David’s Musings

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…

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.

I’m really interested to see the launch of Peek. A “no-nonsense” communications device. The selling point is simple - just a device for you to send and receive email. No GPS, no WiFi, no camera, no music or video player, no Bluetooth - just email.

They beat the conventional way of doing things by the major mobile providers by negating the following:

• contracts
• deposits
• rebates
• activation fees
• number porting
• complex bills and billing
• overages

It looks pretty cool too.

I’m an advocate for getting back to basics and keeping it simple. I think it could be a winning formula. What do you think?

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.

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

Looking through Flickr sometime ago, I stumbled across the group 365days. This is a group which people post a picture of any part of their body in a creative way, each day, for a whole year.

I see it as a challenge to post something daily and also be creative. I’ve been in awe of people doing this, especially my friend Paul.

The rules for the group are: “A self portrait is a photo of yourself taken by you - it is not a photo of you taken by someone else and it is not a photo of something you hold near and dear to your heart. Please don’t try to interpret ’self portrait’ into something drastically different than what it is. You are only allowed to submit one photo for each day. Only one. Feel free to do whatever you want to do within your own 365 Days set, but only send one to the pool.”

My first attempt was this:

001/365 - Tired eyes

This is my first photo for 365days. I aim to take a picture of some part of me for a whole year. This picture was taken on my Blackberry so it’s not a great quality, but I have been travelling all over the UK since mid May and am extremely tired. I looked in the mirror today and saw tired, red, eyes. Wish me luck on my 365 project…

My 365 day set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dburden/sets/72157604705931719/

Or you can setup a RSS feed to follow my progress by clicking here.

Every single 365 contribution, can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/365days/pool/

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.

There are some iPhone video clips working their way around the internet right now more quickly than Rick’s Astley’s, “Never Gonna Give You Up” Rick Roll video. The new look iPhone mark two is soon to be on the shelves of your nearest AT&T and Apple store. The iPhone 2, which most people believe will be announced at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June (a year after his older brother) is looking very, very good indeed.

This video shows some of the new look interface, which hasn’t changed a great deal apart for a few new options and the version 2 firmware. The new 3G, GPS iPhone is a little slimmer with a matt-black finish instead of the polished silver we all know and love.

Take a look at the clip here:

It now seems we’re close to the exciting launch of the new Blackberry 9000. It’s looking good. No firm news as yet, apart from the launch will probably be sometime in May, it has a smart, clean, redesigned interface - and will have 3G and WiFi.

Launch it RIM!

I just hope this is true and not the usual fluffy marketing speak. According to Fortune magazine, it seems that an Enterprise, corporate iPhone is upon us. If this is true, it will be great news for the consumer, business and, of course, Apple.

It seems that this week Apple may be about to announce their new Apple iPhone SDK, just up the road from me at their headquarters in Cupertino. Is this event going to lead into a subsequent announcement with Apple unveiling their customised Enterprise email solution?

There have been rumours that Apple have licensed Microsoft ActiveSync, or they’ve got into bed with Blackberry, with their Blackberry Connect offering - but I still think Apple will go their own way.

Analysts are saying there are four likely scenarios at the moment:

• from internal development (most likely),
• third-parties including MSFT (next likely) with its ActiveSync technology,
• or RIMM Blackberry Connect (possible but less likely)
• or a combination of two or more.

I like my iPhone, but I love my Blackberry. If I can get over the air syncing, some of the functionality of the Blackberry, and of course, Exchange corporate email on my iPhone - that’ll be it for me. Converted.

I was looking at my Blackberry today and started thinking how many applications I now use that I find indispensable that are not part of the standard install.

I’m going to list them here to share - but also as a handy reference for me to download these applications in the future if I need them!

All Google Blackberry applications

You can get all the current Blackberry applications from one single point. This download will help you configure a Google installer which will keep all the applications up-to-date going forward. You can select which applications you wish to install and those you don’t. You can download it here:

(From your Blackberry Browser) http://www.google.com/m/products

The applications I have installed on my Blackberry are Google Maps, Google Search and Mail by Google. I don’t seem to get any value out of the others.

Note: If you have a hosted email account with Google, (as I do), you need to download the Mail application separately here:

(From your Blackberry Browser) http://m.google.com/a

Viigo

Viigo is an application to centralise and sync your RSS feeds. It’s probably the application I use the most on the Blackberry. I recommend it highly - and you can download it here:

(From your Blackberry Browser) http://www.getviigo.com

You need a free account to access this service. You can setup one through your Blackberry or on their website at http://www.viigo.com

Facebook

If you like to follow your friends and family, Facebook is available for your Blackberry. The application truly integrates with your Blackberry and shows messages received in your status bar along with normal email messages

(Browser install via USB) http://na.blackberry.com/eng/devices/features/soci…

(From your Blackberry Browser - select the Facebook download) http://mobile.blackberry.com

Twitter (TwitterBerry)

If you want to update your Twitter status on-the-move without using your SMS function, you should consider TwitterBerry. TwitterBerry also offers you the function to list out Friends and Public timelines

(From your Blackberry Browser) http://www.orangatame.com/ota/twitterberry/

Yahoo Go!

Yahoo Go! gives you access to your Yahoo account, email, Flickr, RSS, Sport, Finance, Weather and Maps and is certainly a polished product. The download is not small but can be downloaded over the air at:

(From your Blackberry Browser) http://go.get.yahoo.com

Blackberry applications

Blackberry have various promotions and recommendations available to download via your phone by pointing your Blackberry browser to: http://mobile.blackberry.com

TV Guide (USA)

To download an excellent TV Guide application point your Blackberry here: http://tvguide.handmark.com

So, those are the applications I use - any I’ve missed, or any you cannot do without?

I am excited to hear rumours today that we might see a corporate iPhone from Monday. I’m still not sure what this really means, but watch this space. You can find out more here.

I haven’t posted for a while, so I thought I’d make a few technology predictions for 2008. I’ll check back on this post in January 2009 and see how close - or far - I’ve been:

Apple iPhone

I don’t actually see a new iPhone being launched during 2008. There’s lots of speculation around it, but I do feel Apple are some way away in bringing out a second version with something like 3G. The first version still has to appear in APAC markets, so until it does, I don’t see Apple releasing the next. My other prediction is that they’ll realise some killer apps, plus the long awaited Microsoft ActiveSync technology to allow the iPhone to work with corporate Exchange email

Sony PS3 Home

Sony will release their long-awaiting virtual reality world, Home, to replace the cross-media bar (XMB)

Blackberry handsets

Blackberry will reveal a new handset that will have a longer, wider screen. However, I don’t believe it will have a touch screen as predicted - but a folding or movable keyboard. Blackberry never bring out phones with a camera, GPS and WiFi packaged together - they always mix it up - but I believe the next generation of phone will have all of these - but still probably be GPRS not 3G

Offline browsing, web-to-go

We are going to see more use of offline browsing tools and application in the next year such as Google Gears, Adobe Air and Microsoft Silverlight. There will be more opportunity for offline browsing and then syncing-up your sessions and work once you’re back online

Apple Reduced Size Laptop

I see Apple creating a new small laptop with a screen of less than 12 inches and weighing in pretty light. Perhaps this new mini-laptop will have a touch screen such as the iPhone. With new Intel chips on their way such as Silverthorne that are notable for their very small size, speed, computing power and very low power consumption, Apple will be well placed in this area. These minature laptops will probably pave the way for a new iPhone flavour - but not until 2009 at least.

If you have a Google Hosted domain, as I do, and a Blackberry BIS account, as I do too, you’ll know how there is a little bit of an issue in setting up your hosted email within the Blackberry BIS control panel. If you add a Google hosted domain it will ask you for more information and your email server name - rather than just know what the settings are for Gmail - and most importantly of all - it doesn’t allow you to have true ‘push’ email on your Blackberry. What you actually setup is a normal POP or IMAP account that polls every 15 minutes or so and doesn’t synchronise very effectively at all.

However, today I made progress. I currently have my service with AT&T. I made a call to their support line, got passed around between three different operators - then got passed directly onto RIM after 55 minutes. (I do have a direct phone number for RIM technical support now - but I won’t share it here - what’s it worth eh?)

Once I got through, their email specialist added my domains to a recognised Gmail account list. I then recreated my email addresses within the AT&T BIS control panel, the settings were picked up for Gmail compatibility automatically - then voila - proper Gmail push email and syncronisation for my Blackberry on my hosted domains.

It was a bit of a struggle, (One hour and 19 minutes of my day) but I got there in the end. Thanks Matt at RIM technical support!

An exciting day for technical developments today. Google have released IMAP support for their Gmail and Google Applications. This is a godsend and I will explore more over the next few days. Also, RIM Blackberry announced today that they have created a Blackberry Facebook application. I received a customised download link from the Blackberry Owners Lounge this afternoon, have installed it - and will now explore.

Download the Facebook software from Blackberry here to install via your USB lead.

Google IMAP FAQs