Bwana.org » Noteworthy

Florida Gators: 2006-2007 National Champions

Bwana — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:44:59 +0000

First, our basketball team won the title, and now the Florida Gators football team dominated Ohio State, 41 – 14. I’m so proud. The media and fans told Florida they didn’t belong. They told Florida, that Michigan was the better team and they didn’t have a chance against Ohio State. Sorry guys: Here’s a big hearty laugh from yours truly for showing you up:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH *cough* HAHAHAHA

Ok. Congrats Gators. Long Live the Queen. Fight the power.

Nintendo Wii / Playstation 3 Special Podcast

Bwana — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 02:12:29 +0000

Episode 60 of Bwana.org Radio is a special console gaming one. 1 hour of material on the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3, Launch Title insight, Which I would buy, Which YOU should buy and more. Git er done.

Some iPods Shipping with Virus

Bwana — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 20:14:58 +0000

You have got to be kidding me. I first heard about this from Apple News Now. Apparently, there are a few iPods shipping with the Virus, RavMonE.exe.

We recently discovered that a small number – less than 1% – of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006 left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

You’re upset at Windows?!?! Oh that’s just plain wrong. Not only do you make a huge mistake with shipping a virus on iPods, but you got the nerve to blame Windows for it?!?! Who paid the 7th grader to write this up?? Know who the iPod killer is going to be? Apple. You heard it here first.

Apple support link

Update: Microsoft has spoken out defending themselves. This thing is taking a turn for the ugly in a rapid way. Apple… why???

Google Reader FTW

Bwana — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 13:48:19 +0000

After a couple weeks of using Google Reader, I have dubbed it my new RSS Reader. From the keyword based navigation, to the shared RSS item feature, Google Reader is a winner. The keyboard shortcuts are phenomenal! There are also some nice “little” touches that I really like. For instance, if you choose to view your news in the “expanded view” (or river of news) format, as you scroll down, some automagic ajax goodness marks items as read as you scroll down. You gotta try this. The interface is also well done. Google listened to my feedback after their horrible first pass at a RSS reader and went with a more traditional layout. Combined with the keyboard shortcuts that are available, this layout is flexible enough for the beginner and the “expert” user.

I would say Google Reader is near perfect had it not been for one glaring flaw: Search. Yup, Google Reader does not have a search feature. It’s really ironic that the top search engine company builds a RSS reader and doesn’t include search. There are some other flaws as well. During peak prime time hours, Google Reader’s speed slows down a bit. It behaves a lot like Gmail during these times. The documentation needs a bit of work as well. In some screens, it uses both “tags” and “folders” to denote containers for subscriptions. This could confuse a lot of us who are not familiar with tagging. The email article feature seems to be broken on Firefox RC2 on Mac OS X, but this could be attributed to my browser and not Google Reader.

Overall, I would say Google Reader is a successful sophomore release. If I were to score the first iteration of Google Reader, I would give it a 4/10. This gem, would easily score a 9/10 in my book. What say you?

18 Reasons Why I Pre-Ordered A PS3

Bwana — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 02:17:57 +0000

Just hear me out…

$0 down at Lik-Sang
Can cancel pre-order at anytime
I believe Sony, even with all their mistakes, is still the console gaming leader, hands down.
I own a PS2 and and PSP.
I’m a High Definition Junkie and the PS3 is a decent (tongue-in-cheek) investment in High Definition DVD capability
I’m an early adopter
Gran Turismo HD
I’m a gadget junky
The XBox360 has very few “next-gen” titles. Dead Rising, Ghost Recon 3: Advanced Warfighter, and Fight Night Round 3 are the only ones that impressed me. I feel the PS3 may have more, even with a limited launch.
Gamefly. Nuff said
Definitely not for the interface
My belief that each console has its own killer titles.
I’m a gadget junky
I’m not close-minded to technology. I use Windows and Mac OS X. I own a PS2 and an XBox 360.
I can afford it
My wife approves
I don’t foresee myself buying a Nintendo Wii (to each his own, the games don’t appeal to me)
eBay backup plan

Microsoft Comes Out Swingin’ at X06

Apple Quietly Releases….Nothing

Bwana — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 05:05:37 +0000

I’m sick of it.

Google search for “Apple Quietly”: Approximately 93,000 search results. Folks, this has got to stop. What constitutes a quiet release of anything? In my opinion, it’s putting a release on a server, not tell anyone about it, and run away whistling dixie. Instead, Apple releases something, publishes it on a webpage, most times puts it in Software Update, updates download links, updates the support knowledge base, and they did all of that quietly. Is this a journalism tactic that I don’t know about or is there something else afoot?

Now I know Apple sometimes releases new software and products with a keynote address and/or press release. But when they release an update to iTunes 7.0, Engadget claims they did it quietly. Seriously, what more could Apple have done:

They pushed it out via Software Update on Mac OS X and Windows
They updated their iTunes+iPod download page with the latest release
They updated their support download page to show the latest release

What else is needed? A press release? A bullhorn? A presidential address? Can we please stop the madness and stop claiming Apple is up to no good sneaking around, dropping releases at our door, then running away laughing like Nelson of the Simpsons? Thanks.

Microsoft Comes Out Swingin’ at X06

Bwana — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 21:23:34 +0000

At X06 in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft unleashed a ton of announcements and plans. It’s a genius move by them to offset all the new information concerning the Nintendo Wii and the Sony Playstation 3. I am a bit surprised (pleasantly) by some of the announcements which include:

Marvel Comics MMO. Uhh.. finally???? Those of us with vivid imaginations tried to turn City of Heroes into what this will be. Will it succeed? I don’t care, I’m just glad to see it done.
HD-DVD option $199. Obviously the smartest move for Microsoft due to the unpredictable outcome of the high definition dvd format war. $200 is a decent price point, making it an attractive solution for the high def enthusiasts waiting for Blu Ray. But… what about HDMI Microsoft??? Hmmm.
Halo Wars (RTS). Peter Jackson is involved but I don’t care about that part. Halo, the FPS, is washed in my opinion and taking it to the RTS genre is a smart move.
Doom on XBLM. Doom is available as a download on Xbox Live Marketplace and includes multiplayer and co-op capabilities over Xbox Live. What a smart move! Too bad I can’t play FPS on consoles, but I’ll sure try for nostalgic purposes. It’ll be hilarious to play co-op, especially if they enable friendly fire.

Impressive I say. See what competition does? Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are all scrambling to make our next gen console experience innovative. Which console is for you? I’d say you have a lot of options to choose from.

Podcast War With Apple? Let’s Wait

Bwana — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:47:19 +0000

As many of you already know, Apple has sent out cease and desist letters to a couple of websites, claiming misuse of the word “pod”. These sites are “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder”. I’ve went on the record saying that this move by Apple is a mistake and they should quit alienating the podcast community. After reading a bit more about it, I’m going to take a step back and observe for a while. Why? Well, trademark law (I’m referring to Apple’s trademark on “iPod”) is weird. That’s the only word I can think of. You are required by law (like Digg was a few weeks ago) to try to protect your trademark. If you don’t try, you could lose your trademark.

So what does “Podcast Ready” and “myPodder” have to do with the “iPod” trademark? “Podcast Ready” could be confused with Apple’s “Made for iPod” slogan and “myPodder” sounds a little like “iPodder”. Stretching it? You know it. I believe trademark law requires one to actually consider “stretches” such as this. My decision to take a step back is because I now believe Apple is simply following trademark law rules.

I’m waiting to see what they do next. I got caught up in the moment without having all the information and jumped to conclusions that Apple legal had lost their minds. (Well they have, but that’s a different rant) I think everyone should follow the same action, take a step back, and observe. Bwana.org Radio is still a podcast as far as I’m concerned Not a “netcast” or “blogcast” or whatever.

Premature Zune Praise

Bwana — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:49:27 +0000

I find it astounding that much of the tech blogosphere is giving Microsoft praise and adulation based on an announced product. I agree with John Gruber in that until the Zune ships, it is vaporware. Now, Microsoft has not released all of the details regarding the Zune such as battery life and price. Gruber points out something surprising regarding the much hyped “social networking” feature hasn’t been completely thought out just yet:

Gizmodo: OK, if I’m using a Zune, am I really going to troll Wifi for other people’s music? What is that going to do for battery life?

J Allard: It’s a tough problem, and we’re not done with it yet. What we have is different power modes. Oversimplifying, we have a beacon mode that says “I’m around.” The next level that uses more power says “hey, I want to do something, and share, whether that’s music, photos.”

They’re not done with it yet. So why announce a feature that you’re not done with yet? Who knows. Anyway, back to my point. The Zune is already being touted as “great first step” towards competing with the iPod. While I’m not disagreeing with the possibility of the Zune’s greatness, let’s not forget it hasn’t shipped. It’s also not done. I believe this may point to a hidden burning desire for someone to take down Apple as the DAP leader. Apple is making improvements to their line to prepare for the holidays and (some) people are complaining they didn’t release a true video iPod. They pre-announce a living room appliance for streaming media and (some) people immediately begin to tear it down as to what it can’t do. Meanwhile, the Zune is in the same vapor state as the iTV, yet it’s the best thing since sliced bread with unproven features. According to Microsoft, the Zune is not just a re-branded Toshiba Gigabeat, so we really can’t say this technology actually works. Heck, even Ellen Degeneres is giving away Zunes to a bunch of women on her show. I hope for their sake, those players aren’t prototypes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m hoping the Zune delivers and gives Apple some good competition. We’ve already seen a significant price drop on the 30GB iPod which may affect the Zune’s final price (rumored to be $229 now!). However, I refuse to say that the Zune is one that may challenge Apple until the thing is out in the wild, reviewed, tried and tested. Even then, it’ll be hard to tell.

We Created DRM

Bwana — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 19:14:57 +0000

Sorry if I made you spill your coffee, but it’s true. We geeks, nerds, and gadget fiends are spoiled. Yes, you too. We demand every inch of functionality out of everything, and I do mean everything.

Back in the day, (I’m talking early 90s here people) when we missed a television show or forget to tape it, we were frustrated, but content. We knew that we’d have to wait until that episode of the Martin came on again in order for us to get our fix. Back in day, (still in the late 80s, early 90s people), when we wanted to hear that great new song by that band we love so much, we listened to the radio until it came on. When we couldn’t take it anymore, we’d convince our friends to buy the CD, LP, or cassette. We’d all “dub” the song we wanted and were happy with a sub par reproduction of the song. Back in the day (Yup, same period), when that movie we loved so much came out at the theatre, we spent our money to watch it over and over again. When the VHS/DVD came out, we were all over it… back in the day. The worst case scenario involved the black market where you still paid for illegal copies of existing songs, shows, and movies.

Flash forward to 2006. When we miss a television show, we must see it the same night if not the next night. Tivo has spoiled us into instant gratification of television. If we don’t have a Tivo, then we download it. We download it from anywhere that has it available on the internets. When we hear a song we like, we must have it within the hour. We don’t want to leave the house to get it, but rather download it from the internets. We justify why we shouldn’t have to pay for this convenience or suffer any drawbacks or limitations because we want it now!!! Movies, we demand to see in our homes the day after release into theatres. If the movie is available on the internets, then by golly we have to right to watch it. Justification pending. Who cares about if its legal, we declare that it is our right to have this stuff that we want, how we want it, when we want it.

Technology has killed all forms of self control and patience.

Information and media are so easily obtained through the, wait for it, internets, that we feel it is our human right to have this information with zero waiting time. Now! Now! Now! (Somebody please call the Super Nanny, or Nanny McPhee). So how is this all related to DRM? Our impatience has forced those in (seemingly) control of this data to panic. Consumers are demanding everything right now for less than the price paid previously. Ga-gillion dollar organization such as the RIAA and MPAA did not get that way by being nice. If you expect them to be any other way, then I’m sorry for the harsh sting of reality. They are out to make money. The quickest way to keeping money is control. DRM is about control.

So how did we create this? We abused the convenience of the internets.

Napster came about and we downloaded all the music we could and justified it with “fair use”. Kazaa, Gnutella and other social networks came about we downloaded movies, music, and software at our heart’s content with no intention of ever paying for it. That’s abuse. You cannot expect to abuse a system already in place and not expect backlash. The **AA will strike back and strike hard. Strike fast, Strike hard, No mercy sir. Now we are faced with controls such as the DMCA and all kinds of DRM. It stinks for those of us who want to buy this data but are limited. Well, I say this to you. You did it. All of you who abused the freedoms we have to move our data around, have created this monster called DRM. And you know what’s worse? It’s not going to get better because every day that passes, we become more impatient for the things we want. We are spoiled children that need a wake up call and need to drop the notion that we deserve anything.

Let’s get one thing straight, I don’t like DRM, the DMCA, or any unreasonable kind of control on things that I “purchase”. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend like we did everything right and are being punished for nothing. Organizations such as the EFF are doing good damage control regarding our “rights” but we brought this on ourselves. Wake up people, you created DRM.

No related posts.

Nokia E61 Review

Bwana — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 02:25:25 +0000

Available as PDF download

As a previous Palm Treo 650 owner, I’ve had some bad experiences with so-called “smart phones”. The device was plagued with serious bugs such as reboots in the middle of calls, constant lock-ups, and poor call quality. I had my doubts that these devices were smart in any way. Eventually, I became the owner of a “Crackberry” and the began to slowly understand their appeal. I found myself hoping that I had email to reply to. I would purposely start conversational threads so that I could type with my happy thumbs. This activity deterred my mind from the fact that call quality on the Blackberry was less than stellar. The Blackberry operating system was also sub-par on several levels and seemed to lack the same third party support I saw with Palm devices. Ah yes, those were the good old days. It’s now 2006, and “smart phones” have apparently graduated high school and made their way to a higher level of learning. The new Palm Treos sport Windows Mobile and Palm OS, while the Blackberry has seen form factor changes and OS upgrades. The amount of Windows mobile devices has increased and so has the power of the hardware that runs them. The marriage of PDA and cell phone is well past the honeymoon and have sent their kids to junior high.

Enter Nokia.

Nokia? Don’t they make those candy-bar style phones that have bland looks, beeping ring tones, and superb call quality? Oh, I’m sorry, this isn’t 1994 anymore, we’re in 2006. American perception of Nokia cell phones is not far from what I mocked. Why? America is trapped in a cell phone time vortex. While the rest of the world has sexy devices that do everything including buy snacks from vending machines, Americans rejoice when their phones have Bluetooth AND Wi-Fi capability. Oh joy!!!

Sigh.

It’s a sad situation here in America, but thankfully we have the ability to purchase “unlocked” phones from eBay and use them with GSM carriers such as Cingular and T-Mobile. This is what I’ve done. I’ve spent a few greenbacks on a brand spanking new Nokia E61 smartphone and I’m gonna tell you what I think about it.
First some specifications so that you understand why I bought this thing.

The Nokia E61 has a “block” form factor similar to the RIM Blackberry.
It sports a QWERTY keyboard design and has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability.
It has a speakerphone for those long conference calls and supports many push email vendors such Blackberry Enterprise Server (with Good Link), Lotus Notes, and Microsoft Exchange.
It runs the S60 series Symbian OS 3rd edition and has 75MB of built-in shared memory.
It’s rated at 7 hours of talk time and 264 hours (11 days) of standby battery time.

There are a million other things it does, but these are the highlights of its strong points. Impressed? Well you should be. This swiss army knife of phones is one of the first to have this kind of flexibility.

As a newcomer to Symbian OS, I may sound a bit late on a lot of my points. What can I say, I love this operating system. It just feels right, you know? Given that it’s been on cell phones before Palm OS and Windows Mobile, it sort of makes sense that using it feels natural. Symbian offers a wide array of applications and options. Some examples of Symbian software that I’ve fell in love with are, Putty for Symbian (that’s right, the SSH client), Opera Mobile, and Widsets (a powerful widget engine). I’ve had the phone for only a week, so I apologize if I don’t list your favorite Symbian application. Did I mention that it’s possible to run Ruby on Symbian? Yeah, ridiculously cool. Enough of my drooling over Symbian, let’s get into what I like about the Nokia E61.

Form Factor
This phone feels real good in the palm of your hand. It may seem too wide to some, but for me, it’s a great fit. It has a sturdy feel with some great materials that reduce the fear of dropping it. Typing with one hand on the awesome keyboard has become second nature to me in only a matter of days.

Look and Feel
In my opinion, the only phone that looks better is the Motorola Q. This phone is dead sexy. It has a great thickness due to the lack of camera (which I don’t mind) and is not heavy to carry. The buttons don’t feel like you’re going to break them if you use them the way buttons should be used. The jog dial takes some getting used to, but the learning curve is not steep at all.

Excellent Sound Quality
This is a Nokia phone, so excellent radio quality is a given. The Nokia E61 is no exception to Nokia’s stellar reputation in this area. A surprising quality is the E61’s speakerphone. The clarity and volume of this speakerphone has set the bar for all phones claiming to have one. As far as I’m concerned, this is the first real speakerphone for a cellphone.

OMG I <3 Symbian OS
I’ve said it once, but I must re-iterate it here: Symbian OS is the best operating systems for phones, hands down. I don’t know what took me so long to use this updated version of Symbian, but I’m a true believer as of now.

Now that I’ve gloated and drooled all over my desk regarding the positive aspects of this phone, let me now get into some of the areas I think the Nokia E61 can improve.

Symbian OS S60 3rd Edition RAM issues
While I sing the praises about Symbian OS, it is not short of it’s problems. Currently, there is a fairly serious issue surrounding RAM usage with the latest S60 devices. It is quite easy to run out of memory on these devices. Simply having the web browser, contacts, calendar, and messaging open will consume your entire system memory. Not good. Check out this chart borrowed from allaboutsymbian.com:

Amazing isn’t it? By the looks of things, this behavior is only getting worse. It needs to be addressed yesterday. I’m a power user and I can see myself running into this quite often if I’m not careful.

Lack of Camera
The E61 doesn’t have a built in camera. Some say this is highly unacceptable in this day and age. Others rejoice since a many businesses are not allowing camera phones on the premises. Personally, I believe all camera phones are seriously lacking in the quality department. Not including a camera in the E61 did not prevent me from buying the phone. I look at it as a novelty feature that I would likely use once every blue moon. The fact remains that there are others who live and die by the camera phone, and may determine this is a serious flaw.

Lack of SyncML support
This may not necessarily be a fault of the Nokia E61, but it is definitely a current frustration of mine. SyncML is a standard used to enable phones to synchronize with many types of services. The Nokia E61 supports the SyncML standard and uses it for most of its day to day synchronization. The issue is with everyone else. Where is support for this phone? Yahoo currently has the more attractive solution with their Yahoo Next Mobile services. One has the ability the sync your contacts and calendars “Over The Air” (OTA) using SyncML. Yahoo is currently not supporting SyncML with the Nokia E61 and is filtering phone types at the server! This is beyond frustrating as it would be a perfect solution for remote calendar and contact manipulation. I suppose more support will come over time, but the frustration remains.

Conclusion
Even with RAM issues and OTA sync limitations, the Nokia E61 is a solid, flexible smartphone that carries Nokia’s quality seal on it. Utilizing Symbian OS in the smartphone makes it an attractive solution to those who thought about getting a Blackberry but was turned off by the lack of third party support. I am completely sold on this phone and will recommend it to anyone in the market for a smartphone.

Yahoo Photos Beta – First Impressions

Bwana — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 03:12:03 +0000

I got my Yahoo Photos Beta invite in my inbox tonight and immediately began to play. The first thing I noticed was all the “stale” albums listed from my early days of using Yahoo Photos. I immediately deleted this stuff and jumped right into uploading:

Right from the onset, Yahoo detected my Firefox browser and redirected me to instructions on installing an extension specifically for Yahoo Photos. Nifty. Installation went smooth, but interrupted my workflow since one has to restart Firefox for plugins to activate. No matter, I restarted my upload adventure. I was happy to see a drag and drop interface which worked well on Macbook Pro. To my surprise, I was able to queue up multiple uploads by dragging and dropping more photos after initiating my first upload. I don’t think this feature was intended as I got an error after trying to do such:

After I uploaded a couple of pictures, I began to check out some of the other features of the new Yahoo Photos. On the single photo pages, you can tell where Yahoo got their Flickr influences. There are plenty of Ajaxy (is that a word?) controls such as Ratings, Permissions and Tags. One of my favorite features of the new Yahoo Photos is their “photo well”. The best way I can explain it is that you drag and drop a photo or multiple photos into this “well” and have multiple options on what to do with them. For instance, to delete photos, you drag and drop them into the well, go up to the edit menu and select delete. I found this to be a nice feature which sort of reminds me of Flickr’s Organizer, but more streamlined:

Another nice feature of Yahoo Photos is Smart Albums. This reminds me of a feature in iPhoto where you can create albums based on their rating. It essentially is the same thing but web based.

I was disappointed to see the lack of sharing features with Yahoo Photo. Unlike Flickr, you are limited to seeing your “friends” photos and vice versa. I suppose it makes sense not to recreate Flickr under the Yahoo Photos name. They’re doing something right as they are the #1 photos site on the web. Overall, I think Yahoo Photos Beta meets expectations. It has the look and feel of Yahoo’s wonderful webmail beta client, and is very clean. There were very few bugs or annoyances that I could find. Will I switch to Yahoo Photos Beta from Flickr? I seriously doubt it. They seem to cater to two different kinds of photo users. Flickr is a more social experience whereas Yahoo Photos is a traditional approach. Both are winners in my book. Good job Yahoo!

For more screenshots, please visit my Yahoo Photos photoset at Flickr.

XBox Live Marketplace: Get er done!

Bwana — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 18:42:19 +0000

As you may or may not know, I am an avid user of the XBox 360 console. I’ve been surprised by how well Microsoft has delivered and put substantial pressure on Sony and their Playstation 3. Many gaming magazines and webzines have come to a consensus that the XBox360′s launch title lineup has been less than acceptable. While I agree with this assessment, I must say where the XBox has succeeded is their implementation of community features, namely, XBox Live. The XBox Live Marketplace is an area where gamers can purchase items such as theme packs, gamer pictures, and XBox Live Arcade titles.

This where I get to my point.

XBox Live Arcade’s titles are the best thing about the XBox360. Titles such as Geometry Wars and Uno have separated themselves from the sea of mediocre games that are available for the XBox 360. These simplistic and easy to play games appeal to the gamer as well as the stereotypical non-gamer. My mom can play Uno. She can play it well. Everybody in my family can play Spades or Hearts.

So why do I use the popular phrase coined by Larry the Cable Guy? Well, because the XBox Live Marketplace is dry. DRY. There are cobwebs and tumbleweeds throughout. The XBox360 community is literally screaming at Microsoft and their game vendors to “Get ‘er done!”. We’re holding up our credit cards and saying, “Please release Street Fighter II!”, “Please release Defender“, “Please let me give you money!”. These classic titles combined with multiplayer will give us the gaming experience we all want. I want to be able to “put a quarter” on the screen to denote I’m next in line to play Street Fighter II. I want to play multiplayer Defender and make this nostalgic experience richer. I’ll gladly pay for it Microsoft! Major Nelson, an executive at Microsoft, has repeatedly tried to calm the community down, but I believe it’s too late for that. You gave us a taste of the good stuff, you can’t just cut off the supply and watch us tremble with withdrawal.

So Microsoft and game vendors, I must say you have a great thing going with XBox Live and the only thing that’ll screw it up is you. Please, Get er’ done.

Fire!

Bwana — Sat, 27 May 2006 12:37:55 +0000

What a way to start my memorial day weekend. I had gotten home early from work when I noticed fire trucks zooming past my window. I went outside to investigate and saw this:

There was a nasty brush fire about 2 houses over. I saw a bunch of people with water hoses and buckets of water trying to protect their home. Since my lawn is dry as a bone, I broke out my hose and began to water down my lawn. I’ve seen this way too many times during droughts, where ashes fly into someones dry yard and start another fire. I took a few pictures of the activity and posted some of them in this flickr photo set. The story was discussed on First Coast News’ website as well.

still no power – it sucks here

Nokia E61 – Pulling My Heart Strings

Bwana — Fri, 05 May 2006 17:21:29 +0000

As a previous owner of a Treo 600, I went through a lot of “stuff” that I’d rather not discuss in detail. I will say that I had some unpleasurable experiences with this smartphone. I graduated to a BlackBerry and was addicted to email bigtime. I definitely know why they call the device the “crackberry”. However, the BlackBerry lacked in every other department. Ever since I’ve left the BlackBerry, I’ve sort of swore off smartphones and am pretty happy with my Sony Ericsson S710a.

Until now.

I heard a quick review of the Nokia E61 on yesterday’s Buzz Out Loud podcast, and decided to see what all the hooplah is about. On paper, this phone is almost perfect:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 (3GPP Release 99) networks
Weight: 144 g (with Nokia Battery BP-5L)
Dimensions: 117 mm x 69.7 mm x 14 mm, 108 cc
Up to 64 MB of fixed user data memory
Expandable memory: 64 MB hot swappable miniSD card (!!)
Symbian operating system OS 9.1
Email client for connecting to personal and business email
Supports POP, IMAP(with idle) and SMTP protocols, and MS Active Sync
Settings via OMA Client Provisioning, OMA Device Management
Supported email clients: Intellisync Wireless Email, Visto email technology, BlackBerry Connect, GoodLink and Seven Always-On Mail
Attachments viewers and editors support the most common features of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel (Microsoft Office 97, 2000, XP and 2003). Compatible with Zip Manager and Adobe Reader
Instant Messaging client (Yahoo, AOL, OMA)
SMS distribution list

But wait, there’s more!

Pop-Port™ interface
USB port full speed supported via Pop-Port™
Remote and local (peer-to-peer) synchronization over Bluetooth technology, IR, cable
Bluetooth wireless technology 1.2
Video and audio streaming (3GPP and RealMedia: Real Video and Real Audio)
WCDMA (3GPP Release 99)
Multiconnectivity – WLAN connection can be shared by multiple applications at the same time. For example: email, browser and synchronization. Possible to use WLAN, Bluetooth technology, USB and infrared at the same time Maximum six Bluetooth technology connections in use at the same time. Note: only one for Bluetooth wireless connectivity for audio (Holy cow)
Talk time GSM Up to 4-7 hours
Standby time GSM Up to 9-11 days

This device is straight up pulling my heart strings, and it’s Nokia. Look out Treo, Look out HP, Look out RIM, Look out Motorola, Nokia may have a killer right here. It’s shipping worldwide very soon. Someone loan me a dollar?