Great blog entry on why, though the iPhone is great, there are things that a Nokia S60 phone such as the Nokia N95 can do that the iPhone can’t even some close too…
Noisy external drives
I have always had a very noisy externa LaCie 1TB drive, so noisy that basically I put it on, transfer the files and turn it off.
I have been using an external Iomega 1TB drive recently and though it is much much quieter (I can certainly leave it on) it is still very noisy.
I do have a couple of external 40GB LaCie host powered drives and these are very quiet.
So what I am trying to find is a quiet drive, but a large quiet drive, at least 1TB in size, though 500GB would be fine as well.
Any suggestions?
Vodafone “hides” price rises
BBC reports on criticism of Vodafone about recent “hidden” price rises.
The National Consumer Council (NCC) has criticised Vodafone for increasing mobile phonecall costs without telling its customers.
Vodafone plans to raise minimum call charges by 25%.
But a letter inserted into July’s bills stated the new price list but failed to mention they were going up.
Crashing Nokia N95
Over the last couple of days I have been having a few issues with my Nokia N95.
It keeps crashing! So much so that I have had to open it up remove the battery and reboot.
I was using Shozu to upload photographs to Flickr, so was using a third party application, my 3G connection and the camera.
Not sure of the reason behind the freezes and crashes.
Photo source.
Leopard does a Vista on me…
In the past I have mentioned how sometimes Vista annoys me by doing what it wants, rather than let me get on with stuff, one example which particularly annoyed me was when I was downloading a file (a rather large file) and Vista decided that as I wasn’t actively involved with the computer it would shut itself down!
Now I did think that OS X would not be so selfish and would be more sensible.
Well was I wrong…
Okay OS X is nowhere near as bad as I have found Vista to be, it’s most certainly not perfect.
So what happened?
I had decided to install Leopard 10.5 on my iMac (on an external drive) and after installing from my Leopard install DVD, I went to Software Update to update to 10.5.4, which to my initial horror was a 560MB download, well that’s going to take some time, so I let it get on with it.
So you can imagine my annoyance when I came back to find that the iMac had fallen asleep!
I was downloading a file! No you were downloading a file, you knew you were downloading a file, yet you still fell asleep!
I will give OS X a little credit, at least when I resumed the download it didn’t start it again.
Well, not having much success…
I have been using a Vodafone USB 3G stick with my Sony VAIO UX1XN with some success now. However downside is that it sticks out the side and I do worry it might break off (which would be annoying).
I do have a T-Mobile phone and a 3G data plan with them, which allows me to use my phone as a modem. This has worked fine on my Mac, but I decided it would be good to use it with my UX1XN.
However I not having much sucess.
I first tried the Nokia N series software, which required about 100MB of stuff to be downloaded…
This eventually installed, and after I had paired with my Nokia N95, I expected things to go smoothly.
However it failed to make a connection as it said that the modem was being used by another application.
This unhelpful error was because the modem drivers needed resinstalling and the help unhelpfully said that, but didn’t say how to do it!
So after a few attempts, I gave up and used System Restore to rid myself of the Nokia software.
I then tried the standard Nokia software (which also works with N series phones) and alas everytime I tried to to get a connection, the Bluetooth software would case a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).
Using Windows Me I would get BSOD all the time, with Windows XP it was quite a rare occurence. On Windows Vista on the UX1XN I get them all the time, I keep having Windows Me flashbacks.
After a couple of attempts, I decided to use the VAIO Update feature to see what new drivers were available.
So have spent the best part of a day, downloading updates and installing them. The automatic updates took their time, but there were a bundle of non-automatic updates, most of which consisted of:
Download update
Uninstall software
Restart
Install new software
Restart
It wouldn’t be so bad, but Windows Vista on the UX1XN takes an age to start up.
Getting there, final update being installed, will try Nokia software again!
Fast, really fast
Most of the time I am using my Vodafone 3G USB stick is with my Mac. I have though recently been using it with a Sony VAIO UX1XN. One of the key differences is that the Vodafone connection software in Windows gives you a lot more information on the connection than it does on a Mac.
Using it recently I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of things.
Firstly speed. Now Vodafone advertises that you can get 7.2Mbps on the stick, which to be honest I believe only happens in London or outside Vodafone HQ! Having used 3G for many years now I was impressed with the 384Kbps I got back then. Using the stick here in deepest Somerset I was pleased to find I was getting a steady 1Mbps.
Secondly warnings. I was using the 3G connection to download some Nokia installation files, there was a fair bit of data coming down, when I hit 50MB a pop-up popped up and said warning 50Mb data had gone through the stick. I thought that this was pretty neat especially if you are on a pay as you go connection or near your fair use limit.
Overall I am still impressed with 3G and if you are in the right spot you wouldn’t realise that you were on basically a mobile phone connection.
Want some DTP software for “free”?
No this is not some kind of dodgy eBay scam!
Scribus is an open source DTP package for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
Sounds interesting, take a look.
Windows Mojave!
So have you tried Windows Mojave?
Now here’s a good reason for securing your wireless network…
I have mentioned wireless security on the blog before and I am talking about real security not “feel good” security; at the very least you should be using WPA and preferably WPA2.
The Register reports on the consequences that have happened to a poor American expatriate living in India who just so happened to run an open unsecured wireless network.
Indian police raided the Mumbai home of an American expatriate after someone used his open wireless network to send an email that took responsibility for a bomb blast that killed at least 42 people.
Kenneth Haywood, whose internet-protocol address was included on an email sent just prior to the blasts, spent much of Thursday answering questions by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad officials. Police seized his three computers, as well as the machines of several neighbors, and are examining them as part of an investigation.
This story demonstrates a rare but real risk of running an open wireless network.