Well 2009 came and went quickly, the majority of it was spent buying and then moving into our first home (more on that another time). I then proceeded to spend the last 6 months thinking about what I want to use this site for and very little time doing anything about it. Yesterday I started to make a few changes, I configured WordPress as the CMS behind the whole site rather than just being used for a blog. It’s not my ideal solution but it’s a start in the right direction at the very least. I’m looking for a bliki type solution really along the same lines as Yaki that powers Tao of Mac. But until I find a Java based version that I like it’ll do for now, should allow me to focus on the content rather than the mechanism for getting the content online anyway. I’ve also dropped the “www.” from the URL for the site, it was long enough anyway!
I think I’ve got WordPress configured correctly just need to go through all the posts and fix any broken links and images due to the mod_rewrite/redirect rules I’ve put in place. Next thing on the list is to scrap the current theme and go with “Twenty Ten” until I either find a minimalistic theme I like or make my own.
Hopefully this post should still show up on the old feed link? In future the link to the Atom feed for this site will be: http://jonathanbullock.com/feed/atom/
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.
I read Getting Things Done by David Allen last summer after owning the book for nearly 3 years and I’ve been trying to adopt the principles outlined in the book since then, not very well I might add!
As part of my New Year’s resolutions I’d like to improve my adoption of the GTD methodology and will no doubt re-read the book (as it suggests) or even grab an audio version of it. I’ve also become a member of the GTD group on Facebook and started following a couple of GTD focused blogs in the hope these will improve my understanding of the basic principles and provide a few helpful tips along the way.
I came across this video clip the other day (via DIGTD) that helped me visualise some of the items outlined in the GTD book.
Humble Pie was a fascinating read for someone who enjoys watching pretty much all of the TV programmes Gordon Ramsay is involved with. Although I’m quite a fan of autobiographies in general anyway. I’m about half way through this book already and just like the first I’m finding it hard to put down!
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!
Bit late with this post seeing as we’ve just entered 2009 and the regular NFL season is now over but I thought I’d post it anyway! Here are my photos from the NFL International Series 2008 game between the San Diego Chargers & New Orleans Saints at Wembley, my first ever life NFL game.
I was very happy with the result of the game (in case you didn’t watch it the Saints won!) it was a great game to watch overall, plenty of high powered offense on show although it was a shame Reggie Bush couldn’t make the game due to injury. The atmosphere at the game was excellent, I was bit worried about this but I was proved wrong in the end. The view from our seats was better than I expected too, I wasn’t too sure whether we’d be able to follow the game but we could make everything out very well. It’s a completely different experience as you get to see how every part of the play develops rather than just following what the TV cameras choose. Having said that I still watched the game again when I got home in case I missed anything!
Apart from it being my first ever live NFL game It was also my first time to Wembley, although it took bloody ages to build it is a fantastic venue! Roll on 2009 and the Patriots v Buccaneers!
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.
While I’m on the subject of AVG 8 this one has been bugging me for a while now. If you don’t want AVG 8 LinkScanner putting annoying little green stars next to your web search results then you can disable the LinkScanner component in the AVG UI. However this causes AVG to show you a nice big error icon in the systray area.
I spent ages trying to stop it from doing this when AVG 8 first came out but couldn’t find an option anywhere. Looks like a recent update has resolved this as you can now right click on the LinkScanner component and select the ‘Ignore component state’ option to stop AVG reporting the fact that you’ve disabled it as an error!
