Andy Hadfield

Leads ladies and gents, leads! Anyone got cutting edge S60 stuff? Preferably that wonderful balance between gadgety and actual usage value.

Bring it.

Hmm. A little more gadgety, but shows good potential. Widsets is essentially a framework within which you can run mobile widgets. CNN, Wikipedia, Weather, RSS Feeds etc. etc.

I'm a firm believer that widgets (small, packaged pieces of code that fulfil a very singular purpose) are the way of the future. They can be shared, chosen to suit your preference and used to "pull" content from countless sources. "Pull" is the new "push". Get on board.

And graphically? It's... Very smooth.

Advantages:
*Fair amount of content already
*Smooth use of limited bandwidth speed, loads and pre-loads widgets in the background.
*Very slick interface - the widgets sit as big, bold 2.0ish icons on a starry night sky. Click to launch each widget's specific interface.

Disadvantages:
*Bandwidth heavy.
*Takes a bit of searching to hook yourself up with valuable widgets - there's a lot cutey American crap.

Summary:
If widgets are the way of the future (and this can read common …

This just popped up in my Gmail. They're getting better and better, aren't they? Using fancy words like SSL. Cute looking login buttons... the works.

Ladies and germs - be careful of this one.



On a lighter note - you would think the spammers would target a little better. I'm not even an FNB customer. Chances are slim I'm going to update my profile at a bank I'm not even a customer of!

Spammers. Scammers. What is this world coming to?

Just a quick one. What do you always have at the river retreat, beach house, bush lodge? A fire. A case of beers. A guitar. No-one with a good voice. And no guitar tuner. Don't you love those small apps that do one thing, really well? No matter how simple?

Problem solved.

Advantages:
*Simple, does the job.

Disadvantages:
*Simple, does the job

Summary:
*Doesn't taste like beer, but sure goes down alongside.

GET IT HERE!

I have been searching for a WHILE for an integrated IM client for my Nokia N73. I've used a couple - online MSN, eMSN blah blah. Mostly clunky, costly and just not slick enough. And, not integrated. There's nothing I find more frustrating on the PC than having to load Google Talk, MSN and Skype.

Enter Nimbuzz. Wow. Do yourself a favour and give this one a try.

Advantages:
*Currently support MSN and Google Talk - in one interface!
*AIM / Skype / Yahoo coming soon - it is only version 0.9.1
*as stable as rhino
*run multiple chats at once / conference chats
*runs in background
*apparently the ability to "page" users even if they're not logged in (something about adding a particular number to your contacts - interesting.
*SA point of presence for VOIP routing. Dial a local number and they route the remainder of the call over the internet.
*Light on bandwidth.
*Slick, professional and 2.0'ey interface.

Disadvantages:
*Battery sucker.

Summary:
Superb. Best I've seen yet. Puts…

Had a thought, set off my Paul's post on blogs and app collections for the S60 devices (essentially any Nokia N Series upwards - although there is a difference between S60 Second Edition and S60 Third Edition - ask a techie).

I'll post the apps I've come across so far - because I'm a complete mobile gadget junkie. And, hell, what's an FDisk, Format, Reinstall... Well, actually - it's prob R250 at an MTN store - but you've got to be brave with this stuff :)

I digress.

The first app is Nokia Search. It doesn't come pre-installed as far as I know on N73 downwards - but you can get to it via the Nokia Catalogues menu option. It isn't quite adapted to the SA market yet - but you can see the power. Search your through your mobile files like they were the web, and link through to maps, Windows Live Search etc. etc.



Advantages:
*Search through files, sms'es, contacts, calendars by keyword.
*Search results link to actual phone functions (ie click on sms search…

Hmmm. Kerry has put me on the sniffer of just what the Vista rating scale actually means. My nice, fast (melting - yes, need to check on that warrant, they don't make plastic like they used to) Travelmate that I've been complaining about. The one that chunks along with Vista and Office 2007. It scores a 4.6 our of 5.



Now, I thought it was out of 10 - a plausible explanation for the sluggy, yet oh-so-beautiful response. But a 4.6? You can't get a lot better than that. Bollocks.

Read more here, I did...

*Microsoft to refine Vista's PC Rating Tool
*Performance Rating Tool comes under fire...
*Performance Rating Calculation on Vista

Most interesting observation seems to be that individual factors can get as high as 5.9 (latest NVIDIA) and... the scale is designed to go all the way to a lip-smacking ten as technology increases. Predicting tomorrow? Allowing for upgrading? Microsoft? Noooo...

I like it.

Always good to get a little inspiration from a fellow technologist. Especially one who hasn't had it as easy as some of his colleagues.

Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech. 'You've got to find what you love,'

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, an…

It can like to do cool stuff like 3D rendering of my piktures.



(All created from a simple right-click format picture in Vista. Yes. The Power of Paint Shop Pro Windows 3.1 finally goes mainstream.)

Nee man. Hy's pragtig. Maar fok dis stadig!



I must say, I'm blown away by the interface (Vista Business - but I don't think it makes a difference). However, I wasn't expecting my Dual Core 2GHZ Speed Bitch with ATI X1600 256MB + 256MB Shared to battle. And it does.

Try do more than a couple of things at once, at you're bloody lucky it's beautiful - because you do quite a bit of sitting and watching.

I'm also starting to run into the compatibility problems. My Acer Travelmate 8210 is now without Bluetooth, proper touchpad settings, webcam and a couple of other things. I could download them, but the Acer FTP site is well, timing out - and I ain't waiting for a download at 700 bytes a second. My luck.

Who cares. It's pretty!