I upgraded from 512/128 to 1500/256 at Netspace and their customer service says that the upgrade took place on 3 August. Upon checking the speed with the ozspeedtest.com tool at its Netspace mirror, I got what I did with the old connection. The modem is an Alcatel Speedtouch Home (rated to 8 Mbit/s) and there is a Netgear MR314 router in the network (which should not affect the WAN connection).

Solved!
All I had to do to solve this problem was to power down the modem and router and switch them on again. The new connection was at a higher speed (varies between 900 and 1000 Kbit/s).

Popularity: 24% [?]

On 25 June I signed up for a two year contract with 3, as I have been waiting to get the Nokia N95. My Nokia 6310i was five years old and out of contract. I was paying more than $120 per month on my $20 contract (I am a light user with some regular overseas travel, which causes this variation).

I was attracted by two features of the N95:

• 5 Megapixel camera
• GPS

Mobile Code

Here is the barcode (not really bars) for this blog. If you have a mobile code scanner in your phone, you can bookmark this site by scanning this picture. Permalink.

Bad Points

Poor battery life. I have to recharge it daily, despite charging it for 24 hours on its first use, more than recommended by the 3 retail booth at Werribee Plaza. Overseas websites suggest many ways to reduce battery drain including changing from 3G to GSM. They say to use this set of steps:

“Tools | Settings | Phone | Network” but I don’t see such a sequence of steps on this phone, so I cannot change from 3G to GSM.

In fact I have two parallel top level options:

1. Tools
2. Settings (among others).

From Settings, I have:Network > Operator Selection (manual or auto)
and Network > Cell Info Display (which doesn’t work on 3)

The only network operator I see as GSM (antenna icon) is Roaming, whereas 3 is just 3G. Am I out of luck as far as GSM goes? Yes, 3 has chosen not to let us opt to only-GSM, as is possible on an unbranded phone.

The N95 is set to transmit WiFi at 100 mW, so I reduced it to 10 mW.

Where to Register? The N95 in Australia comes with a plastic card telling you to register at http://www.nokia-asia.com/mynokian95, but no such page exists. Didn’t they check this URL before printing the cards? In fact the site map for nokia-asia.com does not mention anything about registering a phone.

Unwanted Subscription. I got my first bill from 3 and noticed $3 for a Sports Pack subscription. I am not very interested in sports and certainly not enough to pay for a monthly subscription. After calling the 3 call centre in Mumbai, I had the amount reversed and the subscription cancelled. Upon checking my paperwork from the purchase, I noticed for the first time that the dealer had signed me up for it and had ticked a dozen or so items that she had allegedly informed me about. I should have stopped to read the three pages properly - you should, if you buy any modern phone that loves optional subscriptions.

The Nokia World

This is my first smart phone, as I am not on Nokia’s press list and didn’t get junkets to Finland or Singapore as did some of the commercial reviewers over the years. I just get to play with other people’s phones and you don’t find out their shortcomings in a couple of minutes. So, I explored the web and can recommend the following N95-related URLs that you can read at your own peril or pleasure:

• Nokia barcode reader software
• Whirlpool N95 discussions
• Nokia support forum
• Myn95.com
• Symbian Series 60v3.com
• Nemesis Service Suite (will void your warranty)
• The Nokia blog
• Allaboutsymbian.com
• Screenshot

Half-Baked

So, why did I say that my N95 is half-baked? As I said earlier, the GPS was the main attraction for me, but a few things were news to me:

• You cannot just walk out of the shop and use the GPS immediately in the car park. I know a few N95 owners who haven’t figured out how to enable the Nokia Maps and Asia Maps applications or how to download a map.
• I haven’t worked out the reason for having both Asia Maps and Nokia Maps. The Asia Maps feature is a waste of space to me because it gives me maps of SE Asian countries I have no desire to visit anytime soon (Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia). I have to register to get voice-assisted turn-by-turn navigation and that too for a trial period. Nokia Maps works well with the GPS satellites.
• Nokia phones seem to come with fewer accessories as the years go by. A mobile charger is essential if you actually use the phone while driving, but I haven’t bought one yet.
• It takes 2-3 minutes to get a satellite lock. Apparently firmware revision 12 gives us aGPS, which uses mobile tower positioning data to give an approximate fix that appears to speed up the result - except that this will cost a phone call to use. Whether that is one call per GPS session or dozens of calls are needed along the journey, I know not.

I had to rebuild my PC recently and I found the installation of the Nokia PC Suite and the phone-to-PC connection quite a performance that took a few reinstallations to fix. The PC went into a continuous loop of “New hardware detected” and “Nokia N95 disconnected via USB” that prevented the firmware updater from working - just as well, as an interrupted update would have made my phone less useful than a brick. After fixing that, it turned out that 3 hasn’t released it for our use.

What Usability?

I have worked in and around Usability and Editing for many years in the IT industry and I suspect that Nokia’s usability and editorial team cannot keep up with the number of new designs that are churned out. The buttons are very firm and slippery, so the keypad isn’t a joy to use. Thankfully I don’t send many SMS messages or surf the web with my phone. Calling someone who is in my address book is not as simple as the old dumb phones where I merely scrolled down to find a name. I now need several clicks to navigate to a number. On the other hand, I like the voice recognition - I press the headset button, say “Home” and the phone dials my home number.

The User’s Guide and the accompanying booklets are disappointing (I was an editor at Unisys, so I can be anal about this). I don’t know whether 3 has customised the menu so that it differs from the printed manual, but I want to comment on two points:

• The icons used in the user’s guide are not listed in a table, so you have to guess what some of them could mean. Being so tiny and in greyscale, you don’t know whether they are phone buttons or icons on the screen.
• Many instructions start with “Options”. It took me a while to realise that there isn’t an iconised option with that name that leads to the next level, but it refers to the physical button to press within any given screen. When you open this booklet in the middle - usually to solve some immediate need - you can get into my kind of problem. I was trying to pair my Jabra BT-150 headset and couldn’t work out where to begin.

The headset problem wasted a day of my time going to the retailer, going back again to meet with the “technical guy” who worked the late shift, only to be told by him to see the original manager the next day, who told him to check my phone! It turned out that the phone was not faulty and neither was the BT-150. I had set the Bluetooth visibility to Hidden, because the phone’s embedded Help says that already paired devices can still connect with it but the rest of the world could not. He changed the setting to Shown to All and my headset worked fine.

I still have occasional glitches when the headset doesn’t come on immediately or I manage to hang up on the caller when I press its button. I miss the car cradle of the old 6310i but still find the N95 a great device, half-baked or not.

Popularity: 66% [?]

by Ash Nallawalla

You might think that a Flash drive is just another Flash drive, but is it really? The first 512 MB drive I bought set me back US$88 at Fry’s Electronics. Today, I can buy the same capacity drive locally for less than $15. OK, prices have come down and capacities have gone up, but that is just part of the USB Flash drive’s evolution.

Those of us who use Windows Vista know about ReadyBoost, which enables the PC to use the Flash drive as additional RAM. For laptop owners, this is perhaps the cheapest way to get a RAM upgrade. Flash drives are sold in various form factors - ranging from fashion accessories, watches, attached to a Swiss Army Knife, hanging on a lanyard, with removable skins, with a fingerprint reader, and so on.

SanDisk Cruzer Contour 8 GB

SanDisk Cruzer Contour is a USB Flash Drive. Available in 4 GB and 8 GB capacities, this smart device makes the concept of portable applications a reality. Yes, you can carry your own configured programs in your pocket and run them on someone else’s computer.

The Cruzer Contour hits the 8 GB capacity mark. In January, I picked up a 2 GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro to supplement my Windows Vista laptop’s existing 2 GB RAM. I have seldom filled my 512 MB Flash drives to capacity, so why would someone need an 8 GB drive? The answer is partly U3 (see earlier post) and partly our desire to make our data portable. It is certified for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Mac OS X (The device comes with a “Works with Windows Vista” label, not a “Certified for Windows Vista” one.)

I have already lost one cap from my existing SanDisk Cruzer Micro drive, but this won’t be an issue with the Cruzer Contour, as it has a sliding cover that hides the USB connector when not in use. It features ReadyBoost and includes the following U3 compatible programs:

• CruzerSync - Desktop synchronisation tool
• SignupShield - Password manager
• Skype - PC to PC video and audio calls
• Avast - Antivirus
• HP Photosmart - Digital photo organiser/editor
• Sudoku/Mahjong - Games

Storage is, as Rolls Royce once used to describe their cars’ horsepower, adequate. I could describe it as “whopping”, but I know that in a few years, 8 GB will be considered tiny. Today, the 8 GB Cruzer Contour can hold up to:

• 19,200 photos
• 1920 tunes
• 2560 minutes of MP4 QCIF videos

In theory, that is just under 43 hours of movies! I suspect that you could watch more movies on a battery-powered laptop using a USB drive than by running them from its hard disk or by playing the DVD drive.

More realistically, you could take your email, browser bookmarks, and many large files with you. The drive synchronises with your PC when connected but it will not leave any trace on any other PC. The supplied programs and the U3 software took up 110 MB, leaving 7.52 GB free. The file system uses FAT32, which makes it compatible with older PCs. You can remove U3 completely, but then the U3 programs won’t work and you will have a dumb 8 GB storage device.

Performance

SanDisk claims that its write speed is 18 MB/sec and read speed is 25 MB/sec, which is twice as fast as SanDisk’s previous top-of-the-line model. Windows Vista ReadyBoost needs a much lower performance to work. Using the Vista Event Viewer and looking for Event ID 1000, I noted that the Cruzer Contour has a random read speed of 4.736 MB/sec and a sequential write speed of 5.815 MB/sec. I don’t know why the numbers are so different from the claims. (By comparison, my 2 GB SanDisk Cruzer Micro reports read speed of 4.961 MB/sec and a much slower 2.946 MB/sec for write.)

Microsoft’s specifications are:

Premium flash storage must meet the applicable standards for the connected bus and have the following features:

• At least 500MB available for ReadyBoost cache
• 5 MB/sec throughput for random 4k reads across the entire device
• 3 MB/sec throughput for sequential 512k writes across the entire
  device

In Use

Opening the box was a challenge for me, as I missed the black sticker (on a black box) on the left and opened it from the right. I could not believe how tough it was to peel off the layers as I fought my way to the tightly wedged device. Then I realised my mistake! There is no lanyard provided - indeed the drive has no hook, but it comes with a leather pouch with a hook for the lanyard or keychain. It is a snug fit, so the drive is not going to slide out.

Now, sliding the Cruzer Contour’s cover off and on was not as smooth as I expected. The USB connector’s dust protection flap is folded when packed, and has to hinge outwards as you slide it. After several uses, it still takes some effort to get the USB connector to slide out and it is equally tricky to close it. Perhaps this will settle down after regular use.

Compatibility

You will need at least Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP or Windows Vista to use U3. For storage only, you can use Windows 2000 or later, Mac OSX+, or Linux. The PC must have a high speed USB 2.0 port, which will be found on most PCs bought in the past six years.

Software

I downloaded the Firefox browser for U3 which is 7.84 MB, compared to the standard version which is 5.7 MB. I thought that the U3 version would be smaller. Other free programs I downloaded were OpenOffice.org, Opera, PuTTY, Trillian Basic, WinSCP and FileZilla. There are dozens of free programs that I could download and not make a big dent in the 8 GB capacity! OpenOffice was the biggest among my downloads, at 222 MB (during the download it turned out to be 76.3 MB). There are not a lot of PCs that don’t have Microsoft Office on them, but if I encounter one, I might be able to use OpenOffice.org (OpenOffice did not work under Windows Vista in my test).

Availability

You can get the SanDisk Cruzer Contour 8GB drive from Amazon for about US$116. The 4 GB model costs around US$60. You are paying a bit more for the U3 and ReadyBoost functionality but it is worth it for the convenience of having customised programs and passwords in your pocket.

Popularity: 86% [?]

by Ash Nallawalla

U3 is an initiative of SanDisk and msystems. They transformed USB flash drives from simple storage devices into USB smart drives that people can use not only to carry data, but include password protection, anti-virus software and the ability to launch popular Windows applications on any PC wherever they went.

U3 Smart drives solve a common problem - when you use a new computer or borrow one, it does not have your familiar programs, files and browser bookmarks and preferences. U3 drives contain special versions of popular programs and make it feasible to use other computers without being tied to yours.

How It Works

When you insert a U3 enabled drive into a USB port, a U3 icon appears in the System Tray. You can click it to launch the U3 Launchpad, which is similar to the Windows XP Start button. This designates the USB drive as a U3 Smart Drive.

U3 Smart drives are available from several manufacturers, including:

• SanDisk
• Kingston
• Memorex
• Verbatim

You can run the supplied programs, or download more from http://software.u3.com. Many are free, some are not.

Some of the more interesting free U3 programs include:

• Open Office application
• Mozilla Firefox browser
• Avast! Antivirus
• Sudoku game
• Opera browser
• Mozilla Thunderbird email
• Skype Internet phone
• Trillian instant message manager

You get to use your own desktop wallpaper and familiar icons when using a borrowed PC. You are not hampered by the lack of administrator privileges on that PC because your portable applications are already on your U3 drive. This is great for backpackers and other travellers who don’t need to take a laptop PC with them.

There is a strong U3 developer community, which is releasing new, compact versions of popular desktop software. For more information, see http://www.u3.com.

You cannot install regular PC programs such as Microsoft Office on a U3 device because desktop programs require much more space than the U3 drive can offer and they need to write some information to the PC’s Registry. Here is an informative video:

Popularity: 33% [?]

by Ash Nallawalla

In most photographs you, the photographer, are missing. More than once I have taken a photo of the sky when my camera fell from some precarious perch after the self-timer was set. That’s because it isn’t always convenient to take a full-size tripod on your holidays.

Sometimes, all you want is to take your own photo at some exotic location, but many modern cameras will not even fit your whole face when you click at arm’s length. You can ask someone to take your photo and hope that they framed it properly and didn’t shake the camera, but nothing beats a tripod.

Enter the Quik Pod, a handheld, extendable tripod that costs around US$24.95 plus shipping. It is made of sturdy polycarbonate and aluminium, weighs about 100 g and comes with a built in self-positioning mirror to help frame each shot. Fully extended to 480 mm, Quik Pod can be used to shoot overhead above crowds, around corners and underwater.

The Pro+ version adds a lightweight tripod leg adapter to turn the Quik Pod into a conventional tripod or to use as a mini-tripod on its own. Both feature a standard (1/4-20) screw. You would not want to use any camera heavier than 450 g on this tripod.

Availability

In the U.S., Quik Pod can be found at Adorama, Amazon.com, B&H, Calumet Photographic, J&R.com, Magellan’s and Ritz Camera. In Canada, it can be bought at Black’ Photography, Henry’s and The Shopping Channel. In the UK, Quik Pod can be purchased at Play.com, Magellan’s and through iwantoneofthose.com. A direct link to the Quik Pod at Amazon is: http://snipurl.com/1junj.

In Australia, dStore.com.au sells it for $39.95. Be sure to check whether you are getting the basic model, the Deluxe, or the Pro+ because the online stores are vague on this point and never show more than one. The company site shows the Deluxe and Pro+ extras as separate kits, yet one of the blister packs shows the mini-tripod as included.

I am very happy with the Quik Pod Pro+ and that is the model you should look for.

Popularity: 21% [?]

The Canon HV20 is one of the new breed of high definition, digital video (HDV) cameras to hit the market. This is my fourth camcorder and the second digital one. My first one, a Panasonic in 1981 weighed 20 kg including its charger - my entire baggage allowance when I bought it in Singapore, only to find, upon arrival in India, that it was faulty.

Like most palm-sized cameras, it is light-weight and, thankfully, assisted with a super-range optical image stabiliser (OIS). The “super range” bit means it also compensates for the small tremors caused by breathing and swaying hands.

Windows Vista Certified

Readers of my earlier comments or reviews of Windows Vista might recall my frustration with the latter’s incompatibility with my old printers, so I have henceforth looked for the “Certified for Windows Vista” logo on anything that could be associated with my computers.

Vista users can transfer, edit and publish high-definition video without the need for special software - Windows Movie Maker (WMM) works fine for the home user. My unit shipped with a pre-Vista version of Canon’s ZoomBrowser EX software, so I had to get the updater (5.8b at the time of writing). For my level of use, WMM will suffice.

You can shoot in high definition Cinema Mode with 24 fps progressive (24p) or just HDV 16:9 widescreen mode. You can also shoot in standard definition, 16:9 or 4:3 modes. If you are stuck with your last tape, you can use Long Play and get an extra 50% recording capacity.

You can take still photos at 3.1 MP, which is fine for small prints, or at 2 MP while shooting video. A built-in flash helps in poor light. The accessory shoe suits external microphones or lighting to be mounted there and powered through the battery (or charger).

What You Get

• Battery (7.4 V, 1200 mAh/LiIon)
• Charger
• Cables (A/V, Component, USB)
• Wireless remote controller
• CD (Windows and Mac) with software and manual

What You Don’t Get

• Neck strap
• IEEE 1391 cable (FireWire)
• Mini SD card
• Separate charger
• Blank miniDV tape

Specifications

• 10x optical zoom, 400x digital zoom
• 2.96 Megapixel CMOS image sensor (1920×1080)
• DIGIC DVII image processor
• 24p (NTSC); 25p (PAL) Cinema Mode, HD and Standard Definition recording modes
• miniDV tape storage medium
• 10801 HDV

Price: NTSC model HV20A US$1099 ESP; PAL model HV20E AU$1999 RRP - street price ~US$950, ~AU$1600.

Amazon link: Canon HV20 and accessories

In Use

I like to use the viewfinder more than the LCD panel (which is incredibly sharp), so the dioptic adjustment was appreciated. The LCD also does the job of displaying various settings. I also like the fact that it uses DV tape and not a hard drive, which would need to be emptied once it filled up. That would entail carrying a laptop computer, or one of those storage devices made for that purpose when away from home.

Windows Movie Maker in Vista

I have Windows Vista Ultimate running on my desktop, which now has a FireWire (IEEE 1391) card to facilitate a video transfer. The OS no trouble detecting the card and the latter happily saw the Canon HV20 when it was plugged in with the FireWire cable.

As the pictures indicate, Windows Movie Maker makes it easy to edit video from the Canon HV20. The supplied Canon Zoombrowser EX enables further modification to the video and many other features that apply to Canon’s still cameras. Here are a couple of screen shots of Zoombrowser EX 5.8b:

Annoyances

My main gripe is the absence of a FireWire cable and a Mini SD card. For some reason (possibly the firewall, but I didn’t see a message to that effect), the computer wouldn’t see the camera because the only Mini SD card I happened to have was from a phone and it was formatted differently. This came up as an error and I had visions of shipping the camera back to Canon. I bought a new card and everything was sweet after that. Had Canon managed to engineer the HV20 for a normal sized SD card, I’d be operational sooner.

Similarly, a FireWire card was in my son’s Windows XP PC, so moving it to my Vista desktop was a pain. I have more RCA A/V cables than devices so I didn’t need another one, but an extra FireWire cable would have been handy.

My earlier cameras came with a separate charger, so you could charge a spare battery during some family occasion, such as a wedding. It was a pain to pack the charger, so it’s a mixed blessing that the HV20 acts as a charger and you connect it to the power pack. You just cannot charge a second battery without buying a separate charger. As a product marketer I can see my Canon counterpart’s stroke of genius there. I speculate that he might have owned an iPod.

Memories

When my children were born (1988/1991), I had analogue camcorders and so those early taped memories are as fuzzy as the 8 mm home movies of my parents’ generation. My first digital camera gave me the power to edit my family travels on my PC and they are quite sharp when they aren’t shaky. We have a high-definition home theatre setup and digital TV/satellite TV, so the home-made videos look shocking on a 9-foot screen.

The Canon HV20 now solves that problem. The kids are still at home and our next family videos will capture their memories in high definition. I am very pleased with this camera, which will get fully exercised on a round-the-world trip I am making shortly.

Popularity: 71% [?]