Edimax EW-7811Un on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

I’ve recently re-purposed my old desktop PC to be a server running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. As it’s an old box it’s not exactly quiet so I placed it under the stairs which posed a problem connection wise. In the end I decided to connect it up via wireless rather than run an Ethernet cable to it, so after doing a bit of research I went for the Edimax EW-7811Un nano USB adaptor from Amazon.

According to the Edimax web site Linux drivers were available for it and there were a few posts on the Ubuntu forums & wiki saying that people had got it working:

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1590873
• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1744371
• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsEdimax

The USB adaptor uses the RealTek rtl8192cu chip according to this Debian wiki page and the filename of the Edimax driver package.

I tried the Edimax drivers first but I was getting pretty random results so I switched to RealTek’s  own drivers which seemed a lot more stable, and they seem to update them quite often too.

Devotion to Apple

I read Marco’s post about the Asus Zenbook and I have a bit of an issue with his view. Is he certain that logic board design was Apple’s and not Intel’s or a manufacturers like Foxconn? Even if it was Apple’s did they not simply copy the overall product design of companies such as Sony, who have had a range of powerful yet portable laptops out for a while, or Dell (with the Latitude X1) with the MacBook Air?

Don’t get me wrong I’m a fan of Marc’s blog and I’d love a MacBook Pro laptop again but I do have an issue with the blind devotion some Apple users have to the Apple brand sometimes.

The Kindle

(Note: I started this post before getting a Kindle for Christmas.)

I’m very intrigued by the Amazon Kindle.

Up until now I hadn’t been tempted by any of the ebook readers available, a couple of things put me off. The price of those available in stores such as Waterstones and the doubt in my mind that the experience would be just as good as reading a book. This is quite strange in itself as I usually I don’t need much persuasion to want a new gadget!

Reading the reviews of it by Matt & Mark have, ever so slowly, increased the desire to own one. Especially Mark’s article, before reading it I was probably guilty of lumping the Kindle & iPad in the same category.

I don’t really travel that much compared to others in work but when I do I like to read on the plane, I’ve never been one for just listening to music. On the last few trips I’ve found myself struggling to decide which books to take with me, and slowly realised this is the huge benefit of having an ebook reader like the Kindle.

The price of the Kindle is another major selling point, at £109 £111 even if I don’t find it as good as reading a normal book it’s not a huge lose.

I’m intrigued enough to actually purchase one.

Testing WordPress for Android

Giving the WordPress client for Android a try on my HTC Desire.

Testing text formatting: bold, italics, underline, strikeout & link.

Blockquote text.

Photo taken from phone.

Android LifeSaver

Last week I upgraded my mobile from the HTC Magic to the HTC Desire (I might get round to posting a review sometime) direct with Vodafone. While all my contacts, e-mails and calendar entries are stored in the cloud by Google my text messages aren’t and these are equally important to me. Thankfully I came across the LifeSaver app by Tim Bray a while ago and it came in very handy!

It backs up your text messages and call log to your MicroSD card which you can transfer to your new phone and restore them from. Very basic app but it does the job perfectly.

Nokia E71 shortcuts

I came across this list of shortcuts for the Nokia E71 recently. It has some useful notes especially pressing ‘T’ to focus the camera, even though Nokia list “autofocus” as a feature of the camera. This improves the quality of the camera somewhat but the images are still nowhere near good enough.

Fring – IM & VoIP client

I needed a Google Talk client on my mobile a while ago and discovered Fring, they provide a Symbian client (as well as other platforms) that allows you to connect to most of the IM networks (Google Talk, MSN, AIM, ICQ, Y! & Skype) as well as providing free VoIP calls to other Fring users at least.

I’ve been using it on my Nokia E71 quite a bit, it’s a pretty good mobile IM client although your friends seem to get ads with every message you send. The VoIP side works pretty well too, even spoke to someone while they were down in South America!

Nokia E71 review

I’ve had my Nokia E71 for nearly 3 months now and overall I’m extremely pleased with it.

Looks

FIrst off it looks gorgeous (the black version anyway, the white version looks a bit cheap to me) and feels great in your hand, it has a good solid feel to it.

I’m sad to say this but it really shows how bad the Nokia N95 was when it comes to looks. Although updating the look & feel of the Nseries seems to be Nokia’s goal at the moment, the N96 & N85 both sport the same similar design.

Keyboard

It’s a decent weight (not to heavy) and has a great texture to the back of it that improves your grip. The QWERTY keyboard looks very small at first but each key has a slightly raised curve to it that makes it surprisingly easy to use.

Theme/Icons

The themes/icons provided are pretty bad really, the first thing you should do is install the Eseries E71 theme – it’s the default Eseries theme with the Flahorn Icon Pack included (icons based on those available in S60v3).  I know the Eseries is targeted at business users but they can appreciate eye candy too! The default icon pack is bloody awful if you ask me!

GPS

The on board GPS locks on a heck of a lot quicker than my old N95 used, I double checked this against a co-wokers N95 too. The E71 seems to leave the GPS device on after it’s first locked on to reduce the time it takes to lock on in future.

Battery

The battery life is absolutely excellent. My E71 is typically used for calls/texts, browsing at home using wifi, e-mail using Nokia’s push beta service and occasionally as a data modem for my laptop and it usually lasts 4-5 days without needing a charge. I tend not to use the 3G network as the coverage can be hit and miss up here in North Wales, but it’s not a huge drain on the battery life. If what I said about the GPS is correct I assume this is a benefit of the excellent battery the E71 has.

Camera

Camera quality is awful. I really hope they improve the quality with a firmware update as it’s pretty much unusable as it is. The poor quality was mentioned in a few reviews I read prior to ordering the phone but I didn’t expect it to be as bad as it is, when they said purple they really meant it! While it’s a decent 3.2MP camera the quality is actually worse than my old SE W810i 2MP which is nearly 3 years old now!

Signal Strength

Signal strenth is OK but not as good as the N95 when coverage is poor. I’ve only noticed this as in work coverage is not the best, where as the N95 would have at least 2 bars of signal my E71 struggles to access the network.

UI

The UI is snappy as you’d expect it to be, however it is an improvement when compared to the UI on the N95 but then the N95 UI was pretty slow even with the latest firmware update. Strange considering both the N95 & E71 run the same version of Symbian OS (v9.2) & S60 (FP1)?

Firmware

The quality of the camera and UI speed on the N95 was significantly improved with firmware updates however I had to change the product code to be able to get at those firmware updates from Nokia. My E71 is running firmware 100.07.76 and while there is an update available it’s not yet available to Vodafone UK users. I’ll probably resort to changing the product code on this device too to benefit from the newer updates rather than wait for Vodafone to get round to releasing it! Having said that the initial firmware supplied with the phone has proven to be quite stable, I haven’t come across any major bugs in it myself so far.

Elsewhere

Looking around the Internet the Nokia E71 seems to have had a pretty good year:

• Dialaphone have listed the E71 in their 2008 mobile phone highlights.
• The Tao of Mac has picked the E71 as his phone of the Year.
• Mobile Choice voted the E71 as phone of the year & smartphone of the year.

Nokia E71

After saying back in June that I was going to get an iPhone 3G and then, in August that I was looking at the Nokia N96 instead, I’ve now gone and got a Nokia E71!

I thought about what I use my mobile for right now and it’s mainly used for Internet access while I’m at home and the keypad on my N95 is a right pain when it comes to entering URL’s and text. I realised I miss the full QWERTY keyboard that my old Treo 650 had so I started looking at devices with a full keyboard and came across the E71.

It got good reviews by AAS, Joel and a couple of other sites, and all have said pictures don’t do the phone any justice when comes it how good it looks and feels in your hand. It runs the same version of S60 & Symbian OS as my N95 which is a major plus point for me (more on S60/Symbian later).

Vodafone were also extremely pro-active in keeping me, they called me out of the blue to advise me that I’m eligible for an upgrade and when I asked them to call me back a couple of days later they did. They offered me an improved contract package (I’m saving £7.50 a month but getting more for my money) without me having to ask along with giving me the E71 for free and all on a 12 month contract.

I’ve had the device a couple of weeks now so expect a review sometime soon.

BBC iPlayer crashing BT HomeHub?

I’ve just tried to watch 2 clips of events at the Bejing Olympic’s through the Flash based version of BBC’s iPlayer on my PowerBook. Each time I did I heard my BT HomeHub click to say it’s restarting. The first time it did I just assumed it was just a random crash. The second time I thought something was definitely up as I’ve never had the HomeHub crash twice so quickly, it’s been rock solid for the past 10 months. I can’t believe a Flash based piece of software could actually crash my HomeHub but it does seem that way. I’ve watched BBC content via the BTVision box before (while it was free!) and not had a problem?