Branded like cattle

 I was quite excited last week when my newly subscribed N95 related RSS feeds heralded the release of a new firmware version for the phone. Coolest amongst the implemented changes was "Assisted GPS", which if the little reading I did on the subject is correct, allows the phone to first utilize the cellular network to triangulate an approximate location, and then use that to get a satellite lock more quickly than it would have otherwise. What it also means is that if no satellite is available (say, when you are indoors), the cell-network-only location can be used for geotagging! As it turns out, there was an update in April as well, and this included better camera quality and performance. Needless to say, I quickly downloaded the software I would need for the update and hooked up my phone.

And that's where Vodafone came into the picture and screwed things up. Apparently, when a manufacturer releases a new (generic) firmware version, it is sent off to all the networks that have their own branded versions of the device, and they re-brand it and send it back to be made available on the manufacturer's download service. Not only has Vodaphone/Vodacom not managed to get the new version (12) out yet -which would be understandable considering how new it is- they have not even managed to get the previous version (11) out! Again, this was released in April!

It is possible for an N95 owner to fiddle the system, basically they have to hack the product version of their phone to a generic one, and then the Nokia software will make the new firmware available. Of course this voids the warrantee-which is not something you want to do on a ten grand phone!

Technorati Tags: phone, n95, nokia, vodafone, vodacom, firmware

Uber-gadget

I mentioned recently that Natz' Dad got himself a Nokia N95 on his upgrade. Well it took him all of 3 weeks to decide it's too complex for his needs and irritates the hell out of him, so with ten days to go before my own upgrade (yeah, I've been counting down the days) I got handed an uber-device that I would NEVER have been able to get on my contract. Needless to say I have pimped the hell out of it over the past couple of days :)

Built in functionality wise, the N95 is an absolute beast. I can't possibly list all the stuff it does, but the highlights include WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, 5 Megapixel camera, VGA quality video recording, hardware 3D acceleration (no I'm not kidding), TV out, and much more. This long list has led to something of a mini-war between iPhone and N95 fans, since Apple's claim that the iPhone is the 'phone of the future' is quite laughable considering it's limited functionality by comparison. For example:

Anyway, apart from fiddling with all the standard functionality, I have found some nice alternative themes, and some great apps to really push what the phone can do. I'll just list the ones I have decided to hang onto and keep using :)

Opera Mini (Web Browser): I have mentioned it before, and I still love the added speed and screen space, so it was an obvious addition.

Fring (IM and VOIP): Fring is an excellent IM and VOIP client that supports MSN/Live, GMail and Skype, which can be left resident and used to replace your standard contact list as well.

ShoZu ('Sharing', Downloadable content, Contact management): Shozu has a strange combination of functionality. Unlike the other apps I'm using, it autostarts and is always resident (and cant be seen in the phone's process manager). The primary attraction for me is that it allows easy sharing of photos and videos to a ridiculous list of sites including Flickr, Blogger and YouTube. It's even possible to 'share' to email and ad FTP sites. It has a content download component with a collection of predefined 'ZuCasts' that can be subscribe to. Finally it can back your contents up to the Shozu website. All this can be managed from the app or from a very convenient website and updated to the app. All in all it's a great package.

GooSync (Calendar sync): A service rather than an application, GooSync allows synchronization between Google Calendar and the phone's calendar app using the standard synch function. Very cool.

Calcium (Calculator): A great replacement for the standard system calculator that is far more efficient to use.

MGMaps (Mapping): A mapping app that mashes up Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Windows Live Local, Ask.com Maps and satellite imagery, makes use of the internal GPS (which I still haven't been outdoor long enough to test).

GMail mobile (email): Duh, seriously this is a no brainer :)

In addition to those, I've of course added web bookmarks to all the Google essentials, and completely removed all of those damned Vodacom Live links. I'm still looking for a feed reader that I'm 100% happy with, both for text and media feeds. For the moment I'm juggling between Mobispine and the mobile version of Google Reader for text reading. I have downloaded Nokia's own 'Podcasting' application, but have yet to try it out. 

Technorati Tags: nokia, phone, iphone, n95, opera mini, fring, shozu, goosync, calcium, mgmaps, gmail, mobispine

5 megapixels baby! My first shozu test

Ok, so it's been downscaled, but that's cool too because Shozu drops it automatically for web submission (this can be disabled of course).

Update: as cool as it is, Shozu does fail to upload tags to blogger :(

Sushi-oh

Natz and I looooove our Sushi. She's not mad about the dishes that have a large proportion of meat in them like Nigiri and Sashimi, but she'll happily chow down on the likes of Maki and California Rolls. I love the whole lot of course! Knowing how much we enjoy the stuff, Natz' sister bought me a sushi 'kit' for Christmas (containing the rice, nori, rolling mat, vinegar and soy sauce), and we've been meaning to use it ever since. We finally got to doing it this weekend. 

Finding the fish turned out to be quite a mission. After unsuccessfully scouring the supermarkets, it occurred to me that Ocean Basket sells their fish uncooked as well. I managed to pick up a huge salmon steak for a measly 25 bucks! It turned out to be overkill too, and we had grilled salmon for Sunday breakfast too. The rice ended up bordering on disaster, as we first tried using a 'traditional' bamboo steam cooker which had the rice rock hard after two hours. Some extra water and a few minutes in the microwave sorted it out, but we were certainly worried for a while. The vinegar mixture was a piece of cake, and actually making the Sushi is kind of reminiscent of playing in the mud as a kid-messy as hell!

While I need a lot of practice to get it looking right (hey, Sushi masters train for years :p) I must say I'm quite impressed with the results of our first try.

Technorati Tags: sushi, blog, natz