I remember a few months ago, I thought to myself, it’s nice to have everything in a rythym (spelling?!).  The money was coming in, and more was being saved than I’d managed to the previous 24 years of my life, I was embarking on some exciting new work prospects, and I was writing on this page over twice a week.

What the hell happened?

Falling into a rythym, out of rythym

As I said, for a period (probably a lot shorter than I actually remember), I felt like I was getting things done, and working towards some goals.  The last 2 months has shattered this, and I’ve now managed to fall into a new rythym or being completely out of the previous beat I was following.  I shouldn’t blame myself too much, there’s been a lot of time consuming, money draining things going:

• the Wedding (enough said),
• the quasi HoneyMoon,
• the 3 different visits of different groups of family and friends, spanning now over the past 6 weeks; and
• the 4 holidays (of various lengths coming up to Paris, Southern England and of course Russia)

With all the interruptions, I’ve managed to lose a fantastic work oppurtunity (don’t ask, big project, stake in company, yada, yada….), eat and drink (badly) constantly and quite frankly waste a metric f$#kload of money.  And with things not paid for, such as the holidays I mentioned above, I can’t see any easy way out of immediate debt.

Planning…

So here I am, preaching to Google crawl bot (possibly this posts only audience, given its less than exciting nature), and getting my thoughts down on paper (we’ll call it, the interscroll), to come to a quick as possible solution to the problem.

I’ve spent the last hour updating the C&S Income/Expenditure budget (yet another thing, I’ve lost track of), and whilst things ain’t as glum as I thought they might be, it seems something has to give:

• stop on the spot purchases (easy, I’ll stop scouring internet shops in downtime at work)
• cut back on drinking/going out (should be fine, now that the visitors have moved on)
• borrow more money (read debt) from the bank, not a good idea.  The way things are going at the moment, I’m probably one of their favourite small-time customers.
• cut back on one of the holidays (kind of hard as it was booked months in advance (not with our money, at the time).

I find myself in the money pickle again, something I’m no stranger to.  I’m comfortable enough that I know I can be clear and mostly debt free again by say… September, but its the now that I can’t handle.

Completely off topic, but the book I’m reading at the moment, Tripwire (my 6th novel since April!), starts with a CEO of a faltering U.S electronics business going to a loan shark for a large loan.  In borrowing 1.1 million dollars, he falls into the trap of paying back a high interest rate, and giving a rather large proportion of his fledgling companies shares to the shark who sells them all instantly for nothing causing the banks to freak and dump his enourmous loans off on a large mortgage recovery operation (ftonted in the Cayman islands, by the loan shark himself).  This has nothing to do with my situation at all, but geez, show’s what debt and stupidity can do in times of desperation.

Recoupling on the rail to success….

I’ve got a 7 point plan to rectify this little situation of mine, firstly:

• enjoy the holiday to Russia, no point in stressing about that
• get all debts on the way to be being repaid by September 2008, this includes costs for the wedding, the previous personal loan, and credit card debt
• write at least two posts a week to HD911, content is the key
• continue reading novels, but branch out into some different authors, 4 books by one author (Lee Child) and 2 by another (Harlen Coben) is proving a little too much
• continue good things at the office
• get off my ass and get this work started and flowing again; and
• and keep exercising as much as possible, the 15 mile week (counted 4 trips from the office to Waterloo station (3.5miles) and smaller trips between work and Trafalgar Square) was a step in the right direction.

Let’s do this thing…. Yea!

You can ask anyone, I’m not usually one to pick up a book, and it’s even more unlikely that I’d be caught reading one.  In fact over the last year, apart from daily reads of websites (which often contain relatively large stories/articles), and various tech (read: geek) books, the only books I’ve read are:

• Tucker Max - I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell…
• Maddox - The Alphabet of Manliness

In the last ten days I’ve doubled this, and now I’m onto my third book.  This is amazing because, as we’ve already estabilished, I don’t read, so it takes something unusual to break the literary drought.  And I’ve definitely that something I think.  Lee Child’s alter ego Jack Reacher is just about the most interesting character I’ve ever read about, which tells me a) Child write’s f*&king good books, or b) I’m uncultured and haven’t read anywhere near enough books.  I’ll go with option a, because I know how cultured and cool I am.

So far, I’ve read too of Child’s books, One Shot, and Bad Luck and Trouble, which kept me glued from start to finish.  The former is about a seemingly random mass murder in Indiana by a trained sniper where the crime is completely faked and made to look like it was a retired army Marine who did the shooting, and the victim’s weren’t all completely random (shock horror).  The latter involves half of Reacher’s old Army group getting killed for uncovering a plot to ship new U.S missile technology to terrorists and Reacher meets up with the remaining four members of the group to bring justice to those taken down.  As usual, weapons, money and a whole lot of violence is involved.

One thing I really liked about the first book (that I didn’t notice as much in the second) is that the whole book plays out almost exactly like a Law and Order episode.  I’m a Law and Order nut, if its on I’ll watch it, and even episodes I’ve seen before rate pretty high on the re-watchability scale (as long as they’re not watched in close succession).  Apart from the abomination that was Trial By Jury, or Justice By Jury (something like that), I’ve liked pretty much every episode that I’ve watched in the past 18 series the original show has been running.  And I appreciated that about One Shot.  It plays out like any cop/military drama, and it keeps interest the whole time.

I’d had Lee Child recommended to me recently, and by coincidence, the newspaper The Evening Standard happened to have a free copy if you bought a copy of the paper.  So I guess advertising works, as I’ll now probably continue and buy the rest of his books, starting from the first of the series of course.

Anybody want to recommend me some good reading?

My new Laptop, a Dell Vostro 1700 arrived on Tuesday, and its more than a worthy replacement for my ageing Latitude.  I might even go as far as to say its the perfect notebook, for the person who doesn’t need to take their machine to work with them every day.  The only reason I say that is because its big, and really heavy as well (I’d estimate 4kg).

But for a round-the-house desktop replacement, media and occasional gaming machine, its perfect, and cheap too!

I got:

• Core2Duo 9500 (2.5Ghz)
• 4GB RAM
• nVidia 8600GM
• 2×200GB 7200RPM HDD’s
• Intel Wireless Draft-n card
• 17″ 1920×1200 WUXGA+ Monitor

Plus all the throw in options (Vista, MS Office, Bluetooth Headset, etc etc)

For £895!

Once again, I put it to anyone to find a similar spec’d machine for anywhere near this price because Dell definitely seems to have the upper hand in these stakes.

A weird question to start with, to be sure, and although I talk to myself an awful lot (possibly more than is healthy) I wouldn’t ever need to ask myself that question.  So now, I’m not suddenly suffereing from Gender disassociativeness nor have I become separted from my racial/special (is that a word?) roots like the mental/medical condition where people ‘disown’ parts of their body and occasionally even amptutate the alien part (I wish I could remember the name of it).  No, I’ll leave the body mutilation for another week, I really asked this question after a recent conversation with a work mate.

It was one morning this week and said colleague had been asked by the big wigs over at Ché Le Corporate to get a list of all employees and their accompanying Job Titles from the Nike Wallet Processing Plant (that is, my office).  The conversation went a little like this:

“Hey, what do you want your job title to be, I’ve been asked to get a list of everyone and their job titles.  I’ve put down System Administrator for you for the time being”

Hearing this stopped me dead in my tracks, “System Administrator I thought, What have I got myself into?”.  By no fault of my colleague at all, he’d pointed out something that was now blatently clear to me.  My recent change in jobs has changed me from a budding developer (working on a relatively deadend project, but still a developer nonetheless), to kind of a Network/Tech/Administrator guy.

Now, the Network and Tech part of that, I don’t mind, the server hardware & network and linux setup part of the computer world is something I’ve always been interested in.  But the Systems and Administrator part is what scares me, for no one worth their grain of salt (I hope thats me) aspires to be a System Administrator, it really is a glorified helpdesk position, and now I have to watch my step carefully, so as not to fall into the role that is the scorn of the whole IT profession.  I continue down this parth, and soon enough, I’ll be the general office go to guy:

• the guy who handles helpdesk and support requests
• the guy who manages such petty things as network and email accounts
• the guy who answers the phone… often; and worst of all
• the guy who is expected to order stationary, water and toilet paper

Thankfully, none of these things can or will ever apply to me, I’d sooner quit my job, move back to Australia and hammer my tongue/foot/penis flat enough to fit into a standard paper shredder if only for the joy of it.

So now everyone, I am on a journey of rediscovery, to make sure I still continue on the path to greatness, despite my sudden change in job descriptions.  Thus, once again, I’ll ask:

Who/What Am I?

This has me really thinking about exactly what I want from career, as even though I’m still relatively new in this game, I can already see that what I wanted 5 years ago (a job…) is far different than the goal I have now.  But thats the way life should be, if I’d had it the way I wanted it when I was 5 I’d be a cop, an astronaut or a gynaecoligist (ech…) right now, and all three I am not.

But really, whats in a title? It’s what you make of it, and if I don’t want to be the Bastard Operator From Hell, I won’t be, despite how much fun it could be.  So I’ll make what I can of this period, see how it goes.

I came home the other night to a partially dead laptop.  The power adapter (brick) refused to react to being plugged into the power (the light wasn’t turning on and it was emitting a rather funny smell), so I’d think it was a power surge.  The only problem was, I got a replacement charger/battery and the problems didn’t stop there.  The screen (whilst displaying a perfect picture) flickers and can’t draw the screen fast enough, so whilst I can still type on it (like now) and use it for email, it’s pretty much useless for any other task.

The screen looks like an old 40’s reel-tape movie/video with the flicker every second or so and what looks like dust flecks in the corners, like an old, pre World War II Donald Duck Cartoon:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG3R3rMu12E[/youtube]

I’m sure there was an older pre-war video somewhere

But seriously, I’m now confronted by the situation where I can pay to get this laptop repaired, which I’d estimate at about £150, or order a new laptop on Higher Purchase via Dell, both of which I really shouldn’t be considering as money is tight at the moment with everything coming up!  But whats a little more debt on top of the pile?

A couple of years ago when I was looking for my last laptop, the choice was fairly clear as to what was the best options.  Basically for the price, I didn’t think there was anything worthy but an optioned up Dell Latitude.  Dell is still (of course) by far the best bang for the buck, nothing comes close price/specs wise but I’ve looked at:

• Dell Latitude again (over priced business use)
• Dell Vostro (Cheap completely customisable Business series)
• Dell Inspiron (Consumer, very little difference to the Vostro’s)
• Dell XPS (Dell’s Cream of the crop, great mix of everything)
• Dell Precision (Over priced, performance Business Model)
• Alienware (True performance, but I thought with ageing hardware & very expensive)
• Apple Macbook Pro (I’d love one of these, not worth twice the price of the equivalent Dell machine though); and
• a range of Gaming Acer, Asus, HP/Compaq, Lenovo and Sony models which were either under performers or largely over priced

Once again, the Dell range offer the best money to nuts ratio, and quite often offer the newest (and thus best) hardware out of all the major players, so Macbook boasting aside, Dell gets my vote.

On second look, the Vostro looks like the best option, it can be optioned up to the max, and comes with a lot of extras that would otherwise cost money on the Inspiron range, so the clear winner for the time being is the Dell Vostro 1700.

Now why didn’t I pay the extra $100AUD for 3 years international warranty, when I last had the chance?

I’m afraid, I think I’ve been duped by April Fool’s Day again, and its not the first time.

One of my favourite sites back home is Whirlpool, for well over a decade now it’s provided a relatively unbiased view of the broadband situation in Australian, form the humble and mediocre beginnings of one way satellite, ISDN and others as a form of broadband medium right through to current technologies such as ADSL2+, WiMAX and Fibre technologies.  It’s owner, Simon Wright, has always stood heavily on neutral ground, and has a strong policy against defamation and vendor verdicts, despite the fact I’m sure there could be a lot of money in subtley pointing what is now “8.6 million people visit ninemsn each month, representing 73 per cent of active Australian Internet users” toward one of Australia’s bigger telco’s.

So when I logged on half an hour ago and read the front page, entitled “ninemsn acquires leading online discussion site” , I was appalled at the thought that Simon may have finally sold out.  So appalled that I wrote a reply to the discussion on the topic believing while I was writing it I was the first to reply as the the reply counter had been artificially set to 0.  That is, of course until I pressed post, and I’d realised I’d joined the masses, one of several hundred who’d logged on almost simulataneously to express their deep regret over this sad occasion.

The Dead Giveaway

Who’s the patsy now though?  I am…… again.

I can remember being fooled by April Fools Jokes on Websites on at least five occasions now, two of which I knew clearly it was April Fools Day and I was still so convinced by the writeup I’d instantly believed it.  One year comes to mind when the writer of a similarly sized Australian forum informed everyone that as of the start of May, all forum subscriptions would attract a monthly fee and a fee per message sent.  As you can imagine (like a cell full of stupids) this provoked uproar, aggression and upset an awful lot of people, especially once they’d realised they’d fallen one of the most obvious tricks.  Many were shamed due to their responses.

April Fools Day does seem to be a big event on the net though, with sites from all over the globe, large and small, making obsurd claims that people fall for year after year.  Some notable examples are:

• The Google Search Tool that can see into the future
• Googles TISP, providing mega broadband to the masses, via peoples Toilet and plumbing
• Google’s Paper - providing a free priting service to print all your incoming email onto hardcopy paper.. cheap.
• (see a trend happening here)?

As laid back, easy going and carefree that I am (most of the time, I’m realising more and more that I really like routine.  I like looking forward to an event in the future when I know the exact day in which it will occur.  Like Christmas, or a Birthday, I know exactly when it will occur, but I don’t always know what to expect at the date in which that event occurs.  And much like getting socks when you were hoping for tickets to the Superbowl (err, no), the ritual release of Ubuntu can bring both joy and/or dissapointment.

But unlike a Birthday, Ubuntu’s release cycle is biannual, so it’s twice the fun, if of course that’s the kind of thing that floats your boat.

Wind back 6 months to my previous posts on the last release, Gutsy Gibbon, I can remember being especially excited about the new release due to the hype surrounding the major release at the time, and I was by no means dissapointed.  It was incredibly nice to use a system in which everything just worked, no stuffing around with device drivers or compiling kernel hacks to get hardware working.  It really impressed.

Hardy Heron should be no different, though admittedly I haven’t heard near as much hype about its release which is surprising seeing as it’s an LTS (Long Term Support) release, in which a major release (once every 18 months) has long term support from the developers, three years on the desktop and five for the server release.  When Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) was released it included a lot of features which had been added, such as 3d/Compiz Desktop features, adding something significant to the user experience.

With the next release however (8.04), efforts have been made to make the system itself as solid as possible, obviously to make the job of supporting it easier over the next 3-5 years.  There does seem to be some changes to look forward to however:

• A new theme (yes, Human is finally getting a face-lift)
• Better support for compiz desktop effects
• A complete redesign/refactor of the restricted drivers profile
• Far better support/integration for dual monitors

My excitement got the better of me though, and I jumped the gun and updated my installation to the pre-release beta, and I felt like I’d taken a full step back. About 1 or 2 years back, that is.  Unfortunately my wireless card was unrecognised and I couldn’t even boot into GDM as my display settings (which worked only minutes before) didn’t work at all.  It took the better part of an hour to get things back to normal, but oh well thats what I get for installing pre-release software.  The new theme is far easier on the eye though, thank goodness.

Look out for this release!

With the huge choice of applications available for Symbian hardware and the N95 it’s often hard to find the perfect tool for the job, and GPS apps are no different. So like my previous articles, I’m going to try to report the pros/cons of each of the GPS/Navigation applications I could find for the Nokia N95 & S60v3 platforms. There seems to be an enourmous amount of applications that all do approximately the same thing which makes finding the perfect one especially difficult. Do you trust one of the older players in the GPS market like Garmin/Tomtom, the kings of the internet map sites Google Maps & MGMaps (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc) of finally one of the other mapping applications, like Nokia Maps or Map24Mobile.

1. Nokia Maps

Availability: Free (Comes with Phone)

Seeing as this is the default maps app that comes with the N95 it seems like a logical place to start, and with it’s voice navigation (a paid addon) and great integration it may be hard to top. That is, until you use it and try and get it to point you from a to b. It,s not that it does a terrible job, it,s just so slow at everything.

Standing in full view of all the eyes in the sky (read: satellites) from starting the app until it had located my position it had taken about 45 seconds to a minute. It,s just not responsive enough to warrant whipping it out of your pocket when your late for a meeting, but you can’t for the life of you remember where Ord Street North is, let alone trying to get it to give you directions whilst behind the wheel.

On the other hand, it has access to a decent point of interest database and standing in front of Westminister Abbey i found the map littered with places to see, eat, etc.

• Default app that comes with the phone
• Well integrated into nokia’s gallery & other phone features
• Great points of interest database with clear icons
• Has Voice Navigation (like in-Car Sat Nav Systems)

• Slow as a dog (bad boot time, slow map responsiveness, etc)
• No Terrain/Aerial/Satellite Maps

2. Mobile GMaps

Availability: Free

MGMaps is (I believe) a joint effort to bring maps from a range of providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, OpenStreet, Ask, etc) to give the maximum choice for finding the perfect map for the required situation. There’s the usual Street Map styled map, through to aerial/satellite and a hybrid of the two, terrain maps (for hiking I presume) and specialised maps with monuments, points of interest clearly marked.

Map with Tube/Underground Overlay

The real beauty with this app, however, comes with the map overlays and addons. Venturing in the the addons menu unlocks a host of options like Traffic reporting, Metro/Underground/Transport Maps, Wikimapia (user built Point of Interest database which is constantly growing) and a few other things that I didn’t really understand. Some of the overlays include geographic position, altitude (approx), speed & direction of travel, which can all be quite useful although can interfere due to the small amount of screen real estate.

Aerial/Satellite View

And where Nokia maps failed due to its slowness, and lack of usability, MGMaps shines, it’s quick and easy to use, the maps are drawn quickly, and the direction/guidance mapping seems accurate and didn’t get me into trouble once.

I won’t go into detail on the mobile version of Google Maps as pretty much everything you can do in Google Maps you can do in MGMaps, but also a lot more. I’m not sure what the exact story is, but I’m assuming Google has otherwise stopped development of its Mobile maps app and is participating in the newer better App.

• Free

• Huge choice of maps and map types

• Nice selection of overlays/addons

• Good Direction/Place finder

• No Voice Nav

TomTom: Simple, yet as a navigational tool whilst driving. Perfect

3. Tomtom Navigator 6

Availability: £87 (at time of writing) from http://www.tomtom.com

As I stated in the introduction, if it’s a navigation tool you want for driving and direction finding then look no further, Tomtom is the package you want. Everything is smooth, from the search/menu panel, quick bootup, routing, clear map (showing only path you need to take) and by far the best implementation of the voice navigation than I’ve seen on a phone/PDA yet.

Despite driving a small car, we found it ever so difficult taking the Walking Route

Like the In-car GPS unit you get to sit on your dashboard, if you’re driving and you really want a clear way from getting from point A to B without having to constantly have a hand on the unit this is the way to go. It’s as simple as typing in a destination, and following the prompts:

• Take the third exit at the roundabout
• In two miles follow the shoulder toward the M5
• Calculating Route (when missing a turn off)
• Arrived at Destination, Thankyou

And so on… And whilst your on your way you’ll get an annoying *beep* sound every few minutes, or so I thought at the time, until I realised Tomtom was warning me of approaching Speed/Redlight Camera and Dangerous spots in the road

The Trip Overview/Planner

The Tomtom navigator is, without doubt, the best drivers friend, its a no frills tool that serves a purpose, and one purpose only. What it lacks in maps, addons and features it more than makes up in usability (and I actually feel safe using it whilst driving, Mobile GMaps took far to much configuration and watching of the screen to be considered safe for driving).

Note: Screenshot didn’t seem to want to work while Tomtom was open, so I’ve used others screenshots

• Perfect Street guide, Driving Navigation Tool
• Seamless Voice Navigation, Traffic/Camera alerts

• Lacks all the cool features, like points of interest, overlays and different map types

4. Map 24 Mobile

Availability: Free from www.map24mobile.com

Really not much can be said about this app, it’s not useful for driving/navigation, and it’s speed, ease of use and features are nothing to write home about, but it is in early development. Map24 Mobile does have one interesting feature though, point it to a location and it knows where everything, and I mean everything, is. From my front door for instance, it tells me where the Shell station is, the library, 4 or 5 pubs, the police station and various other shops and restaurants are straight away.

Granted, I’m standing on my front porch, I can clearly see the Shell sign, two pubs and the side edge of a library and restaurant, but I can see it being a life saver when the apocolypse hits and I need to emerge from bunker 714 in pitch darkness and dense radioactive fog, so I’ll keep it on hand, anyway.

“3D View” - I couldn’t find a use for it

• Map24 knows retail, it really does

• … pretty much everything else

Like the IM Client article, there are honestly too many different apps to try and each would have its own set of pros and con’s, and quite often its own price tag, but I’ll list a few anyway:

• Garmin Mobile XT - One of the other Strong players in the handheld GPS market, similar features to TomTom
• Route 66 Mobile Britain
  
• Amaze GPS - A free Java GPS client, looks a bit like Tomtom, but with aerial maps too

From the point of view of the occasional user Mobile GMaps is definitely the one to go for, its very well put together and a full package without a lot of depth. And for the driver/navigator don’t look past the TomTom Navigator client, but I can see where all four apps would quite often come in handy so its probably quite handy to keep them all on at once, as really, you never know when you might need them (where is that Shell Station again?).

I’ve had a few emails since writing my previous entry on my favourite list of software for the Nokia N95. People were especially interested in the Truphone application and just how well it acted as an integrated internet phone application. I thought I’d take the oppurtunity to give my quick thoughts on the other chat/messaging/VOIP applications I’d tried since and list the pros and cons of each to get a fair idea of which app best suited which purpose.

The apps I’ve tried so far are Truphone, Agile Messenger, IM+ Messenger, MSN Live Messenger, Fring, Gizmo and Slick Messenger. Most are Instant Messenging clients that connect to anywhere from 1 network (MSN) to about 5, including ICQ, AOL, Yahoo, Google Talk, Skype, MSN and various others. If each has pros and cons, I’ll list them and give them a basic rating.

Truphone (http://www.truphone.com)

As you may know from my previous article, Truphone was an instant favourite of mine. It’s a Voice over IP application that’s main strength is that it completely integrates with the phone. I’m still yet to find an application that works so well with the N95’s interface, and at the same time never get in the way with annoying popups, or long processes to connect and make calls/send messages when required.

The Truphone Home Screen

Setting up Truphone is as simple as installing the app following the instructions on the site, creating an account and choosing an Access point to connect to the server with. Then anytime you’re in range of an internet connection, either via WLAN or 3G you have an icon (a phone over a globe), which allows you to make/receive calls on your specially assigned Truphone number, simplly by Clicking Intenet Call (instead of Voice/Video Call). Like using Skype on a computer it’s not perfect and requires a reliable wireless connection or full 3G for anywhere near normal phone call quality. But it’s crystal clear when its good, and dirt cheap too. In fact, if you sign up and use the service before March 28th, Truphone will give you free calls to most Western countries, both landlines and mobiles.

The N95 with Truphone connected (as shown with the top right icon)

Pros:

• Perfect Integration with the phone, no annoying popups, or drawn out call/connection processes
• Cheap calls and messages
• Works over both WLAN and 3G internet services

Cons:

• Call quality can suffer with less than perfect network connection (calling an Australian mobile left a lot to be desired, I’m assuming because of the added latency of the mobile network at the other end).
• In times of low network service, the constant polling for a better net connection is murder on battery life.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Agile Messenger (http://www.agilemobile.com/)

I tried Agile Mobile Messenger about the time I first installed Truphone, it really filled in the gaps in regards to an IM Client. Like Truphone the integration with the phone is second to none, and everything really just works. The only thing that lets it down is lack of Skype support, but in reality I can do without it, especially when using such a full featured app. The protocols supported are Google Talk, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, IMPS, AOL and AIM, and whilst surely noone can use all these protocols at once, it seems to cover pretty much all bases at once.

Agile Messenger Home Screen

One thing that impressed me about Agile was the extensive options and settings in relation to alerts and connection settings. The ICQ “uh-oh” sound was bad enough 10 years ago, and the two other IM clients which defaulted to this, and were forced to this were a definite down point, enough to make me turn them off and uninstall them. Luckily enough Agile doesn’t suffer from this at all, and has an extensive array of choices to manage alerts, sounds and vibration for incoming messages and events. A top notch message client

Pros:

• Perfect phone integration
• Cheap Life time registration
• Good Support accross pretty much all IM protocols

Cons:

• Battery life problems whilst constantly polling for connection (see a trend happeneing here)
• No Skype or other VOIP support

Rating 4.5 / 5

Fring Messenger (http://www.fring.com)

I tried Fring after my initial trial of Agile Messenger ran out, and was quite pleased with the results. It isn’t (yet) near as refined as Agile, and this is reflected in its interface, but it does seem to have a fair few of the features to back it up. The thing I liked most with fring was its intercompatibility between all chat/messaging protocols, and I could connect to my Skype account as well as the SIP provider Fring uses. Until recently I hadn’t often used Skype, but I have family/friends back in Australia who use it more than any of the other chat services and I’ve found the voice quality fantastic compared to most other computer -> computer solutions.

Fring Home Screen

Pros:

• Connects to pretty much any chat protocol, everything I’ve used thus far, anyway (Google Talk, ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Skype, Fring SIP service, etc)
• Like Truphone the Internet/Voice calls are well integrated into the phone, and Skype to Skype is useful

Cons:

• Clunky interface
• Battery life death in low connectivitiy situations due to scanning

Rating 4 /5

I’d planned to have a look at the other clients listed at the top of this post, but to be honest I really couldn’t find anything good about them at all. Slack Messenger, whilst having a nice looking interface was chunky, slow, and often refused to connect. The other clients had obvious negatives like connectivity with one protocol/network, in the case of MSN Live Messenger, and the Skype client, though 3 UK’s implementation of the Skype service is great with almost flawless connections over 3G GSM constantly.

Whilst I was recommended IM+ by a few people I found it didn’t compare the other three clients I’ve reviewed, so I’d put it in fourth place. But it’s a pretty even competition between Truphone, Agile and Fring depending on whether you want a fantastic, cheap VOIP service on top of an amazingly integrated client (Truphone), or a full featured and equally well integrated IM client (Agile), or a mix of the two (Fring).

With all this testing of IM/Messaging clients it once again became bleedingly obvious that the only real issue I have with the Nokia N95 is the battery life. I’m used to laptops with a usable battery life of 1-5hrs (and as low as 5 minutes, or a completely dead battery), and it seems reasonable that when used heavily in a situation a high powered phone would have similar life. Despite this, it becomes occasionally restrictive to have to carry around two batteries or be shutting down programs all day just so you can make a phone call on the way home.

To explain why I’m 3 hours late home from work because the pub was calling… of course.

Yes, so I was bored the other day at work, and what do we do when we’re bored, unproductive and not doing something creative like inventing weekly drinking days? We waste time on the internetz, and the flavour of the day was taking pointless online medical tests, because in this age of hypochondriacal madness who better to diagnose my mental state than a two-bit test on the internet? The first of the two was the ADHD Test at PhsycCentral.com, and the second was the quirky and manic inducing OCD Test on the ADAA’s website.

PsychCentral.com’s ADHD Test

In this day and age where every kid has some form of this elusive condition, and care-free doctor’s are giving away far too many prescription pills to worry-ridden over-bearing mother’s (or at least to crafty teenage entrepeneurs) it seemed like a good idea to take this test, to guage where one might stand, you know, in the scheme of things. I’m of the opinion that my rapidly declining memory and cognitive ability, which I was once quite proud of, is due to the effect of age, decreased mental stimulation and alcohol abuse. But I’m open to interpretation, and there I thought there might be a slight chance that the reason my attention span, and general attention to detail is so poor may have something to do with with this magical phenomenon.

Upon taking the test, I was greeted by the usual standard questions, “I say things without thinking, and later regret having said them.”, “In conversations, I start to answer questions before the questions have been fully asked.”, “Even when sitting quietly, I am usually moving my hands or feet.”, “I am distressed by the disorganized way my brain works.” Check, Yes, Very much so.  Cool, I thought, I’m a total and utter head case.  Nope, I rated in the Low to Mild ADHD category, falling far short of the target Moderate Level ADHD, or indeed the coveted trophy prize Adult ADHD.

First test a failure (or success, depending on which way you look at it), seemingly I’d wasted 5 minutes.  This got me thinking though, I’m only 24, which would is considered young by most standards.  Is it out of the ordinary that I’m noticing myself getting old (never thought I’d say that), or am I artificially accelerating this to a point that I’m noticing it early?? Bah!

ADAA.org’s OCD Test

For my next short term time waster I chose the OCD test, for those not in the know that’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and really I think there’s a little in everyone of us.  From the simple need to alphabetically sort a DVD or Book collection, clean the house, or line the pegs up on the clothes line in Colour/Size order (yes, I’ve been guilty of all three, though not compulsively) through to obsessive cleaning of ones hands, OCD is a very real beast that affects… people.  Errr.

I’m not completely sure if the writers of this test were having a laugh (is he ‘avin a laff??) when they wrote this page, or if they’re just down right mean, but a certain element that is missing would send even the most sane of people into a manic episode.  They left out the Submit button.  Ha!

Just imagine it, x number of OCD suspects want a semi-professional opinion so before sectioning themselves for good, they consult the doctor in a box, and proceed to type in parts of their innermost thoughts and secrets.  When crunch time occurs, and they’ve completed the entry section they look forward to recieveing the answer and solving the problem once and for all, so they search for the Submit/Upload/OK button.  No button!  So what do they do?? Do exactly what I did, I suspect, assume its part of the test and click like a mad mescaline munching donkey until the answer could be found.

Only it couldn’t, because it wasn’t there, and there was no form, only inputs, radio’s and some random links that went nowhere!  That’ll fuck em, least that’s what I bet the ADAA were thinking.

So anyway, Shannon 1, work day 0.