First I found this tutorial on how to setup a daily backup routine from the command line.

The solution is fancy enough, but I thought, why not simply use Apple’s Mail app to get all the mail on the desktop?

Here we go.

I was following instructions from here and here.

Synchronization seems to work all right, so aside from backup, now I can use Mail app to work on email offline.

This is really cool, and just in time when I thought that it would be nice to have some kind of a fixed line number. But a fixed number without having to get actual fixed line is even better.

Unlimited local calls don’t hurt either.

If I figure how to set up a fax on this number, then it would really satisfy all my phone related needs.

Update: unfortunately it seems faxing is not really something you can do on voip.

PARIS (Thomson Financial) – France Telecom’s Orange is “in discussions” with
Apple Inc. to sell the iPhone outside France, where it has distributed it since
November.

CFO Gervais Pellissier said the company is in talks with Apple on the
subject, in particular with regard to Spain and Poland “among others”.

Let’s hope so, I don’t like the idea to buy a hacked phone.

But meanwhile, I’m busy enough not to have time for anything. Hence no posting. I even worked on May long weekend, can you believe it.

The only exception is playing with my new mac. I’m typing on it right now. Hopefully I will have time to post about first impressions & issues.

After trying to learn differences between gazillion Nokia models I ended up with conclusion that this is supposed to be the best that Nokia can offer – N95:

It looks like a brick, with especially awful cheap shiny buttons on a side (one I held was plum, not black, and it looked far worse than picture). It seems to have a separate, tiny button for each function, with priority given to the functions that I never expect to use (e.g. conferencing).

It is trying to be also a music player, but I don’t see giving up a handy 8gb ipod for this mess (and besides the one I saw was just 2gb). On a plus, the camera seems advanced (but then again, why need a good camera in a phone).

I’m seriously considering simply buying an unlocked iPhone.

Ironically, I recall article in NYTimes which I read not long ago, about Nokia stance against iPhone. Nokia Pushes to Regain U.S. Sales in Spite of Apple and Google:

Nokia’s executives describe their own reactions to it in flat, unemotional terms that would seem scripted, if the speakers were not Nordic.

“The user interface was what one would expect from Apple,” said Kai Oistamo, the executive vice president for mobile phones. (…)

For now, though, Nokia is counting on its broad portfolio of products, rather than a single iPhone-killer, to fend off the competition. “We’re not a one-product, two-product company,” Mr. Kallasvuo said.

Yes, Nokia, fortunately you are not a company of one elegant, pleasant-to-use product. You are a gazillion substandard products company. Way to go.

I added 1gb of ram to my laptop, getting at the total of 1.5gb. It’s hard to believe how much difference it makes. Everything is snappy, there is no delay when switching to window which was unused for some time, and files open momentarily.

I have also moved this site to a better host, on which it is possible to install stuff without debugging it for a whole night. It will allow some long overdue updates.

Thoughts…

1) It’s nice thing that such communication occurs at all and MS should be credited for it

2) However, nothing can explain why people who bought new expensive hardware and new operating system from MS get worse experience than what they had 5 years ago… and, as people comment, other OSes deliver better experience on the same hardware

3) I wonder how MS images anyone buying into “PC as entertainment hub” if they can’t even get the simple audio playback right

4) All this makes it scary to think about need to buy a new computer in the nearest future. But new computers should fare better than old ones upgraded to Vista, and hopefully some of these problems will be solved by then.

Sad, this inertia.

I?m not a gadget maniac, but when I eventually get my hands on a new gadget, I tend to play with it a lot. And so far I like my new Nokia:

At the very start I took a look at Motorola’s RAZR, but then decided to stick with Nokia; clamshells don’t look durable.

Then, having set on the brand, I was considering buying the cheapest model – looks the same for me, and I don’t care much about phone anyway – but then I thought that I could find the phone to be used as an audio player as well, in order to economize on number of devices I have to carry around. That was the reasoning behind choosing 6230i.

After I added 512mb MMC memory card, the device looks like a worthy audio player, at least from a hardware point of view. In practice, it’s less impressive – it takes ages to transfer files through infrared, then the software makes it difficult to navigate the files on the road. There are two music players on the phone, and both are crappy.

Then again, as they told me in the Nokia’s shop, “it’s because it’s a phone!”, and that’s true; even though it’s a poor excuse for an unhandy UI.

So, as for the phone itself, all the functions I would expect, and some more, are provided. Battery has a long life, unless I listen extensively to the radio, which is more of a “killer application” for me than the audio player.

Not an iPod replacement, this one. But still a good universal phone, with possibility to listen to the Russian audio lessons from time to time.

http://origamiproject.com/blogs/team_blog/archive/2006/03/09/19.aspx

The buzz started when the “leaked” video featuring device was discovered, however, Microsoft claims this was not staged:

Myth #2, we leaked the Origami video to create more hype. I can guarantee you that the discovery of the Origami video created by Digital Kitchen was completely unexpected. No one at Microsoft even knew that video was publicly available until someone posted it after finding it by doing an Internet search.

Anyway, the story makes an interesting case study of the viral marketing.

When the device was finally unveiled at Cebit, it turned out to be a smaller version of Tablet PC:

In the meantime, quite interesting “Origami” turned into a dull, but not unexpected given Microsoft’s record in (un)inspiring naming, “UMPC” for “Ultra Mobile PC”.

Not that the product itself is much more exciting than the name – it is reported to have a battery life up to 3 hours and cost around 1000$; why it would be better than the smartphones, PDAs and portable game consoles already on the market is anyone’s guess.

In November 2005, at the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis, Negroponte unveiled a $100 laptop computer designed for students in the developing world. The project is part of a broader program by One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit started by Negroponte and other Media Lab faculty, to extend Internet access in developing countries.

The homepage of the “One Laptop per Child” association provides the following illustrative on how the Linux-powered device would look like:

Reactions of the computer industry players are quite mixed.

While the initiative has support of some heavyweights including AMD, Google and Red Hat, Intel has little good to say about it, judging from this article in Wired:

Potential computer users in the developing world will not want a basic $100 hand-cranked laptop due to be rolled out to millions, according to Craig Barrett, ECO of Intel.

Then:

“It turns out what people are looking for is something is something that has the full functionality of a PC,” he said. “Reprogrammable to run all the applications of a grown up PC … not dependent on servers in the sky to deliver content and capability to them, not dependent for hand cranks for power.”

Also Microsoft was not delighted:

Major computer industry players appear to be taking the venture seriously, including companies like Microsoft Corp. that aren’t yet participating. Microsoft could be confronting a laptop that could become a standard in the developing world — one that, for now, would come without its dominant Windows software.

It’s understandable why Intel or Microsoft would not fall in love with the idea of rock-bottom cheap computers, flooding the developing countries in millions. The argument of people wanting the real thing instead of cheap alternative, even if they are poor, has something to it.

On the other hand I wouldn’t underestimate what can happen if you give children a toy to play with. I recalled an experiment in India a few years ago:

Dr. Mitra heads research and development at NIIT, a leading computer software and training company in New Delhi. Just outside his office is a wall that separates his air-conditioned 21st-century office from a slum. Mitra decided to place a high-speed computer in the wall, connect it to the Internet, and watch who, if anyone, might use it. To his delight, curious children were immediately attracted to the strange new machine. “When they said, ‘Can we touch it?’” Mitra recalls, “I said, ‘It’s on your side of the wall.’ The rules say whatever is on their side, they can touch, so they touched it.”

Within minutes, children figured out how to point and click. By the end of the day they were browsing. “Given access and opportunity,” observes O’Connor, “the children quickly taught themselves the rudiments of computer literacy.”

Coming back to Mr. Negroponte and his laptop, he is reported to plan producing “five to ten million units beginning in late 2006″ and millions more a year later.