Disqus - Latest Comments for planetf1

Re: Photowalkers on Twitter

planetf1 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:44:46 -0000

planetf1 - sw engineer, f1 fan. New SLR owner (d90+18-105mm+SB600) as of a few weeks ago. Total 100% newbie beginner desperately needing practice! No training/courses etc.

Have an appreciation of the concepts, controls but need to think when to apply & think about composition.

Saw Scott mention the photowalk on D-Town TV and figured "why not"esp as live only a few miles away. Also have hols coming up in a few weeks time.

Re: Mobile Industry Review goes subscription-only from 30th March

planetf1 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:49:15 -0000

A shame for many of us that have listened to your interesting reports, but great news that you've been able to monetize your content. Best of luck.

Re: How Nokia Users Follow Twitter on Their Phones

planetf1 — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:02:33 -0000

Fring ... the current support is extremely basic, but apparently there's a new plugin on the way.

twibble is more functional but is a little slow/clunky and isn't a native S60 app (N96)

Re: Sky+ HD box = kaput. Now what?

planetf1 — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:10:20 -0000

Hi. I've had sky+ go a few times out of warranty. Just call sky up, say the box is broke, when they offer you the fixed rate repair, decline stating you pay enough and think you might just buy freesat instead (or similar.). Get put through to cancelations and they'll likely offer a free repair. After all they don't want to loose that revenue stream. Everyone;s happy.....

Re: Skype: Am I missing something?

planetf1 — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:23:41 -0000

I've hardly used Skype, disliking it's proprietry nature. Instead I've gone for open standards - SIP where I use various betamax services (Poivy etc) and truphone. I use mostly a HW ATA at home (Linksys SPA3102 - cool kit), and nimbuzz/fring on mobile.

There's also plenty of other IM services with higher penetration.

Skype further put me off when I tried a beta client a few months back.. although they've now remedied that

Used occasionally for coverage fillin (no gsm/umts ie in metal building) and when abroad or in free wifi coverage.

I used to use the native N95 client, but appalingly Nokia removed this Internet Telephony app in the N96.

Re: NokiaWorldWatch: The new Nokia N97 - the photos

planetf1 — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:46:45 -0000

SOme interesting specs in that photo
- 1500 mAh battery
- corresponding increase in talk/standby time (400 hours)
- less video playback time (no acceleration)
- taller, thinner, heavier than N96

Still all prelim ..

Re: NokiaWorldWatch: We’re off to Nokia World, want to ask them anything?

planetf1 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 11:40:27 -0000

Ask Nokia what the story is with the "internet telephony" application & lack thereof on some of the new S60 R3 FP2 devices, such as the Nokia N96.

Although the SIP stack is still present it remains significant work to develop the VoIP application -- and the great integration of that client in devices such as the N95 8Gb just added to the pain & frustration of it's omission in some of the devices. Indeed somewhat of a surprise after the N80, N95 etc.

Sure the APIs may have changed for the better, but I see that client is now in some devices running FP2.

So I would like to ask Nokia consider adding it to later firmware or making it available for download.

Re: 100x Skyfire S60 beta invites - any takers?

planetf1 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:40:51 -0000

Unfortunately
a) It seems this is currently only available to US residents.
b) WHen I tried to signup anyway I kept getting a blank page after submission - quite likely due to either a) above, or perhaps since I'd signed up previously and am in the q.

Re: o2’s joint mobile and home broadband service - wicked!

planetf1 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:59:52 -0000

Quick reply to "nacho" who said about the router "does not have enough power for our home wifi operation"

I'd agree with you on that. I got a 780WL from them, and am convinced the wireless tx level is limited below std. It's fairly poor, and I've ended up using an external (FON) router running dd-wrt.

The router itself is locked to O2 firmware, but VoIP can be enabled. It is based on the Broadcom BCM6348 chip which is a great match for the O2 DSLAMs and works very well. It also have QOS built in to the router. Compared to a zycel and netgear dg834gt I own it is significantly superior in stability on my dodgy ~63dB 5km line.

Oh it's real ugly though ;-(

Re: o2’s joint mobile and home broadband service - wicked!

planetf1 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:56:21 -0000

Quick reply to MarkW who said "It sounds great," .

I've been an ADSL user since 2000 & have worked in telecoms. the O2 service is *superb*. of course in the early days so were Tiscali and then bulldog. In each case the tech support teams were small and highly knowledgeable/helpful. The challenge is whether they can sustain that as they grow. I really hope so as right now they seem to be the best of the big names.

I can't say the same about mobile, where they seem somewhat laggard in the data area when compared to say 3 who since introducing Xseries moved from nowhere to #1 in no time.

Re: o2’s joint mobile and home broadband service - wicked!

planetf1 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:53:36 -0000

Quick reply to AJ who said "They force you to use their mail server though unless you pay an extra £5 per month for a static IP." -- not so. I'm happily using gmail via smtp/imap without any problem. I suspect it's because they use non-standard ports. Previously I used 1&1, and they too offered non-standard ports.

Works great at work too, where outbound smtp on the default port is similarly restricted ;-)

Re: o2’s joint mobile and home broadband service - wicked!

planetf1 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:52:08 -0000

Whatever way you look at it, the basic O2 broadband package is wicked value even at 12.50. Since my wife has an O2 phone I only pay 7.50. What's great as well is freephone tech support, and the fact that even "level 1" know a lot about adsl ie pretty technical. I just hope this continues.

This deal just makes things better!

Unfortunately I couldn't find the detail on the O2 site for this combined offer. I could see £20pcm for the 3Gb broadband, which alone is *not* competitive. Three only want ~7.50 for me as current subscribe for 5Gb.

Re: UK MNO response to iPhone launch?

planetf1 — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 15:58:13 -0000

It's always tricky to figure out when there's good offers around - but around 1.5 months ago (and 3 months before end/contract) I got a call from 3Uk. I was paying £5 pcm + £5/1Gb data, but with no phone for this year - I took calls only. Initially having a good scottish chat, and then offering an LG for 5pcm & 0, they quickly (I mentioned iPhone) moved to a N95 8Gb for £30 on an 18month. That was such a wicked deal.

Oh, and a few weeks later I won a N96 from Nokia - won't get it for a while yet though ;-)

So I admire the usability improvements in the iPhone esp. the browser -- and the packaging is great. Meanwhile the Nokia UI is somewhat clunky, but overall it's a superb device. The camera is really nice (but minimal protection!) 2ends of the spectrum. Now if only we had the best of both

Re: Vlog: Nokia N96 Battery Life Explained by Product Manager

planetf1 — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 02:35:49 -0000

Couldn't agree more with Robin.

Re: T-Mobile data roaming cut by 80%

planetf1 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:48:16 -0000

The problem is that this is still out of whack with the new UK offerings - ie I pay £5 pcm for up to 1Gb data (3UK). At those prices it would cost £1500 abroad. Of course most of the time I use a fraction of my allowance (some say 2Gb is the "chase you up" point), but the point is it's fair use -- so at no time am I exposed to a massive bill.

I would hope the mobile operators can introduce at least capped/fair use abroad offerings. Say NN Mb/week for 2 weeks etc.

Right now I've taken advantage of 3's option to TURN OFF data roaming. Yes, sad.. but I just don't trust myself (or all my data intensive apps!)

Re: Vlog: Nokia N96 Battery Life Explained by Product Manager

planetf1 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 08:31:45 -0000

The "specs" on the nokia website are inconsistent so I wouldn't hold them too much (as an example it lists the N95 8Gb as having a memory card slot!)

The N96 8Gb has the larger battery, and in v20 of the firmware introduced demand page loading & other OS improvements to improve power consumption further (especially in real phone use for browsing, music etc rather than just standby).

The question is whether
a) Nokia deemed these improvements sufficient to go back to the improved weight/size of the smaller battery, and offering comparable battery with the N95 8Gb *when launched*
OR
b) There are further significant improvements specific to the N96 that nearly, or more than offset the smaller battery size even above the N95 GB.

I'm going to ask Nokia myself - this is so important to me.

Re: iPhone texting is twice as slow

planetf1 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:59:37 -0000

I've not used the iPhone, but had a Motorola A1000 a while back. Whilst generally a powerful device, I never get on with the touchscreen approach. Found it slower to text whilst mobile - and nigh on impossible to use one-handed.

Sat down and focussed it could be quicker, but then I'd likely use my PC.

Re: O2 to get UK iPhone gig

planetf1 — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 07:13:36 -0000

I'll second Ben's comment - unbelievable that O2 have yet to pull their finger out and offer a decent data addon. Hopefully they will shortly with this potential announcement.

Oh and we're not talking about a 45 pcm tariff for 30Mb or something. I'm more talking about really enabling the mobile internet (remember the O2 adverts for the mobile web years ago) so something like 3's X-Series silver @5pcm.