Just a little too late in the day, I discover that March 24th is Computer Shutdown Day!

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Geogreeting and Twittervision are two interesting mashups of Google maps.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of both of them - interesting to watch for a short while though.

Wonder who’s reading what and where?
The BBC have an interesting newstracker…

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Review of Nokia 6280 on the Three 3g network in the UK.

This kind of got a bit longer than I was expecting, but I hope by chucking a few keywords in here and there, I can help other people to find solutions to things (like the phone root certificate problem) a little quicker, and all in one place. This mainly applies to the UK Three 3G network V5.92 software version of the 6280, but may apply to other phones.
Four main sections to this:

Purchase (how I found the phone)
The phone and its problems
When Things Go Wrong
Useful Links

————————————————————
The Purchase

My old Nokia 2600 was starting to die, and every time I went out, I would take the mobile phone, a camera, an mp3 player and a radio.
I had a look on t’internet, but was rather wary of scams. And so it was that I found myself trawling the high street playing hardball with various tossy salesmen and girls.

Then I went into another store (not named in case some twot complains). The usual patter, the “pretend friend” salesgirl who went all flirty and drew crap like hearts and x’s all over the “here’s the deal I can offer you” bit of paper she was writing out. Actually, it wasn’t a bad deal, but when I got to the “look, I’m going to think about it stage”, she sent the manager over.
I explained that my reluctance was not the deal, it was the way the refunds worked - having to remember to claim chequebacks in exactly the right way - the claim form must arrive between 9 and 9:30 on the third Tuesday after the last full moon, and be opened by a lady called Doris.

As had been perfected at so many other stores, I stood and said “thanks, but I’m going to keep wandering, I might be back”. At which point, the manager pulled £60 out of his pocket and said “would this help?”.

I sat back down.

I’d already done the “what would it take” sums in my head. This tipped the balance.

Here’s how I worked it out (probably wrongly)

Previously, I was averaging about £15 per month on PAYG.
The texts were 5p, the calls were 10p with Tesco. If I compare it to the 18 month minimum contract, it would work out at: 18months * £15 = £270…and no new phone.

With the extra £60, the contract worked out like this on paper:

6months*£4.99 = £29.94
6months*£17.50 = £105
6months*£35 = £210
Round to £345

If we ignore the “wow factor” of the fact that I get more minutes and texts than I was using before, then we can look at it thus:

I would be paying £75 more over the 18 months than if I stuck with Tesco.
A “sim free” 6280 is about £185 from a “proper” shop (ie:not stolen!)
So, £185 - £75 = £110. Therefore, the phone is “costing” me £110.
However, in spite of being appallingly bad build quality, and riddled with bugs like “there’s no way to make the backlight stay on > 10 seconds, even while playing a game”, it’s still not bad. It does all I want it to.

The plan I went for is this:
http://www.three.co.uk/personal/price_plans_/pay_monthly_/plan_detail.omp?cid=1124817779969
I get 400 minutes and 250 texts, 25 UK video call minutes, 25 UK picture or video messages and £5 of downloads/internet/TV/whatever.

BUT if I look at it this way:
400 minutes @ 10p = £40
250 texts @ 5p/min £12.50
so that’s £52.50/month *18 = £945

From what people tell me, an MMS message is about 35p and a video call is about 50p/min (trust me; it’s not even worth it when it’s free!)

Oh, and you get £5 a month to spend on whatever… TV (50p/day), downloads, games (not worth it - tiny and unplayable) etc.

So if I add that:
£5*18 = £90
25 MMS * 35p =£8.75 * 18 = £157.50
25 video * 50p = £12.50 * 18 = £225

If I add the WHOLE lot together (which I didn’t do when factoring it
all out as I’m not likely to use much of the last bits), for an 18
month cost of £345 I’m getting a grand total of £1602.50 of product
and phone!
Which I declare to be an actual bargain!

D’ya think I spent too much time working all this out?!?! Found a better plan?

I checked my stats at the end of the first month
I’ve managed to get to 5-and-a-half hours from the end of the month
with the following left:
Voice minutes 14
Video minutes 0
Text messages 6
Downloads £0.05
Inclusive video or photo messages 0

Not bad timing! And the packet data log says I’ve downloaded 39.11Mb and uploaded 9.132Mb in the last month. That’ll be the tv and stuff
probably. Not going to surf the net much

One bizarre thing - mobile phone insurance (wangled free from my bank to stop me leaving) takes 21 days to kick in. And a coded keylock is essential, then if someone nicks it, they can’t even use the minutes up. Annoying to unlock each time, but infinitely less annoying than having a chav use your minutes!

————————————————————
The phone itself.
I don’t need to tell you what it’s got - the Nokia site can tell you that. But here’s how I found it in practice:

I once read someone asking “What is 3g”?
The answer given was “It’s an effective way of reducing your battery life by 40%”.
Yes, yes it is. That’s all I’ll say on that! If you like a battery life of under one day if you even think about doing anything remotely 3g-ish, even when the battery’s fully conditioned, then 3g is for you!

The build quality is quite poor - I found myself back in the store within 20 minutes as, the first time I tried to slide the back of the phone off, the tacky silver coloured bit of plastic that covers the camera pinged off.

Also, the phone doesn’t feel like it slides open properly, and doesn’t leave enough room to press the top row of keys easily, so if you have large hands texting is no fun.

It crashes. Lots. The screen blanks for a second, then it comes back asking for pin code.
Nokia know about this - there’s no fix.

The backlight only stays on for 10 seconds. There’s NO way to fix this, and Nokia say this is due to some bizarre EU law that they can’t tell me about and

no-one’s ever heard of, about backlights being on for more than 10 seconds in case it’s distracting in a car.
This is daft - you’re driving along, the radio’s on, the dashboard lights are on, you’ve got your eyes open for bright yellow speed cameras, other cars with lights on are whizzing by, your brain’s processing object and hazards…but somehow you’re gonna crash because the backlight goes off after 30 seconds instead of 10!?!?
Don’t believe it for one moment - there’s a bug they seemingly can’t fix, and this is a weak cover-up.

When you send an MMS to many people at once, each recipient can see the other recipients when they do a reply via “reply all”.
Potentially a security problem, or very embarrassing!
There’s no documentation to tell you this and apparently no way of stopping it.

If you create an MMS and add a sound to a slide via “new sound” option, every other sound in that message will actually be the first sound. In other words, you have to record and save all your sounds first, and then add them to the message later. Definite bug.

The video player doesn’t have fast forward or rewind, even though there’s a setting for fast forward and rewind interval.
The Audio player has fast forward and rewind, even through there’s no setting for the fast forward and rewind interval.

I learnt that an MMS can contain as many object as will fit in 267k.
I sent 6 pics and a sound clip to several people. Works fine.
Although, one time when it fell back from 3g to “normal”, it took nearly 3 hours sending the MMS as a series of texts! Of course, it doesn’t use the text allowance, but it’s annoying having the “me me-me me me-me me” sound that radios pick up, all that time!
It seems totally random as to how much will arrive at the other end before it gets cropped - mostly, people get the first few pics, then something telling them to visit a website to see the rest.

You can’t save MMS messages to the PC.
You can’t save messages onto the memory card.
You can’t use a Three sim in any other type of phone, or those SIM copier/backup gadgets.

The camera’s not bad - for some examples of “second highest” quality see either
http://www.mythreewebsite.co.uk/36810
or more here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitaltoast/sets/72157600007407996/

Video calls are shocking - one to my brother had the sound out of synch (late) by nearly 50 seconds! Waste of time. As is mobile TV. The novelty very, very quickly wears off.

————————————————————
When Things Go Wrong:

I was bluetoothing some stuff and the phone was starting to play up.
So, I turned it off, left it a minute, and turned it back on. It asked me for the pin, then as soon as it got to saying “enter keypad security code” (or

something) that was it. The phone became totally unresponsive. If I rang the phone from another phone, I could hear the “ring ring” down the line, but the phone did nothing. But it DID keep the time correctly. I turned it off, took everything out - sim, memory card, battery..left it out for 20 mins, put it back…just the same.
It seemed to freeze right after the bluetooth symbol came on.
And the battery drained from full to near empty in under 2 hours.

So, I phoned up Three’s customer service department.
Shradeep in Bangalore diligently regurgitated a script and then I explained carefully that as soon as I’d entered the pin, the phone would freeze and the keypad did not work.
“OK please sir please, if I can please ask you please to please enter *0000#”.

Deep breath. I tried so hard not be rude.

Once I’d ever-so-slowly explained that frozen phone and non-working keypad made this tricky, he told me that I should get it couriered away for a firmware

upgrade.
I said that this would be great as I didn’t know there WAS a firmware upgrade, as I’d been told v5.92 was the latest.
It was, he said, and then we went through a cyclical argument until I got bored and gave up.

So then I phoned the place I bought it from.
“Duh” reached a new level.

I explained carefully that as soon as I’d entered the pin, the phone would freeze and the keypad did not work.
I also explained that I’d contacted Three’s customer services.

“You need to dial 3333 from your handset to get the phone repaired”.

What, on the handset I’d just explained didn’t work? Classy.

Eventually, I ended up in a Nokia service centre.
Apparently, it can take “up to 28 days”.

No, I don’t get a replacement phone.
No, the account isn’t put on hold.

I’m really not enjoying the experience so far!

————————————————————
Useful links

Top tip - synch your mobile with the internet and
Google Calendar - VERY VERY useful:
https://zyb.com/
http://www.gcalsync.com/

Links to forums:
Reviewcentre Three forum:
http://www.reviewcentre.com/forum210.html

3g Forum’s Nokia 6280 forum
http://www.3g.co.uk/3GForum/forumdisplay.php?f=496

Nokia Support Forums phone forum
http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/board?board.id=phones

Talk 3Gs 6280 forum
http://www.talk3g.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=106

I also found this comprehensive forum post listing more problems with the 6280
http://www.talk3g.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2381

How to convert movies onto a mobile
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?title=MediaCoder_Mobile_Phone_HOWTO
http://osnews.com/story.php/16983/Tutorial-Get-Your-Movies-on-Your-Cellphone/

Cheap memory cards: I got a 2gb miniSD card for £12:
http://www.mobymemory.com/

And cheap accessories come from these people:
http://www.directmobileaccessories.co.uk/

The gmail mobile app is great, but on the 6280 it just wasn’t working. The error was:
“Sorry, the Gmail mobile app will not work on your phone. Your phone doesn’t have the appropriate certificate to communicate with Gmail. Try accessing Gmail on your mobile browser at http://m.gmail.com”
Eventually, I found this blog:
http://tiensoon.blogspot.com/2006/11/gmail-mobile-app-is-great-but-doesnt.html
which in turn told me to point my phone at
https://www.verisign.com/cgi-bin/support/rootcert/getrootcert.cer
And this made the gmail mobile app work

Something I’ve not found yet is an nbu decoder - so I can actually make some use of the backup files!
I’ve found and nfb decoder here: http://engo.de/nfb_decode.htm but Nokia decided to completely change the format and make it not backwards compatible (much to the annoyance of Nokia users upgrading their phones)

Oh, and finally, a general blog for all that’s new in the mobile industry: http://www.smstextnews.com/

Phew! I think that covers it - any questions?!?

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I was driving home one evening when I heard what sounded like a Sinclair Spectrum playing music across the airwaves.
I can’t remember the name if the station, but the show appeared to be presented by someone with a westcountry access so thick all I could make out was the words Micromusic.net and podcasticles.

Proper weird it was, but if you like your music 8-bit and retro, check it out! Anyone know what station it was?

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10 years ago, Rosie Boycott, the wibbling liberal nutjob who was editor of The Independent at the time thought
“I know, cannabis is a psychosis-inducing drug which causes permanent and irreversable damage to the user.
We’d be down with the hip kids if we called for de-criminalisation”.

Well, we’ve all puffed a joint in our past. Personally, I can leave it. All it did was make me sleepy and hungry.
And I can get the same effect from ‘aving a wank, and without the stains on my teeth (unless I’m really unlucky).

Ten years on, they print a retraction…

We report today that the number of cannabis users on drug treatment programmes has risen 13-fold since our campaign was launched, and that nearly half of the 22,000 currently on such programmes are under the age of 18. Of course, part of the explanation for this increase is that the provision of treatment is better than it was 10 years ago. But there is no question, as Robin Murray, one of the leading experts in this field, argues on these pages, that cannabis use is associated with growing mental health problems.

And that took you ten years to work out??

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