  The dot in the center is where it thinks I am; but in reality, I’m at the 6-o’clock position at the bottom of the blue-tinted circle.  So, that’s probably somewhere around a half kilometer off.

Oh well.  Close enough, eh?