I mentioned in my last post that my current phone is a Motorola RAZR2 V8. I got this because of its shape (nice to hold), large screen and large keys. These may not sound like funky features but are actually what are important to me.

I look at the iphone and nokia n95 with envy, the answer to all my problems is in these phones. Why? Which one? Why do I crave these when I do not use the features on my current phone.

What would I use?

• I like the idea of pain free web on my phone, checking train times, check cd prices on play.com while walking around HMV, reading rss feeds on the train.
• I like the idea of pain free web without constantly worrying about usage costs, i.e. wireless where available.
• I liked my old palm pilot. I remember getting a train to Plymouth in December a few years a go (for my sister’s graduation) and with two seats to myself, wrote all my christmas season’s-greetings cards, palm pilot sat there on the little table as the reliable source of addresses.
• I’m passionate about everything syncing with everything (another blog post me thinks). I remember in 2001 being frustrated at not being able to sync phone/palm/yahoo/PC (I got close with truesync, just missing the phone). In 2008 I still can’t get this all to work.
• That includes syncing calendar
• shopping lists, reminders and e-post-it notes are useful to keep in your pocket, and therefore phone.
• Cameras and video/sound recorders are great, I was cynical of these until I released the potential of taking pictures when you least expect it (and don’t have a phone) AND have a cable to move the files off the phone.
• Media (pictures, videos, audio) would be much more useful if it just sync’d with something else when it had a wireless connection. Something else = PC, or decent online app (a la Google/Yahoo/flickr, NOT some rubbish in-house done-on-the-cheap company app.
• GPS on a phone sounds cool. I don’t have a car but i see loads of potential (what IS the quickest way to walk from town, how fast is this train going, where am i, what’s that building/thing i can see, I’m late and need to get to a conference/meeting from this tube stop pronto..)
• Music/video on a phone is good if it just works, as in Apple works. Putting music on the phone needs to be easy and pleasant, playing it by album artist, random, not just per song, when phone rings/txt phone reacts in a well thought out way, I don’t want to be deafened or forced to answer, or loss where i am in an album, or have to quit a music player.
• I’m not a gaming person but a few games to while away the odd minute would be nice (god I miss worms), I always thought finding cool games to download would be easy but it has always eluded me.
• I would use my phone as a read/write device if it has: a large screen, a touch screen for the web and a qwerty keyboard (for note taking, docs, etc).
• Itemised voicemail messages (iphone) seem like such a brilliant and obvious idea, seeing the dreaded ‘5 voicemail messages waiting’ txt makes me put of listening to them!
• It needs to act like a mobile thingy gadget, not phone with bits added on.

So what are the current contenders…

iphone

First, the iphone, like the ipod isn’t just a trendy fashion accessory, once the fuss died down a close look shows that is set a new standard.

What’s good about it?

• Design
• View voice mail and select which one you want to listen to (this is a brilliant idea, I have a very strange dislike of dialing my voicemail to find out which frustrated soul has been trying to ring me, especially when there are a lot of messages).
• User interface
• Internet connectivity.
• good sync’ing (i think?)

Perhaps the most important aspect was the user interface. Phones have played music for a long time, but always had a bolted on feel. Often stuck away in a sub-menu, and requiring a 3rd party application, and often wasn’t easy to listen to music while doing other things (especially when you just wanted to skip a track, or swap between a phone call and music). I think some techies didn’t get this, especially the slashdot group-think type, by comparing lists of features and specification numbers they would argue that the iphone is nothing special, but they didn’t seem to appreciate that for most of us it can be the small things such as how they are implemented which makes all the difference.

It also got the web right. While Opera Mini Browser is fantastic, and copes with websites well, nothing beats seeing a webpage how you would expect to see it on a PC. The fact that many sites should work better on a phone is not the point (though a good point, a well crafted stylesheet for the small screen size would ensure a design heavy 100px wide page can be rendered nicely on a mobile and just include the essentials).

Iphone cons:

• no GPS
• Camera has bad reviews
• Limited extra apps, and games
• no proper keboard, all reviews suggest the screen keyboard is fine but ‘takes getting used to’

Nokia n95 / n96 / n82

OK confused. Until recently the N95 was seen as the must have Nokia smartphone, they recently released the N95 8Gb which fixed a lot of the problems with the N95 (eg stability), but now I’m seeing people refer to the N82 as the N95 Successor, and meanwhile seeing that the N96 is on the horizon as well.

The Nokia’s have all you could need feature-wise: loads of apps, good camera, multimedia, GPS and an accelerometer, plus every connection method you could want. However, no touch screen and no Querty keyboard (and small numeric keys) make input a pain. Plus The Nokia’s interface/stability has been critised. It just don’t have a look or brilliant user experience of the iphone, or any phone with a large touch screen. I would be worried after spending money on such a good phone that the limited input options would mena I would not use it as much as I would want (small numeric keys = difficult to take notes / add to-dos, no touch screen mean less than ideal web browsing experience).

Palm

The Nokia N95 and Apple’s iPhone have been compared endlessly, but in my mind another contender is the Palm 750 (and similar models). I like the large touch screen and the keyboard. Running Windows Mobile is good and bad. Good in that it will sync with standard PC software and use familar apps that have wide support (windows media player), bad in that all these apps aren’t as good as the Apple alternatives that of course the iPhone will sync with. At the end of the day, Windows Mobile doesn’t give me the warm fuzzy feeling or feel good factor, but better than crappy phone manufacturer’s software, and does work. Other downsides include the 1.3 megapixel camera (the same as my first camera, not good) and no GPS.

Others

Blackberry have some interesting phones, similar to the Palm above.

T-mobile have a T-mobile branded phone which has a slide out querty keyboard and touch screen.

Conclusion #1

I’m not getting a new phone in the near future so this is all irrelevant.

Conclusion #2

GPS is cool, so is the iphone. What’s key is not just a feature but that is is usable: easy to enter information and view, easy to sync with other systems, automated sync and it needs to feel like part of the device, not just an awkward add on. A cool document editor is no use if you have to use some tiny numeric keys to enter text and the files require manually moving to another device. Wireless seems like another must, paying by the kb to browser the web or download a file when you in sitting next to your wireless broadband is silly.

I’ll watch the Nokia N96 with interest, and reckon a Nokia model with a touch screen (web browsing) or qwerty keyboard (note taking, email) would be a serious contender.

The iphone is another obvious choice, and I like the fact it is Apple and not a MS Mobile based. It’s on screen keyboard, lack of GPS and limited applications at present are my main concerns (again, I’m not a gaming person but a few simple-but-fun games would be nice).

Be interesting to watch how these models are updated, and which new models come out in the next few years.

[this is one of three posts about mobiles (in my head it was going to be one but released I had too much to rant about), see mobiles (naming) and the self obsessed mobiles (and me)]

Well nostuff has been with Dreamhost for a while now, and they are responsible for running the dream. the dream was the ideal of nostuff, which was, ummm, no stuff. They gave me so many goodies that I have ended up with, well, stuff.

For the techies, they give shell access, cron and a powerful web-based control panel and good control over the domain.

Example: I only have one domain associated with my account (i could have more). but I can set up sub-domains easily. Each can be anything you dream of: a redirect, a directory of your main site, something completely separate, have it’s own (unlimited) email addresses (hello@whatever.nostuff.org), have it’s onw google apps etc. Very impressive list of options. The whole setup is very flexible, so if you want to do something unusual with your mail setup or whatever, then you probably can. It’s also the little things, it’s not just that I can setup a Wordpress blog with one click, but I can setup unlimited number, at any domain, sub-domain, directory and database I choose, and setup with a good selection of themes and plugins.

This evening I have installed moodle (1 minute), setup words.nostuff.org to point to da blog, setup google apps on nostuff.org (start.nostuff.org, docs.nostuff.org and loads more) and upgraded two blogs to the latest version.

So this is one big advert for dreamhost.

Must find complaints… hmmm, having a web host running servers in West Cost US time when you are in the UK can be a slight pain, and there can be a tiny lag at times (I think). Though my last host was a very simple affair I was never aware of my website being down. Dreamhost have had a few problems leading to downtime, and they seem to take a while to fully resolve it (they do follow up with blog postings explaining why, but of course swear a strange one off occurance caused it and it will never happen again).

But that’s all nickpicking.

All in all, very impressed, and glad I moved my site here.

Now, having written all this (and only after writing all this), I’ve just had the idea of linking to this sign up link and mentioning the sign up code NOSTUFF (using the code should mean YOU get $20 off, think of what you can do with all that cash). Using either means I get a tiny bit of cash off my next payment to Dreamhost, so if this tempts you at all, then hey I am not above whoring. Heck even if you don’t want a hosted domain service, perhaps you’re looking for a new dishwasher, or car insurance or smack, then sign up here, this is what you want. Just enter that promo code and enter you credit card details and do it before thinking about it.

Factoid of the day: “Generally, England is over-elevatored”

via ‘Up and Then Down’

Apparently the London Review of Books isn’t a London based magazine which reviews books. I say this not as a joke, oh you cultral ones. I really do think it is justified of me to presume a publication called London Review of Books is actually a review of sodding books. Apparently it is not. Apparently is has some interesting articles.

…or Northern Rock. ho ho ho

There has been zillions of stuff in the press of late about our friends Northern Rock.

They had the genius idea of rapidly increasing their mortgage business, and instead of using deposits as (a good part of) the supply of money to pay for the mortgages, they instead borrowed from other banks. Borrowing from other banks is normal, but doing it to such an extent was the thing that made Northern Rock different. They got all their eggs and placed them all in a basket. Only they kept needing more eggs. And one day there was no one to give them more.

Why am I writing this? I have an ISA with Northern Rock. Had it for years, back when they were at the top of the various broadsheet ‘best ISA’ tables week after week. For years their interest rate has been crap. I keep meaning to move. Will do it tomorrow.

I had no intention of moving my money when they ran in to trouble. For one I saw that my money was safe (I have less than the £30,000 barrier, above which you only get a % of your cash back should your bank go bankrupt, in fact close to £30,000 less!) Secondly I saw it as a very short term thing (I was wrong).

But now I am thinking of moving. Why?

• They sent me a letter recently. To reward me for my loyalty I was to get a better interest rate! Only it lasted only about a month, and was less than 1%. And, it would still be less than most other high street rates.
• They also sent me a letter to invite me in for a chat to see if there were any extra services they could offer me. I got the impression this was an automated circular - nothing to do with their troubles - coming at the time it did it almost seem amusing: We may be falling apart, but hey, come and move your business to us!
• Several years a go I moved flat. This involves walking from bank to bank to inform them of change of address. It includes fighting with the member of staff that I don’t want house/contents insurance (no is not good enough) at every bank. But, they were all fairly helpful, adding the address to their system (on a screen which I could see as they typed to correct any mistakes). They could set the exact date and all offered to put ‘holds’ on so that no letters would be sent out between set dates around the move to avoid any letters going to the wrong place too early/late. Nice. All except Northern Rock. When I told them the people behind the counter (it is always empty so you have all the people behind the counter dealing with your reqauest) said gosh, we can do something about that! Oh, but I haven’t moved yet, moving on the 5th. They faces sunk. This was something highly unusal. Eventually they got over the big office diary. They found the right day and wrote carefully that Mr Keene was moving today to ….! No computer. No hold or fancy features, just a diary and pen.
• Best of all. I was curious how much money I had in the account. I had paid in a small amount for years, plus interest. They have no online facility, and are open limited hours (bless), but I finally got around to going in while it was open with my passbook. The guy was happy to just take my passbook and get the new amount on it. Then he frowned. Ah, the computer says it has so many updates to do to your passbook that it can’t cope and wont do it. I’m going to have to do them by hand, you just haven’ been in for so long. Now, I’m guessing here, but surely it is not that unusual for savers to set up a standing order and do no other activity with the accont for years. They took my passbook (and, to be fair, wrote down my balance on a bit of paper for me). When it came back through the post many days later, some poor sole had to write row after row (I’m guess 60-90) each one a ‘transaction’, even though they were all indentical, the same amount going in on the same day each month (and the odd yearly interest). It was amazing.

Of course the biggest reason to move is that they interest rates are poor. But they are a joke. I want to move somewhere where I can do all this online. Check my balance, move money in and out. Etc.

Nationwide and Egg both offer good interest (and I’m with both, the fewer companies that have my details the better), but Nationwide offer the facility to move an ISA from another company to them, so i will probably go with them.

As for Northern Rock. Bless.

Well they probably do.

Heck admit it, they haven’t got a clue. Instead they just ban random people (and treat them like shit)

Yesterday I posted a link to the reviews page of Katie Price and Peter Andre’s A whole new world.

In what can only be proof that Jeff Bezos himself is reading my blog on a daily, no - i correct myself - hourly basis, not a day later all the reviews have been deleted. Of course, the arts have always suffered censorship at the hands of facist governments and evil corporations. It’s something we live with, but with just a touch of pride that such dark work was all down to my own little hands typing away on this here web-experience.

Where was I? ah yes, google cache. My darling google cache. I could only get a few. It seems the ’show next page of reviews’ link on amazon’s site links to the same URL of the page you are on. So using ‘cache:[URL]‘ didn’t work on the rest of the comment pages. But I still got a few. Weirdly, looking at different cache results I got different versions of the first page (3 of them actually).

For the time being, the reviews that Jeff deleted (of course it was him) are just cut n paste in to a Wordpress page, will try and do more later.