I had some questions regarding Nokia E61i as modem for my Macbook Pro in the past. I have posted how I got that working as a comment on one of the E61i posts (the one about Nokia and Papyrus, I'll dig up the link).
Please, read my comment, and post further questions here!
Btw, I am posting this from my Macbook Pro connected to the 'net over bluetooth and the E61i. So it works!
update: This is the interesting post!
Take care,
Showing posts with label e61i. Show all posts
Showing posts with label e61i. Show all posts
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Nokia E61i and Papyrus
Hi, I got some questions about the E61i and Papyrus. To be more exact, the question was if it was possible to see detailed notes on tasks and events. Today I have downloaded and installed a trial version of Papyrus for Symbian S60, v.9.1. The version of Papyrus I have installed is 1.2.13, as the latest version, 1.2.14, use some funny language when used on my E61i with Norwegian menus.
I can at least confirm that the longer notes does show up when Papyrus is used. So you guys out there who want the notes and like to use Papyrus - you can go ahead and make the purchase.
Besides that, thanks for the tip about Papyrus. It looks some much nicer than the default calendar application! I guess I have to buy it in order to test it as default calendar application (now, I have to open it each time I want to look at it). Comments are appreciated on that.
Take care,
I can at least confirm that the longer notes does show up when Papyrus is used. So you guys out there who want the notes and like to use Papyrus - you can go ahead and make the purchase.
Besides that, thanks for the tip about Papyrus. It looks some much nicer than the default calendar application! I guess I have to buy it in order to test it as default calendar application (now, I have to open it each time I want to look at it). Comments are appreciated on that.
Take care,
Friday, June 01, 2007
More on FoneLink and phones
A couple of days ago, I raved about the FoneLink program from novamedia, a very slick program for transferring information between my nokia E61i and a OSX machine. After a few more days of use, I realize that iSync still has its niche - the everyday simple syncing is probably better than with iSync. Bur for transferring documents, sounds, pictures, and in general organizing the content on the phone, FoneLink is better.
After blogging about FoneLink here, I got in touch with novamedia. I obtained a bit more information from them about a few issues that I and maybe someone else wonders about.
First, the note or description on events and todos. The reason this does not appear on the E61i and similar phones is that it is not supported by the default calendar app from Nokia. We can beg Nokia to fix this, or we can maybe use something else like papyrus (which I still have not got around to evaluate). At least, FoneLink can not solve this problem.
Further, I had to more questions for the FoneLink guys. As most of you know, the smartphones from SonyEricsson has really terrible support on OSX. So my follow-up to novamedia was whether support for the smartphones (like M600i , P1 and so on) from SonyEricsson was planned. On this question I was told that it is in the works, and probably available in about 3 months time. That will be really great - maybe I can go back to my favorite smartphone :)
My other question was about combining usb and bluetooth for syncing a device with FoneLink. Usually, you just want to connect with bluetooth for the everyday syncing, but from time to time you have larger amount of data you need to transfer. Today, a device in FoneLink is a combination of the device and the connection, so my E61i over bluetooth and the same E61i over usb is two different things. This mean that I can not choose the connection to use dependent on the amount of data I need to transfer. Now, there are ways around this but it will be rather neat if it get supported out of the box. I was told that novamedia is working on this, although I did not get an estimate on when we can expect this to be available.
So much about FoneLink and the great guys at Nova Media doing this fine application.
I have another problem with my E61i - predictive text. With all the smartphones I have had the last years, I have been able to start typing a word and the application I use, whether it is email, sms, or some other text, will suggest matching words from the dictionary. This is something I just expect to be in place, so I didn't gave it a thought at all when buying the E61i. After fiddling with settings and buttons quite a few hours, and reading manuals as well, I went to google. Just to find out that there are no predictive text support on this phone. Some claim in formus and the like that you don't need this on a phone with qwerty keyboard. But they are plain wrong. The M600i from Sony Ericsson for instance, have this - and a full keyboard, and I wrote messages much faster and more comfortable on that one than I do on the E61i.
So if someone hear me - please!
And while I wait for the perfect device, I note that every small device has it strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the manufacturers do this to have people like me hunt for the perfect all the time. I have been on the search for 10 years now, and I am still searching.
For a few days my plan was to replace the Fujitsu Siemens P1510d I am writing this on with the Oqo O2. But now I read online that there seems to be some quality problems with the oqo, which gives me some doubts. The most recent device seems to be the Everun from Raon. In addition there is the new Q1 ultra umpc from Samsung which seems to be interesting, as well as the Fujitsu U8240. I doubt any of these are the perfect device, but maybe close enough that I am willing to give them a try... The big question is of course how well they can run Linux, as I am allergic to bad operating systems.
Take care, folks!
After blogging about FoneLink here, I got in touch with novamedia. I obtained a bit more information from them about a few issues that I and maybe someone else wonders about.
First, the note or description on events and todos. The reason this does not appear on the E61i and similar phones is that it is not supported by the default calendar app from Nokia. We can beg Nokia to fix this, or we can maybe use something else like papyrus (which I still have not got around to evaluate). At least, FoneLink can not solve this problem.
Further, I had to more questions for the FoneLink guys. As most of you know, the smartphones from SonyEricsson has really terrible support on OSX. So my follow-up to novamedia was whether support for the smartphones (like M600i , P1 and so on) from SonyEricsson was planned. On this question I was told that it is in the works, and probably available in about 3 months time. That will be really great - maybe I can go back to my favorite smartphone :)
My other question was about combining usb and bluetooth for syncing a device with FoneLink. Usually, you just want to connect with bluetooth for the everyday syncing, but from time to time you have larger amount of data you need to transfer. Today, a device in FoneLink is a combination of the device and the connection, so my E61i over bluetooth and the same E61i over usb is two different things. This mean that I can not choose the connection to use dependent on the amount of data I need to transfer. Now, there are ways around this but it will be rather neat if it get supported out of the box. I was told that novamedia is working on this, although I did not get an estimate on when we can expect this to be available.
So much about FoneLink and the great guys at Nova Media doing this fine application.
I have another problem with my E61i - predictive text. With all the smartphones I have had the last years, I have been able to start typing a word and the application I use, whether it is email, sms, or some other text, will suggest matching words from the dictionary. This is something I just expect to be in place, so I didn't gave it a thought at all when buying the E61i. After fiddling with settings and buttons quite a few hours, and reading manuals as well, I went to google. Just to find out that there are no predictive text support on this phone. Some claim in formus and the like that you don't need this on a phone with qwerty keyboard. But they are plain wrong. The M600i from Sony Ericsson for instance, have this - and a full keyboard, and I wrote messages much faster and more comfortable on that one than I do on the E61i.
So if someone hear me - please!
And while I wait for the perfect device, I note that every small device has it strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the manufacturers do this to have people like me hunt for the perfect all the time. I have been on the search for 10 years now, and I am still searching.
For a few days my plan was to replace the Fujitsu Siemens P1510d I am writing this on with the Oqo O2. But now I read online that there seems to be some quality problems with the oqo, which gives me some doubts. The most recent device seems to be the Everun from Raon. In addition there is the new Q1 ultra umpc from Samsung which seems to be interesting, as well as the Fujitsu U8240. I doubt any of these are the perfect device, but maybe close enough that I am willing to give them a try... The big question is of course how well they can run Linux, as I am allergic to bad operating systems.
Take care, folks!
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Nokia E61i and FoneLink
Today, there was a post on JKonTheRun about a product named FoneLink. This is supposed to be a better piece of software for syncing information between a Mac and a Symbian S60 based phone.
As I have both a Mac (actually, a couple of them) and the Nokia E61i, I wanted to give it a run. I grabed the demo version at the webpage. Installation was OSX-smooth as usual, and then I launched the application. And, man, this was a smooth experience. It quickly figured out which was the relevant phone among my bluetooth connections, and started collecting information after my confirmation that this was the right device to collect from. It went stright away making a backup of all the information in the phone, but it is also possible to put the backup procedure into the background to perform other tasks at the same time.
I just mess around in the application for a while. This works really smooth, and seems to be so much nicer than the iSync. If I can get this to sync my Mac and the Phone regularly whenever those are close to each other bluetooth-wise, I think this is a keeper.
For those who like to know such things - the notes in events and todos does not seems to be synced over to the phone with this application either. Have to look more carefully into that (and have not got around to test papyrus yet, as suggested in comments here).
This was just a short notice, I have to go to bed now. More on FoneLink if I buy it!
As I have both a Mac (actually, a couple of them) and the Nokia E61i, I wanted to give it a run. I grabed the demo version at the webpage. Installation was OSX-smooth as usual, and then I launched the application. And, man, this was a smooth experience. It quickly figured out which was the relevant phone among my bluetooth connections, and started collecting information after my confirmation that this was the right device to collect from. It went stright away making a backup of all the information in the phone, but it is also possible to put the backup procedure into the background to perform other tasks at the same time.
I just mess around in the application for a while. This works really smooth, and seems to be so much nicer than the iSync. If I can get this to sync my Mac and the Phone regularly whenever those are close to each other bluetooth-wise, I think this is a keeper.
For those who like to know such things - the notes in events and todos does not seems to be synced over to the phone with this application either. Have to look more carefully into that (and have not got around to test papyrus yet, as suggested in comments here).
This was just a short notice, I have to go to bed now. More on FoneLink if I buy it!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Notes on Nokia E61i
A few weeks ago I switched smartphone. The last 6 months I have used the HTC TyTN on a daily basis, and was satisfied with the hardware although I of course have a hard time with the operating system. As I already have written up something on the HTC, I don't want to go into any detail on that. But as you already know, I switched to the Nokia E61i, running the 3rd generation of the S60 system - a old and well proven operating system, but still new to me.
Let us start with the conclusions! The e61i is a solid phone, with a solid operating system. So far I have had to reboot the phone just a couple of times to fix problems with some applications, but not by taking out the battery as I had to do each other day with the TyTN; only third-party applications was locked up and the phone was still functional. So reboot have only been a convenience thing. Other things on the positive side is good messaging functionality, easy access to, and well-functioning wifi system, and great selection of software due to the S60 system. So all in all I am satisfied, and will probably keep it for a while. But read on, there are quite a few things on the negative side as well. For instance, the camera is totally crap.
In the past I have used Windows mobile 5, Sony Ericssons Symbian/UIQ (P800i and M600i), as well as the more regular Sony Ericsson system. While these systems are quite different, the Symbian S60 can be compared to the first two. It is obvious that the S60 have been around for a while, with a lot more bugs nailed out. It feels more solid. Maybe not super-fast all the time, but it does the job. On the negative side, though, there are often too many steps to go through to complete an action. If I want to send an SMS, for instance, I have to go through 5 steps (depending on how you count) on the S60, while on the Sony Ericsson UIQ there are only about 3 steps if you want to send to someone you send to regularly. I haven't done a scientific comparison as I should as a researcher, but in general I feel I have to use more time to perform the same action on the S60 compared to the other two.
On the positive side, you can't get past the large selection of software available for the S60. Maybe comparable to WM5, and far more than what's available for the UIQ. The putty ssh-client is very usable. I also use Fring for Skype/MSN/GTalk and the Gmail application. All work very well. Also, S60 is generally better supported when it comes to sync/desktop access than the other two. While the situation in general is good for all the systems if you use Windows on your computer, the S60 is far better if you are either a linux or osx user like me.
The E61i is light, and it is slim. While the form factor is a bit unusual, it is easy to carry around either in a shirt pocket or in your jacket. I even stick it in the back of my jeans if I have to. But generally I carry it in a Krusell pouch with a belt-clip. As the weight is so low, I hardly recognize it's there.
The display is very good. It's bright in almost any light condition and have better colors than I have had on any phone in the past (and as you know, I have tested quite a few...). While the resolution is not extremely high considering the size of the screen, I have find it to be sufficient for all my needs.
When it comes to the keys, I have to say they are good. The feedback is nice - when I type messages I rarely mistype. As there are many keys on the phone, there are also room for a few shortcuts which helps out with problem I have with to many steps to perform certain actions in the S60 system. But, there is a big downside for me here. It is not comfortable typing on the phone. While the phone is wide for a phone, it is still to small to hold and thumbtype comfortable with my not so very big hands. The TyTN have the keyboard as a slide-out in "landscape" orientation. Hence the keyboard is wider, and much more comfortable. My hands starts aching even when I type moderate sized emails on the E61i, so I rarly do that. Still, if I have to type a message, the system is very capable, and works all the time. So compared to the other smartphones I have used, I have to rate this above them.
I will make the story on the camera supplied in this phone very short. Nokia had some left overs on the shelf. They put it into the E61i. Period. It's too crappy. To be honest, though, I am not sure whether it is the camera it self, or the totally crappy, horrible post processing done in the phone after a picture is captured. It seems that they sharpen every image beyond any reasonable imagination, and bump the saturation as well. Does not look good at all.
The Nokia E61i is equipped with Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G/UMTS, Edge, gprs. A lot of connectivity. From time to time I am not sure which one of these is being used. Probably this is just some details in the S60 symbian system I have to figure out. An example: I open the E-mail application, and connect to my IMAP account on wireless lan in my house. I leave this running in the background, and open the webbrowser to check something. In this case I have recognized that the webbrowser from time to time use either the UMTS or the Edge connection instead of the wifi, althought wifi is already connected. I can not explain what is going on, and whether the fault is mine or Nokias. Maybe I am even mistaken... At least, there are things to be sorted out here.
The conclusion was already given above, so I stop here.
In other news, I have start looking for a replacement for my Fujitsu Siemens P1510 (which I write this on). I am looking at either the oqo O2, or some of the newer UMPCs. Fujitsu Siemens is also out with a small thingy. But I'm not in a hurry on this.
Also, I will travel to WWDC'07 and then USENIX'07 (in San Francisco and Santa Clara, respectively) in mid-june. If someone want to meet up and discuss Qtpfsgui on Mac, small devices, have a flickr-meetup, or something else - please drop me a comment!
Take care.
Let us start with the conclusions! The e61i is a solid phone, with a solid operating system. So far I have had to reboot the phone just a couple of times to fix problems with some applications, but not by taking out the battery as I had to do each other day with the TyTN; only third-party applications was locked up and the phone was still functional. So reboot have only been a convenience thing. Other things on the positive side is good messaging functionality, easy access to, and well-functioning wifi system, and great selection of software due to the S60 system. So all in all I am satisfied, and will probably keep it for a while. But read on, there are quite a few things on the negative side as well. For instance, the camera is totally crap.
The S60 system
In the past I have used Windows mobile 5, Sony Ericssons Symbian/UIQ (P800i and M600i), as well as the more regular Sony Ericsson system. While these systems are quite different, the Symbian S60 can be compared to the first two. It is obvious that the S60 have been around for a while, with a lot more bugs nailed out. It feels more solid. Maybe not super-fast all the time, but it does the job. On the negative side, though, there are often too many steps to go through to complete an action. If I want to send an SMS, for instance, I have to go through 5 steps (depending on how you count) on the S60, while on the Sony Ericsson UIQ there are only about 3 steps if you want to send to someone you send to regularly. I haven't done a scientific comparison as I should as a researcher, but in general I feel I have to use more time to perform the same action on the S60 compared to the other two.
On the positive side, you can't get past the large selection of software available for the S60. Maybe comparable to WM5, and far more than what's available for the UIQ. The putty ssh-client is very usable. I also use Fring for Skype/MSN/GTalk and the Gmail application. All work very well. Also, S60 is generally better supported when it comes to sync/desktop access than the other two. While the situation in general is good for all the systems if you use Windows on your computer, the S60 is far better if you are either a linux or osx user like me.
The E61i hardware
The E61i is light, and it is slim. While the form factor is a bit unusual, it is easy to carry around either in a shirt pocket or in your jacket. I even stick it in the back of my jeans if I have to. But generally I carry it in a Krusell pouch with a belt-clip. As the weight is so low, I hardly recognize it's there.
The display is very good. It's bright in almost any light condition and have better colors than I have had on any phone in the past (and as you know, I have tested quite a few...). While the resolution is not extremely high considering the size of the screen, I have find it to be sufficient for all my needs.
When it comes to the keys, I have to say they are good. The feedback is nice - when I type messages I rarely mistype. As there are many keys on the phone, there are also room for a few shortcuts which helps out with problem I have with to many steps to perform certain actions in the S60 system. But, there is a big downside for me here. It is not comfortable typing on the phone. While the phone is wide for a phone, it is still to small to hold and thumbtype comfortable with my not so very big hands. The TyTN have the keyboard as a slide-out in "landscape" orientation. Hence the keyboard is wider, and much more comfortable. My hands starts aching even when I type moderate sized emails on the E61i, so I rarly do that. Still, if I have to type a message, the system is very capable, and works all the time. So compared to the other smartphones I have used, I have to rate this above them.
I will make the story on the camera supplied in this phone very short. Nokia had some left overs on the shelf. They put it into the E61i. Period. It's too crappy. To be honest, though, I am not sure whether it is the camera it self, or the totally crappy, horrible post processing done in the phone after a picture is captured. It seems that they sharpen every image beyond any reasonable imagination, and bump the saturation as well. Does not look good at all.
Other thoughts
The Nokia E61i is equipped with Wifi, Bluetooth, 3G/UMTS, Edge, gprs. A lot of connectivity. From time to time I am not sure which one of these is being used. Probably this is just some details in the S60 symbian system I have to figure out. An example: I open the E-mail application, and connect to my IMAP account on wireless lan in my house. I leave this running in the background, and open the webbrowser to check something. In this case I have recognized that the webbrowser from time to time use either the UMTS or the Edge connection instead of the wifi, althought wifi is already connected. I can not explain what is going on, and whether the fault is mine or Nokias. Maybe I am even mistaken... At least, there are things to be sorted out here.
The conclusion was already given above, so I stop here.
In other news, I have start looking for a replacement for my Fujitsu Siemens P1510 (which I write this on). I am looking at either the oqo O2, or some of the newer UMPCs. Fujitsu Siemens is also out with a small thingy. But I'm not in a hurry on this.
Also, I will travel to WWDC'07 and then USENIX'07 (in San Francisco and Santa Clara, respectively) in mid-june. If someone want to meet up and discuss Qtpfsgui on Mac, small devices, have a flickr-meetup, or something else - please drop me a comment!
Take care.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
How I get the Nokia E61i working for me
These are some notes a made while setting up the Nokia E61i phone such that it works for me.
My main requirements are:
Email
Setting up email for my company account took me a few minutes. First time I started the email application on the phone, it asked me whether I wanted to set up an account. Sure, I did, so I went through the wizard, entering in imap and smtp server, account information and so on. After that, nothing works. Of course, I knew that our server requires SSL/TLS, but as I was not asked about security during the wizard phase, I just assumed it detected these things by it self. But it didn't. After consulting the booklet that came with the phone, I figured out where to go. After turning on SSL/TLS for both in- and outbound messages, and entering account information for our smtp server, I can send and receive messages. It even supports the concept of selecting a subset of folders on the imap server for synchronization, and actually just shows me thoses selected folders when I open the mail application. A life-saver for me. Now, I have set the phone up to automatically download email from 3 different folders, every day of the week between 16:00 and 02:00, every half hour. That should cover my requirements just fine.
Then I moved on with GMail. First, I opened the webbrowser using the WiFi connection we have at home. Entered in http://gmail.com, and on the top of the GMail page I was asked whether I want "Faster GMail for phone". Of course I want faster GMail, so I followed the link. This downloads a S60 (or maybe Java?) application that works quite nice on the E61i. So far I have to select the internet connection to use for the GMail application each time I start it, but I guess this is something that can be adjusted.
Bluetooth is of course working flawlessly on this device. New to me was that I had to go into the Bluetooth system after pairing a device to mark it as an authorized device. On devices I have had in the past, this was a question during the pairing phase. But as soon as I figured this out, it really doesn't matter - just different ways of doing things.
After sending a few pictures to the desktop Mac just to see that Bluetooth is working, I proceed to the syncing issue. Actually, I attached the usb-phone cable first, and started iSync, but scan for new device in iSync does not find the phone. So I went to goole instead, and found this page at Nokia where it is possible to download an iSync plugin for many Nokia phones, the E61i beeing among them. As told on that page, I closed iSync, installed the plugin. Then I used the "Setup new Bluetooth device" in the Bluetooth system on the Mac, and put the phone in discoverable mode. The phone was detected just fine, and I had the option of selecting it for iSync use and as a modem. I selected both. Now iSync started up in the configure new device mode, with some reasonable defaults. I adjusted which calendars in iCal to synchronize with the phone and did a few other adjustments. Then I pressed the "Sync Devices" button in iSync, and suddenly all my events and all my contacts are on the phone. Quite nice.
As I selected the phone for use as a modem during the Bluetooth setup, that is probably ok already, but it remains to be tested.
Ssh from the phone is coverd by installing PuTTY for S60. As stated on the s2putty page right now, I went for the "unofficial build" of PuTTY, as some nasty bugs on v.3 of S60 have been clean up in some recent builds. This PuTTY works very well. Actually, I went to the s2putty page using the browser on the phone on my WiFi connection, dowloaded a zip with the application. Within a minute, it was downloaded, installed, and running. As the E61i have a full keyboard, even with a Ctrl key, I can connect to a linux server at work, attaching a screen I have running, and instantly chat on irc channels and read news. And do all sorts of other things I regularly do in a shell.
As I want to be able to use Skype, GTalk and maybe even MSN from the phone, I also installed fring. The installation and getting started part is very nicely covered on that webpage, so I want say anything more about it. Just go there, type in the required information. You will then get a text message with download instruction, and in just a few minutes you have all the internet-phone and chat connectivity you ever want.
From time to time I may want to IRC directly from the phone. To cover this, I installed mIRGGI. It just works. Probably, I will usually use PuTTY, and the screen on my linux server, if I need to use IRC, but you'll never know. It is nice to have.
As you can see, most things are comming along quite nice. I guess there will be annoying things creeping up when I dig deeper down, but so far I am happy with the E61i. I will get back with a review on how it works for me in the daily life after I have used it for a week or two.
Stay tuned, and take care!
My main requirements are:
- Beeing able to call people from my phone (!)
- Reading email, both my company imap account and GMail.
- Syncing events and contacts with my MacOSX computer
- Ssh from the phone
- Using phone as modem for the Mac
- Using phone as modem for my linux laptop
- More secondary, IRC, GTalk, MSN, etc. from the phone.
- And probably some more
Setting up email for my company account took me a few minutes. First time I started the email application on the phone, it asked me whether I wanted to set up an account. Sure, I did, so I went through the wizard, entering in imap and smtp server, account information and so on. After that, nothing works. Of course, I knew that our server requires SSL/TLS, but as I was not asked about security during the wizard phase, I just assumed it detected these things by it self. But it didn't. After consulting the booklet that came with the phone, I figured out where to go. After turning on SSL/TLS for both in- and outbound messages, and entering account information for our smtp server, I can send and receive messages. It even supports the concept of selecting a subset of folders on the imap server for synchronization, and actually just shows me thoses selected folders when I open the mail application. A life-saver for me. Now, I have set the phone up to automatically download email from 3 different folders, every day of the week between 16:00 and 02:00, every half hour. That should cover my requirements just fine.
Then I moved on with GMail. First, I opened the webbrowser using the WiFi connection we have at home. Entered in http://gmail.com, and on the top of the GMail page I was asked whether I want "Faster GMail for phone". Of course I want faster GMail, so I followed the link. This downloads a S60 (or maybe Java?) application that works quite nice on the E61i. So far I have to select the internet connection to use for the GMail application each time I start it, but I guess this is something that can be adjusted.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is of course working flawlessly on this device. New to me was that I had to go into the Bluetooth system after pairing a device to mark it as an authorized device. On devices I have had in the past, this was a question during the pairing phase. But as soon as I figured this out, it really doesn't matter - just different ways of doing things.
After sending a few pictures to the desktop Mac just to see that Bluetooth is working, I proceed to the syncing issue. Actually, I attached the usb-phone cable first, and started iSync, but scan for new device in iSync does not find the phone. So I went to goole instead, and found this page at Nokia where it is possible to download an iSync plugin for many Nokia phones, the E61i beeing among them. As told on that page, I closed iSync, installed the plugin. Then I used the "Setup new Bluetooth device" in the Bluetooth system on the Mac, and put the phone in discoverable mode. The phone was detected just fine, and I had the option of selecting it for iSync use and as a modem. I selected both. Now iSync started up in the configure new device mode, with some reasonable defaults. I adjusted which calendars in iCal to synchronize with the phone and did a few other adjustments. Then I pressed the "Sync Devices" button in iSync, and suddenly all my events and all my contacts are on the phone. Quite nice.
As I selected the phone for use as a modem during the Bluetooth setup, that is probably ok already, but it remains to be tested.
Other connectivity from the phone
Ssh from the phone is coverd by installing PuTTY for S60. As stated on the s2putty page right now, I went for the "unofficial build" of PuTTY, as some nasty bugs on v.3 of S60 have been clean up in some recent builds. This PuTTY works very well. Actually, I went to the s2putty page using the browser on the phone on my WiFi connection, dowloaded a zip with the application. Within a minute, it was downloaded, installed, and running. As the E61i have a full keyboard, even with a Ctrl key, I can connect to a linux server at work, attaching a screen I have running, and instantly chat on irc channels and read news. And do all sorts of other things I regularly do in a shell.
As I want to be able to use Skype, GTalk and maybe even MSN from the phone, I also installed fring. The installation and getting started part is very nicely covered on that webpage, so I want say anything more about it. Just go there, type in the required information. You will then get a text message with download instruction, and in just a few minutes you have all the internet-phone and chat connectivity you ever want.
From time to time I may want to IRC directly from the phone. To cover this, I installed mIRGGI. It just works. Probably, I will usually use PuTTY, and the screen on my linux server, if I need to use IRC, but you'll never know. It is nice to have.
As you can see, most things are comming along quite nice. I guess there will be annoying things creeping up when I dig deeper down, but so far I am happy with the E61i. I will get back with a review on how it works for me in the daily life after I have used it for a week or two.
Stay tuned, and take care!
Friday, April 27, 2007
My new phone showed up today! Stay tuned for more information.Thursday, April 26, 2007
Have to move on...
It feels like it was yesterday I bought the HTC TyTN. Of course it was not, it was back in November 2006 according to the archives in this very blog. Back then I threw out the Sony Ericsson M600 due to lack of support for MacOSX, and bad support for Linux too. Although I have been quite happy with the TyTN during these months, there are some issues of course.
First it is the OS. I have never had a phone in the past I need to reboot that often. Sorry Microsoft. In the past I just told everyone that you are bad, and that people should choose something else (Linux, MacOSX, Symbian, Whatever). Now that I have actually used a Windows Mobile for some months, I can put so more momentum into those statements. Sure, WM6 will fix all the problems. Right, I don't believe it. And there are no WM6 upgrade for TyTN out there yet. When the phone is working it is quite ok, though. Even though I can not get the Imap client to just show me subscribed folders, and the camera freeze quite often (easily fixed with a reboot...), I can read and send messages, receive and call contacts and listen to music, snapping photos (as you can see over at my photoblog) and browsing web quite well. So the TyTN is not that bad. And the full keyboard is a life saver, the best I have ever had on phone or pda so far. Based on all the nice things with the phone, I can actually live with the bad OS, and keep it.
It is the second problem that make me switching again. The hardware is not holding up much longer. Every other time I switch the phone out of standby now, the screen just goes white. Turning on and off again usually fix the problems, but from time to time I also need to pull out the keyboard and push it back in again. Then there are the keys on the front. Earlier I could scroll with the directional buttons and press the mid button to select. But this does not work so well any more. Some of the other keys have problems as well. I suspect the reason to be the connection between the bottom "keyboard" part and the upper "display" part. There must be some weakness in the design there. Maybe this can be fixed by sending the phone off to support, but in the long run I can't live with this stability. When I get a new phone probably check out what support can do for me - if they can fix the problem on the TyTN I'll probably keep it as a backup; and for use on HSDPA networks...
The big question is then - where should I go now? Back to the SE M600i is not an option, as it is still not supported very well on MacOSX. That throws out the rest of the SE smartphones as well. And I do not want a Microsoft WM5 or WM6 device. That rules out most of the other smartphones on the market, at least with a qwerty keyboard, which is one of my requirements. And as you all know, iPhone is not out yet. And it will not have a real keyboard anyway. But Nokia have something - the revised version E61i which has a full keyboard, all the connectivity I need but the HSDPA, which is not that important yet anyway, since it is in general not available. MacOSX support also seems to be quite ok for Nokia S60 phones, and there are ssh client software available.
I have therefore ordered a Nokia E61i today. As it is on stock, it should appear already tomorrow or on monday. A report will appear here shortly after that.
So long folks, take care.
First it is the OS. I have never had a phone in the past I need to reboot that often. Sorry Microsoft. In the past I just told everyone that you are bad, and that people should choose something else (Linux, MacOSX, Symbian, Whatever). Now that I have actually used a Windows Mobile for some months, I can put so more momentum into those statements. Sure, WM6 will fix all the problems. Right, I don't believe it. And there are no WM6 upgrade for TyTN out there yet. When the phone is working it is quite ok, though. Even though I can not get the Imap client to just show me subscribed folders, and the camera freeze quite often (easily fixed with a reboot...), I can read and send messages, receive and call contacts and listen to music, snapping photos (as you can see over at my photoblog) and browsing web quite well. So the TyTN is not that bad. And the full keyboard is a life saver, the best I have ever had on phone or pda so far. Based on all the nice things with the phone, I can actually live with the bad OS, and keep it.
It is the second problem that make me switching again. The hardware is not holding up much longer. Every other time I switch the phone out of standby now, the screen just goes white. Turning on and off again usually fix the problems, but from time to time I also need to pull out the keyboard and push it back in again. Then there are the keys on the front. Earlier I could scroll with the directional buttons and press the mid button to select. But this does not work so well any more. Some of the other keys have problems as well. I suspect the reason to be the connection between the bottom "keyboard" part and the upper "display" part. There must be some weakness in the design there. Maybe this can be fixed by sending the phone off to support, but in the long run I can't live with this stability. When I get a new phone probably check out what support can do for me - if they can fix the problem on the TyTN I'll probably keep it as a backup; and for use on HSDPA networks...
The big question is then - where should I go now? Back to the SE M600i is not an option, as it is still not supported very well on MacOSX. That throws out the rest of the SE smartphones as well. And I do not want a Microsoft WM5 or WM6 device. That rules out most of the other smartphones on the market, at least with a qwerty keyboard, which is one of my requirements. And as you all know, iPhone is not out yet. And it will not have a real keyboard anyway. But Nokia have something - the revised version E61i which has a full keyboard, all the connectivity I need but the HSDPA, which is not that important yet anyway, since it is in general not available. MacOSX support also seems to be quite ok for Nokia S60 phones, and there are ssh client software available.
I have therefore ordered a Nokia E61i today. As it is on stock, it should appear already tomorrow or on monday. A report will appear here shortly after that.
So long folks, take care.
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