Kingston PCMCIA Bluetooth VoIP Phone

I'm not sure why but I'm strangely intrigued by this device! As far as I can work out its basically a bluetooth headset that is the shape of a PCMCIA card. The idea seems to be that it lives in your PC card slot, keeping itself charged, and then you pop it out when you want to make a call.

Morgan Computers have it for £24 which is tempting just to investigate, but I really can't justify yet another VoIP phone device to myself or anyone else...

If anyone has one, or buys one, please let me know what it does/ how well it does it!

http://www.morgancomputers.com/shop/detail.asp?ProductID=4508&CategoryID=203&SubCategoryID=352

Dreamweaver CS3 - 99% CPU usage!

I've had a couple of bad experiences with the 30 days trial of Dreamweaver CS3 so far. I'm glad its a free trial and that I haven't just paid out!

It just straight won't install on my Core 2 Duo, 2gb RAM, Vista desktop machine. The installer disappears half way through. Adobe are working on the problem apparently...

So I tried it on my Fuji P1610 which is running XP Tablet. It installed fine and seems to work OK, except that the dreamweaver.exe process always uses 97-99% CPU, even when the software is minimized. That seems a bit much...

I found a patch here which has solved the problem but its not an Adobe file so be wary. Please don't blame me if it does something unexpected!

More bandwidth - UKonline = stupid!

Occasionally my VoIP phones are affected by my downloading/ uploading activity. For instance loading a heavy web page whilst on a call sometimes makes the call hiccup for a second.

I have tried packet shaping but my router (Monowall) is only any good at packet shaping with fixed pipes apparently - EG you might setup a 128kbps/64kbps pipe for VoIP and leave the rest for everything else. This guarantees the bandwidth is reserved for your VoIP.

The problem I found with that is that it brings me down to a speed where I can't watch streaming video smoothly...no YouTube!?!? Can't be having that.

So I figured the best thing to do is upgrade my hosting account to 8mb (from my current poultry 2mb) and then implement the packet shaping.

Alas no! Despite me having been a customer for 2 years, and being a year out of the minimum contract UKOnline can't turn up my package without me signing a new 12 month contract. This seems like madness to me.

I'll have to stick with the 2mb for now then because we're planning to move house in the next 12 months.

Elonex One £99 laptop

Asus' low cost EEE PC has certainly shaken up the UMPC sector with it now being commonplace for people to describe the price of every other device in terms of how many EEE PCs could be bought for the same money - EG "Thats the same as 4 EEE PCs".

With that going on its very hard to justify buying a device that costs up to the same as 10 EEE PCs!!

The same thing may be about to happen again/ for the laptop market as a whole. The Elonex One PC will be priced at £99 and will release 6 days from now on the 28th Feb.

Read the press release here

I wonder if we will soon hear people describing an EEEPC as 2/2.5 Elonex Ones!

Top Apps for Symbian S60

GigaOm have published an interesting list of their top S60 apps. Since I am a recent convert to S60 I found it interesting and I thought I'd share the ones that people might like to use (and a link to the full list of course).

"Gmail for Mobile" app for S60 which was voted the best piece of software for S60. I don't use Gmail but I'm sure this will be very useful for those of you who do.

The number 2 slot goes to GooSync which synchs your calendar and contacts with Google as well. Again I can see that this is very useful. I use Exchange myself and Nokia provide a client for this (Na, Na, Na!)

Kevin Tofel at JKontherun.com reckons that JoikuSpot should have been on the list. I agree with you Kevin in principle, but so far I've found that it doesn't actually work. Even if it does work for you it will only support HTTP, so no VPNs or anything along those lines for the moment.

My friend who runs an EEE PC on the factory Linux install (he's got bored of XP!) was looking forward to using JoikuSpot instead of trying to get Bluetooth and Dial Up Networking working on Linux. So far it doesn't work for him either, and HTTP is a bit useless to him anyway because if you put him near a PC he'll have established a VPN and then loaded an RDP client to his work server before you can blink.

Hopefully Joikuspot will end up as good as WMWifiRouter for Windows Mobile. Its definately got potential and it seems that a great team are working on it.

The one that caught my eye was item 9 on GigaOm's list: Nokia Podcasting Application. The premise is that you can download and manage your podcast subscriptions on your Nokia itself. Podcasts are the only reason that I still have iTunes installed so this could mean I can get rid of the horrible thing for good!

I will install it and give it a try. I'll report back in a week or so.

Logitech Quickcam 3000 on Windows Vista

I tried this evening to do a video conference with my Grandparents up North. My sister was there last week and I talked her through installing MSN Messenger on my Grandma's laptop (which conveniently has built in webcam, microphone, etc).

So this evening I also installed MSN Messenger myself (I haven't used IM software for 3 years or more for distraction/ productivity reasons), installed my Quickcam 3000 from Logitech on my Fuji P1610 and made the call. It connected and we could see each other but the video was juddery and the sound kept looping so that she sounded like a scratch DJ was involved! He-He-He-Hello Simon...etc.

So next I decided to switch to my desktop machine. It's much more powerful and its not going through WiFi. Then I spent hours and hours trying to get the camera to install...

It turns out that Logitech don't support anything before a 4000 on Vista. There is a way around it but in the long threads on the subject on Logitech's forums every time someone posts the solution Logitech say it is against the terms of use and delete the post!! I guess they want you to upgrade your camera...

I eventually found the instructions (basically uninstall all of your bad attempts and then reinstall the XP software) on this blog: http://blog.avanadeadvisor.com/blogs/johanr

I figure the more links to Johan's instructions on Google the better, hence this post.

To finish my story, after this we tried again and the results were superb. Really good full screen quality with proper lip synching, no juddering, no looping audio. I was very very impressed. Its much better than its been when I've played with it before.

Hymer motorhomes - I want one!

Rather than paying £650+ per week to hire a camper van this summer I've persuaded a mate, who was also separately planning to hire a camper van for a week or two, that we should invest in one!

From what I've been told they don't really depreciate so we should be able to keep it for a year and sell it for about what we paid. Saving ourselves at least £2600 in fees that we would have paid for renting!

So I'm on the look out for a Hymer 5 berth motorhome (which really means 2 berth) and my budget is £6000. This one on ebay looks great and finished at £5000 - perfect! The only thing is that the dealer had a reserve of £13500 on it!

Can anyone offer any tips or advice to us as first time camper van buyers?

Please note that this is related to Mobile Tech in some ways...if you think about it. Hehe. Also with two geeks owning it I'm sure it will have plenty of toys in it before long.

OQO 2 for £865 from Expansys!

I have often said that the OQO is great, but too expensive. Only yesterday I posted an entry about the e2 and said exactly that. However, OQO are getting rid of some of their older models through Expansys and you can now pick up a brand new very shiney OQO model 2 for only £865 inc VAT! Thats the relatively low spec OQO model 2, 1.5GHz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, Vista Business and it will have the US keyboard (not much difference the UK one).

This is very tempting!

Expansys have a selection of OQO models at reduced prices and plenty of them in stock. Personally I would probably go for the OQO model e2 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, Vista Ultimate for £969 inc VAT.

There are also XP models available on the Expansys website.

Orange to sell HTC Shift "Exclusively" (well they'll be the only UK network to start with at least)

A press release from Orange's PR company today announces that they will carry the Shift exclusively and that it will be available before the end of February.

It's good to see a major phone carrier picking up the torch for UMPCs and I hope this gets the form factor in front of a lot more people...even if the Shift is very old news now.

The pricing is a little strange though. Orange will be selling the device for £999 with a contract, whereas you can pick one up from Expansys with a contract for £580 and Clove Technology have them SIM-free for a little over £800!

Via UMPCPortal.com

OQO e2 - What is it for?

I pretty much started off this Blog by writing about the OQO Model 01+ which I owned quite recently. Its a fantastic piece of engineering and design which is fatally flawed by a number of defects. Since then OQO have lent me their newer model on three separate occasions to ask for my thoughts so, at the risk of going over old ground, I thought I should put down my latest thoughts about their product.

During the time since I owned the 01+ and now my thoughts/ feelings about UMPCs have changed a little and I'm left with the question "What are they for?".

Recently I've gone for a high feature mobile phone and a big UMPC, what some would call UPPC (Ulta-Portable PC). Those being a Nokia E90 Communicator and a Fujitsu Siemens P1610-HSDPA respectively.

This is the best combination of devices that I've had the pleasure of owning and using to date. Firstly the Fuji is just superb for portability but also usability...I can work on it at a desk with an external mouse all day and not feel cramped. Sometimes I do that and occasionally I venture outside and use it on Brighton beach. Why not? The screen is daylight readable, it has built in 3g and it'll even flip around and be a touch screen tablet which I've found surprisingly useful.

The Nokia is also superb. Most importantly, and notably different from my previous phone - the HTC Hermes, is the fantastic battery life. Often at the end of the day I put it on charge and its still reporting full battery...I'm a heavy user and I have the WiFi connected for the E90 to act as a VoIP phone, Bluetooth on, I use the GPS with Nokia Sportstracker when I go out walking, etc, etc. Its also a very very solid phone with great software and its got a surprise attribute that I like...My girlfriend will happily pick it up and make a call from it. She knows how to use it straight off...because its a Nokia...a standard-ish Nokia interface with hardware buttons, unlike my previous phones. Its also a decent RSS feed reader, speakerphone, web browser, radio, etc, etc.

Now the OQO model 02/ E2 is supposed to fit somewhere between these two devices, in my other pocket perhaps. The question is what does it do that my Fuji can't do? The Fuji is always in my backpack. What can it do that my E90 can't do?

The answer is this: it can do anything your desktop can do, reliably, every time. What I mean by that is that, whilst its not my choice for Blogging or anything involving proper sit down "work time" what the OQO does is give you a platform to log into web interfaces, connect to servers, use Office files, etc. from your pocket.

The Fuji doesn't fit in your pocket, not by a long shot, and if you try to do certain things with a Nokia Communicator you'll be left frustrated. Casing point: I provide hosting and hosted Exchange mailboxes for several companies and I have a web control panel to my providers.

When I get a call to reset a password, create a new mailbox, set up a new website, etc. I can log in to the web interface and make the change instantly. I have tried doing that from the Communicator several times and wasted ages trying to get logged in. Its a heavy page with a gotcha and it just won't load properly on the E90. I've ended up phoning someone and talking them through how to make the change for me!

There are numerous examples of sites that, for whatever reason, don't work on the S60browser and there are plenty that don't work on the Nokia 770's browser either. For the foreseeable future this will most likely be the case for all mobile browsers...web sites just aren't tested on every mobile platform.

Its the same with PC based software if you need to use that for your job, or perhaps so that you can offer technical support wherever you are (as a micro company owner I sometimes need to do this). Non-Windows portable devices just can't compete here.

But give me an OQO in my spare pocket, with HSDPA, and wherever I am I can fire up Internet Explorer, log into my control panel and do what I need to do. For a short, sharp, fix I'm not sure the OQO can be beaten. Its very small and its optimised for the task. The screen is as big as it possibly can be on the chassis, the keyboard is probably as good as it can be, its got HSDPA, etc. I'd rather have a touch screen and the pen should certainly stow somewhere on the device and be much more accurate, but those are relatively minor things.

The only problem with the OQO really is the price. I certainly can't justify having my E90 in my left trouser pocket, my Fuji 1610 in my back pack AND £1600s worth of emergency OQO in my right pocket...

But if you need most of the functionality of a laptop in your pocket for short bursts of work, or perhaps browsing on your commute and you can justify the cost I highly recommend the OQO e2 HSDPA 1.6Ghz 1GB 32GB SSD. OQO sell through Expansys in the uk www.expansys.co.uk

JoikuSpot turns your Symbian S60 phone into a WiFi hotspot

I posted a while back about WMWifiRouter for Windows Mobile devices which is a clever series of scripts/registry hacks bundled up into a neat little application that makes your WM phone act as a WiFi Access Point. Its a very clever piece of software and if it wasn't for the absolutely atrocious battery life that I had on my last Windows Mobile phone (HTC Hermes), I may have found it quite useful.

Now the battery life on my Nokia E90 Communicator is amazing, even with Bluetooth and WiFi on all day and the occasional hour of GPS use in a day I can still often put my phone on charge in the evening with it still reporting fully charged! Of course its lying but the battery life is fantastic. I have never run out of battery in a day. Its sharp contrast to my HTC Hermes which would last about an hour with WiFi on.

So what about the E90, is there something similar for Symbian S60? Yes! Now there is! A piece of freeware called JoikuSpot claims to do exactly the same thing!

Unfortunately in my testing the software crashes if I have my (normally permanent) WiFi SIP connection open and if I disable that it appears to work but none of my other devices could detect the WiFi network that it says it is offering up.

Hopefully a new release will address my problems in the near future because this could be very handy. Give it a go on your device and please do post a comment on here about how you get on. The download is available at http://www.joikuspot.com/aboutJoikuSpot.php

Via Thoughtfix

Askozia PBX

I've been using the Askozia PBX for about a month now for my small business at home and I wanted to quickly share my results.

Previously I used VoIP.co.uk directly over the internet. First of all with a cheap WiFi phone from ebay (Senao I think, it looked like a Nokia 6310). This was useless because it cut out the call after 45 seconds every time...

Then I upgraded to a ZyXEL Prestige 2000W V2 VoIP WiFi which was much better. Sometimes the call quality was not so good for the other party but it always sounded fine for me! (A word of warning: This doesn't support WPA).

Then I upgraded to Cisco fixed phones with a Cisco 7940 big feature phone (pictured above) and a Cisco 7912 desk phone. On top of that I've now got a Linksys ATA for my DECT phone, and the Nokia E90 Communicator which makes a superb WiFi SIP client.




VoIP.co.uk is very feature packed. You can have many different lines within one VoIP.co.uk, you can have many different devices in your account and set which numbers go to which lines, have call groups essentially, do voicemail which is emailed to you, do all sorts of stuff.

Up until a month or so ago I have always lived with niggles. Sometimes the other person wouldn't be able to hear me, sometimes I wouldn't be able to hear them, sometimes the call would drop, etc.

So I decided to take NAT out of the equation and run my own PBX. I built a MiniITX diskless, fanless PC from www.mini-itx.com (identical to my Monowall router) and chose the Askozia PBX project for my PBX. Askozia is basically a GUI for Asterisk but its presented as a nice simple download and a nice easy web interface. No complicated Linux or Asterisk to worry about.

My results so far have been excellent, and the functionality that the PBX offers is incredible and growing with every release. As an example I now have three SIPGate accounts, each with one number. These are setup in Askozia and the system is set to ring my call group "All Phones" if I get a call on any number...the clever part is I have set the PBX to prefix the callerID with each of my company names.

So when someone calls number 1 the callerID on my phones comes up with "Company1 - 01234123123" so that I know how to answer the phone. This is really useful for me as a small (micro?) business with a few brands but its only scratching the surface of what Askozia can do.

The best part is so far I haven't had any call drop outs and I seem to have ironed out all of the sound problems (I had some problems to start with with the codecs supported by the Ciscos and Askozia not being right).

VoIP.co.uk only intermittently works with my Askozia box so I've canned that and diverted all of the numbers in my account to my 3 SIPgate accounts (SIPgate accounts are free). Its a shame that VoIP.co.uk isnt reliable because it has a lot of features where SIPGate is very very minimalist...but ultimately its reliability that matters and that's what my SIPGate/ Askozia combination seems to give me (fingers crossed).

Askozia is an open source active public beta project and the development team are very keen to hear of bugs, etc. If you want to run a small, non-critical PBX but don't want the hassle of Asterisk, etc. have a look at it and perhaps get involved. www.askozia.com

YouTube! - Can't post a comment!

I thought I'd put this little tip on here in case people are having the same problem and can't find a solution as I couldn't despite trying different browsers, different computers, reading the help, googling, etc.

On YouTube you cannot post a comment if it includes a URL (or HTML code). The interface doesn't tell you this, it just makes the text of your comment go grey and sits there. Not very intuitive!

I hope this helps someone who is tearing out their hair trying to reply to a comment!

What I'm up to! www.firstpersonview.co.uk!

Hi all,

I haven't posted here for a little while so I thought I'd let everyone know that I'm still alive and I'm devoting all of my time on setting up a few other projects at the moment.

One of these is www.firstpersonview.co.uk which I've been working on for a little while and has now started to ship. Its great fun and very interesting developing this stuff and its great to see people starting to use our gear/ posting videos using it on YouTube, etc.

I've embedded a sample video:



In the next few days I'll post new video filmed with our new head movement system that detects when you move your head and moves the camera on the plane accordingly! Just awesome!

I'll be back Blogging about gadgets before long. See you soon!

Simon