Life2go.net Get a life ...to go.

One week later than all the cool kids, but now I too have bought an iPhone 3G. The iPhone will be replacing my Nokia E90 Communicator although the iPhone, even unsubsidized, costs far less than the E90 (about 520€ compared to about 820€).

The touch-screen -keyboard used in the iPhone is terrible while the large qwerty keyboard in the E90 is superb. Apart from that, the iPhone is superior: more responsive, more stable, easier to use, more fun, smaller and so on. I have read some complaints about battery life and slow 3G speed but I have not had any of those problems.

One really big improvement over the E90 is the quick positioning service. With the E90 I spent minutes waiting for a GPS signal but the iPhone finds my position immediately and with great precision - even indoors, probably by using the wifi based Skyhook positioning system if a GPS signal is unavailable. And then there is the AppStore - it is a joy to search for and install additional software compared to doing it with a Symbian phone and it keeps all your third party softwares perfectly up-to-date.

Front page, full page ad in Finland's largest newspaper advertising the iPhone 3G on Sunday the 13th of July - two days after it was launched ... and sold out.

The text says "iPhone, that you have been waiting for". It really should say "iPhone, that you are still waiting for".

On Monday (14th of July), I called different stores that Sonera (the operator selling the iPhone in Finland) listed as places selling the iPhone and none had any, they where all sold out.

Well, kind of. They do have phones, but their not for sale as they are reserved.

About a month ago when Jobs showed of the new iPhone, said it would cost a maximum of 200 dollars around the world and the launch date was set - Sonera, started a reservation list. The price in Finland was not published, but it seems many belived the price would actually be something like 125€ - not realizing that the price of the phone is just an arbitrary number as it is subsidized and the real price is made up trough large montly "subscription" fees. By the time the phone went on sale and these same persons realized it would end up costing something like 800€ and not offer unlimited data, many on the reservation list chose not to buy the phone - but they did not cancel their place on the list either. So now stores have phones that are reserved by people with no intention of buying one while those intent on buying have to walk out of stores empty handed.

I was going to update the firmware in my Nokia E90 so I launched VMWare Fusion under OS X to get Windows going. Problem is, Nokia Software Updater requires XP. That's right, no OS X support and no Vista support. It seems the Vista SP1 update broke Nokia's updater software and they still haven't managed to fix it.

I wish they would simply have an update application in the phone that would periodically check for updates and when found, offer to download over WiFi or 3G to the memory card and then allow you to install the new firmware right there in the phone. Now you have to install a poorly functional Windows application and you actually have to pop the battery in the phone to find a serial number in order to check on-line if there is an update available. This is the kind of thing built in auto-update software is supposed to keep track of.

Sonera, the largest telecom operator in Finland, published prices for the upcoming iPhone 3G yesterday (27.6.2008). Unfortunately, they have left out the unlimited data option available with other phones so people are going to end up paying 1,49 € per exceeding MB - that is about 4 € per minute or 251 € per hour at 3G speed.

Nokia today said it would become the sole owner of Symbian, buying out Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung and Panasonic. In reality, Symbian has been very Nokia centric for quite some time already so this move is not surprising.

More surprising is Nokia's intention to make Symbian open source trough the Symbian Foundation. This is clearly a pre-emptive attack on Google's Android project, the open source Linux based operating system for cell phones that will be put to use in the first cell phones later this year.

An important question needs to be answered: is Nokia successful because of Symbian or despite of Symbian?

Symbian has been around since 1998 and is based on Psion's EPOC that was made for PDA's in the late 1980s when processing power and memory were much more limited than today. Much has been done to modernize Symbian but a common complain from software developers is still that Symbian tries to be resource friendly and "light" by putting a lot of burden on the software developer. In contrast, more modern competitors such as Android seem to be much simpler to use for developers and simply designed for the kind of mobile devices we have today. Apple has also created a lot of interest in their iPhone trough a very impressive looking and easy to use software development kit (SDK). Developers are claiming they can make mobile software in weeks for the iPhone that used to take months for other mobile operating systems, ie Symbian.

It is indeed a sorry sight, all those road warriors sitting on the floor in convention centers and at airports in order to be close to one of the few electrical outlets that can be found in such places.

Now The New York Times reports that La Guardia airport in New York has installed "power poles", simply a pole with a number of electrical outlets.

It is a great move by the airport but it is sad that being able to find electrical outlets makes front page news.

My Nokia E90 cell phone works well in almost any corner of the world, including here in the US. Still, I can not allow it to connect to the network because as soon as I do, the GPRS data connection icon pops up. I don't know which application causes the connection to be made, it might be several, but with data transfer prices ridiculously high while using a foreign network, there is no way I can keep the phone connected and allow the phone to transfer data at will.

Some applications have options like "warn before connecting while roaming" but obviously not all. Nor would it make any sense to choose "always ask before connecting" for all applications since I want them to connect automatically when needed - as long as I am in Finland where I have a fixed monthly price for unlimited data transfers.

Nokia needs to add an option where users can temporarily choose to not allow any application to connect to the network without explicit approval - while on trips abroad for example.

My transition to the Mac side is now complete.

I have been living with almost daily blue screens in Windows Vista Ultimate for a year now and nothing helps. I have hanged in there, thinking that things will improve once service pack 1 arrives. Today SP1 finally came and I immediately installed it. Once installed, Windows told me I needed to active Windows. Again? Well, ok.

But when I tried, it told me the key was already in use. Well of course it is already in use, I used it to activate the product a year ago when I bought it. So now it is offering me to either call the infamous automated Microsoft phone system and explain myself by pressing buttons on my cell phone or TO BUY A NEW LICENCE!

Ok, I give up on Vista. I have had it.

I am all for saving the whales and hugging penguins, especially if it gives me an excuse to buy more LED stuff. This apartment is only a few months old but the construction company chose to put three MR16 halogen spotlights in the bathroom, that is 3 x 35W for a total of 105W to light up a tiny room. What where they thinking? Halogen spotlights are a bit '80ish anyway.

In other rooms I can just screw in a low power fluorescent lamp as a replacement for an incandescent light bulb and feel good about my self and my progressive approach to energy consumption. But with tiny MR16 spotlights, there are no fluorescent alternatives available that I know of. Google led me to led1.de that offered a few LED alternatives though and that is even better than fluorescent alternatives.

They had two "high power" alternatives when it came to MR16, high power in this case meaning 3W which is about as much as you can get out of a LED today. One alternative uses a Cree XR-E LED and the other a Seoul P4. I chose the P4 because it is brighter but unfortunately it also has a colder white (6500K) compared to the warmer white of the Cree (3200K).