Access NetFront : provide feedback and get activation code for free

If you have a SymbainOS Series 60 'smart' mobile phone and wants to do some real web browsing, you can download the excellent Access NetFront browser for your phone.



I have been a fan of NetFront browser for Pocket PC since the browser provided by Microsoft is made my little kids. And I am happy to report that Access Europe GmbH has a page where users of NetFront for Series 60 can obtain a free activation code if they provide a feedback to Nokia.

Get it here now. I am not sure how long this 'offer' will last but its good. I got my code from them last night and it worked.

Right now I need all the freeware softwares I can find. After spending loads on Pocket PC and PalmOS (not to mention the PC) I do not think I can afford to pay for commercial releases anymore.

My life classification

Found this site that classifies my life based on the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC).

Apparently my life would be rated which is suitable for 15 years or older. I have a sister who is eleven. I wonder if I should bar myself from meeting her till she is 15 then. According to the site, I like to say 'fuck' alot, probably get to see all sorts of guns and shooting, but no open heart surgery and knife. Most 'R' rated films in the US fit into this category.

Examples: Alien, The Sixth Sense

Hm...

PalmOS 6.1 news

If you look at the right panel on my blogspot you will notice that Palm Infocenter has a flurry of new PalmOS news the most important I believe is the announcement of PalmOS 6.1 (Cobalt) for smartphones. The GUI improvements are very evident.



PalmOS now natively supports VGA screens as well as well as landscape mode. PalmOS now supports multiple resolutions including the classic 320x320, 320x480, 240x320 and 480x640.

I can't wait. I hope the VGA implementation of PalmOS works well and hopefully not as crippled as the new PocketPC 2003 SE.

Source: Palm Infocenter

Nokia 6600 impressions

Yesterday I brought the Siemens SX1 back to the shop (o2) and asked for the Nokia 7610 - not in stock. I then eyed the Nokia 6600. Well it had an odd shape. I remembered I saw this last year and hated the design but the size was very similar to the SX1. The next option was the RIM Blackberry 7230. But it costs £150 on my tariff and I wasn't planning to subscribe to the 5Mb GPRS service.

I asked for a working unit and tested the keypad. The keypad was fine and works like it should. I then weighed the options between the 6600 and 7610. The 7610 costs only £50 extra. Not much but £50 can buy me another 1Gb MMC card - or it could go into my next PDA purchase.

The 7610's design is way better than the 6600 in my opinion. The keypad was unusual but way better than the SX1. But it was a fashion phone. I do not like fashion phones as too many people seems to think I would be following a trend. The 6600 was a business phone. I like the idea of business phones as Nokia tend to support those longer. My father has a 6310i that came with his Mercedes and that was based on the classic 6210 design that came out eons ago. I suspect the 6600 platform will be supported for a long time.

It had a 1 Megapixel digital camera on the back compared to the 6600's VGA camera. Well I already own a 2 Megapixel camera so its not important. It also happen to use RS-MMC cards (Reduced Size Multimedia Media Card) which is more expensive than traditional MMC cards.

I then compared the screens. While the 7610's was slightly better it was not a big improvement over the 6600's screen which was viewable outdoors. The OS speed feels the same. Both runs on Symbian's latest version 7.0 although the 7610 runs on Series 60 v2.0. I am not sure what GUI version does the 6600 runs on.

So the 7610 is basically a 6600 in a different clothing with a slightly better camera and nicer design. Is that worth £50 extra? Maybe not. I already have a nice collection of MMC, SD, MS and SM cards and I will be damned if I needed invest in RS-MMC cards. So you would say that the MMC slot on the 6600 was the deal breaker. If the 7610 came with a MMC or SD slot then I would not mind paying the £50 extra.

Next was where it was made. Still Finland. Good. I know some of the components might come from Taiwan or Japan but still its reassuring that the construction of the mobile was in Finland than a nameless factory in China.

I exchanged the SX1 for the 6600 then. Felt like downgrading actually since the SX1 was better than the 6600 in many areas but it all comes down to the usability of the keypad.

What did I think of the 6600? Well apart from the extremely ugly and fatty look (it is the same size as my friend's Sony Ericsson P800) it was al right. I doubt the thickness has anything to do with its internal component and more to do with Nokia's designer trying to figure where to put the extra soft keys. The joy stick was easy to use.

What did I miss from the SX1? Well the black piano finish was one. The MMC slot was the other. The extra 12 pixels on the screen. The FM radio (though not so important). The free 128Mb card (the 6600 came with 32Mb). What you see is possibly the first person to downgrade first from a newer Sony Ericsson K700i to a Siemens SX1 and now a Nokia 6600.

But I like it (again apart from the ugly design - but it is no where near as bad as Motorola's upcoming MpX). It was useable and that is more important. I am sure I would get used to the look. Bad looks has its limit though and the 6600 was the limit. Anything worse than that (Motorola MpX) and they should fire the designers.

One grip. I still can't figure out how to implement mp3 as my ring tone so I can use my Carcass grindcore tracks as my alarm tones. I am new to this so called 'smartphone' mobiles but so far I am not finding S60 phones to be as good as being on PalmOS or Pocket PC.

Why didn't I get a Treo 600? Well o2 does not have them. And I still prefer to use a candy bar 'smartphone' rather than a PDA phone like the Treo or XDA due to I like my mobile to be voice centric rather than data centric. Any data fetching would happen on my proper PDA.

Update: I actually did finally go for the 7610. Felt guilty about it, but the 7610's size eventually won me over.

New mobile part one

Well I got a new contract for my mobile already.

Difficult at first since I wanted to continue my existing contract but they would not let me change my tariff. Bloody bastards.

So I had to sign up for a new one. Costs me £20 a month on o2 Leasure Time Plus (1000 minutes off-peak, 100 SMS etc). This was way better than my previous deal of 500 minutes and 50 texts. Anyway for the first six months of my year long contract I would receive double minutes and text!

I also sold off my Sony Ericsson K700i and decided to get a 'smartphone'. The day I signed up I opted for the limited edition Siemens SX1. What a beautie. It runs on Symbian OS 6.0. The GUI would be Nokia's Series 60.

This limited edition version is painted in piano style paint. Very nice. It also comes with a 128Mb MMC card, FM radio, mp3 player and VGA digital camera. Basically the same as a normal SX1. The mobile feels fast enough and I really really like it. The design was so professional and the whole thing feels so sturdy and well made. It was made in Germany! No wonder.

Next time make sure your mobiles are built in Europe, Most of my new Sony Ericssons were made in China and had problems. My older Ericssons (T28, T39m) were made in Sweden and it never broke down. My first ever GSM mobile the Motorola StarTac which I got in 1998 was made in America and it died out after six months. So buy from Europe people! And I mean Western Europe.

It also came with a rather unusual keypad. I reckoned since I usually use my PDA to connect to my mobile (via bluetooth) to send SMS this would not be a problem. But what I did not know was there would be problems connecting it to my iPAQ. Tried it with Simple SMS - did not work. Next up was a trial version of smart GSM. Nope.

So I had to rely on the fuckin' phone for SMS. No problem. I can live with that. So I went sending SMS to my friends. And it was a fuckin' pain in the arse. I decided this had to go back to the shop.

Film Review: Wimbledon

Another day another pointless film review. Full of spoilers too. Do I care? No.

Yesterday was Wimbledon.

And it was alright.

The film is based on a British tennis player, Peter Colt (played by the talented Paul Bettany) who will be playing his last ever tournament in Wimbledon. At 119th ranking, he was a wild card entry and is favourite to lose in the first round. He would then retire and start a new life as a director.



That is until he met young fresh and nude Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). The two unnaturally falls in love in a record time after only having eaten fish and chips (ah...the staple of British diet). It all bears resemblance to the other chick flick that is Notting Hill (where an American actress fell in love with a bumbling British book store owner in trendy Notting Hill).

Apart from outrageous fake tennis, the movie did have some highlights. First up was John McEnroe, the real life American former World champion who was commenting in almost every match. I am a keen Wimbledon fan and I have never heard McEnroe commented on the BBC's Wimbledon matches before. As far as I was concern he was a pundit. But still its nice having him around since he was the original tennis 'bad ass'.

Brighton was the next highlight. (I saw part of the filming last September when they were there) I love Brighton and often visit the seaside town. It is probably the best town in the South East outside London in my opinion. Hopefully this would raise Brighton's profile as an international recognisable town.



Bernald Hill as always was excellent - this time as Peter's mad father, Edward.

I am glad they got Paul Bettany to play the British guy. They actually intended Hugh Grant to play the guy. Now I don't hate Hugh Grant or anything but his acting is beginning to bore me to death with his posh accent. Come on man, can't you do a London accent?

There are problems with the movie itself and some technical one too. I frequently see the IBM serve board record only slightly above 100mph. Personally that is a bit too slow for professional tennis. I am sure speeds of 150mph has been recorded by such fine real life tennis professionals such as Andy Roddick and Roger Federer.

Kirsten Dunst plays an unbelievable tempered woman and it was lucky she could pull it off. In my opinion they should have got a more athletic actress to play the romantic lead - but hey they could have done worst. They actually wanted Reese Whiterspoon!

The ending was typical Notting Hill. They fall in love get married and have kids. Unlike Notting Hill which had the American moving to the fine life of London here we have the Colts moving to urban America (New York? Los Angeles?). Very disappointing... What is wrong with Brighton?

Paul Bettany will have an amazing career after this movie and I do hope he will overtake Hugh Grant since he is more talented. However I also wish that he would not be typecast into anymore romantic comedy leads. He has already proved that he can play Hollywood in The Beautiful Mind as the imaginary friend of Russell Crowe.

Overall I give Wimbledon a 5.5/10.

Movie Report : Collateral

Caught Collateral yesterday at UGC West India Quay (Canary Wharf).

It was an interesting movie but the camera works was very inconsistent. It was like the director (Michael Mann) could not make up his mind whether to produce a DV style movie or a professional Hollywood techni-coloured film. In fact this film was reportedly filmed using a High Definition Sony camera.

The story circles around a taxi driver called Max (Jamie Foxx), a guy who cleans his cab every day and generally the world's friendliest taxi driver in the World. He is the good guy - the guy who has an ambition (to own a limousine company) and treats his customer well and not fleece them of their money by taking them through a longer route (or pretending to be lost - like most Malaysian and illegal London minicab drivers).



Anyway, he picked up this guy who calls himself Vincent (Tom Cruise). Vincent is a 40 year old with fake grey hair that looks like someone poured powder on his head (really!). He wants Max to take him to visit several 'clients'.

Vincent is actually a contract hitman who was hired to dispatch five people that night (six including Max). Max soon finds out about his plans and tries to change things. And pretty much by the middle of the movie, we have crazy inefficient Los Angeles police and the mobsters on their tail.

There are some comedic scenes but overall it is a violent movie. Not bloody violent, just plain old Hollywood violent. The ending was an anti-climate and the scene where Max tries to break into a building bears resemblance to a 'Fight Club' scene.

There are stupid scenes too. For example when Vincent was hunting Jada Pinkett Smith's character he in pure desperation knocked out the lights from the floor. But the Vincent we knew from the first four killings were icy cool. This was a guy who would hunt a person quietly only revealing himself at the end.

Overall it was a fun movie if not annoying due to the lack of visual directions. The guy who played the copper was as annoying as hell and totally unbelievable with his weird voice, pierced ears and 80s slicked hair. The make up on Tom Cruise was also inconsistent. Sometimes he looks young and on others his eyes looks like an eighty year old pensioner. And his hair! His grayish white hair is totally unconvincing.

But still is was enjoyable experience. Shame we only saw Jason Stam once.

I give this a 7.5/10

Hardware Impressions: Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720

A friend of mine showed me his new Fujitsu-Siemens Pocket Loox 720 today. Damn its nice.

Love the form factor. It is very similar to my HP iPAQ h4150's design albeit a little thicker. Its the same thickness as my Sony Ericsson K700i mobile.

There is a 1.3Megapixel digital camera on the back. The quality looks okay through the screen but we won't know for sure until its transfered to the PC. Personally I don't really care about the camera and wish they saved the money on something else instead (like faster processor and more RAM).

This might seem trivial but there is a standard 3.5mm earphone jack on the top. The SD and CF-II slot is also on the top. The stylus location is on the right side. The IrDA port is also on the top.

I really love the buttons. Its much nicer and easier to use than the one on my h4150. The is a button on the left side and another one on the right. There is also a scroll whell.

Stylus is almost the same size as my h4150. Still prefer the size of my T3's stylus. In my opinion, the perfect stylus size are the one that came with Palm's m5xx series.

The weight is alright. As heavy as my old Sony N770C/U but I have been spoilt by my h4150's feather weight. Even my Tungsten T3 is lighter! But I doubt its heavier than the hx4700 and Toshiba's e830.

The screen is beautiful. Of course at VGA resolution it has to be. The screen size is 3.6". Doesn't sound much but even when compared to my h4150's 3.5" it feels bigger. But its smaller than the 3.8" T3 screen.

Cleartype works well in portrait mode but do not use it on landscape mode. This is due to the nature of LCDs (where one pixel is made up of 3 portrait like coloured pixels), where Cleartype on Pocket PC is optimized for portrait mode only.

Performance wise I can't really tell since he hasn't installed much. He is still migrating from his h1930. But the built in programs were a little faster. The CPU runs at 520Mhz and is overclockable to 624Mhz.

I removed my SD card to installed it onto his new PDA. Launched Flux Challenge. Works great. He had a 4Gb Microdrive in it (he got it from his Creative MuVo) full of dance music. Nice.

The OS was a let down. There are no obvious GUI changes. The icons are sharper and the QWERTY keyboard looks nicer. It has an option to switch to landscape now but its quite pathetic and does not work as well as my T3.

Why?

The keyboard layout is at the bottom so it takes up almost half the screen when in landscape mode. It is really that bad! Pocket IE is still the same crappo o-ma-ma. Really crap especially in landscape mode. I also have to go through the control panel to switch to landscape and vice versa. (You can also set a button to rotate)

The Bluetooth connection to my K700i works very well and soon I was connected to my GPRS account. Of course I did not use PIE much since its really crap. Should have installed NetFront.

There are not WiFi hotspots in the tube so I did not test that.

The Loox also contains USB host functionality. I took out my 512Mb USB drive and it recognises it. But I do have concern that it would greatly impact battery life.

Well it was a nice 30 minutes. He played with my h4150 while complaining about how slow it was and how crap the screen was. I just sat there in the tube experimenting with his 720 and feeling my face go red.

It costs less than £400. You can order now from Clove or Expansys.

Will I buy it? Considering that I got my h4150 for only £230 (original RRP was £450), I am expecting the price of the Loox to drop down to that level in 6 months time. And I am still awaiting the release of palmOne's T3 replacement - the T5.