Yeh you better believe it baby.

I demonstrated this phone for ACB Radio last week and promised to post some comments here. My existing
phone is the Nokia 6600 so there are some comparative points here.

Cons: The keypad is very fiddly with the keys decreasing in size toward the
bottom of the phone making composing SMS and email pretty tricky; Annoying 5
directional navikey which does not feel as sturdy or as rugged as the
joystick on the 6600; The pop port is yet another annoying proprietary
standard requiring a proprietary cable, would have much preferred a standard
USB type B connector; The reduced size MMC is a limitation which could have
been avoided by using the much more widely available and affordable SD
cards; The headset connects to the pop port so a USB connection can not be
made at the same time as using the headset; It is not possible to connect
standard headphones to make the most of the stereo mp3 playback; the socket
for the charger is set at a 45 degree angle making using the phone in one’s
left hand cumbersome; Simbian security feature making it impossible to
complete an application installation via Bluetooth from a PC, this can make
installing Talks pretty fiddly; Finally, my first unit turned out to be
faulty with the seven key not responding and the cover for the RC MMC being
loose. Contrary to some reports there is no FM radio on this phone. And US readers should wait for the 6638 which is going to be to the 6630 what the 6620 was to the 6600.

Pros: Supports 3G with data speeds up to a theoretical maximum of 384k, I’ve
yet to see this in practice; Much more responsive with it’s faster processor
and more memory (10MB onboard and 64MB on the removable media card;
dedicated voice tag button on edge of phone; newer version of Simbian which
consolidates many of the menus; improved camera resolution and video
recorder which will now shoot upto 1-hour; stereo mp3 playback through
proprietary headset; improved onboard speaker; supports improved Nokia PC
Suite 6.5, raised rubber lip around camera lens providing greater
protection, although I don’t know why nokia couldn’t develop a rotating lens
cap; seven short cut keys with all 5 positions of the navikey being
configurable in addition to soft key 1 and soft key 2.

Over all I like the 6630 and think I’ll probably upgrade which will mean
regrettably the people at Orange may get to keep my custom after all. We’ll
see what happens when I visit the Orange shop this week. And the rumours
are that Orange customers with Wildfire may get to keep the service after
all. We shall see.

It’s been a while. But then it usually is. Ok, it’s all going on. Where
to start?

For anyone who hasn’t heard I’m going around the world. That’s right all
the way around. I David G Williams, all being well before this July is out
will have completely circumnavigated the globe! Exciting isn’t it? The
fact that I’m only stopping at a small number of English speaking countries
along the way is neither here nor there. I didn’t say I was travelling the
world did I? I didn’t say I was about to embark on a world tour or anything
quite so pretentious. But I am going all the way around, mostly in a big
metal thing with wings and airhostesses. But it’s still very exciting. At
least it is to me anyway. I spent an obscene amount of money with a company
I’d not heard of 3 months ago, and really I have no clue what I’m doing,
where I’m likely to end up, or whether I’ll even be able to afford a bag of
chips by the end of it. But I will try to blog as much as possible, some
text, some pictures and all being well some audio.

So watch this space. And if you want to read about a real traveller then
visit www.palinstravels.co.uk

You better believe it baby!

Yep, it’s definitely all or nothing for the red men tonight. I still haven’t decided if I’m going to watch it at home or in the pub.

In other news I’ve been playing with the Nokia 6630 and I’ll post my thoughts here soon.

.. and I loved every minute of it. The Telegraph probably has the most colourful write-up of the 50th Eurovision Song Contest. You wouldn’t/couldn’t find anything quite like this anywhere else in the world. It makes one proud to be European. 🙂

Well she’ll go eventurally I guess. So in memory of Wildfire here for your listening pleasure is the “Mad Cow” Easter Egg. You need to be very bored to find this, but I’m proud to say I did. :blushes

1. Call Wildfire from your Orange phone on 123 before Orange pull the plug.

2. Say “do me a favour”, Wildfire should respond with “what kind of favour” in a pretty suggestive voice.

3. Say “what does a cow say”, nine times out of ten you will here a cow mooing. But every tenth time you’ll here Wildfire say “That’s getting boring, here’s what a mad cow says”. If what follows doesn’t even make you smile just a tiny bit then I’m sorry I can’t help you.

Here’s what a Mad Cow says!

In a few weeks my mobile phone network Orange plan to delete all my contacts and messages. Which in view of the fact I spend around £150 per month, more than all my other utilities put together, I feel is unforgivable.

Even if you don’t use the service, and wouldn’t be too upset if it went away, Wildfire is a symbol of the days when the Orange mobile phone network would innovate. Orange were the first network with caller ID in the UK, the first to price match any other operator’s price plans, the first to offer free call forwarding (Orange anyphone) which they later cancelled, the only network to send you free wine if you used your phone enough (which they also later cancelled), the first with free customer services, still the only UK mobile phone network allowing one to have a second line on the same handset, etc. Orange were probably the most innovative of the UK networks in the years 1994-2000. But following the change of hands away from Hutchinson the network has steadily gone down hill with the increase in waiting times to customer services, and withdrawal of services such as: Orange Equity, Orange Anyphone and now Wildfire. If you are a mobile phone user, no matter which network, the cancellation of Wildfire is another blow to innovation and customer service.

At the end of this month Orange will switch off wild fire. And in doing so will delete the thousands of contacts and messages which customers have stored in the system. Should telephone networks be allowed to destroy personal data like this without any apology or compensation? I guess they can do whatever they please.

I have set a termination date for my Orange contract. I don’t want to leave, but Orange’s conduct leave me with little choice.

Please support the Wildfire campaign. I don’t expect it will change Orange’s decision to pull the plug on Wildfire, but it will register as a protest vote, and maybe next time Orange decide to crap on their customers they’ll think twice before doing it.

Campaign web site:
http://www.croftsfamily.com/campaigntoaccessorange/

Online Petition
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?orangewf

Articles from the Register:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/11/orange_wildfire/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/13/orange_wildfire/

I’m still not one hundred percent. I don’t know what it is, I haven’t felt
right since the middle of last week. I seriously hope that whatever it is
goes away pretty quickly as I’ve got a busy few months coming up. I could
do with a few less sessions like the one I had in the smallest room in the
flat earlier this morning. Yuck. TMI! I know.

Had some good news yesterday. Work have approved some time off in July
after the convention which means I can finally press ahead with my travel
plans. Watch this space.

Today I managed to drag myself out of bed after another late night in front
of the computer doing audio production. I spoke to Geoff in Australia, and
was gutted to hear the news about Kylie having breast cancer. I lost an
aunt to cancer around 15 years ago. Is it me or are cancer rates up? Or
are detection methods improving?

I had to go into town this afternoon to order a visa for Australia. Heh I
told you to watch this space! Basically my online travel agent need my
passport number in order to order the visa, and last time I checked my
passport wasn’t in Braille. Anyway, the lovely ladies at Thompson relieved
me of £25 and promised that my Australian visa would be created
electronically and I didn’t need any bits of paper or cards or anything.
Fingers crossed.

Visited the bank for about the 4th time to try and get a PIN for my
replacement debit card, as they seem incapable of sending it to me in an
accessible format. Even Egg can manage to let you view a PIN online. So
after months of haggling I came up with a compromise where the PIN will get
sent to the branch and I’ll go in and suffer the indignity of having them
read it to me. But can they send it straight to my local branch? Can they
bollocks! Apparently it has to go to the branch where I originally opened
the account a dozen years ago, and then be forwarded via snail mail to my
local branch. Welcome to the digital age.

I dropped by the Stanley to see who was in. Tom, George, Tony and Brian.
Apparently young Kev has tonsillitis. So no food there at the moment. In
spite of my dodgy guts I was feeling peckish so I dropped by MacDonald’s and
tried their new Big and Tasty. Hmm, not bad. Tasted a bit like a flame
grilled burger with plenty of cheese and relish and source etc. Hope it
doesn’t aggravate my already precarious digestive system.

First Direct Computers apparently wanted £55 to reinstall Windows on my Mesh
PC, so I opted to take it away in it’s still unbootable state. I’ll have to
give that one some thought. Although I do need the machine in order to
retrieve some projects which are half completed. So I’ll pull the drive out
later and plug in an IDE cable and pull off the work and hope that one of my
friends can be bribed in to assisting with a reinstall for less than that
£55 extortionate nonsense.

Just spoke to my sister and filled her in on my travel plans. I have a
stack of work to do so time for me to crack on.