The fact that you can get an iPod with a 160 Gb hard disk plus tv shows being sold at less than £2 an episode means that watching your favourite show on the train is becoming a commonplace event. I've been loading up my iPod with pretty much everything that you can buy off the iTunes site and loving it. My Blackberry has an 8 Gb memory card which is plenty of room for a few movies. I've used the Makayama Media Studio for my Nokia E61i very successfully and bought the new release for my Blackberry. Although it takes quite a long time to convert a DVD to an appropriately compressed size for the Blackberry - the results are excellent. I am something of an old movie buff and have enjoyed having old black and white classics converted over to my 8800. The screen quality and sound output are really excellent!
Thursday 27th March 2008
I ported my work mobile number over to O2 (from ASDA Mobile) and the
move was completed yesterday. I like my mobile number because it's a
simple one to remember and because when I bought it I got to choose the
number from easyMobiles website. EasyMobile had an excellent if somewhat
short lived service and I think someone else should repeat the idea of
selling nice mobile numbers in such an easy to access way. The ability
to take your number with you between mobile phone contracts simply
"rocks" and I've rarely had any problems at all.
O2 seem to find it difficult to understand that my number had changed and I didn't get any emails after the change over until I raised the problem with O2. Another small "niggle" was that phoning O2 customer services resulted in a polite message saying I should "dial the support number shown on my most recent bill. Ummm *cough* I was. That said each of my calls to O2 Business Customer Services have resulted in quick and polite solutions - once you're put through.
Easter Monday 2008
After a massively long walk along the canal (beautiful countryside!)
I settled down to an afternoon trying to find a way of synchronising my
calendar on my Sony VAIO, my OQO UMPC, my desktop and my new BlackBerry.
For ease of typing - and because its 90% work that I'm trying to
synchronise - my VAIO laptop is my principle calendar. I'm working in
Outlook 2003 (for compatibility with work) and thought it would be a
really easy little project. Without going to the expense of having
Microsoft Exchange for just my calendar - I tried using SimDesk and also
ScheduleWorld. Both are
excellent idea's and ScheduleWorld would have met my humble needs
entirely if it wasn't for a problem matching the time in my appointments
(everything drifted by an hour).
I finally solved the problem by signing up for a
Google Calendar and synchronising with that. Google provide an excellent
free tool that lets you synch in whichever direction you choose. I can
upload from my VAIO to Google and back down to my OQO and Desktop.
Synching the Blackberry is as easy as plugging it in... really nice and simple software provided by RIM and totally painless in use.
Thursday 20th March 2008
My new Blackberry 8800 arrived and I'm mighty pleased with it. The
keyboard is really well thought out and the setup was really simple.
It's been busy receiving emails on half a dozen accounts all day. Having
the "unlimited" contract from O2 was a great because I didn't worry
about browsing and emailing at all. Fellow kiwi Paul told me he had a
£100 bill from Vodaphone and I can see how easy it would be to rack up
the costs without an all inclusive contract. The GPS seems to work just
fine too - but I would really like TomTom (which I use on my Nokia
E61i).
Good timing meant that my 8800 cover arrived today
too. Bright orange silicon and fitting to perfection. It's a Blackberry
original and I liked it so much I ordered a lime green one from the same
company.
I treated myself to a games pack from Gameloft.com - 10 games for £10. I really like Gameloft - they have excellent mobile games and reasonable rates. I'm particularly fond of their card games but everything I've had from them so far, rocks.
Thursday 13th March 2008
I decided to order a "Blackberry"
after many moons of avoiding getting one. My latest phone - the hugely
mega-pixeled Nokia N82 has such an awkward keyboard I'm wondering if
simply taking my tiny Casio Exlim camera with me would be better than
struggling to dial numbers and texting on the tiny tiny keys of the N82.
A chap sat opposite me on the train with a Blackberry 8800 and I think
it looks very cool. Well I will let you know how the new phone goes.
