tech, news, productivity, views and stuff
BBC’s Click has a nice article on the mobile web.
It is estimated that just one in five people with phones that are able to connect to the net actually do. But the iPhone, however, is having a profound effect on the willingness of its users to go online.
There’s a new browser for mobile devices providing a desktop experience on your windows mobile smartphone or PDA. Symbian and other platform editions are on their way.
The makers claim that it is the first mobile browser fully compatible with technologies such as asynchronous Javascript and XML (AJAX), Java, and embedded Flash.
Currently it’s a free download for US users only.
More info at: http://www.skyfire.com/
What a cool idea.
If you connect an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax/copier type device to the USB port of an Airport base station, you will only be able to use the printing functionality of the all-in-one from a computer. This is the same regardless whether it is the older 802.11g Airport Extreme, the newer 802.11n Airport Extreme variants, the Airport Express and even the new Time Capsule.
It is not possible to use the scanning function of any all-in-one printer connected to the USB port of an Airport base station – and this limitation applies to all makes and models of all-in-one printers.
You will not be able to use the scanning functionality unless the all-in-one is connected directly to the computer.
Some all-in-ones are not compatible with the Airport base station and therefore no functions will be available.
Also you can not connect an USB scanner to the USB port of an Airport base station either.
From KB-article
The USB port is for connecting a printer, not for other devices.
From KB-article
remember that base station printer sharing is for printing only
The key question that some are asking is, can you connect a scanner or an all-in-one to the 802.11n Airport Extreme Base Station?
On this page on the new base station it is quite clear that you can plug in a USB printer or a USB hard drive, it never mentions a scanner, which to me is pretty obvious that you can’t plug in a scanner.
It also says
AirPort Extreme and the Mac- and PC-compatible Bonjour networking technology let everyone in the house, office, or classroom take advantage of one centrally available printer.
In the same way as the old base station it relies on Bonjour for printing and Bonjour doesn’t support network scanning.
So can you use a USB scanner or the scanning capability of an all-in-one with an Airport base station, the answer is a resounding no.
Do you know I think I may need to replace the batteries for my aging G4 PowerBook.
In their prime they would last at least three hours sometimes longer.
Today the first only lasted just over seventy minutes!
Batteries do wear out and I think I may need new ones or is there someway of refreshing old batteries.
At £89 apiece for new ones, I think I might try and see if there is a way of refreshing them.
So today I needed to print some documents for work tomorrow and would my Canon MP600R print? No it would not!
It was only while I was doing the washing up that I remembered that my Canon MP600r was wireless and of course I had only recently changed my 802.11g wireless network.
So of course I had to reconfigure the MP600R to join the new wireless network. Alas you can’t do this wirelessly, nor using the control panel on the printer itself. You need to connect via USB and then configure (on a Mac) via Printer Setup Utility.
Though usually this is a straightforward process, I had real problems today. Though I could change the settings I could not actually add the printer. In the end it actually froze my iMac and I needed to hard reboot. Once this was done I found I could add the printer.
Then of course I now need to check I can print from my other computers.
Since my 802.11g Airport Extreme stalled I have had in place running instead my spare Airport Express.
It’s been working fine and internal file transfers have been very fast (for 802.11g) and I have had no problems.
Hopefully it will stay that way.
My Nokia N73 usually behaves itself.
It rings when someone calls.
It uploads photographs to Flickr when asked.
It will even let itself be used as a 3G modem.
It’s a good little phone.
But!
And there is always a but, sometimes it decides that it’s going to do what it wants and have some fun.
Today was one of those days.
I received a text, it appeared that my phone had taken one of the photographs I had taken, created a MMS and sent it to a recipient in my address book.
Later in the day it decided to upgrade my Jaiku presence without me asking, fair enough.
I tried to play a video clip with it, it told me it didn’t have enough memory.
Okay, so I exited the video application and left the phone alone.
Ten minutes later (obviously bored) my phone decided it wanted to watch the video and started playing it!
I wouldn’t be surprised if it phoned and ordered pizza for itself.
So you have finally decided (after much thought) to get yourself a MacBook Air, well its really nice, thin and though it might break it is really nice.
Now you know it doesn’t come with integrated 3G, but that doesn’t matter as you’ve got a 3G USB modem.
Ah.
Well.
There’s a slight hitch, you see there’s a good chance that your USB modem won’t fit.
More on Engadget.
Since upgrading my iPod touch with the new applications, I have been wondering how effective the Maps application would be in finding my location.
Get directions and check traffic with Google Maps. Even find yourself, wherever you are. Using some local Wi-Fi networks (if Wi-Fi is turned on), iPod touch finds your approximate location and gives directions from there. Mark specific locations, find the best route between them and search for points of interest along the way. With a hybrid map and satellite view, you can see major street names on top of satellite images.
I had tried to find myself a few times already including on my home network, with no luck. Today I was in the centre of Birmingham and it worked, it found where I was.
Now I am not sure how useful that is, as I already knew where I was!
Of course there is more to the Maps application then locating myself, I do find it useful for checking locations and it’s always fun to look at the satellite images.