January 2008

I’ve acquired these phones over the past four months. From left - Nokia N95 8GB; 3 Skypephone; O2 Cocoon; Cubic Telecom Personal.

The odd one out is the Nokia - that’s my primary phone, the one that comes with my Vodafone deal. I have the other three on loan in order to play with them and perhaps write about them.

I’ve written about the O2 Cocoon but from a design and branding perspective, not a user review.

The phone I’ve written the most about is the 3 Skypephone - actual reviews.

I’ve not yet written a word about the Cubic Telecom phone, received when in Ireland last September, other than referenced in an FIR Interview with Conor O’Neill. I’m still having trouble figuring this phone out in terms of how to properly set it up. It can’t be that difficult really, but it certainly tests my patience.

As for the Nokia, I know more about this phone than any of the others simply because it’s the one I use intensively every day. The only post I’ve written so far is about connecting the phone to a TV to watch a movie. Oh, and updating the firmware.

So I’m wondering when I will write more about these devices. Maybe better still, when I can persuade someone else in the UK to be a guest reviewer and write a review that I’ll post here.

I can take of the Nokia. Any offers on any of the other three, especially the O2 Cocoon and Cubic Telecom? No payment but you’ll be bathed in reviewer glory

Last week, I started testing Profy, a new social blogging platform that’s in by-invitation alpha testing.

All things blogging in one application, is how the service describes itself with services that include a blog, RSS reader, and social network tools like messaging, all managed from a central dashboard.

I’ve done only a few things so far such as set up a blog there.

I can’t say much more at the moment, though, as the email confirming my registration included this:

[...] Currently, Profy testers are not allowed to share information about the product by any means, including posting information and screenshots on blogs, sharing Profy pages on social bookmarking services, or share your login and/or password information with other people.

You’ll have to make do with the TechCrunch review for the time being.

[Later] Situation clarified. In a comment to this post, Profy.com founder Svetlana Gladkova says sharing info about the product is now permitted.

I updated the firmware in my Nokia N95 8GB yesterday.

According to the Nokia software updater application, which automatically checks the installed firmware against a database to see if there’s a new version, my phone now has the latest firmware version, 11.0.026, dated November 1, 2007.

Double-checking again today confirms that.

But is it really the latest version?

In a Jaiku conversation with Pat Phelan yesterday, it’s apparent that the latest firmware for this device is actually version 15.0.015 according to AllAboutSymbian.com.

So why does the Nokia updater not identify this later firmware version?

According to one of the commenters in that post, this is why:

If you buy a phone that is locked to a particular network, its firmware updates often take a lot longer to become available because the network operator uses slightly different firmware to the original sim-free unlocked model.

My mobile service provider is Vodafone UK and the phone is locked to that provider.

So you have a situation where some people can easily upgrade their devices to firmware that supports all manner of new and improved functionality.

But if you’re locked in to a particular provider, you have to wait until whenever they decide to enable an update, and with no assurance that you’ll get any of the cool new bells and whistles.

Isn’t this a bit like the situation in the music industry where DRM to restrict what you can do with your music and devices has reigned supreme for years? All solely for the benefit of the industry and to the disadvantage of the user?

Well, the winds of change have blown strongly through that industry.

I wish those winds would blow through the mobile industry.

So I decided to import all the content from NevOn 2.0 Experimental, the Movable Type blog I set up in 2005.

That content is now here; everything you see in this site that was posted in 2005 and 2006 was originally in that other blog.

That blog was also a migration, from NevOn Experimental, a blog I had on TypePad.

Time to shut those down now (with a redirect in place although they now have little traffic) and move on to what’s next.

Incidentally, if you plan on setting up a WordPress blog and importing content from a different platform as I did, the import feature in recent WordPress versions makes the process simplicity itself.

As this screenshot shows, that feature supports importing content - your posts and, depending on the source platform, comments and trackbacks as well - from 14 platforms.

The WordPress Codex has easy-to-follow guidelines on what to do, including details on how to import content from more platforms.