David’s Musings

I’m still loving my Blackberry Bold, but I’m onto my second. A week ago, I noticed I couldn’t receive emails. I could send, but not receive. Via WiFi it was fine, but via the mobile network, 3G or EDGE, no.

Customer service down the drain?

I called AT&T several times during the same day and got the usual stock responses: restart, take out your battery and wait 30 seconds etc. I don’t presume to be a Blackberry expert, but I have had several Blackberries over six years. It seemed I knew more than the operators and it became very exhausting.

AT&T were stumped. In the end they said it was my IT department’s problem as I was on BES. It was only after three hours with our Desktop Team and a conference call directly with RIM a hardware failure was diagnosed.

AT&T advised me to return the unit to a store for a straight swap and put a note on my account that I was going to do that the same day. OK I thought, I’ll do it on the way home.

I went to my local store and they refused to swap it as it was over four weeks old. OK, you have policies AT&T, but my Blackberry is my lifeline when it comes to work, I bought a brand new Bold from you five weeks ago, you sell the Bold as true business tool, and, by the way, this phone isn’t that inexpensive. The two assistants stood there, leaning on their workstation with their arms folded in a ‘not my problem’ stance. They even refused to look at my account on their PC when I told them a note had been placed on the system.

The store told me to go through their warranty exchange programme. Therefore, I was without my Blackberry over the Christmas season - which is just when I needed it if there was a major incident at work while I was out on vacation.

The AT&T store should have said, sorry Mr Burden, we cannot believe your $500+ unit we bill as the ultimate business tool has failed in five weeks, here’s a new one. No questions asked.

Am I wrong?

I’ve been waiting a long time for this, but it’s finally arrived. The SlingPlayer Mobile for Blackberry. I installed it onto my Bold and within minutes I was up and running. A very solid and polished application. For those of you who aren’t aware of Sling, take a look at their site here. A Sling box connects to your tuner (in my case my Comcast DVR cable box) and allows you to watch and control said box from anywhere in the world.

I have a trusty original Sling box from a few years ago and credit to Sling, they still support and maintain it. In fact, I’ve just downloaded some new firmware.

The application itself for the Blackberry is a little on the large size at around 1.5MB. If you haven’t got a newer type of Blackberry, you should even go there. Once I installed, I was using it quite quickly. I had one hitch in that you have to use the Windows version of SlingPlayer to configure mobile viewing - you can’t do this with the Mac. So, I had to go and drag out my trusty laptop running Vista! Once I had configured the software, the Slingbox and my Blackberry - I was nearly there! A quick tweak of my router to allow the correct port through for remote viewing and I was there.

Sling make this really easy for you with great FAQs, online help, video - and specific walkthroughs for various routers. The application itself works like a dream over wifi - and also over 3G. It can even at a push with a full signal scrape by on EDGE/GPRS - but not well.

I’m extremely pleased with this and it was well worth the wait - I’m just waiting to see how long it is before mobile operators start getting grumpy about bandwidth…

After a faulty start (and still some teething problems) I have eventually got into the virtual world of Sony Playstation Home. The icon appeared automatically this evening, and after a download, install and accepting around three terms and conditions screens, it all fired up.

I first had to pick my avatar. I was tempted to make it look dashing and cool, but my conscience got the better of me and I tried to keep it as true to life as possible.

Once in, I arrived at my private sea-side apartment. Very relaxing overlooking the quay. I then ventured into the town, hit the stores, played pool, had a go at bowling, then looked at some of the art work.

It seemed pretty busy in the virtual world this evening and it looks to be very popular.

Here I am sat on a bench in the plaza watching the world go by… (if anyone is looking for me my handle is NMANSA)

You can find out more about Playstation Home here. Below there’s a short video clip of me in the Plaza for the first time having a boogie with some other randoms…!

I had my first hands-on experience with the new T-Mobile G1 today and was more impressed than I thought I would be.

This little wonder is out officially tomorrow, but I got a sneak peak.

Firstly, I was really impressed with the shape and how it fits in your hand. I was not originally a fan of the bent bottom, but the way it moulds into your palm for calls is excellent. Within minutes I found the whole interface very intuitive.

The screen flips out very easily to reveal a perfectly functioning keyboard with great responsiveness. I was navigating so easily with the keyboard and buttons, I forgot about the touch-screen!

The applications are too many to mention, but even Google Maps has a nice twist to it. Run it, it’ll find your location, and with the built in e-compass as you turn the street view changes to actually reflect a 360 view. Very strange, but clever and cool.

I’m told the battery life is good, even with 3G on all day with average use. The iPhone 3G’s battery from experience isn’t too good for an average user and won’t last the day.

The camera is a powerful 3.2 megapixel one, with autofocus. Even down to a macro-level I was impressed with the quality. A neat application I saw was a bar code scanner linked to the camera. Scan a bar code in a shop, and instantly it brings up the details - and even links to Amazon to see what they’re selling it for - and buy it there and then. Clever.

The whole look-and-feel, UI and navigation has been given much thought. Again, after a short time, I was moving around the screen and applications like a pro.

I don’t think it’s a serious contender in the corporate space yet, but as soon as the applications appear similar to ActiveSync and security is proven, it’ll be a winner for sure. These will still fly off the shelf tomorrow without a doubt.

Over the weekend, I took the plunge and updated the firmware on my Blackberry 8310 to the new Blackberry OS 4.5. This is obviously not recommended as there could have been all sorts of issues, but, for now, things are looking pretty good and pretty stable.

I wanted to upgrade as, (a) I’m impatient, and (b) the upgrade brings massively improved functionality - the main ones being, better media player, video recorder, HTML email, better user interface, availability search for calendar invites.

So how did I do it? Here’s how. And please, do not contact me if you have problems. I don’t recommend this unless you think you know what you’re doing!

These instructions are only for owners with a Blackberry 8310. I am on the AT&T network in the USA. This method has not been tested by me on any other network or anywhere else in the world. Also, to get the full functionality of things such as HTML email, your BIS service must be running BIS 2.5 - but I believe they all are now.

This process may remove any applications you have installed and may remove your corporate policy if you have one. Be warned.

Also, start to finish, this process can take an hour or more. Once you start, you can’t stop, so make the time.

1. Ensure you have the latest Blackberry Desktop software installed. You can get it here: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/services/desktop/

2. Install the Blackberry Desktop software.

3. Download the latest OS firmware from here, the only place to offer it right now - the Germany Vodafone site. (By the way, the official release by US operators is looking to be released around September if you can wait that long)

4. Install the OS firmware download.

5. Plug in your Blackberry, your device will be identified and the upgrade process should begin. The process, as I’ve said already, can take a long, long time. Lots of rebooting and white screens are normal. Be patient.

If you end up with a white screen with small icons and the number 507/543, simply connect to Desktop Manager again and run the application loader once again.

Good luck and enjoy! I’m certainly loving the new look.

Yesterday, I got my first iMac. I’ve been waiting to make the switch for a long time now (around 15 years I guess), but I finally have. I’m absolutely thrilled with the purchase. It’s going to take a while to make the conversion as I’m so used to a PC, but already I’m finding the iMac relatively easy to use.

I made an appointment with a personal shopper in the Stanford Apple store. Fantastic service, the guy really knew his stuff. I even got really into the deep technical questions and threw some curve balls around PC and Mac wireless networking, filesharing and DNLA, but nothing seemed to phase him.

I walked out with a shiny new 24″ iMac with the following:

• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB memory
• 1TB hard drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory
• Microsoft Mac:Office 2008

Took it home, the setup was straight forward and even though the Apple Store offered to do it for me, I now begin the long road of transferring all my files from PC to Mac. I thought I might as well throw myself in at the deep end. Watch this space.

This is the new iPhone, available July 11, enough said:

Other key takeaways:

• 35% of the Fortune 500 have participated in the iPhone 2.0 beta program. The top 5 banks, top 5 security firms, 6 or 7 top airlines, 8 of 10 top pharmaceuticals and 8 of 10 of the top entertainment companies
• Great mobile applications and games to come
• Apple will release a unified push notification service. It preserves battery life and maintains iPhone performance. It all works over the air over wifi and cellular - and it’ll be available in September
• There will be document support for all Microsoft Office files, addition of many new languages, bulk delete and move of email, ability to save files and pictures, new scientific calculator and parental controls
• Enterprise application distribution
• MobileMe, platform agnostic application suite; all applications looking like Apple native applications - looks nice. MobileMe is branded as Exchange for the rest of us - with proper ‘push’ functionality. Users of .Mac will be automatically upgraded, it will be available for $99 a year with 20GB of storage. Free trial for 60 days with iPhone 2.0
• iPhone sold 6m before running out, customer satisfaction 90%
• Need to make iPhone more affordable and allow sales in more countries
• iPhone 3G announced, black back, thinner at the edges, full plastic back, solid metal buttons, camera, flush headphone jack, improved audio
• With 3G, iPhone 36% faster than the Nokia N95 and Treo 750
• GPS included
• Full Exchange support, secure VPN
• Want to expand access to iPhones across the world, larger market, 70 countries in the next few months. iPhone will be sold for $199 for an 8GB - heavily subsidised. $299 for a white 16GB model

Yesterday I bought a new Blackberry, the Blackberry Curve 8310. My Blackberry Pearl 8100 had served me extremely well - it was a very faithful device. However, after around a year and a half, the silver paint was wearing off, the camera started to blur, the connection would start to drop and reconnect and the back would occasionally fall to the ground.

I had to find a suitable replacement. I wanted to definitely get a Blackberry, and I definitely wanted a camera. I didn’t really think I would ever use wifi on a device - and if I had to choose between GPS and wifi, I’d go with GPS. I’ve never had a problem with the speeds over GPRS or EDGE when using a Blackberry.

I also thought about the new Blackberry 9000 that will be out later in the year. However, from what I’ve heard and read, the specifications sound great, but the battery life seems poor. The cost of the unit will be fairly substantial too. It’s supposed to have a high quality finish and the photos leaked seem to suggest that, however from people I know who have actually touched them, it seems to have a plastic feel to it. I cannot be sure that’s true.

The 8310 is my seventh Blackberry, but not my seventh phone. Can anyone out there beat that?! You can have a look at all the Blackberry devices I’ve owned at an old post here. A sample photo taken in bad light with the flash can be seen here. It doesn’t look too bad at all:

So, I wanted to go back to a bigger screen, a ‘proper’ keyboard and have a decent camera. Hence my choice of the 8310. So what have I noticed so far:

• The keyboard is great. A big improvement on the last wide Blackberry I had, the 8700g.
• It has a great feel to it, seems solid in its build
• The camera is a huge improvement on the Pearl 8100. Obviously it’s a 2MP camera now, but the interface, the larger screen and a flash that is much improved makes a huge difference
• The GPS functionality is great. I use the free Google Maps for Blackberry. When you run the application it first triangulates via mobile phone towers and locks you into around 500-1000 metres. However, in seconds, the GPS kicks in and pulls you into your actual position. I’ve seen it get as close as one metre.
• The general UI is very much improved and speed of the device is noticeably better than the Pearl. I can actually watch video and listen to music (in stereo) on my Blackberry now via my additional 1GB card
• I have a tethered modem tariff via AT&T and the speeds I get are fantastic

I’d highly recommend this Blackberry.

A friend of mine Paul Hammond has written a great blog post “What Is Your Backup Strategy?” that details his horrific weekend attempting to claw back his entire digital life including nine years of photos and 65Gb of iTunes songs.

It got me thinking, how would my family feel if my PC and hard-disk died tonight? Probably nothing much initially, but after a couple days when the dust settled, you’d get that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach that you’d lost your whole life to a hard-disk failure.

Even though I do a weekly backup of my PC to an external hard-drive and I upload my pictures to Flickr, what would happen if my PC and external-drive died? Unfortunately for Paul, his 1TB hard-drive died without warning (as you’d expect)

Just at a rough glance this evening, I have:

• Around 780Gb of information on my PC
• 90Gb of photos that go back to 1999
• An iTunes folder storing 94Gb of music and video
• Email archives of 16Gb stretching back to 1998
• Websites I’ve produced racking up 600Mb
• 160Gb of family video
• And disappointingly (because the filesize is so small), but probably most importantly, 920Mb of family and personal documents

On Paul’s recommendation, tonight I signed up for Mozy. I didn’t want to leave it another day. It’s a piece of software that sits on your PC and copies your important files to a secure, remote server for safekeeping.

I’ll sleep more soundly tonight.

UPDATE - 4 August 2008: This evening, my iMac finished it’s first backup. Just over three months since it started. That was a long time! It took this time to backup 73,000 files which weighed in at 188.2GB. However, the incremental backups that are happening now are taking around seven minutes.

Today I gave up on my Linksys WRT300N router. Over the past few days I’ve decided that my poor connectivity in the house, coupled with dropped online games with my Playstation 3, must be down to the router.

This is my second WRT300N, the first one went back last year as it died. Before that, I had a Linksys WRT54GS router - and swapping back to that for a few days actually gave more stability but slower connection speeds and less range (as you’d expect)

The D-Link DIR-655 router I bought today seems to be a stellar improvement on the Linksys. It has more configuration items, but the way in which it has automatic Quality of Service (QoS) seems to be a winner - especially when I’m playing online. No more disconnects or game stalling, even when Sara, my wife, is also online surfing da web. The range seems to be more wide and long too.

I also have to say, from a support perspective, D-Link have it ’sussed’.

Easy install CD, a great online help site and a good user interface within the router menu options itself.

So far, the D-Link seems many times better than the Linksys. However, to be fair the Linksys router is nearly two years older than my current one even though they still both support draft-N.

I guess that’s the price you can pay when you’re an early adopter of technology…

My old Harmony 880 has given up the ghost, so today I bought the new Harmony One remote. So far, so good, it’s a great remote control.

Setup was very easy via the Logitech web interface - and I just transferred my old remote control settings over. I lost my customisations, but within a few minutes, I’d put them back on.

A very nice remote. I’d highly recommend it. You can find out more about it, by visiting the Logitech website by clicking here.