Tag Archives: n95

What would my grandfathers have said?

Back in 1996, or thereabouts, I gave a presentation to a meeting of my then colleagues and senior managers, and said something to the effect that the web, and the technologies that were emerging alongside it, would “change the way we work, as surely as the coming of electricity changed the way our grandfathers worked”. They looked at me as though I was raving mad, and there was even a murmur of embarrassed laughter. [To be fair, one of the few present who seemed to accept what I said was Michael — later Sir Michael — Lyons, whom I had earlier shown his first ever view of a web site. Now, as chairman of the BBC Trust, he’s responsible for overseeing bbc.co.uk!]

Last week, I wrote a review of a concert by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall (please feel free to comment on my review, below). During the interval, still sat in my seat (booked, of course, by e-mail), I wirelessly bluetooth connected a pocket-sized, folding keyboard (an iGo device, purchased on-line) to my Nokia N95 mobile computer (it’s really not fair to refer to the latter as a mere “phone”) and jotted down my thoughts on the first half. After the concert, I sat in the ICC’s adjacent cafe and, using the same kit, fact-checked some spellings and dates on the web, then completed the draft of my review, which I then sent by e-mail to my home PC. To be more precise, I hit “send” and dropped the N95 into my back pocket. The e-mail was actually sent from there, as I walked to my car.

When I got home, I tidied my prose, then e-mailed the review to the publishing site’s editor, who, after his usual procrastination, uploaded it to his web server. Can you imagine me writing a review that way, in 1995? I think I had the last laugh, after all. My grandfathers, George Mabbett and Harry Brazier, would have been astonished. And, I hope, proud.

Unknown Beethoven symphony discovered!

I heard a new — to me — piece of music the other evening, It was on ClassicFM‘s rather lovely ‘The Full Works‘, the late evening show which plays whole pieces, rather than the shorter snippets featured during the day. The piece was clearly (to my admittedly untutored ears) Beethoven, and symphonic, but, familiar as I am with Beethoven’s symphonies, I’d never heard it before, and couldn’t place it. The use of horns was typically Beethovian, the woodwind was very Beethovian, the strings were quite Beethovian, and the structure of the piece itself was absolutely Beethovian. No doubt about it, it was a Beethovian piece. But what was it?

As soon as I could, I pulled the car over and parked at the side of the road, whipped out my trusty Nokia N95, and used ClassicFM’s useful, if appallingly inaccessible and not really mobile- friendly, on-line playlist to check what it was. And it wasn’t Beethoven at all. To my surprise, it was Georges Bizet‘s Symphony In C Major. Remarkably, it was written as a student exercise in 1855, when he was just 16, and lay forgotten and unperformed until it was rediscovered in 1935. You’d never tell, if you heard this impressive work.

Well worth seeking out, I reckon. Especially if you like Beethoven.

More Nokia N95 (and Opera Mini) wishes

Dear Nokia, and Opera,

When using your browsers on my N95, please can I:

  • Copy text from a web page
  • Disable CSS
  • View the HTML source
  • Parse microformats (not least hCard, to add contact details to the address book and dial phone numbers; hCalendar, to add events to the calendar; and Geo, to find places on maps).

Surely that’s not a lot to ask for? Thank you.

Who do you work for, again?

I can add a person to Microsoft Outlook as “Bloggs, Fred (Acme Ltd.)”, or “Acme Ltd. (Bloggs, Fred)”. These sync to my Nokia N95’s address book , or can be entered directly, as:

First name = Fred

Last name = Bloggs

Company = Acme Inc.

The vCard (i.e. industry standard for business-card type contact data) and hCard specifications both cater for company (or organisation) names.

So why, in the name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may his noodly appendages grace you), can I not find them, when I search my address book for “Acme Inc.”?!?

And why can I not search for people by nickname?

Nokia needs to fix this, and soon.

Leaf on bars


Leaf on bars

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Floating Leaf


Floating Leaf

Here’s a picture of a leaf, floating on water.

Having uploaded the picture to Flickr from my N95, and viewed it in my picture stream using the N95, it’s a pity I had to return to my desktop PC to post this, via Flickr’s blogging interface.

Flickr: please make it possible to blog pictures from mobile devices.

Nokia N95 fails to geo-tag pictures

I have a Nokia N95. Mostly, I love it.

As well as being a damn fine ‘phone and a handy web device, it’s a camera; and a GPS device.

So why the hell are my pictures, taken with the GPS device running, not tagged, in EXIF headers, with the relevant coordinates?