Hero tethered!

Well my new phone arrived - and I have been playing with it while on holiday. I'm still getting to grips with it, but so far I am very happy with it. I got internet tethering working (currently on the laptop in the caravan browsing the web via the phone), I've got my number ported over from Orange, got a few apps from the Android market. A couple to highlight so far is the SMS backup app which saves all my text messages in my gmail, and the Google Sky Maps which shows the stars in the sky in the direction my phone (and therefore me) is facing.

The holiday is going well, and I'm enjoying seeing the Isle of Wight and playing with my new gadget. A few pics taken on my phone have been uploaded to Picasa, see below.

Laters,

HTC Hero ordered!

I have just bought an HTC Hero.....online! I've been looking at these phones for a little while now (see this post for last weekend's efforts!), and I've finally bought one from mobilephonesdirect. The phone is free, and will cost £29.36/month for 18 months on T-Mobile with unlimited internet which is you cannot do without on a phone like this.

Initially I was looking online at the phone operators websites, then at Phones4U. P4U's online had the phone for free, then £25/month for 18 months and then you added 500mb internet for an extra fiver; so really the same price. The clincher with the T-Mobile one is that its unlimited internet (Fair use policy) and I get access to the T-Mobile wi-fi hotspots. This extra nudge of internet goodness from T-Mobile coupled with last nights poor sales pitch from the Orange sales chap (what kind of sales man hangs up on customers?) I decided to bail from Orange and a PAC code has been requested.

So hopefully the new phone will arrive tomorrow - though I suspect it will be Thursday as I was a few minutes past the cut-off for next-day delivery. My fear is that I will get a "Sorry, we are out of stock" email and I won't be able to play with my phone while away on holiday next week. Fingers crossed!

Laters



For more info on the phone, see here and also check out the youtube clip below.

Tired

I did my first proper out-of-hours work last night. Power was being shutdown to our only internal systems room. As such all servers were gracefully shutdown - then the sparkies did there thing - and then the servers brought back. I took the opportunatity of server downtime to do patching on servers I am responsible for.

I got home at 3.30am, my alarm went off at 7am - was at work again at 9am. Initially I felt ok, but now I'm starting to feel the tiredness creeping in. Lots of tea and hopefully I can make it through the day without making a tired-related mistake :)

Not quite a new phone

For the past couple of days I've been looking at a new phone. I've had my current phone for a few years now and since I got it better devices have come out. My iPod touch+ (it's plus for a reason) shows how much difference a good interface can make. I want a phone with a good interface and Internet connectivity. I also want to get a little compact camera for when I'm walking; no point taking a heavy bulky camera when there is a good enough compact one. Keeping with the walking theme, it would be nice to record my walking routes using GPS. In the past monh a new phone has come out which ticks these boxes. The HTC Hero

After watching YouTube clips, Reading reviews, looking at a work collegues G1 I came to the conclusion that it is the single device for me. Easy to use, Internet enabled, 5m pixel camera, Gps built in, digital compass. GPS logging is done via google tracks which looks great. Sadly it's too new a phone a the moment for it to be affordable for me either as a one off purshase or for reasonable monthly contract.

I will just have to wait a little while :(

Happy Birthday

The Internet is 40 today. However, like a Pet you get from a rescue center, its exact birthday is a little fuzzy; it could be 40 on October the 29th!

Without it I wouldn't have a job, wouldn't be able to write this blog, wouldn't be able to do most of the things I do on a day-to-day basis.

So thank you Professor Leonard Kleinrock and your team, and happy birthday!

More info