Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Herewith my Grassroots Open Mobile Web presentation (original PDF) that I presented Monday April 14, 2008 at the Open Web Vancouver conference.

Presentation Links:

• Chumby
• Bug Labs
• How a Bug could save the US Government 100s of millions of dollars
• Bunnie's Blog about awesome Chumby hacks
• OSGI Java components whitepaper (used on the Bug)

The presentation was a lot of fun to put together and present. Next year, I hope to present a followup with my musings on the actual real Bug and any OSGI Java components that I manage to get working.

I love my iPhone (which I paid for with my own money and am still glad I did) because:

• it's beautiful and so is the interface
• the web browser is great, gmail and google reader work well
• the switching between WiFi and EDGE is seamless
• SMS interface is great, so it was great when I was out of Canada and didn't have access to affordable data and wanted to communicate with fellow SXSW attendees
• the voice call interface is great
  

I hate my iPhone because:

• the 2 mega pixel camera s*cks
• no video, i need video!!!!!!
• it's closed at the moment so there's no ShoZu, I need ShoZu! I am addicted to ShoZu's ability to post photos of the kid to my private flickr account and other pictures to my public flickr account

If the iPhone had a 5 megapixel camera and video and ShoZu was available for it, I'd switch in a heartbeat and use it all the time for everything. As it is the phone in my pocket is my N95-1 provided by the Nokia Blogger Relations program (thanks!) and the phone that i would buy with my money if I lost my iPhone and N95-1 would be one of the N95 North American versions.

Having said that I also have a love/hate relationship with my N95-1

I love my N95-1 because:

• It runs ShoZu which has literally changed my life. The ability to "photo-document" my life in real-time has been and continues to be amazing. And if ShoZu ever integrates with Twitter and gets Facebook status updating working, I'll never have to use SMS again when I am in Canada which would be no big loss since I am not a fan of SMS (or paying for messages, I just want to pay for the bandwidth I consume, SMS rates are a ripoff.)
• It runs Qik and similar 'live from the phone videocasting' apps. Qik, flixwagon et al are killer apps over WiFi and 3G!
• It's "open" (since you can only develop 1st class applications using Carbide which only runs on Windows and uses the archaic and silly C/C++ combo, it's not fully open in my book; the whole certificate model and the fact that the amazing hardware on great devices like the N93 is crippled by missing certificates for Python so you can't really access the full power from more modern and dynamic programming environments like Python means Python et al are second class citizens on S60)

I hate my N95-1 because:

1. S60 is not truly open (see the Python problems mentioned above). Hoping for a re-focus around a Linux core e.g. using Maemo from the N770, N800 and N810 Internet tablets.
2. S60 is clunky, hard to use and a maze of twisty little menus and apps are constantly moved around each firmware release. I have taught many people who just got their S60 phones how to use their devices. you don't have to do that with an iPhone which while not perfect is much, much easier to use.
3. It doesn't have enough RAM so ShoZu occasionally hangs and a reboot is required (granted this has become a lot better in the latest N95 firmware updates thank goodness!)
4. The display is too small. As big as the iPhone or VGA please!

Looking for a gift for a Canadian Social Geek? Then you are in luck. I'll show what's cool and give you a tour of the difficulties of being a Canadian Social Geek (there's no such thing as free trade in reality between Canada and the USA since it's even harder now than in the past to get gadgets over the border)

1. N95-1 Nokia Cameraphone ($650 from dell.ca)? Why because you can upload awesome cameraphone pictures automatically with suspend/resume to flickr for free over Wifi using ShoZu (every social geek knows where to find free wifi) and if you are rich you can do it over EDGE. Be sure to get your geek to upgrade the latest N95-1 firmware update which makes the phone much more stable when using ShoZu. And if you are really rich get an N95-3 ($619 US from Amazon USA) and upload over 3G over the r*poff Rogers and Fido 3G Network. Oh and you can do great videos but there's no automatic video upload solution (ShoZu will automatically upload 10MB videos which is far too little since that's less than a minute of full res video on the N95). Why not Sony Ericsson? Because ShoZu doesn't work so well on their phones (granted Sony phones take great pictures, better than the N95, it's just their software is even cr*ppier than Nokia's and even harder for 3rd party developers). Trust me your SGeek will love the quality of the N95 pics!
2. Apple iPhone - $US399 from Apple USA + about 150 bucks including shipping for a Hardware SIM unlock so it can work in Canada - lousy pictures but the most usable phone the world has ever seen for SMS, web browser for twitter, utterz, jaiku, etc. Notice how there are no CDMA devices on this list. That's because CDMA s*cks :-) (at least the Canadian and US implementations of CDMA s*ck, the fact that there are no SIMs means CDMA users are forever enslaved by the CDMA carriers) and even if it didn't there are no cool devices for it. Sorry Windows Mobile and RIM aren't cool and email is great but it ain't overly social :-) !
3. Chumby - display your friends flickr pictures and RSS feeds on this cute truly open hardware and software device - $179 shipped only to the US (but you know somebody in the USA you can ship this to right?)
4. Eye-Fi WiFi SD card ($US 99)- if you can't afford an N95-1 or 3 then this is the next best thing. Your point and Shoot or Digital SLR with SD to CF adapter = poor man's ShoZu. It ain't ShoZu because it doesn't have suspend and resume if connectivity is lost but it's the next best thing and the 2nd fastest way to get your pictures social. Ahem, not available in Canada. Buy in the USA at Walmart, Amazon, Costco.
5. One Laptop per Child (give one and get one for $US 400 and they ship to Canada, hallelujah!) - cool Linux laptop with built in mesh networking
6. Canon Digital Rebel XTi ($650 with decent kit lens but get the 50MM too):
   Rebel Xti + EyeFi Card and CF to SD adapter + Canon 50 MM f1.8 lens (about $100) + ISO 3200 + f1.8 = shoot in almost dark conditions and upload to flickr over wifi the moment you get to one of your locations with WiFi e.g. your house or work, the Nikon D40 is also an awesome camera but it doesn't take the Nikon 50MM lens so it ends up being more expensive (coz you have to buy a 3rd party 50MM fast lens or similar lens like the Sigma 30MM F1.4 to get a fast low light prime lens)
   
7. Nokia N800 ($274.99 from dell.ca) or N810 Linux (only available in the USA!) Internet Tablet - great for mobile blogging, twittering, jaikuing etc, also does mobile Skype very well! The N800 has two SD slots for a maxium total of 16GB of storage; the N810 has one slot but has a keyboard.

I am not a big fan of keyboards on mobile devices (nor mobile email, i get enough email (hundreds/day like everybody else!), if you want to reach me, SMS me or call me) but if the keyboard is easy to use and doesn't make the N800 successor too thick (I like the N800 form factor), I might actually like it!

From TabletBlog.com by ThoughtFix: Third Internet Tablet a slider - Confirmed!:

QUOTE

Remember the photo above from Engadget? Click that link for more of them. Well - there's now a VERY good chance that it could be an early prototype of the third Internet Tablet. So this whole post was probably wrong.

END QUOTE

The N800 together with Skype and WiFi makes a great "long distance telco route-around device". I have used my N800 to call people on their land lines in Belgium and California and Seattle from Vancouver over my WiFi at home (802.11b on an aging Airport) and it works fine!

Welcome back to blogging, Russ! Gotta try this iPhone like keyboard for the Nokia N800.

From RussellBeattie.com - Open Mobile Systems Rock:

QUOTE

Very cool - someone has already implemented an iPhone-like virtual keyboard for the Nokia N800. How great is that!? Check it out here.

UNQUOTE

Yes! Sign me up for the beta in July! Can't wait for Skype on the N800! Looking forward to doing a head to head comparison versus Gtalk and gizmo!

FROM jkOnTheRun: Skype on the Nokia N800: it's alive, it's ALIVE!:

QUOTE

I'm getting ready to leave NYC and the Digital Experience show, but had to share one tidbit before leaving. Among the many booths I stopped at was the Nokia booth. The big news there wasn't a new device, it was a service, and that service is Skype! It's been a long time coming, but Skype support for the Nokia N800 is right around the corner. I got a chance to see it, but it won't be available as a download until some time in July. The Nokia N800 already supports Gizmo for VoIP, but the addition of Skype adds more choice to make a good mobile device an even better one.

END QUOTE

I tried USB and Bluetooth but couldn't get Nokia Media Transfer to work with my N800. Nokia please fix in future betas. Not a surprise since it's not on the compatibility list. I hesitate to try it on my N93 since I only have 2GB of storage there and it's mostly full of kid videos and pics!

The N800 makes a fine car MP3 player. Unfortunately my naive drag and drop of 500MB of music didn't work (could only fit about 100MB of music in a single directory even though I have over 3GB free on my two 2GB cards). I guess I'll have to do some googling and asking around. Hopefully I can get it to auto-sync with Mac iTunes via a plugin!

I misplaced my mouse at Super Happy Dev House. I went shopping for a replacement on Friday and found that the combination of the:
N800 and 850 GSM phone + unlimited data plan = perfect price checker and shopping companion.

The 850 means that unlike GSM 1900 phones it basically works anywhere except a Faraday shielded bunker :-) ! A bit geeky but it was fun being able to take notes and check out the websites of the mouse I was considering as well as verifying that contrary to the label on the box, the mouse I bought, a Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Mouse 8000, actually works with Macs (inaccurate MS 8000 mouse review - works fine for me out of the box with latest MS drivers - I luv MS mice; I think this is the 4th I've bought with my own money!) !

And I guess maybe not so geeky since I didn't get any second looks and I see "normal" people playing around with their Sony PSPs and Nintendo DS's all the time these days.

Mark my words, shopping and checking prices and taking photos and sharing media back and forth about what you are buying with friends while shopping will become just as normal as playing games on mobile devices!