Ten Pence Mix

When I was young I can remember going to the newsagents and asking for a ten pence mix. The shop owner would count out ten sweets (or the equivalent) and I would hand over ten pence and then have a bag full of sweets. Back then you knew what you would you get when you paid the money and would be able to sort out any problems should there be a sweet missing.

Today shouldn't be too dissimilar in that you pay for service and you either get it or you don't. There are always issues with the quality of service thus you have to look at the terms and conditions.

Now take O2 where I have been a customer of theres' for a number of years. I pay so much a month I get 600 minutes and 500 texts. If I use them the usage decreases until it gets to zero then I start paying.

I used to pay for their data bolt on called data max at 3GB a month where I knew I had up to 3GB of data allowance. Through being made redundant and reducing costs I decided to go to O2 simplicity where I was told the web bolt on was "unlimited" but subject to either a fair usage or excessive usage policy. On enquiring with the O2 customer advisor I pressed the person to try and get an actual figure explaining I use my phone for web, email and podcasts where the latter does use a lot of bandwidth. I got told you will be okay sir there is no limit. So I used this tariff for several months downloading between 2 and 4GB per month. I upgraded in May and got an E75 and pressed them again on the limit as I had changed my tariff explaining why and was told again no issue sir. So the latter months I have been using the phone to download and listen to my podcasts. Bearing in mind that I try to download out of hours because there are 10 weekly podcasts that I follow, you can understand I use a lot of bandwidth. I don't use my phone for tethering as I can do everything I need to on my handset.

Three months ago I used 3GB, the month after I used 4GB and last month I used 6GB.

I have now been sent a text that I have gone over my data allowance where I need to either cut down or get a bigger Bolt On to keep using the Internet.

Now this is where my issues start, firstly the web unlimited bolt on I have been told today is the largest they have therefore they cannot offer me an alternative.

On asking for the actual max amount I can download I am not being told a figure only that it is unlimited. However, I was then told not to download too much as I will get another text and might have my service restricted. I iterated that this is like driving down a road where there is a speed camera and then you get caught for speeding. However no one can tell me how fast I should be going.

This is an absolute joke and how they can advertise an unlimited tariff even with an excessive or fair usage policy and they cannot tell me what this is, is beyond belief. They are happy to take my money and police what I am doing but give me no clear guidance or indication on what the limit is.

When I used to pay for 60MB per month a few years ago I managed my usage to ensure I did not encure any charges. I would like to do this again but they they cannot help me.

Further as the conversation progressed it turns out because I using an HTC magic this is not an approved O2 phone so for an other reason I have been told to curb my usage. If I had either used the original E75 or had an IPhone then this would not have been an issue as O2 are aware they can potentially use a large amount of data and as such would not have said anything. I explained I like technology and will change my phone several times a year. However on this basis they could not sell me an upgrade as I was not due. I find the latter argument rubbish because @gerrymoth is on O2 and was on their Sim only deal and I know he switches the handsets he is testing and he to got a warning.

Therefore reading between the lines on this are O2 only telling me I can use the handset I have bought on their network, or are they telling me I can only use approved phones.

They could not put me onto an IPhone tariff, they cannot tell me what the cap is or the reporting levels through the month so I can manage my usage, they can only tell me it is unlimited.

Whilst I can make changes to my usage as not to engage the wrath of O2, it is about time there was a shake up in the industry and they gave clear guidelines on what unlimited means rather than advertising complete hogwash.

The gadget show ran a campaign on home broadband that was successful in getting the major ISPs to change their T&Cs and actually come clean on what they mean.

A similar shake down needs to happen in the mobile industry to all of the networks including O2 and be clear on what I am buying or at least offer a true unlimited tariff for more money of which I would glady pay for.

Just like my ten pence bag of sweets I know when the bag is empty I can either buy another bag or wait until next month. Rather than being told halfway through the bag that I am eating too much.

To Hell and back again

The HTC Magic has been driving me mad today. It has taken me over 5 minutes to write a tweet to the extent I ended up slapping the phone through frustration. Although this calmed my nerves I ended up looking at cooked roms for the phone hoping it would speed it up.

After advise from people on twitter I downloaded a recovery image to put phone into a mode where I could back it up to SD. I also used the Astro file manager to back up my apps as well to SD. Then using Linux (Ubuntu 8.10) I re flashed the phone and went upon my way restoring it.

The Asto File manager was bad in that it would allow me to bulk select all apps for backup, but I had to individually restore the apps back onto the phone. Further even though I had restore the apps individually the market application would not acknowledge this. This means I would not be notified of any application upgrades unless I reinstalled the application via the market place. This, coupled with the phones failure to sync again using road sync prompted me to restore the phone from the backup I had taken. Further the all of my settings had gone so I would need to input logins and passwords again etc....

Before installing the cooked rom, I used an emergency recovery rom which used a mode call fast boot and an application called nandroid to backup the android to SD. I merely reversed this process to restore the phone to its previous state. But again, the applications although restore from SD card would not show up in the market place. Through using an application called App Manager this somehow allowed me to go into the market place, rebuild the database of installed applications so I could complete the online upgrades. I have removed the offending application hoping this will resolve my speed issues.

I am still humming and ahhing about the N900 and wonder should I impulse buy, but in the interim my Magic is what it once was. I will observe the cooked roms and choose another in time what should assist with my speed issues. Lastly, I believe Android 2 will be out soon so multitouch will be available and hopefully speed bug fixes.

The lesson(s) from this tale are, don't use cooked roms unless you know what you are doing and don't run too much on your android unless it dies....

I will root the phone on the original rom that is installed so I can tether and run scheduled reboot applications on the phone. But looking at the windows mobiles, Palm(s), S60 and UIQ phones I have had in addition to Android. All of them are bad when backing up and restoring as they do not restore the phone fully. They always miss something.

I can only recall my old Psion 3 series and 5 series over 10 years ago where you could run a scheduled backup. The battery would die and you would loose you main system disk data. You could then power on the device, run a restore of which would restore the device perfectly.

The question is we now have User Data Protection areas (UDP) on phones, flash memory and external storage, yet none of these devices whilst slightly more sophisticated than the Psions still cannot do a complete restore.

Thank goodness for the cloud as this is where I store my data. But as I have said before, the cloud is a great backup but always ensure you have another parachute (additional backup) incase the first chute fails.....

N900 Do I or don't I?

I have been an N810 user for over a year where I originally made the purchase of the device as I was disappointed using a converged device like the E90 as there were always issues browsing the web. I thought the idea of going back to two devices with a less powered mobile phone and using this to tether with the N810 would be ideal. Although the N810 was a good device, from being used to a converged device for a number of years the idea of carrying two devices again was daunting. Further while the N810 was good for web browsing it was slow. In the end I ended up hacking the N810 to utilise the internal 2gb of SD space to allow me to install more applications but ultimately it has been gathering dust and is either used as an ebook reader for my emagazine or if I want to tinker. The last word 'tinker' is quite important because in reality this is all I can do with the device.

There aren't really any productivity applications out there other than abiword and gnu sheet for business use. The mail client although been upgraded is still crap not being able to really view html pages. The web browser does work but is slow and the replacement fennec browser again is really slow. This coupled with the poor battery life, terrible multimedia support without encoding to a usable video format and poor low volume don't really sing any kind of praises for the device. Yes, I can carry it in my pocket, it does have a keyboard but the design of the keyboard as a slide does not work for me. Further there is a sudden lack of syncing either to exchange or google. For exchange the recommendation is to use OWA but why do I want to log into a web browser to read my email. For Google sync there is a client of which needs installing and again it is somewhat cumbersome. However I had always thought the marrying of the N810 with a phone would be a good idea.

This leads me onto the N900 of which this concept is now a reality. But... The battery is smaller than the N810 where realistically you would only get 4 hours from an N810 on constant use. The screen is resistive where after using the N810 it is usable but capacitive would be great. But again, because the device does need a stylus you cannot exactly have a capacitive screen although someone is working on a stylus that will work with one. 32gb of storage is good, but how much of this like the N810 can we use to install applications? the N810 could have upto 32gb with micro sdhc cards, but the actual storage space with the internal flash ram, the swap file and preloaded OS meant you were still limited. The camera at 5 mpx is great, HSPA built in is great but again and little things like USB charging are welcome.

But wait a sec..... haven't we been here before with the N97 - the flagship device? Now there is the mini N97 again all of the N97 problems pre packaged in a smaller tin.

I currently have an HTC Magic, a welcome relief to S60 and I have been amazed of how much I am enjoying android. Later in the year the Palm Pre will hit the UK, again another device that I have tried with the SDK emulator and like but let down through lack of software.

So getting back to my question, part of me wants to order the N900 to see if it is what I have been looking for. The idea of a mobile computer with telephony rather than the other way around is for me the correct specification. However, recent Nokia announcements and hype such as the N97, 5800 and S60v5 and through previously owning an N810 are seriously putting me off. Lastly the N900 will cost £499 to order - that's half a grand.... I can go away for this, pay my mortgage and bills for one month or even save it. I was stung last year being eager to get the I8510 another all singing all dancing phone in spec but let down with bad firmware and support from Samsung.

Nokia will no doubt fix any problems the N900 quickly as they appear or at least there is the maemo community to do the work for them. This in itself will help the device become successful.

But overall, I think through writing this piece that I will wait as Q4 has many other things that will be happening. There was once a time I would have pressed Buy Now for example the Nokia 9500, E90, E71 and E63. But now I am more wise and frugal I will take a back seat let the cloud of hype surrounding the launch settle and wait to see what actual users are saying rather than the spin machine.

I may be wrong but ultimately that £500 can stay in the bank earning a little interest then when and if an opportunity of the ultimate device shows itself I can consider a purchase.