Chit chat

Wow. Has it really been a month since I posted? Time flies and all that…

If you haven’t heard of identi.ca by now you must be living under a rock. Although my Twitter usage has been, well, zero for a while now I’ve made sure that my nick has been registered at identi.ca. Who knows - I might even get around to using it…

Of course the age-old problem is that I need to maintain accounts on Twitter and identi.ca (and all the others, but I’ve ditched most of those) whilst they remain walled gardens.

Much has been said already by others about identi.ca, so I won’t rehash any of that here. Of course they get brownie points for being Open Source and supporting OpenID. Once they add SMS and API support I think it will really start to take off.

Whilst browsing feeds today I came across the announcement for Nokia Chat. Initial reaction: oh great, another IM/Twitter clone. Their USP is the location information. If your phone has a GPS (like mine) it knows where you are, and with Nokia Chat you can let others know that. Nice, but there’s still something missing… So I read the FAQ and found this little nugget:

Now that’s a win. Chat with location services that’s not in a walled garden. I’m going to download the client and see what it is like.

Nokia N800

After a rather late (or more accurately early) night, I was awoken by a text from my friend asking when my Nokia N800 was arriving. I forewent answering him in favour of more sleep, only to be woken again, but this time by a delivery man with the item in question.

After upgrading it to OS2008 (thanks mrben), I started playing with it properly. So far I’m loving it, but I’ve not done that much with it besides surfing, mail and Skype but then it is an internet tablet.

Things I would like to see:

Are there any apps I should check out?

On a semi-related note yesterday I debranded my N95 and updated it to the latest firmware.

Oh, and of course this was posted from the N800!

N95, Flickr, and you

The photo in my previous post was taken with my shiny N95. The N95 is capable of uploading photos to Flickr (and other services), but when I tried to configure it it kept rejecting my credentials. It turns out you need to use a special one (not your normal Flickr/Yahoo! ones) which you can get by visiting their N95 configuration page.

Once I set my credentials accordingly, it all worked fine. I wonder if I’ll start using Flickr more now…

Nokia N800 or Apple iPhone?

Earlier this week I was in New York City (it’s a helluva town), and as well as the usual tourist attractions I stopped by the Apple store in Soho so I could play with the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Both devices are very slick – Safari and WiFi access are excellent – but I see little point in getting a Touch when the iPhone is just around the corner in the UK. Even better, the iPhone is exclusive to my current mobile provider.

However, I have a slight dilemma. I like Apple products, and I really want an iPhone when my contract is up for renewal. The problem is that I don’t like the direction Apple is going with shutting out direct access to their devices, nor can I properly sync my Evolution calendar and contacts to the device if I get one. Thirdly, I already have a phone that is pretty good (as a phone).

So I started focusing about what I really like about the iPhone, and apart from the whole shiny Apple experience it boils down to two things: Browser and WiFi. This got me thinking again about the Nokia N800, which also has the added bonuses of being a) open, b) hackable and c) supports VoIP.

What I really want to know from N800 owners is two things:

Answers on a postcard please.