Nokia N8 - what's missing

Dear Nokia,

As you choosed to use 'leak method' to ask from audience, I shall answer you. N8 is missing following things; hardware keyboard, Jabber IM support, GPG capable email client and finaly; meego.

Ubuntu on SSD

Great, my SSD installation went flawlessly and now I am running fresh ubuntu on my Thinkpad EDGE. On 64 GB Kingston V+ SSD drive I have now system like it was in my old hard drive. I just love Linux.

How about speed? Yes. It's noticeably faster to boot and open programs. But what matters for me is the fact that now I do have more robust drive in this laptop and carrying thing around or driving in a car with it won't be a problem. I also tried out 10.04 beta version of ubuntu on that another computer and _that was fast_ to boot. I hardly can wait next Thursday when release is out.

What about you Windows user? What did you accomplished today ?

Phones :: part IV

While my ubuntu is still downloading, I took family picture of my equipments. Bellow few fast thoughts;

E71 is warrior, nothing more than great phone. Suffers a bit from Symbian syndrome, but does a great job with voice and sms communication. I wish I could have jabber integration in this as in N900.

3720C is basic without worries to break it down. I just love S40 interface, making it fast and furious to use. But again, lacking with decent capabilities to communicate in other that operators network. This is backup phone for me, in case I get kernel panic with my N900.

N900 is currently my main phone, I wish Nokia would understand and release full potential of meego (maemo). Now I can handle everything with this phone, from GPG to SSH and communication from voice, sms to jabber and skype (which I do not like).

Last is N97 mini, as I posted earlier - it should act as wakeup call to Nokia. Do not play with symbian anymore, try to make it anything more than it's capable.

So, my SIM flies between these phones quite often, depending what I need to explore.

SSD is here

SSD is here. Just spent some money for Kingston SSDnow V+ series drive and Intel X25-V. Plans include to put them in real work today.

Playing with Linux is nice, because I just can download latest version, tar my home directory and I am ready to switch. There is no hassle with various other softwares, everything is included. Few apt-get install commands and I am back on track (hopefully) with my SSD installation. I plan to install kingston to my Thinkpad EDGE and intel to one customer project running Linux as well. And yes, I also got new USB hard drive, Lacie rikiki - which I use to transfer all data from place to place. Thing I did for Lacie was luks format and ext3, so no windows dummies are able to explore my data in case I lost my drive.

N97 mini disaster

I've been playing with new N97 mini and other symbian devices as we acquired mini for some evaluation purposes this week. I tried to adjust my functions to end user mode and checked out various N97 mini issues along a way.


Few things crossed my mind:

• N97 mini is nice hardware, quality built.
• Keyboard is missing accent charters (ä and ö) which are needed way too often in Finnish language. This is real pain.
• S60 with tweaked touch support is disaster. It's lacking and is totally missing user experience.
  
• Comes with music is nice, but DRM is killing this. No future as big audience finds out this DRM non sense. I rather use download.netanttila.com for DRM free MP3's.

And where N900 beats N97 mini and other symbian devices; integrated and third party IM-client support. Our functions are heavily based to open IM solutions and XMMP plays major role in there. No wonder Nokia is in difficult position, they need operators (especially in US) and while playing with them, they lose in technology.

I see symbian to fit low end keyboard devices, but please Nokia. Face it, Symbian is dead in high level devices and no matter what Kallasvuo is saying, drop it. I recall times when epoc/symbian was something and it was back in 1995 in my Psion.

Virtual Zippo Lighter [NOKIA]

I received SMS from Nokia, my business partner to my business phone (freely translated);

"Virtual Zippo Lighter application you can make your device touchscreen act like Zippo lighter..."

Great Nokia!

Just what I needed from you, Zippo lighter. Give me SDK capable to penetrate to business applications, give me GPG compatible email clients (S60, Maemo) - give me Jabber client to my E71. Almost anything else than Zippo lighter is needed. Guys at keilaniemi (in nokia hq), take elevator downstairs and find a mirror.

Impressions of Lenovo EDGE

After two nights, I am still happy owner of Lenovo EDGE laptop. Even I do not have firmware files for Gobi modem, I believe I fetch them somewhere later on.

Ubuntu 9.10 alternative brings me all benefits being mobile worker, when needed. I can sync my desktop and laptop contents, handle secure emailing and enjoy fully encrypted hard drive, making my business safe and sound. I do not have to worry buying virus protection (79 € / year), microsoft office (236 € / year) or other windows magic, I just keep pushing my limits with secure, scalable and easy to use Linux.

What makes be happy with Lenovo Edge is big screen and decent keyboard. What I do not like is touch bad, which is kind of troubled place all the time. Front edge is too sensitive and using touch pad buttons leads often to mouse movement as well.

Lenovo Thinkpad Edge - I never saw windows 7

My trustworthy Panasonic CF-w7 got tired. Toughbook was not tought enough and fan tired first and our rescue attempt failed miserably. So, I took a fast decision to fulfil my business computing needs with Lenovo Thinkpad Edge (13.3").

I bought it from verkkokauppa.com for 887 €. I just walked in and google searched some Linux support and while it was clear that Intel model was ok with Ubuntu, I took a decision to move forward. And now follows the nicest part.

After getting back to office, I gave windows 7 a change and looked sticker on machine. After that USB stick in and ubuntu 9.10 alternative got installed in this. Copied few tar files containing my personal data and email home directory and I was ready to fly. Everything works out of the box nicely, except Gobi modem. Firmware files blew with a windows and I need to hunt them down somewhere. I bet qualcom cannot help me there. No problem, help from corporate side has never been useful.

So for my Linux fellows; this is nice, cheap and solid computer. Supporting nicely Linux. Just remember to stay far away of AMD version of this same model. Black and Intel is working.