Life Tech

These days, almost every cafe / library and MacDonalds, you can see people with their laptops surfing or just working on them.

Sometimes we take our security for granted and forget how easy it is to steal our precious machines.
Imagine how much emails /bookmarks /music /videos /documents /pictures will be lost if it was really gone!

Well, instead of lugging around those laptop cable chains, you can try this free simple laptop alarm.

It activates the alarm on these 3 circumstances if your password is not keyed in;

1. It is plugged out of the power supply
2. Shutdown/Logged off and
3. USB mouse pulled out.

While, it’s not foolproof and not stopping the theft from just running with it, at least it will give you a head start to begin the chase.

http://www.syfer.nl/

The Nokia n800 is finally arriving in Singapore!

Its retail price has been placed at SGD$708.00 while there are places like Mobile Square retailing it for SGD$628.00 (inclusive of 7% GST).

The US price had been USD$399.00 which is approximate SGD$605.92 (the US dollar is at its lowest for years… as of this blog post) You can get it cheaper from some of the US online shops, of course you’ll need to factor in tax and shipping charges.

So before you rush out and buy one. Let me help you decide if you really need one or you just want one to have the latest and greatest toy…

The Nokia n800.

What it is NOT :

1. It is NOT a phone.
Well, technically, speaking as you cannot put in a SIM card and start dialing to M1 / Singtel or Starhub (if you are in Singapore) or any other mobile carrier in the world!

2. It is NOT (really) a PDA nor UMPC to replace your Blackberry / Treo / Clie / Ipaq.
Why? It is not built to replace these devices. It belongs to a niche by itself. It lack its own PIM – Personal Information Managers, programs. Like syncing to Calendar/To Dos / Contacts. It doesn’t do push mail natively.That being said, there are 3rd party programs trying to fill the gap.

What it CAN DO :

1. It is an internet tablet : Made to surf the net thru wifi or thru your mobile phone’s bluetooth modem. (no ethernet port)
2. The 800×480 screen resolution : is what makes it different from surfing the net on your PSP (320×340). So most sites appear how they should without much scrolling.
3. It runs on a special version of Linux – uses open source programs.
   So what this means?
   • Not many applications are available (as compared to palm/windows mobile) but this is being worked on by the numerous talented people in the open source community.
   • Your normal Linux programs need to be re-compiled/re-fitted for use.
   • If you are a programmer and love linux, this is a great device to flex your skills on. Nokia is putting in a fair bit of resources to realise the full potential of this device.
4. Play some media files -> music/photos/videos from either one of the 2 SD card slots (yes, 2!) or direct from your UPnP server. The new firmware update now allows you to use the new SDHC cards. Up to 8gb per card so it’s a total of 16gb for all your media needs! These SD card slots, of course allows you to use MiniSD/ MMC cards.
   (I’ll have a special tutorial on how to set up TVersity which encodes divx/avi videos on the fly, to watch on your n800!)
5. Use as your internet Radio player AND FM radio player (like most Nokia phones, you need to attach a pair of earphones/headphones for this to work. It works as an antenna.)
6. Built-in RSS feed reader : It can automatically (you can set the timing) pull news for you.
7. Skype / Video conference / Instant Messenging : With the latest firmware, you can use Skype on the n800 with software from Skype/Nokia’s collaboration.
   And with third party programs like Pidgin – you can use your favourite IM program, MSN/Yahoo/ICQ/GoogleTalk… depending on the plugin you install.
   The built-in webcam will allow you to do video conferencing with their Nokia Conference call. Rumours that in the future Skype should support video too.
8. Email : There is a built-in email application. Not highly rated and I don’t use it. It uses POP3 and IMAP.
9. Great E-book reader : You can read .pdf files with the built-in reader, however I highly recommend using Evince Document Reader instead with the faster and better zooming/rotation features.
   I use this feature a lot. The text and pictures look really nice and crisp. The touch screen is really easy and smooth to do scrolling. (Looks cool doing the scrolling too! Like the iPhone..haha!)
10. Calculator/Clock/Notes/Games : are standard built-in applications.
11. Surf the NET! : YES! You can surf the net with this! Ok, I left this last because this one needs to be a little more attention.
    The n800 comes with the Opera browser built-in, however about 2 weeks ago, they release the Mozilla browser engine. It’s still in beta.
    So things work but not always as expected.Limitations with the Opera browser is a few of the AJAX/Web 2.0 sites don’t work well. (e.g. Gooogle.com/reader) While the Mozilla engine version handles it much better. Google Docs works fine as reports have it.However, if you think you want to do some internet banking or stock trading, you are out of luck if the sites uses JAVA (not Javascript, that works fine.). Again, there are rumours of porting over a version of Java for the n800, none is ready yet nor confirmed.

    One of the biggest complain for the n800 or Nokia 770 is how slow or unwatchable Flash videos are. Youtube and google videos don’t play nice with low refresh rates and jerkiness.
    With the latest firmware, the n800 is handling most Flash videos better now, though there’s still room for improvement.
    There are a few work arounds for this problem if you are Youtube/Google Video junkie. Like using orb.com or the UK Tube program.

12. 3.5 hours or more of battery life : Depending on your usage pattern it has been reported that this can go to more than 5 hours of online usage… and since it shares the same charging plug (the new mini one) you can charge it almost anywhere using the normal Nokia phone chargers.

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In conclusion, I love my n800. It’s one of the most useful gadget/toy/multimedia/productivity device I ever got. I have been playing with this for 7 months already and things just keeps getting better with more and more applications being added and new features released.

Like the FM radio, the plug-in is only released months after it’s launch. Bluetooth is version 2.0 so A2DP is supposed to be supported natively too. (Currently Kagu with the BT instructions here, allows you to use this feature already.)

Coupled with my Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard, I will leave my tabletpc, a HP TC1100, behind and still surf the net for free using the Wireless SG around parts of our little red dot island. The enlarged touchscreen keyboard works great too!

I hope this post will help you decide if you want the 2nd generation of Nokia’s bold step forward. It’s not for everyone… just for those who know what they want.