I took my N810 for a walk to test its GPS capabilities. It’s been raining quite hard and I was hoping the river would be up and interesting to look at. Unfortunately the river was low, but my N810 worked very well. Having a built in GPS is very useful.

I have Maemo-Mapper installed, and because it was raining I sealed my N810 inside an Ortleib map case. I found this a really good combination, the map case being totally waterproof and yet flexible enough to allow the touchscreen to be used.

Locking onto satellites is something often commented on with the N810, with reports of it taking five minutes or more to achieve an accurate lock. While it did take a few minutes to find the satellites it wasn’t any great inconvenience - if I were driving and wanting to use my N810 for navigation a few extra minutes wouldn’t really be an issue; I mostly use GPS navigation for long journeys.

Once locked I noticed a strange thing. The GPS always thinks its moving at a speed between 0.1 and 0.3MPh. This is probably part of the way GPS works, but it’s quite odd watching the track drawn by Maemo Mapper. The track ends up looking like a random walk algorithm, centred around a midpoint.

This randomness doesn’t impede normal operation though, I followed a path and the track drawn in Maemo Mapper accurately followed where I was walking, right down to the junction of the path and a main road, and a canal. I followed the same route home and the return track was fairly close to the first.

The other new feature of the N810 is its slide-out keypad. Having experienced the amazing convenience of Skype and Google Chat from anywhere in my house on my N800, making these two things work on my N810 was the second thing I did. Skype text using the onscreen keyboard is just awful, its impossible to get any decent typing rhythm going. The slide out keypad of my N810 has sorted this, I can now tap away at a respectable rate, knowing the device is keeping up. I know you can pair bluetooth keyboards with the N800, but that isn’t half as convenient as having a permanent keyboard attached. OS2008 even has keyboard shortcuts too.

The screen’s “sunlight readable” (that’s transflective TFT to techies) screen really helps when trying to use the N810 outside. Often when driving it was very difficult to follow the map because even a dreary UK day could wash the screen of my old N800 out.

Originally I moaned that I’d have to bin all my memory cards and buy yet more, but in a different format. While this probably will happen, it’s not a complete negative point. Already I can buy a 4GB card for less than what I paid for a 2GB card last year. And since the N810 comes with 2GB internally (of which I have 1.5GB available - my Maemo-mapper cache and a swap file taking up the rest) I’ve not yet needed to buy a memory card. I found it hard choosing 2GB of music to take with me before.

I’ve ordered my new, shiny N810. Sure it’s cost me £289 quid, which is quite a lot for a portable web browser doodad, but I’ve sold my N800 to my cousin for £100, making it £189. And where did I order this marvel of the modern age from?

Why, PC World in Leeds of course. PC World, that shop of cheap consumer electronics at out of this world prices. It’s partially “must have it now” tech lust, but also the result of ten minutes Internet Shopping. If you use Froogle there are some sites charging a mere £229 for the Nokia N810… but that’s a lie! a dirty lie! It’s the price without VAT and without delivery.

Curiously the cheapest place on the web ends up costing £8 less than PC World by the time you’ve added VAT and £15 delivery. It’s really not worth saving £8 and encountering the hassle of chasing couriers after work to claim new devices from them.

Let’s hope PC World Leeds is just as bored as the ones in Barnsley were. “Here’s your laptop mate, see you”.

Hurrah! I remembered to check back on the thread I commented in last week. There’s been an update and a fix posted. I’ll copy it here too for future reference.

If you have Canola and the OGG packages installed, you might notice that OGG files don’t “stop” and the next track never starts playing - unless the “next track” button is pressed. This is to do with MPlayer not handling OGG files correctly. To fix it fire up a terminal and edit the following file

/home/user/.atabake/config

(you might need to apt-get install nano first unless there’s a text editor on your N800 already that can load hidden files)

Then look in the file for this part

[media]
mp3 = oms
mp4 = oms
…

after the last line of that section, add a line that says

ogg = oms

then just save the file and relaunch Canola. It should then work correctly

Hmm, seems there’s a slight issue with Canola playing OGGs properly. It’ll play them fine, but doesn’t seem to know when to move onto the next track. I’ve submitted a bug report to the end of the ITT thread from yesterday, so hopefully they’ll have something to go on.

Unfortunately this means I’m stuck listening to CDs in my car now.

I managed to stop my Nokia N800 from correctly booting the other day. I had a bit of a “moment” in the terminal and typed “apt-get upgrade” which seemed to go OK - until I rebooted. Then my N800 got stuck in a loop and refused to boot up.

Fortunately I was able to re-run the firmware flasher and re-install OS2008 (getting an upgrade in the process). After that it booted normally and I could begin the slightly irritating task of putting everything back on.

To play music I use Canola which is a really nice media player that, with some minor tweaking will play OGG Vorbis music as well as MP3. Since it’s a bit complicated making OGG Vorbis work at the moment I have included the instructions below:

This comes from the ITT forum post linked to above, courtesy of etrunko:

1) Install ogg-support from application manager (instructions in http://ogg.garage.maemo.org)

2) Install libvorbis0a package manually either using application manager in red pill mode or typing the following command in xterm *AS ROOT*

# apt-get install libvorbis0a

3) Finally, download and install the lightmediascanner0-ogg package using either application manager in red pill mode or typing the following command in xterm *AS ROOT*

# dpkg -i path/to/lightmediascanner/package

Ever since I created a server in my house with all my music on, I’ve been looking for ways to play this music throughout my house without having to put PCs all over the place. PCs are great inventions, letting us listen to music, watch video and communicate with fellow humans. Their only failing is they require time to boot up, and who wants a PC whirring away in their front room? It’s a front room, not an office.

So to begin with I had ideas of building a small “media PC” to put under my telly. I could stuff Linux on it and leave it on all the time. It’d work and I would be in my technical ability to make.

Then I got an Xbox, chipped it and put XBMC on it. The Xbox boots up in about ten seconds and works with a remote control. I can now listen to music and watch video in my front room without a PC. Problem solved. Now how can I do the other things I want like browsing the web or chatting to people…

Well obviously I could get a laptop, then I could do everything on that without a problem. I could Internet while on the toilet if the desire took me. Laptops are just PCs though, and when their batteries fail they require plugging into the mains. I’ve got two though, and I do sometimes drag them about my house when the need arises.

However, I also own a Nokia Internet Tablet. It’s tiny, it stays powered on all the time and runs Skype. It also streams music from the web and has a fairly good web browser. I can now do random web searches while watching TV, or in bed. It’s much easier to Skype with a small VCR sized box in your hand than an entire laptop crushing your legs.

Its music playback facilities are a bit… limited though, and streaming music off the web is a sure way to eat battery. This is where I discovered the world of “Internet Radios” and the Squeezebox 3. This magical device will not only stream music off the web, but also your local network, and they do a wifi version. So I could have one in my bedroom and listen to my music without needing another PC whirring away in my house.

They’re a bit expensive though. Cheaper ones exist, but they don’t play OGG which is the format all my music is stored in, and I’m not transcoding all my music into MP3 just to please some cheap music player. Last night this changed when I discovered the rather cheap Logik IR100. It plays OGG/MP3/WMA from the Internet or local network. It is also £40, which was cheap enough to make me get in my car and whizz off to PC World last night to buy one.

So now in my house I can either sit in my office and listen to music and watch videos, or I can sit downstairs and do the same, and now I can sit in my bedroom and listen to the exact same music. Should the urge take me I can also fire up my Internet Tablet and wander about chatting on Skype to people.

Convergence was something people were banging on about in the early 2000’s and it was going to revolutionise the way we live. Well I think it’s crept up without anyone noticing. Once I’ve imported some music into my server it’s available for playing on any of my network devices with no further effort. I don’t have to synchronise anything with a central server, nor do I have to use proprietary “server” programs. It’s all either standard Windows sharing/NFS or UPNP.

OK this is getting silly. At one time I had a single PC and it ran an IRC client and I could chat to hordes of random people on the Internet for a few hours, before running up a huge phone bill. I also had email, but nobody to email things to. This was back in 1997 just in case you were wondering.

Right now I’m signed on to IRC, MSN, Skype, Google Talk, GMail and a web forum. Oh and I have my mobile phone.

That’s just this PC. With my N800 I can do all of those too, and, as I discovered earlier tonight, I can MSN from my XBox 360 which is a painful experience without a keyboard (so get a USB keyboard and plug it in). These aren’t just little gimmicks I play with out of curiosity, they’ve now become quite important methods of communication. I use my N800 quite a lot as a portable Skype phone and web browser, since sometimes it’s nice to chat to your friends when making the tea or watching TV.

Now if only the mobile phone operators could make GPRS very very cheap so I could be on Skype permanently when not at home. Of course they’d hate that since I’d not be using their calling plans.

Case Logic do a PDA Slip Case which is just the right size to slide a Nokia N800 into. For people living in the UK, you can get them from Pixmania for the bargain price of £6 (and the not so bargainous price of £5 postage ).

In the true blogging style, I shall do a mini review of the various cases I’ve tried and include action shots

So first up is the Case Logic case, which looks like this:

As you can see, there’s a little loop of bungee cord to stop things sliding out. This is better than a flap as it means the N800 can be charged while in the case. The whole thing is made of some sort of fake leather and contains hard inserts in the front and back parts, and should help protect the screen of your Nokia from damage. I once smashed a walkman by walking into a table so I’m quite paranoid about delicate and expensive technology.

It might provide limited protection should your precious tech fall out your pocket and land on the floor. There’s one whole side and two corners that are exposed, and sod’s law says that’s what’ll land in the mud first but you might get lucky. Whatever happens, it’s better than the standard slipcase.

For the price it’s not a bad case. The bungee will probably snap at some point, but doesn’t look too hard to replace.

Prior to this case I had a Belkin universal PDA case, also made from black leather of dubious quality. And in true Belkin style it was a bit naff. Velcro was used to secure the PDA to the case, and that’s just a bad idea for the Nokia N800. The battery door comes off very easily if pulled, and since I use my N800 in the car it gets removed from whatever case I put it in quite a lot. Also, those book-style PDA cases just look tacky - like some bloated Filofax.

Now let’s depart from protecting the device when subject to the harsh reality of office life and see what we can do in more extreme locations.

Extreme locations like… underwater, sub-zero temperatures and half way up a mountain. I regularly subject my cameras to this kind of treatment and so own some more unusual enclosures.

Peli Products are well known amongst the more crazy members of our population for producing boxes that are… well… I think I could throw my camera in its case off the roof of my house and it’d survive. Of course, you can’t actually use the device while secured in the box, and can’t even open it if there’s a slight chance of water getting inside (not so handy for a camera being taken on a canoe trip… which is why I bought a waterproof camera) but it’ll ensure your device survives the journey to and from whatever inhospitable part of the planet you’re visiting.

They come with no padding though, so everything tends to rattle around inside quite a bit. I solved this by acquiring some foam padding that is used in the ends of kayaks to prevent kayakers breaking their ankles. It’s a very dense closed cell foam that takes a long time to cut through with a semi blunt kitchen knife. The benefit though is quite obvious when, swinging from my climbing harness, I bash my camera off some rocks.

In a fit of irony I did damage my camera by dropping it - but that was because I had the lid of the box open, and my camera fell out the box onto the floor. Yes, I take my camera to the top of a high place safe in its bomb-proof box and then drop it on the floor trying to get it out to use.

Feel like taking your PDA swimming? Well, ignoring whether the device can cope with the pressure, you’ll be wanting something more transparent and flexible. This is where an Aquapac comes in handy. Think of them as tough plastic bags with a watertight closure at the top. I once used one to play my GBA in the shower - just because I could. Be careful with them though, it’s quite easy to rip the seams or puncture the plastic. Not so good with cameras since water smears on the plastic making your photos look like they were taken from within a plastic bag (funny, that). For some extreme blogging they’d be quite handy though with a large Aquapac being able to contain my phone and N800.

Technology doesn’t like being dropped. It especially doesn’t like being dropped on a hard surface such as the road while getting out your car. If you’re lucky it’ll bounce a bit and that’s it. If you’re unlucky it’ll explode into a shower of small parts, some of which will roll away and others will break.

My N800 was very lucky. It bounced off the road and gained nothing more than a slight crack to the plastic case on one corner. Oh, it also ejected its stylus and the force caused the camera to pop out!

Well done Nokia. Your device earns a place in my survivors list. Other entries are my old Sony mobile phone (dropped repeatedly onto concrete from over a metre. It bounced several times and continued to work), my Tapwave Zodiac (this one bounced across the road and somehow creased itself!) and my Nintendo DS (dropped into a toilet). Go and have a look on my (just created) list elsewhere on my site.

Keep reading…

Last night I set out to write a world class lesson plan for my interview today. Something different, something useful, something that shows I can make kids remember things.

Hmm… well group work goes down well, they can find me information about parts of operating systems, different types of GUIs. They can do a few past exam questions. We’ll discuss it at the end. Yeah.

Or with some modification I can take my laptop running Linux in, show them that and actually demonstrate the difference between a GUI, CLI and a menu based interface. We can then compare and contrast Windows and Linux, GUIs and command lines. Do a few questions and explain what the examiners are looking for. Even better, bonus points for doing something different.

So I set off at 6:15 - never arriving late to an interview ever again, I was due there at eight. I obviously arrived at 7:15, bang on the target time Google said. Oh well, half an hour of web browsing on my N800 helped to pass the time. And then in I went.

Laptop was connected to projector. Laptop didn’t like the projector. X config file was edited and the projector behaved itself. Then my USB drive didn’t like the school’s computer until a real teacher logged in. Right, objectives are on the board, lesson plan is on the desk. I know what I’m doing, I know who I am… go go go!

And the lesson went well, even with two people doing proper formal observations of me. The kids sat there in complete non-comprehension about GUIs. They couldn’t even tell me what kind of user interface Windows was.

Right… I see a problem here, can I fix it? Can I get the kids to at least recognise a GUI when they see one?

Well yeah, I can. It took an hour and a lot of repetition, and examples. Being able to boot my laptop and show them a real, live CLI was useful.

The lesson ended and I was given to the IT techies for a while with the comment of “he’s technical too, tell him about this place’s computers”. They have site-wide wireless networking with roaming capabilities, staff laptops, a new tape loader that isn’t working properly and people who ring up and moan about their pc not working. They aren’t BOFHs, give IT teachers higher privileges than regular teachers, and generally aren’t afraid to show off their system.

Eventually the school remembered I existed and asked me into another interview. This one was full of people very high up the school foodchain. I’m fairly sure there was a governor there too. We had a talk, I had more tea. They offered me the job, I took the job and signed some contracts.

Yeah, I got it I start in September.

So it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

University want me to talk to the rest of the ICT trainees about interviews and getting a job since I’m supposedly the first person to do so. That’ll be another odd experience on Monday.