E650 update

the continuing saga of Living with the Orange SPV E650

OK I’ve had the E650 for a few months now and I’m way way past the honeymoon period so I thought I’d give you a quick catch up on my current feelings on the device.

do I still love it ? well yes …… mostly

will I part with it ? not if I can help it

are there any problems with it ?   yes a couple

go on what are they then ?

well the biggest problem I’ve come across is the fact that any screen grabbing notifications such as low battery warnings disconnect your Bluetooth sessions, a royal pain when you are driving and involved in a conversation on your headset.  I have no idea why this happens it’s just a really bugging bug.

the second problem is purely aesthetic, remember the flappy flaps, they’re made of pretty soft plastic and  with use they deform and refuse to sit cleanly in their aperture. this is a real problem for the flap that hides the extUSB connector  which annoyingly is on the bottom of the phone and is in use a lot for charging, it now refuses to sit cleanly and really spoils the lines of the device. it’s going to come off when I get round to it.

Neither of these are major problems but they are worthy of mention as they are particularly annoying in a device that is otherwise so well designed.

Technorati Tags: E650, Orange, SPV, nitpicking

Bloggus Interruptus

not a lot going on round here at the moment

well in the blogging world at least – there’s far too much going on in the world of work, just one long go to meetings, follow up meetings and go to more meetings. blogging is not my day job, my wife will be pleased to know  so the extra mile is that much harder to tread for now. This is a testament to how imnportant blogging has become  as I have itchy fingertips, not having posted for  five days or so.

There are a few things I need to mention but they will have to wait until a couple of projects at work have been completed.

normal service will be resumed shortly

Technorati Tags: blogging, poor latin jokes

office live Gotcha

the beta ending also means the billing starting

if you, like me,  signed up for the beta of office live on a premium account and you don’t want to be charged ( or signed up for a years subscription) you must go here to get instruction and downgrade your account within 30 days of the 23rd May.

I just got billed £26.44 for a service I didn’t want – I’m a bit peeved as the letter I received telling me that the beta was ending was not explicit that this would happen – oh and it also contained the same letter for a different subscriber who if I hadn’t found through the phone book would have been none the wiser.

at sign up for the beta I’m sure it was stated or at least implied that I would not be automatically charged but it seems that I have been – here’s hoping the promise to refund comes through.

caveat emptor

technorati tags: office live

Living with the Orange SPV E650 part V

a first grumble

I’ve blogged about the glitch I discovered the other day when using the find as you type on the keyboard.

I’ve found a grumble – you can’t seem to change the home page of pocket Internet explorer – you’re stuck with windows live search. grrrrr

I hate this kind of imposition – I’m sure that there’s a reg hack somewhere in there and I’ll have a rummage providing resco explorer works  however it’s an eval handset so I’m wary of too much modding.

technorati tags: Orange, SPV, E650, Registry Hack

[EDIT: Resco Reg editor 2005 does work on WM6  -  in the registry there's no explicit home / start page key I can find but there is an entry in HKCU\software\Microsoft\Internet explorer\main for search page. There's also a startmenu option in HKCU\software\Microsoft\shell but I've not messed around with them]

Orange E650 available to purchase on Orange Consumer website

but……. instantly out of stock

the E650 is here – on the orange consumer website true to form for brand new customers only. :(

it’s instantly out of stock so I assume back orders have to be fulfilled (unless it’s a bit of creativity to hit the mid April Launch promised)

oh well I spose all you loyal Orange customers out there with access to the same deals as everyone supposedly will just have to wait.

I hate it when they do this.

technorati tags: E650, Orange

Response Point – Software and Hardware principles

Jeff Smith Senior Product Manager reveals a little more

as I supposed Microsoft’s new SIP PBX killer is XP embedded under the lid, I missed this item  first time round but in an interview with windowsfordevices.com Jeff Smith is quoted as saying that Response Point is :

a “go-to-market” software stack based on Windows XP Embedded, similar to how Windows Mobile is a go-to-market variant of Windows CE. And, like Windows Mobile, Response Point will only be marketed directly to major device OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ODMs (original design manufacturers).

he is quoted as going on to say

Microsoft played a role in developing reference architecture, but is not controlling the hardware design. Each OEM is building its own variation based on the Response Point reference design, explained Smith. Response Point is currently beta testing and available on a very limited basis. Beta 2 is now working, and should be released in early April.

oh well definitely no software only option then and I won’t be holding my breath to see a version in the wild in the UK  for a while… ho hum.

wonder what the UM Team’s thoughts on RP are?

technorati tags: Response Point, Microsoft, beta, VoIP, SIP

problems with images

all is not well in the world of worpress and windows live writer beta

not sure what is going on but there seems to be some problems with uploading locally cached images on live writer – I’ll do some investgation, hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly

how limited is unlimited *

More misleading Marketing rubbish, how much data can you transfer with an unlimited data plan from a UK MSP?

the * is the give away!

I’ve posted about the rapid deployment work I have been doing and it’s lead me to take a good long look at the data bundles on offer from MSPs in the UK.   

the biggest problem I have encountered is the fact that the unlimited* data bundles just aren’t unlimited they have Fair usage Policies (FUP) attached which point out that if you exceed the FUP suggested maximum data transfer then you’ll get reprimanded, keep doing it and you’ll get a punitive tariff or disconnected.

for my application faced with a even only a handful of users accessing resources remotely I’m worried about a limit of any kind.

the common parlance is an unlimited* label for a high transfer service but the * actually hides the limit of data you can transfer, the standard unlimited* limit seems to be 1 GByte, but again I’ll summarise below

Orange mobile Data Packages:

• Orange have Orange World access MAX, for £75 a month you get unlimited downloads subject to a fair use policy maximum of 1000 Mbytes.
• they also have a less well publicised package, as in not on their website, for corporates that allows you to use your data card with unlimited* downloads for £45 a month again a 1000 Mbytes FUP limit

Vodafone Mobile Data Packages:

Vodafone have two and a half  offerings  

• Data Unlimited, with unlimited* usage which is 1 GByte a month for £45 p.c.m.
• Data Travel with unlimited* UK usage which again is 1 GByte a month but includes  100 Mbytes of roaming data on Vodafone’s preferred networks and costs £95 per month
• the half an offering is their 3G Broadband wireless router offering which provides you with up to 10 GBytes of data download and a wireless router for £149 per month

O2 Mobile Data Packages:

O2 win the prize for honesty they don’t have an unlimited* tariff they have O2 Data Max 1024 with, you guessed it a 1024 Mbytes limit for, surprise surprise £45 a month, I find this a bit of a disappointment as my first exposure to mobile data was through O2 (then Cellnet) and their 9.6 kbits dial up data tariff on my Nokia 2110, they led the pack briefly but damn are they out of touch today.

T-Mobile Mobile Data Packages:

T-Mobile seem to be leading the pack at the moment, not only do they go for the honest approach in naming (they have web’n'walk plus and web’n'walk MAX) WnW Plus gets you 3 GBytes of transfer for £24.68 and MAX gets you a relatively whopping 10 GBytes for £37.45 (that’s £45 incl for you and me) – as I said I’ll test the coverage out and report back but anecdotal evidence seems promising.

Oh and with plus VoIP is a no no – I assume they block ports on MAX VoIP is allowed

the cherry is that for a limited time ( until end of March) you get free access to all of T-Mobile’s 1500 WiFi Hotspots (plus 300 Openzone roaming minutes a month ) until your contract is up (normally £8.51) 

3 - here are their tariffs for what they are worth

In my opinion  avoid 3 like the plague because their data tariffs  have a very nasty sting in their tail. Remember 3 don’t have their own 2G network so in addition to the 1 GByte limit on their Web and Office 1GB (duh) you have a limit of  154 Mbytes  on roaming networks - roaming networks like 3′s own borrowed   2G network in the UK – not only will it be slow but over step the limit and forget using GPRS when the 3G signal fails you. Not worth the risk really

for the time being, providing coverage is what it’s made out to be the T-Mobile offering looks most promising  however surely it can only be a matter of time until someone offers all you can eat data tariffs maybe funded by advertising.

Blyk plan to offer a  (totally ?) free advertising funded mobile network to young people (37 is young right?) which is  a great idea.

There might be room for a mobile operator to try this with a sponsored browser like good old old Opera (v 5 or less I think ) or something  like this idea I had  might not work in a business environment but someone should try it.

waste of time and money

Caroline Spelman introduced a private members bill which was supposed to protect the green spaces in the UK that are now designated as brown field sites for the purposes of redevelopment. Now I don’t agree with most of  Mrs Spelman’s views but I do have some sympathy for her position on this point. however it’s actually irrelevant what Mrs Spelman’s position is as this bill like many other private members bills is going to get talked out of parliament.

a pre determined waste of time

In our business we are always conscious of the costs invested in a meeting, put simplistically, an account manager invites two consultants to a meeting that takes two hours and requires two hours driving time has a nominal invested cost of  2 x £1000 per day x 1/2  or £1000 which has to be recovered before the opportunity is profitable.

this is the fourth time this matter has been discussed in recent months on this occasion the debate had 19 active participants and took 4 hours 45 minutes.

£60000 for say 46 weeks gives a weekly wage of £1304 for five days work being generous at 10 hours a day gives an hourly rate of £26  gives a total invested cost of £2350 this excludes associated hangers on.

now this is £2350 of our money, assuming a similar outlay each time this is debated we’re at £11000 down the drain and more to come.

to be honest it’s time this preposterous practice is halted, only debate bills that stand a chance of being treated properly. no wonder politicians have lost our respect when they blather on about waste in the NHS when they’ve just thrown over half a nurses salary away 0n nothing

Delete all files

in a bizarre realworld example of Dilbert’s voice- activated computer gag it seems vista is listening to you… all the time…. and the voice activation can be made to react to sounds coming out of the computer.

described as the first exploit for Vista Microsoft’s new flagship OS this is a somewhat elaborate means to knobble your pomcuter (as my niece calls it) by playing a WAV through a webpage and using voice activation to ‘ delete all files’.

reminds me of fun with sub7 but does offer an interesting opportunity for digital eavesdropping – gabe Newell should beware ;)

Microsoft’s response is to turn off your speakers presumably allowing you to take advantage of the incredible multi monomedia capabilities of Vista ultimate.

that’s my WOW bill

trident – or better ways to spend £20bn

now this is an odd one, Tony has announced that due to the terrorist threat we need to maintain and upgrade (albeit to a lesser extent) our super dooper multi-multi-megaton-warhead-bearing submarine delivered nuclear ‘deterrent’. the reasoning ? well I’ll quote:

“it would be unwise and dangerous for Britain, alone of any of the nuclear powers, to give up its independent nuclear deterrent.”

 ”it is not utterly fanciful” to “imagine states sponsoring nuclear terrorism from their soil”.

I have three problems with this course we seem to be being steered upon :

The deterrence premise is fundamentally flawed 

I can’t believe is there anyone who actually thinks ( and I include the leaders of these sponsoring powers ) that Britain would consider a retaliatory let alone pre-emptive nuclear strike against  another nation to defend ourselves against an actual or perceived threat. no British prime minister would dare risk such a strike as they would be roundly condemned probably hounded from office and would leave a truly monstrous legacy. if anyone did consider such a course they are patently insane and should not be allowed access to such power.

As world diplomats we need to appear consistent 

How can we be so hypocritical to  insist that other countries do not strive to acquire a nuclear capability when we feel it’s so important that we have one? politicians in the UK still insist on referring to us as a world power, I’m not sure that we can lay claim to this anymore as to be honest most of what we do can have little effect on theworld as a whole – sure we hang around with the big boys and rubber stamp their descisions but does anyone actually listen. if we have a role it’s as the world diplomatic corps and we need to appear balanced and impartial. having a medium sized stick and hanging around with the biggest boy in the playground does nothing for us,better to be the peace maker.

it’s appalling value for money  

if we’re really worried about deterrence we should take the £20bn and invest it in improving the lot of persecuted people around the world, as we are all supposed to be petrified of moslem extremism a mere £100m  put into improved sanitation and healthcare in Ramallah would go far further than 20 times that spent on a cold war weapons system better suited for levelling cities than taking out suicide bombers.  Unlike other courses of action philanthropy goes a long way to neutralising threats from within and without and has no restrictive effect on the british populace.