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February 23, 2005
Sendo X: DO NOT BUY
I’ve been a happy user of the Sendo X phone for the three weeks now. Here’s a quick review of why I chose it and how it’s worked out.
Introduction
I wanted a new phone for two reasons: my old Nokia 6310i was a great basic phone, but it wasn’t so good at hooking up to the rest of my gadget network. The battery life was beginning to drop, and it was becoming less reliable; I’d already had it repaired once. I was also hoping to get a smartphone that could do some of the tricks my old discarded Psion Revo PDA was so good at.
Why did I go for the X? It had the following in its favour:
- The phone works well with Mac OS X. Apple’s iSync lists it as being fully compatible, so no problems there.
- Bluetooth compatibility. One less wire to lose is always good.
- Some basic personal information management to keep track of things like email addresses, birthdays, appointments and so on.
- Media handling. I wanted to be able to view documents on the go, and maybe listen to music too, though my iPod is great at that.
- It’s a Series 60 phone. Series 60 is the best smartphone platform out there, at the moment (that’s not necessarily saying much). It’s also relatively easy to develop for, and I liked the idea of being able to code applications for the phone that I could make available to others. Series 60 phones by and large have good screen sizes as well. I had fond memories of the Revo’s software too (The Revo ran EPOC release 5, a predecessor of the operating system Series 60 runs on).
- It’s one of the cheapest Series 60 phones currently available.
How it’s worked out so far
As it turns out, the Series 60 software isn’t quite as good as the Revo in some areas, and it does lose out more than I thought it would for not having an integrated full keyboard. But it’s been good enough for my needs so far. I’d hoped I could use it as a random note-taker, which I have been doing. I also hoped I’d be able to write creatively on it, but I’ve been doing absolutely none of that; T9 predictive text is only bearable for a few sentences.
It’s changed my habits in a few other ways. I purchased it in a bundle from Expansys with a gigabyte memory card, thinking I could use it to store music and documents to read on the go. I’ve wound up doing neither! My iPod is a far better music player, while the X’s screen just isn’t big enough to read A4-sized documents comfortably on. What has been great is the camera. It’s intergration with the phone has meant that I have a camera with me at all times, so I’m happy enough to take a quick snap or two whenever the thought occurs. I would never have considered buying a standalone digital camera. It would just have been one more gadget to lug around with me. I’ve never been one for taking photographs anyway; I think I’ve taken more since I got the X than I did for the previous three years in their entirety.
As a phone, the X has been fine, with better sound quality than the 6310i. It did take my fingers a few days to forget how the 6310i worked and get used to the (only slightly different) keyboard shortcuts of the X.
Using Bluetooth to connect to my iBook has been flawless. Everything just worked, without wires. This was a pretty liberating experience, compared to the 6310i’s interpretation of Bluetooth, not to mention the ordeal undergone getting the Revo talking to an MS Windows PC (not that there were problems with that, just that the softare installation, restart cycle and wire connection setup routine took ages. Once that was done, it wasn’t too bad).
Programming the X
As far as programming the X(or any Series 60 phone) goes, it looks like I’ll need a Windows PC, tricky solutions like GnuPOC for OS X notwithstanding. I will be keeping an eye on GnuPOC, just in case it matures to the point where a simpleton like me can use it. There’s also the option of getting to grips with Python, as a Python interpreter is now available for Series 60 phones. This would probably be the easiest way to start in Series 60 programming, and it seems readily doable via my Mac too… maybe someday. My current programming language obsession is Haskell; I’ve not much room for yet another programming language at the moment.
The downsides
The phone’s only real negative is the battery life. I never used to turn my phone off at night, but if I leave the Sendo on all night the battery only lasts about three days between charges. Turning it off at night pushes this to about four and a half. The 6310i managed to last a week between charges when I first got it, though two years of battery use saw this go down to about four to five days. And of course, with Nokias you’re bound to find somebody else with a charger if you’re stuck. The Sendo X charger is specific to that model; it can’t be used even with other Sendo phones. Don’t expect to find one anywhere other than where you left it…
Other minor quibbles are that if you’re not careful dust can be trapped behind the screen. It also feels slightly too thick, at only 22mm, because length- and breadth-wise it’s so compact.
Conclusion
It’s funny to think of how my good experience with the phone is so different from my original criteria (especially needing to view documents) but looking back, it was pretty unrealistic to expect any smartphone other than a Sony-Ericsson P910i or its siblings to perform that role well. The price of the Sendo was far less than you’d pay for the P910i, though it was still the most I’ve ever paid for a phone, and the most I think I would ever pay for a mobile phone, no matter how useful I thought it would be. And there’s no way I’d bring a P910i with me everywhere; it’s just too bulky.
But I’ve never been disappointed with the X! Reading documents on it is mostly an ergonomics issue, not a software one, so it’s good to know that if I absolutely have to browse a document on the go it can be done. The cameraphone side of things has been great fun to play with, which more than made up for my poor conception of what it was I wanted.
Overall, my experience has been a great one. UI-wise, the phone isn’t great (more a Series 60 problem than a Sendo problem) but it’s always responsive. Sendo implemented a great summary screen that’s been pretty useful so far (if you want something similar for your S60 phone, try this. I’ve not used it myself!).
So, why the loud ‘Do not buy’ at the top of this article? Because, about two weeks after I received the phone, Sendo announced the X2! It’s basically an X in a much smaller form factor. You’ll be able to buy it direct from Sendo for just over two-thirds of the price I paid for the X (it should cost about 225 euro). Sigh. It’ll not be out until the end of the summer, so if you can wait until then I’d recommend doing so. I’m very happy with the X; the biggest disappointment is that if I’d waited a bit longer, I could’ve had the X2!
Posted by Oliver at 04:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 22, 2005
Extremely demanding hang-over cure
The morning after the Admiral’s boating adventure saw us waking up in ones and twos, comparing notes on head-aches and how badly we’d slept. I did quite well. Some poor unfortunates slept beside a world-championship snorer. We could feel his snores reverberate through the floor. It was quite impressive.
Then the Admiral had an Idea. You have to be quite wary of these Ideas; they often involve getting lost up mountains or starting up literary magazines. But we played along, to find ourselves tramping through woods, throwing sticks to the household dog, and feeling our hangovers ebb away in the face of Nature. I’ve not been exposed to Nature since my scouting days, and this was quite a gentle re-introduction.
Coming back, we passed through a brief hailstorm, but we didn’t really mind. That funny exhausted post-party mood had taken hold, and with nothing ahead but the long drive home I really enjoyed following the trail of a stream up and down the mountainside.
Posted by Oliver at 02:07 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 21, 2005
The Spectacular Lough Gill 30th Birthday Cruise
I’ve been trying to write this for a couple of days now, but my brain has been refusing to co-operate, owing to a hangover and sleep-deprivation.
On Saturday afternoon I loaded up the car with a friend and his CD collection then we headed out, following the birthday boy’s directions (as I’ve not asked if I can name him, he’ll be referred to ever more as the Admiral, and besides, it completely suits him). Driving to Sligo was great, on suprisingly excellent roads except around one particular village that clearly offended some EU bureaucrat sufficiently to be deprived of structural funds. The Admiral advised us to look for a turn beside a white B&B by the name of O’Hara’s, which lead us to believe we’d see a B&B sign, or at least an O’Hara’s sign. Cleverly, though, the B&B just looked like a house. We followed the turn just in case, and wound up staring at what would turn out to be the Admiral’s house for ten minutes, before going back down the road to the B&B to ask if they were, in fact, a B&B and did they know where the Admiral lived? They were and they did.
After stre-e-e-e-etching we made ourselves known to the party inside. A quick glass of wine later, we were on our way to the Admiral’s Yacht. Or: The Admiral’s Temporarily-Borrowed-from-his-Parents’-Friends-Yacht. It was gorgoeus. It seated fifty in comfort inside, complete with a small bar, excellent sound system, and three-man sober crew to look after the loud drunken people.
We arranged ourselves and got started.
Brief drunken memories presented in no order:
- a gang of us surrounding E.’s new girlfriend in a massive crushing “group hug”
- a demonstration of how E. giggled like a girl on being tickled (we had no idea)
- being introduced to the kids of a former teacher of mine, brother to the Admiral’s father, to find out that the Admiral had told them many stories about me. I warned that they were all lies; “So you’re not that nice, then?” they responded
- craving vegetables after being fed on extremely large amounts chicken wings and cocktail sausages provided by the Admiral’s folks
- looking around and realising that many people I knew in college had managed to get real jobs as journalists or designers or what-have-you
At some pre-determined point the Admiral was positioned in front of a giant cake in the form of the numbers ‘3’ and ‘0’ and some gentle speechifying was done. Afterwards he asked each and every one of his guests to record their defining memory of him. He’d brought a portable recorder just for this function, and we did our best to oblige him. I wound up remembering something obscure from years back, which I dutifully shared and he immediately recalled. That was it from me for the next fifteen mintues as I turned things over in my head that I’d completely forgotten ever happened.
We left the boat to walk back to the house through a near-magical, perfectly calm, moonlit (and freezing) scene along the shores of Lough Gill. Big issues were discussed. No conclusions were reached.
They tried to feed me yet more meat on getting back to the house. I finally made up a bed for myself at around 4.30, If I have half as much fun when I turn 30 I’ll be a very happy man. And I never once had to deploy any karaoke, counselling or negotiation skills.
Posted by Oliver at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 18, 2005
Everybody loves Jack Vance
I don’t smoke. I’m not a huge fan of chocolate. I’m a light drinker. But I do gorge myself on huge science-fiction tomes.
I’m a big fan of the modern hard British sci-fi: Iain M. Banks, Ken MacLeod, Alistair Reynolds. But, like a lot of sci-fi, these authors often use their work as social commentary; what-if scenarios of the future.
On the other hand, some of the best sci-fi is just a bunch of stuff that happens. I’m currently reading Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth. Vance basically imagines fantastic backdrops, then places ordinary people in extraordinary situations, governed by the whims of powerful agencies with unexplained motives. These people do their best, and often do well.
Despite the fantasy, there’s a banality that pervades the characters and their responses (they all use the same overblown language) that you’d expect to find off-putting. In fact, it’s hugely appealing. Their normalcy is the key that unlocks these bizarre worlds. These characters change very slowly, preferring to adopt the world to their view rather than changing their views to reflect reality. Live and don’t learn, they chorus. I completely relate.
Lyonesse was my introduction to Vance. It’s another great example.
Posted by Oliver at 05:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Your US content filters will make jackeens of us all
What I have learned of the email filters where I work:
- ‘Shit’ gets flagged but ‘shite’ does not
- ‘Fuck’ gets seriously flagged but ‘feck’ does not
- “Sexy MILF meets strangers” doesn’t get flagged at all.
Clearly a quality product with perfectly ordered priorities.
Actually, that last one would make a good subtitle for Desperate Housewives, from what I can tell.
Posted by Oliver at 04:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
Keeping old promises
I know I said I'd be spangling a brand new spangly look over the site, and I fully intend to. But before finishing that I tried to get a friend or two to read this, realising that it could be another month before the look of this place changes. So, some small sprucing has taken place to relieve the original template's austerity.
Some handy tips for my own future reference as much as anyone else's:
- The cartoon image of what I fondly imagine I look like comes from Portrait Illustration Maker, and my eyes are unfortunately not that piercing shade of blue.
- The best site-tracking utility I've found (to work out if anybody actually visits this place at all at all) is StatCounter. They give better results than every server-hosted reporting tools I've seen, and they don't require you to display their logo on your site. And they require absolutely no money for the privilege.
- The email-obscuring code (to foil those evil spambots) is courtesy of the Automatic Enkoderform.
Posted by Oliver at 05:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 15, 2005
February is the happiest month
February is the happiest month, dragging
Friends out to celebrate birthdays, mixing
Alcohol and cheer, giving
Shiny presents to older friends.
I didn't even try to keep the metre there. Sorry Tommy. Anyhow, tonight I'm off to my third birthday celebration in two weeks. The parents of my friends somehow managed to squeeze out a bunch of them within two weeks of each other. We're still trying to work out what shag-inducing event happened in May 1977.
It all comes to a head next weekend when the first of our lot turns thirty. Thirty! Fortunately, our thirty-year-old is not one to take this lying down. What better way to celebrate, he reasons, than by hiring a yacht complete with a bar and bar staff, inviting fifty to seventy of your friends to join you, and celebrating in real style? I didn't even know that kind of thing was possible. I'm having visions of a Love Boat style set-up, which I think are justified. Bring it on.
Posted by Oliver at 04:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2005
Valentine of Rome
Just a word of warning for those of you sending Valentine cards: he's the patron saint of engaged couples, not merely smooching ones. Be sure you know what you're getting into! If it all goes pear-shaped, pretend that it was just a prayer against fainting you were sending. Or perhaps recognition of bee-keeping skills.
Posted by Oliver at 02:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 09, 2005
All ego, all the time
LoopDiLoop discusses blogging and the element of vanity required to think that the internet cares about what you think.
I've a blog for two main reasons:
- To keep track of all the things I say I'll get done, in the hope that I'll shame myself into actually doing some of them
- And to practice writing, in the hope I'll start doing that properly again. Or at least something creative.
I'm not that bothered by what the internet thinks I think about what the internet thinks, if you follow me.
You know Godwin's law, about newsgroup discussions? It says "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." I'm starting to think there's an analogous law for blogs, that goes something like "As a blog develops, the probability of a post discussing the pros and cons of blogging approaches one." One is approached much more quickly though, as I've actually just demonstrated. Oops.
Posted by Oliver at 12:24 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
I didn't mind really
While on holiday I was 'volunteered' for training in the use of an emergency evacuation chair in work. My first reaction was one along the lines of 'There had better be chocolate biscuits!' There were none. On the other hand, I did get to maneouver the person who'd originally volunteered me down the stairs in a not-too-bumpy fashion. Ha! Vengeance!
If you need assistance escaping a burning building without the use of your limbs (and you have an evacuation chair handy), I'm your man.
Posted by Oliver at 11:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 08, 2005
I tried counting sheep
Another sleepless evening. Notes to self:
- Try not to imagine you're lying on a small, slowly rising platform raising itself on a telescoping central pillar, which gets thinner & thinner, swaying more and more the higher you rise. Try not to picture yourself gripping onto the sides of the platform to stop yourself being thrown off.
- Try not to imagine yourself in various scenes from your past life, acting out plainly ridiculous fantasies that include Jedi force powers. And remarkable martial arts prowess.
- Especially, try not to feature such absurdities in your mental pictures of what upcoming events will be like. It does not help you look forward to them. It is unlikely that situations will arise at parties that will require you to demonstrate unguessed-at karaoke/fire-fighting/counselling abilities against your will.
Now make with the zzz-zzz.
Posted by Oliver at 12:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 05, 2005
Former big fish in small pond syndrome
"You can never go back, and it hurts to try" is my new motto. This is after discovering that the tetris clone I was so bloody thrilled about finding is, in fact:
- a knock-off of Tetris 2 (according to my girlfriend)
- broken.
I don't know why I didn't notice it before, but it's possible to position two blocks in one square. Clearly this violates the laws of both physics and tetris. And if you do this, you're in with a good chance of screwing yourself. Two blocks fall twice as far, apparently, and if one falls off the playing area there's no way to clear it. Even the super-duper Six In A Row of the Same Colour move (that usually clears all the blocks of that colour, complete with a nice whooshy sound) can't reach blocks outside the play area. So the tile count never reaches zero, and the level never ends.
It's like re-discovering a long lost old friend, only to find out they were actually some alien life form pretending to be human, and all those laughs you had were just to harvest laugh hormones to sell on an alien laugh hormones black market. Stupid aliens. Still, it was worth it: my sweetheart has a copy of the original Tetris 2 on the Gameboy! And she's got a bit of a thing for games too. Not nearly as much as me, of course, as I'm downright unhealthy about them. But even so: Aw.
Posted by Oliver at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2005
Renewing old friendships
Friends who knew me in UCD will know that I was a pretty poor student at the best of times, spending far too long working on college newspapers, among other things. And those who knew me from working on college newspapers will know I spent far too long hogging the main design mac, playing a little gem called Tetris Plus.
Yup, that's a working hyperlink. God help me, it's found me again. And it's brilliant. Now, I'm at least five years older, and not a huge fan of retro-gaming, but hearing that music again made me shiver. My brain immediately knew what to do, but my clumsy fingers couldn't translate knowing into keypresses quickly enough. Still, made it to level 15 with 23568 points; not a bad showing after a break of five years.
Apparently, Tetris Plus is an 'interpretation' of Tetris 2, but a solid two minutes of research via Google couldn't get a decent description of how Tetris 2 played, so it's hard to say. The gameplay is deeper than that of Tetris - you can break up the pieces, gravity plays a part, and you've to align three or more squares of the same colour, not complete lines - which is off-putting to alot of Tetris traditionalists. But I get bored of Tetris quite quickly whereas this little beauty is that bit more involving.
If you fancy a go, remember that the above file will only work on Apple computers. I would seriously consider buying a Mac Mini to play this game. What? I want one is all. I want everyone to have one.
I held the college newspaper office record for three solid months before some blow-in got pissed off trying to reach it and deleted the high-scores. Hmmm. Maybe my dogged focus on holding every ranking in the high score table was to blame...
Posted by Oliver at 12:56 AM | Comments (0)
Seeing the whole of the moon
Did I mention I was off work this week? I'm off work this week! On holidays, mainly because actually having enough holidays to spend a week at home is a fantastic new experience after spending most of them studying last year, and I desperately needed a break. Supposedly the week is to make this place look spiffy, and I have been doing a bit of work on that... But, this being late Wednesday going on early Thursday, there's not much chance of it being finished by the time my week is up. So, out with ambitions, and in with some quality time spent with my sweetheart (we had a hugely great time in Galway at the weekend), with gadgets (new phone! new phone!) and with all this other junk I can't seem to stop buying though I have no time to properly enjoy it.
Piles of great books, games and CDs, meeting friends for lunch without having to rush from and back to work, being able to sort things like having oil delivered without it actually being any hassle... this holidaying where you live could become an annual institution!
Posted by Oliver at 12:28 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2005
I see dead people
My large and extended family contains many 'characters' in the traditional Irish sense of the word. Nearly every trade imaginable is represented by one in-law or another. We're also the kind of extended family that thinks nothing of ringing each other up to carry out the occasional small but important task. This leads to some fun experiences; I've worked in a women's refuge, behind a bar, and as assistant to a property agent and undertaker.
I'm regularly questioned as to what it is undertakers do, and I'm happy to answer those questions, but Six Feet Under tells it better. It does mean I'm more comfortable around dead bodies than I would be otherwise (and only in the very specific, formal environments of wakes and funeral homes).
My cousin popped in one evening to use our computer to update his CV. Before leaving, he left with me a polished wooden box containing the cremated remains of a client of my uncle the undertaker. Cremations are still rare in Ireland, and there are few crematoriums as a result. The cremation had to take place in Dublin, and the remains had to be ferried to their final resting place via the hands of an extremely careful chain of people, linked by virtue of being blood relatives.
There's something about holding a box of somebody else's ashes that focuses the mind. I couldn't leave them in the boot of the car - what if the car was stolen?! The ashes would end up in the Garda impound lot! And wouldn't they be cold?
So they spent the night with me, right under my bed. And when I passed them on to my mother, she insisted they stay indoors too.
I will admit to a solid 15 minutes of wondering if I was going to see a ghost that night.
Posted by Oliver at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)