TOPIC: VIDEOTELEPHONY
Trying out Irish Mobile Broadband
2nd January 2012Over the course of a year, I end up visiting Ireland a few times, so I decided to invest in a Meteor PAYG broadband stick to see how I'd get on with it. For €20, you can get a 30-day pass with 7.5 GB downloading capacity, a more generous offer than you'd get with some UK mobile networks (T-Mobile really comes to mind here). Signal strength was strong wherever I tried it too with 3G being available so long as you are in the right place with EDGE being the lowest that I got otherwise. Download speeds are good too so it turned out to be a good investment of €30 to get the Huawei E173 USB dongle (I had a T-Mobile one of these before that no longer works, so I am keeping an eye on reliability with this one; though the design seems a little different, I am getting OK so far) and €20 of credit that comes with it. After all, anything's better than the punitive roaming rates that UK providers charge.
Changing the earpiece volume on a Nokia 1661
15th November 2010Since the Nokia 1661 is an entry-level phone, you'd have thought that they'd have made it obvious how to change the earpiece volume on the thing. However, it turns out to be something for which you do need to consult its manual, and it's not as user-friendly as it could be either. Seemingly, the earpiece volume only can be adjusted while you're already on a phone call: you need to use the scroll key (push in left and right sides as needed) that could be right up against your face at the time!
My way around this is to phone the speaking clock (123 in the U.K.) and adjust the earpiece while that call is in progress. Then, you're set for future conversations with real people. Well, anything's better than not being able to hear the other person due to background noise, and my Nokia 1661 came with its volume set rather too low for me if I recall correctly. While I can appreciate the need to look after your hearing, you do need to have coherent phone conversations too.
A new phone
7th August 2009
For someone with a more than passing interest in technology, it may come as a surprise to you to learn that mobile telephony isn't one of my strong points at all. That's all the more marked when you cast your eye back over the developments in mobile telephone technology recently. Admittedly, until I subscribed to RSS feeds from the likes of TechRadar, the computing side of the area didn't pass my way very much at all. That act has alerted me to the now unmissable fact that mobile phones have become portable small computers, regardless of whether it is an offering from Apple or not. After the last few years, no one can say that things haven't got fascinating.
In contrast to all the excitement, I only got my first phone in 2000 and stuck with it since, and that was despite its scuffs and scratches along with its battery life troubles. Part of the reason for this is a certain blindness induced by having the thing on a monthly contract. As that is not sufficient to hide away the option of buying a phone on its own, then there's the whole pay-as-you-go arena too. The level of choice is such that packages such as those mentioned gain more prominence and potentially stop things in their tracks, but I surmounted the perceived obstacles to buy a Nokia 1661 online from the Carphone Warehouse and collect it from the nearest store. The new replacement for my old Motorola is nothing flashy. While other phones may have nice stuff like an on-board camera or web access, I went down the route of sticking with basic functionality, albeit in a modern package with a colour screen. Still, for around £35, I got something that adds niceties like an alarm clock and a radio to the more bread and butter operations like making and taking phone calls and text messaging. Though pay-as-you-go may have got me the phone for less, I didn't need a new phone number since I planned to slot in my old SIM card anyway; incidentally, the latter operation was a doddle once I got my brain into gear.
Now that I have replaced my mobile handset like I would for my land-line phone, I am left wondering why I dallied over the task for as long as I have. It may be that the combination of massive choice and a myriad of packages that didn't appeal to me stalled things. With an increased awareness of the technology and options like buying a SIM card on its own, I can buy with a little more confidence now. Though those fancier phones may tempt, I'll be treating them as a nice to have rather than essential purchases. Saying all of this, the old handset isn't going into the bin just yet, though. While it may be worn and worthless, its tri-band capabilities (I cannot vouch for the Nokia on this front) may make it a useful back-up for international travel. The upgrade has given me added confidence for trying again when needs must, but there is no rush and that probability of my developing an enthusiasm for fancy handsets is no higher.
US, not us?
5th December 2007As of the time of writing, Amazon MP3 is only available to customers in the U.S. of A., so any enthusiasm for its provision of DRM-free digital music offerings has to be tempered by that limitation on its availability. Apple's iTunes store offers some, but locked down tracks are its mainstay. Amazon's restrictions aren't the first in the digital audio world, and they are unlikely to be the last, too. Pandora have done it in the world of internet radio, and I seem to remember that iTunes might have done it too in their time.
There may be other reasons, but licensing and royalties might need to be negotiated country by country, slowing the rolling out of new products across the world. The iPhone faced an equivalent situation, though that involved mobile telephony providers. Commercial considerations pervade too, and I suppose that a worldwide launch of the iPhone might have been too complex a feat for Apple to manage; they probably wanted to nurture a sense of anticipation among customers in any case.
It appears that things are still following the pattern that at least used to be endemic in the motion picture industry: the U.S. gets to see a film first, and then everywhere else thereafter. Being able to reuse the movie film reels used in American cinemas has been the studios' advantage from the staggered releases. Because cinema releases have been staggered, video and DVD releases were staggered too, so it's both intriguing and frustrating to see American companies using a similar launching strategy in wholly different market sectors. It's astonishing how old habits die hard...