Hardware Restriction - E220

I hate it when I buy a new piece of hardware that has intentionally been restricted by the manufacturer or provider to control how it should be used.

Nokia will only allow signed software to be installed onto their phones where a developer has to go through a convoluted process to obtain certification to allow their software to be installed. I have come across freeware that I wish to install but it needs me to get it signed beforehand. Apple lock their phones down so no background applications can run which could potentially hog the CPU and disrupt the experience when using the phone. Then you get mobile network providers that intentionally lock their phones/USB Modems to the network and charge an extortionate fee to unlock them.

Thankfully both the Nokia and Apple phones can both be jailbroken to get around these restrictions although it might be deemed as illegal by each Manufacturer (just google for information).

I have recently switched from a 3 mobile contract to PAYG but the modem was still locked to Three. Seeing as I was out of contract, now owned the modem and didn't want to part with any money to buy the unlock code, I decided to Google for any potential solutions of permanently unlocking my Huawei E220 modem so I can use any sim card.

I came across the following site http://www.unlocke220.blogspot.com/ which has simple instructions for windows (I ran this on Windows XP under vmware on linux). I had an issue trying to complete the flash.bin dump to a file so switched to a windows 2000 machine under vmware, however it should work okay under windows on a dedicated PC.

Now the restriction has been removed I have tried an O2 and Virgin Mobile SIM in the modem and they both work.

It is nice to be free again!

Lets twitter the night away with senoritas who do sway!

Recently I have set up a twitter account which I have integrated into this blog and to update my facebook. In essence it simplifies things by only having to update in one place.

I was originally using fring to do this but it was consuming too much ram on my 5800. I tried several java clients but did not like them so stuck with Fring.

Then two new clients came on the block a bit like two buses turning up. Gravity and Twittix are both cheap under $10 where I ended up purchasing Gravity first, then trying a trial of Twittix.

Gravity from Mobileways looks very professional, allows multiple twitter accounts to be added and also allows direct posting of images to twitpic or mobypicture.

Twittix cannot send images but again allows multiple accounts but allows you to look at user profiles and follow people direct from searched tweets, two things gravity does not do.

You can do the usual twitter actions of direct messages, reply, follow, retweet or add favourites with both applications. Twittix interface is clean and simple, you get it to auto connect/disconnect, alter the refresh interval and get it notify you on updates. Whilst Gravity has a nice responsive interface it lacks the connect, refresh and notification features of Twittix. Gravity periodically checks for updates, but sadly you have to remember to look at the app for these rather than telling you.

The winner for me is Gravity as I can save searches for topics of interest. Whilst Twittix can search, any searches are not persistent if you close the application down.

Searches in Gravity are persistent and it means in addition to rss I can use twitter as an alternative to give me notifications of news. Also like Twittix it allows me to go direct to the web page if it has been tagged.

I am also using Gravity on my E90, read my previous post about the issue with my 5800 and web browsing.

In conclusion it would be good to see the features missing from both applications in each other, which over time may happen. Whilst both apps are great for twittering, if you are really into twitter for searching then Gravity is the winner. If you want to send pics to twitpic then Gravity is the winner. If you want to use twitter more for messaging then Twittix is best due to notification, connection and update controls.

E90

Well after some deliberation and the recent issues with the 5800XM I have blown the dust off my Nokia E90 (over 18 months old), reflashed it and then spent three days reinstalling it after two bundled attempts.

The previous atempts failed due to the memory card where I had similar issues to my 16gb card. I had previously used the 16gb in the 5800 but it would not work and became corrupt. A similar issue happened in the E90 the first time. I then tried a 8gb card and the same issue here happened.

Looking at both card they were both class 2, so I tried a class 4, 8gb card on the third attempt and everything now works. When I had the class 2, 8gb card in a N95 it slowed the response of the phone right down. So the moral is, class 2 for devices like ebook readers, cameras or mp3 machines. Class 4 for pdas or mobiles. The 16gb has gone in my camera and the 8gb in my N810 for extra storage.

The E90 is like holding a shoe to your ear when making calls. However it has lots of memory, quite fast processor, can multitask, has a keyboard, large screen, gps, 3.2 megapixel camera, stereo, ad2p, wifi, bluetooth and ip telephony, Whilst the 5800 has all of this minus the hardware keyboard, the 5800 really slows down when doing too much.

You may ask what have I got running on the phone:

Push email
Ip telephony
Gravity for twitter
Push sync to exchange
Sms filter
Call filter
Call recorder
Sms gmail sync

Even with this running it still leaves enough ram for web browsing, blogging and the odd phone call.

The iphone can only do one thing at a time according to apple, however when I jailbroke my 2g iphone I was running ssh, php, web server, call notification software in the background and other apps in the foreground.

I have heard that apple will be be allowing push notifications to the phone where by rather than the phone periodically checking for updates or having a constant connection to the server, apple will notify the phone when something has updated so the phone can connect and make the updates. If this works, it will be a new way of doing push notification and will reduce on data being transferred from having to keep open a constant connection.

So whilst I have been looking for a phone that does everything I want I have had it for the past 18 months stuck in a drawer!

However, looking at new handsets at the moment the contenders are now E90, E71 , N97 or the palm pre. Matt Miller reports the keyboard on the N97 is poor in comparison to the E75 the device he is now favoring. You cannot use a virtual keyboard to input on the N97 as there is no software keyboard unlike the 5800, so you have to flip open the device. Whilst like my E90 I have to do this in order to type it would be good to see both options available like on the N810.

So whilst I am waiting and reading the reviews, I am typing this blog using wavelogger on the E90 as I know I have the yardstick in my hands. Should there be another communicator announcement from Nokia then the N97 will be ball parked until the communicator comes out for comparison.

As the phones cost a lot it will be worth the wait as they do stand the test of time - or at least me!

Which phone next?

Well the nokia 5800xm has reached the point of another hard reset. Web has died where it will not even load mobile versions of websites. There are two other browsers available such as BOLT or OPERA MINI but these either crash or are too cumbersome with a touch screen

I am pondering the 3g iphone now it has grown up and will finally be able to do copy and paste, mms and sat nav later this year. But I will probably want to jailbreak and then it will be on ebay for sale.

The N97 is due soon and whilst I like the form factor it still has the bad s60 browser. I will need to see the reviews before I jump as I am getting tiered of buying stuff that just doesn't work.

There is windows mobile but there is not much to say on that
The G1 or G2 but again lack of software or memory kills this for me.
I have tried two devices but find it impractical and the n810 I have again has a bad web experience.
Netbooks are too large to carry around all of the time to just get out and use.

So I am on a fence as to what to do?

Some people cannot understand why the phones just fail me. Ultimately I just use their features, buy software and run it on the device as this is what they are designed to do.

So will it be an iphone? At this moment it is a hot candidate as I just want something that works. However I will look at the new phones mentioned above over the next few months before I jump!

New social media apps for 5800XM

Finally Shozu is available for the 5800XM so videos and pictures can uploaded to a variety of social networking sites including direct blogging and twitter updates.

I have also purchased a native s60 twitter client for s60v5 called Gravity which allows you to update your twitter, to follow other tweets, to complete searches and to respond to direct messages and post pictures. It only cost about £9 including VAT and is worth the money.

Shozu is free, however it is not working very well with my youtube account where I have raised a technical support query with them.

This including Fring means you no longer have to be tied to a pc and you can complete and follow updates whilst you are on the move.

Although these applications can all run in the background I have found they are memory hogs and if you are using other applications in addition, these will slow the phone down. I have found it better to close these applications when trying to use the builtin web application because of the memory limitation.

For x = 1 to y do.....exit loop

Its 4am, I haven't really slept well due to my cold, man flu or whatever you so choose to call it. The strategy of the curry and whiskey only partially worked where I should have gone for the vindaloo. However I concede that it will go in its own time.

I was thinking of what to write for my next blog article and I have a few ideas but this week is coming up to a special occasion. As of 29 March I will officially be unemployed for 6 months. Its amazing how quickly the time has flown and to think I have been looking for work for this amount of time. People I have spoken to who also left my last company have found work and some even had two jobs.
It is difficult to gauge why I haven't. I have revised my CV which in itself is an ongoing project to try and reflect who am I and what I can do. I even paid someone to make it look professional but with no luck. I have applied for many jobs and had a few interviews where the last one concluded I was technical this time but too senior (not age) for the position. It scares people when they see someone who was paid well taking a huge pay cut in order to get into a company. They start asking questions like why are you taking such a cut? Will you cope financially? Whilst they do have a right to ask these questions it makes you feel a numpty. When I apply for a job I do so because I want to, I can do it and am aware of the financials and risk that go with taking a lower paid job.

In my last interview the role would have subsquently led to taking over the position of the person who was interviewing me. So you are interviewing someone you like, know they can do the job, will eventually have my job to allow me to move on within the company and I am getting more experience for my dollar. However I think you are too experienced. So whilst I am getting more value for my money I am not going too select you due to this.

So now I have had experience of both scenarios where I was not technical and now I am too experienced. I do hope the next interview will be successful and I can join the ranks of employment again.

So you may be asking why for x = 1 to y do......

You may have seen the film groundhog day where the same day keeps repeating and Bill Murray uses this time to learn new things such as play the piano. If I was to categorise the film I would use a repeat until loop as he as to keep doing things until he gets the girl. A while do version of this film would be, he has the girl but he needs to keep her and not lose her. A for loop version would be, he has to repeat something several times such as, he has the girl but he will only for a finite time, hence the count.

Since being out of work each day could have been categorised as a for loop as I was expecting to only be out of work for a finite moment in time, However, coming up to 6 months this project is over running and is slowly becoming a repeat until. That is, repeat whatever I am doing until I find work.

During this repeat until loop I am slowly extending the code to include new strategies to the various sub routines I call for example:

Repeat

Goto procedure find work

Until

Where the procedure find work is now including things such as revising the cv to make it more specific to the role and looking at retraining. At some point I would like to make it a bit more OO based to ensure flexibility in the future to cater for more events.

Whilst been off I have found it necessary to be busy to ensure my mind is active and I am not slumming it. Because the situation may be a longer than anticipated I am gearing myself up for this so have decided to sell my house and car with a view to reducing any risk in the future. Whilst this might be painful it necessary to cut my losses now and get over it so I can move on. They are only things and these can be bought again.

It reminds me of my time when I moved to Holland as I was working out in the german business. In the august I had got rid of my house, car and belongings so I could move overseas. I had already met someone over there and was looking to settle down (finally). However what I was not anticipating was the company was going to be closed and I had a choice to either stay put or move back. To aid with my repatriation back to the UK a role was found for me where for three months until the final move I travelled between germany, holland and the uk to sort out my affairs. The moral of this story is I have been here before where everything material has gone but it can be bought again. To put it another way it also gives me a chance to upgrade all of my gadgets again!

So, in a few hours I am back signing on where the the same questions are being asked - how is your job search? The advisors whilst courteous cannot really help but are there should I need it. I have already looked into retraining where I am interested in either lecturing or gardening (some will laugh at the latter) and have spoken to a teacher friend of where to find information.

For some, this time is painful especially when you do not know when the loop will end. To others they cannot be bothered and some remain optimistic. I am in both camps. As Bill Murray, whilst the general format could be the same I am using this opportunity to use the time constructively and complete all of the things I should have done.

Fortran 77 was funny language a bit like BASIC and modula 2. It could not handles loops well and rather than exit a loop naturally it would just force an exit. Currently, I am hoping that this situation will end soon, if it doesn't I am preparing for the long haul; if it does I will be exiting using this construct of the exit loop as soons as the right opportunity shows itself.

Mythbuntu - the media centre? "it does what it says on the tin"

The PC in my front room was originally a Windows Media Centre (MCE) PC from HP. A few years ago I upgraded the RAM to 2gb and dropped in a dual core processor. Hp insisted the machine could not be upgraded to a dual core and that I needed to purchase a new machine at £1000 plus. However I knew the motherboard would accept the x2 chip but the bios would not. After a bit of reading around I found a way to re-flash the bios, remove the HP fudge and put on the original BIOS upgrade to support dual core. I located a seller and bought the chip for £100. Chip arrived, it was installed and was recognised by the BIOS and then by Windows. Because I had altered my internal hardware I was on the phone late one night to M$ to get a new code to reactivate Windows. I have to admit since moving to Linux that I really am glad that I don't have to do the activation rubbish any more. In principle I can understand why they M$ went down this route but working in the enterprise it was such a pain having to phone up.

Anyway, this machine last year had removed and opensuse 11 installed. I decided I didn't like this on a desktop (its on my server) so I put on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) which has worked okay although I really wanted to make use of the DVR facility as I have a DVB (freeview) card in the machine. I tried MythTV which was installed via apt-get but it insisted on not working correctly with the DVB card. The remote did not work but the DVB card worked with other software such as kaffeine or ME-tv. So while I was troubleshooting I downloaded a mythbuntu 8.10 ISO - AMD x64 version to give this a go.

My troubleshooting was a waste of time, I burnt the ISO to CD, rebooted and reinstalled Mythbuntu over the top of my machine. I figured I could rebuild the original quickly if needed.

After some initial set up, it recognised my MCE remote control, the DVB card and works brilliantly. I can search the freeview EPG for keywords, genre or channel list. It will record, pause and rewind TV. It saved me £150 purchasing a decent DVR and will be useful for the nominal time I watch TV. Further I can add plugins for weather, stream music or view RSS feeds - something MCE could do but was very clunky.

My original MCE set up impressed me to bits, the way the menus worked, the EPG, being able to play music whilst watching a slide show. I extended the system to stream tv online, allow me to schedule programme recordings through the web and I automated a process to convert the recorded video to DIVX for offline viewing.

The thing I hated was the EPG was prone to crash out, you would then lose your channels which in turn would stop your recordings. It would crash out each time it updated and no matter what fixes I put in place to back up the EPG refresh the MCE services periodically it was a waste of time. I was looking to Vista but this had the same issues so I blew MCE and the idea out of the window.

However, it was a colleague of mine that introduced me to mythbuntu and it was only a year later (today) that I actually installed it. If I think of all of the lost time trying to fix MCE, through installing Mythbuntu would have saved these for more important things.

Its early days for Myth andI will post more as and when I use it of my experiences but initial impressions are "it does what it says on the tin"