You know me, I don't like to complain

Convergence. I like to see it.

Thing is, most of the all-in-wonders out there seem to be deficient in key aspects of their design or delivery, making it all but impossible to even predict when the best in show can be represented in the smallest amount of space. I end up carrying a lot of things with me in the course of an average week, never mind traveling.

I realize that this isn’t really a matrix. I may end up adding one into this document in the near future. I wanted to create one, then started wondering how to best do the tables in Textile markup, and then got bored and started writing instead.

Options

• Sony PSP for games, photos, and videos
• Archos 604 WiFi media player.
• Nokia N800 tablet for large-frame browsing, presence, messaging, Xterm, full IMAP email, music, podcasts, videos, photos. Bluetooth keyboard makes for a nice webstation, can work with Bluetooth GPS module as well. Portable VoIP device.
• Nokia N95 mobile phone for calls/messaging, light email reading, light browsing, music, podcasts, shooting 30fps 640×480 mpeg4 video, taking still photos at 5 megapixels. Navigation via the built-in GPS.
• iPod 10GB original, old-school with mechanical wheel, capable of killing a man at twenty yards. 20 hours of playtime via 3rd-party battery.

Personal entertainment, organization, and communications needs are met typically by a handful of devices, or a few discrete devices that can work together. So what are the options I am currently confronted with when packing my bag?

Sony PSP

Pros

• First-rate gaming.
• Vintage gaming available via emulation.
• Good video playback, but must be managed via 3rd party software.
• Good audio playback, but must be managed via 3rd party software and iTunes.
• Good photo viewer, but must be managed via 3rd party software and iPhoto.
• Good battery life, great display. Easy controls, good UI.
• Has an RSS reader and web browser that is difficult to use due to bad input methods.

Cons

• Video codecs are limited.
• Requires 3rd-party software to encode video for the PSP from the Mac.
• Can’t use iTunes to manage video content due to strict formating and codecs.
• I’d rather not use iPhoto.
• Network media playback requires LocationFree base stations and other equipment. I don’t know what LocationFree is, but I think it is Japanese for “Sony is Hemorrhaging Money and Needs More Now”.

The Sony PSP is my favorite device for playing games while traveling. It has a great display, good battery life, and easy-to-handle media (UMD and Memory Stick Duo Pro) that can be beat on in your carry-on. It has fantastic sound, a passable web browser if you want to read Google News or do simple searches, and in my case, 4GB of storage for movies that have been manually encoded specifically for the PSP.

I hate that I have to manage a separate library of videos for one device. It would be even worse if I didn’t have my media on a network filesystem, but used iTunes to manage it all—I am much happier with an Xbox Media Center machine ($75 from eBay, Craigslist, EBX, etc) that can play network media in a wide variety of formats. It’s also a lot quicker to play content and scan/skip through things compared to other offerings out there.

If I want regularly move media onto the PSP or an iPhone, iPod Touch, or whatever else, I am going to get stuck maintaining multiple libraries of “encoded for X” media. Great.

Archos 604 WiFi

Pros

• Great video player, supports many codecs and formats.
• Can be used as a PVR with an adapter.
• Can be used as a voice recorder with an adapter.
• Can have a nice tabletop stand and charging adapter if you get the adapter.
• Has a small version of Opera on it and can be used as a browser, kind of.
• Plays xvid, dvix, mpeg4 video I throw at it with ease.
• Can just drag and drop videos in the Finder.
• Spare batteries aren’t expensive.
• Plays network media great over WiFi.
• Can browse and mount SMB/CIFS disks. Awesome.

Cons

• No video playlist. Really. This drives me nuts.
• UI is clumsy.
• Doesn’t thumbnail and index videos in sub-directories. Only top-level files.
• UI is clumsy.
• WiFi connection seems picky at times.
• Battery life sucks. Hard.
• Nickle-and-dimed for things like a stand. Cables. PVR functions. Voice recorder. They sell everything as a separate option.
• Video can be formatted in a variety of ways, but large-format videos may need to drop in resolution to playback on the device.
• USB data cable charges device way too slowly.

If you don’t like that this device doesn’t have video playlists, one workaround I’ve found is that if you tell it to play on repeat or shuffle, it will play the contents of a folder. This means you can’t keep everything in the top-level Movies folder, or it will mix and match all of them, or keep playing continuously after it plays the things you really wanted to. I use my Archos 604 as a table-top radio and network video player, which it excels at. The battery life sucks something fierce, so it isn’t really a good contender for travel, though it holds so much (mine is 30GB) you want to believe you could watch it all without carrying seven spare batteries.

Not much I can say about it other than that. You have to buy a small group of accessories to get the Archos you want, and then you will have to pay a few extra bucks for codecs that don’t come standard. They’re cheap and let me work with formats I am comfortable with.

I wouldn’t carry it around to play music because it’s heavy. But it is a very reasonable video player on a nightstand (or driving a larger display such as a repurposed old monitor with yet another adapter) without taking up much room and having local storage as well as pulling things off the network, which puts its effective capacity over 2 terabytes in my house.

Nokia N800 Tablet

Pros

• Great browser (Mozilla browser in OS 2008 and 2007 as an option)
• Great IM (XMPP/Jabber/GoogleTalk!) and presence.
• Good audio player though is very aggressive about managing the library.
• Good video playback in OS 2008. Still requires strict formatting, however.
• Talks to my mobile phone to get Internet service even when away from WiFi.
• Can manage content on my mobile handset!
• Great display for indoors.
• Works with most wireless access points.
• Virtual Thumb-board is the first of its type that doesn’t make me want to cut my head off.
• Can work with SIP, GIzmoproject, Skype as a telephone.
• Xterm with honest-to-goodness openssh.
• Has a (gimmicky) video camera for video chats.
• Email client, even though it sucks, supports S/MIME certificates.
• Regular headphone jack.

Cons

• Bad display for outdoors (N810 is the patch for this bug)
• No QWERTY keyboard built-in (N810 is the patch for this bug)
• Email client is just so terribly disappointing. It’s worse than Eudora. Hell, I bet Eudora does real IMAP folder sync now, whereas the Maemo mail client takes half-assery to previously unknown heights. After seeing the S60 email client “evolve” over the last few years, I wonder if software engineers at Nokia even use email.
• Third-party software is missing the target on email.
• Wish I could video chat/audio chat via my XMPP server.
• “Invisible” presence doesn’t work with Apple’s jabberd.
• Presence support limited: no preference settings for the priority of the tablet instance.
• Video playback is finicky and Nokia’s software for Windows to encode movies sucks. Refuses to encode everything I throw at it, even though it can thumbnail the samples. Weird.
• People IM me there even though I’m “away” and I don’t see it for a day because my tablet doesn’t get used every day.
• No good way to manage media and other content on the device. Drag and drop filesystem-level stuff is nice as an option but it’s the only way to do it right now.

Email on the N800 sucks unless you’re using webmail. And then you can’t use the nice notification options on the N800 since the built-in email client is well integrated with the rest of the device and provides nice feedback upon receiving new messages. And OS 2008 has improved message alerts as well. Application itself just stinks. No IMAP folder sync, no subscriptions, no folders at all in fact, only your Inbox, and it doesn’t do a live sync with the Inbox, either. It treats your Inbox as if it were a POP inbox. Claws Mail is the best choice at the moment for IMAP, and it does full IMAP service, but needs significant improvements on the UI for Maemo devices (such as the N800, N810, N770) to really be a solid go-to.

I have been playing with RoundCube webmail mainly so that I can have access to my mail folders when I’m on the tablet.

There are a lot of developers doing things on Maemo (the Linux-based platform that runs the Nokia Tablets) that are very exciting. Some really creative people out there solving problems this little gizmo is ideally suited for. Network video playback is possible on the device though I haven’t figured out just what the thresholds are for the formats, nor do I know all of the codecs that are supported in OS 2008 yet. It has good battery life, though you need to micro-manage it a bit to get the most out of it. The N800 shares a charger with my N95 meaning less wall-warts to carry around, and OS 2008 has added an alarm clock. I used to carry a Grundig am/fm/shortwave travel radio with clock and alarm in my luggage. Can shave those 20 ounces off my travel weight just from a software update. Nice.

With the ability to get 8GB+ flash cards for the N800, and with OS 2008’s improved video playback, the N800 could easily be the best device I own. It can’t play games very well, but mobile Linux hasn’t ever been a real contender in mobile gaming anyway. I would be delighted if there were a strong suite of emulators for game consoles, though the input options are so limited on the device I don’t know how someone could really pull that off. Would be very happy to see some games that utilize the touchscreen, making them specifically for Maemo devices. Think of it as an open source Nintendo DS waiting to be born.

The people that do Freeciv for Maemo are my heros and I hope they have the time to get it working on OS 2008 soon. Fantastic game.

Nokia N95

First of all, I also have an E61i. I switch handsets pretty often because I’m impatient and fickle. The E61i is awesome for email, though the S60 email client isn’t anything special. I usually carry the N95 however, because it is a better music player, has a built-in GPS, and shoots great video and takes great photos.

If I am going away from home and expect I will not be near a computer very often for email and such, I’ll probably opt for the E61i. In almost all other cases, I’ll prefer the N95.

Pros

• Great sound quality on calls.
• Good keypad for Tegic T9 texting and very light email.
• Very good camera, great video shooting for a mobile device.
• Navigation software is great.
• Browser is WebKit based. Quite good for a mobile handset browser. Same core as the iPhone browser.
• Plays back some video, but I haven’t messed with it much.
• Nokia’s Media Transfer software does great with photos, music, close integration with iPhoto and iTunes.
• Real headphone jack.
• Great display.
• If I had Windows, I’d probably really like LifeBlog.
• Stereo sound on-handset with support for aac, mp3, wav, makes for some creative ringtone options. I’m currently using the Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who. Because I’m a huge dork.
• Can do SIP calls via WiFi.

Cons

• microSD is a pain to deal with.
• N-series devices store things differently from E-series devices, so flash storage swapping between them can be a pain in the neck.
• Battery life sucks. I have an N95-1. I hear the US-targetted N95s are better.
• WiFi on the N95 is not as nice as E-series devices. No fail-over to EDGE from WiFi, so you have to manually specify which connection to use.
• Music player is overly aggressive, mines your entire handset and storage card for “music files” which may be WAVs from the voice recorder.
• Java games suck. I paid $8 for Line Rider and it stinks. I’m bitter.
• Email client is limited.
• No S/MIME and certainly no GPG/PGP.

As an organizer, S60 devices suck. I’m not going to go off onto that train of thought right now though. The N95 is a great device for listening to music, making calls, messaging, taking photos, and shooting video. It isn’t as good as an actual camera, but I am having interesting results in playing with creative photography using the N95. Mainly just to do it, but it is quite viable under ideal conditions. The navigation software is pretty darn good, though it will not speak the names of streets, it will show you on the map what they are, and gives directions well (“Turn right,” etc) and I use it in the car frequently, or even while on foot. The software has gotten better since the last time I wrote about it.

the iPod

Pros

• Street cred in spades because it is Rev A (hollah!)
• Takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’. I’ve thrown it into walls, stepped on it, never skipped a track once.
• Full-size Firewire port.
• Big battery life.

Cons

• No video.
• No photos.
• No phone calls.
• No browser.
• No Bluetooth.
• It’s big compared to iPods these days.

Wishlist

I wish the music player on S60 devices like the N95 was better. I wish it could do snazzier glitz like coverflow, or even reliably show album covers.

I wish there was a snap-on gamepad module for the Nokia tablets that enabled me to play games on that device as well. I think there is enough video and CPU to drive an SNES emulator, for example. I’m not looking for PSP-quality games, but something more engrossing than BreakOut would be welcome. Someone could come up with an ad-hoc multiplayer version of anything and I’d be happy at this point. Freeciv is great but requires a lot of setup unless you’re playing solo.

The Archos is awesome for playing videos due to its bigger display and good output options, but it falls on its face because the battery life is terrible and the device is too big to put in your pocket. Even your coat pockets will bulge with it in there. I’d much rather pack the PSP, which can carry music, a few specially encoded video files on Memory Sticks and a few games as well in the same cubic inches that the Archos demands.

The Nokia N800 tablets are surprisingly good for a device that offers a lot. They nailed mobile browsing without question, and their media player options are decent on the audio side and still too picky on the video side but each software revision gets better and better there. In fact, with a portable Bluetooth keyboard, an N800 is a very serviceable webstation, capable of using Backpackit, Writeboards, Google Docs, and more. I have to experiment more with the video encoding options since OS 2008 has made it a bit easier to deal with, but so far the N800 is the most impressive device out there in terms of features and extensibility.

What it still comes down to is a matter of priorities. The PSP is great at games, but second pick for video. The N800 is great for browsing and Internet radio, but stinks for email. I can do light browsing on my handset, but can’t use snazzy web20 ajax shenanigans with the WebKit browser on my N95. The Archos can play just about any video file I throw at it, but it feels like I’m carrying something very useless and brick-like in about 2 hours after I pick it up.

So while we are still converging, we haven’t had that convergence yet. As of yet we’re still at proof-of-concept. The options for managing mobile content are still largely weak and incomplete, and while you can get a device that does everything, you’re still limited to picking which two or three things you want it to do well.

I’m not going to die if I’m disconnected however: there is something to be said for disconnecting from the email servers now and then and putting my presence to Away. It’s been a pretty relaxing Thanksgiving Holiday due to such simple actions, and good technology should provide simple discrete choke-points for interruptions and noise.

When it comes down to it, I think I’d rather have separate devices communicate well with one another rather than a handful of devices that claim to do everything. Why can’t my N800 tablet be the display and user input device for my mobile handset when it is around, for example?

I hope that this is where things are headed. It just doesn’t seem very likely to me that anyone can get “the best” of five worlds and fit it all into one device. So coming into 2008 I still don’t have a silver bullet device that does everything I want it to, or my expectations and demands are far too high. I haven’t decided which yet, but I have decided that I need to streamline my harem of devices, and fast. I have been trying to strip out extra clutter lately everywhere I can find it, and my backpack is a fine place to tackle next.

I don’t know what will end up making the cut just yet, but I may be hawking some things at low low prices! soon, provided I can admit to not needing it. Convince me.

Not that I’m in the same category as “today’s young people”, but I don’t know your phone number. It lives in address books, mobile phones, an iPod, and I’ve never needed to remember it.

Today’s young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it. [From The Outsourced Brain - New York Times]

T-Mobile reception isn’t what it used to be in my new apartment.

As I’m rather enamored with my cheap cheap grandfathered unlimited data service, I’m not interested in switching to another operator, so I’ve been investigating some options. I haven’t had a land line since 2001, when I went completely mobile. I’m not interested in paying the high taxes and fees for traditional copper telephone service, so I started looking into my Voice-over-IP (VoIP) options.

I used Gizmo project for a while, and liked that I could configure it on my mobile phones (Nokia N95, E70, E61i) to use that line while I was in the house or anywhere that had WiFi I could use. The N and E-series devices from Nokia support WPA so it hasn’t been a real issue in all honesty. But I was looking around for WiFi SIP phones to use with the big VoIP providers and they all sucked. I’m not interested in re-wiring a loft apartment to accommodate a SIP TA and buying new phones for the place, since I haven’t had an actual telephone in quite a while. So I started looking at the other options out there, and since I know people that use Skype, I figured I’d give them a closer look.

Most people know that Skype lets you make free calls from person to person using a computer. It even does video conferencing, which is really nice, especially since it’s cross platform, meaning I’m not limited to iChat AV users. But with the ability to put some money in my Skype account, and make calls outside the Skype service to regular ol’ POTS lines (just like Gizmoproject) and get myself local incoming phone numbers for area codes, countries, and what-have-you, as well as redirect those calls to other numbers easily while also getting the ability to make free Skype-to-Skype calls and even have my own outdial to call from my mobile at Skype rates, and I was well on my way to being pushed into that direction.

The real kicker though was that there was such a brilliant option for connecting to it all without using a computer.

The Philips VOIP8411B/37 DECT phone, for example.

Most of the WiFi phones out there are either very expensive, or complete trash. Most of them are both. I was almost set on getting the Linksys WIP 300 because it is pretty inexpensive, but review after review pushed me away. I wanted to like this handset a lot, because I could use it with my Gizmoproject/SIPPHONE line(s), or use another VoIP provider like VoicePulse or Lingo. Those providers allow you to connect from your VoIP gear to the rest of the phones in the world. They broker those connections and provide a lot of other services.

But I’m not interested in hooking a bunch of phones in my household up. I just need a line that rings at the house, lets me call family for cheap (or free if they use Skype on their own), and has very low international rates as well. Some people in my family will be interested to know that you can call Oman for $ 0.185. This is something that Skype does very well. Skype does some other neat stuff too: not only can you easily use it on your computer for calls and video calls, but you can also use it as a messenger, and as a presence tool. You can let your contacts see when you’re available, so you’ll know if it’s a good time to call. The Philips phone I bought also ties into that and uses the same features.

So I plugged in the Philips and configured it for my Skype account (IM or email me if you want the username we’re using) and it was instantly online and pulled my contacts from Skype, populating the phonebook on the phone. It’s cordless so I can walk around and it has very high voice quality and range. I’m delighted.

In addition, it also can plug directly into your traditional phone wiring, letting you use it for calls locally on your main number, but easily letting you do free skype-to-skype or Skype-out calls to non-Skype users at reduced rates. This is perfect for calling overseas or even cross country instead of using traditional long distance services.

So far I’m really pleased with it. I gave myself a local 401 area code number, but apparently Skype doesn’t support outbound Caller ID yet, so when I call people it shows up as “Unavailable”, which is kind of a problem since I usually don’t bother to answer calls without it and I assume most people don’t. But one of the nice things about having that line is that people can call that number (or Skype account for Skype-to-Skype users) if they want to reach either Liz or myself. Our mobile phones are all ours, but the Skype line is for either of us. And if you’re a Skype user, you can even see when someone is around, or if we’re available. Which ends the entire “is this a good time to talk,” conversation before it starts.

While I’d probably rather have a WiFi SIP phone that I can take with me, the DECT phone I got is a wonderful device that will be a good cross-over device for people interested in VoIP technology without wanting to fully commit to it. Skype’s services are quite good, and having a real phone to marry it to makes it that much more viable. I can’t imagine making all of my phone calls while sitting at a computer and wearing a headset. It would drive me nuts! So if that has been a big problem for you as well, consider the options such as the Philips.

There are WiFi options for Skype users as well, but they all look like junk. The reviews are mixed of course, but the Philips is head and shoulders above them all in terms of look and feel, not to mention ease of use.

Maybe things will change when better WiFi phones come out, but until then, I’m more than happy with the Skype service I’m getting. Plus, I got to pick a phone number that ends in “ZOMG”, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Publix is giving out free anti-biotics—because they weren’t already over-prescribed.

Now they’re free!

I for one salute our new bacterial overlords.

textually.org: Phone Heist worth $50,000:

And still we have no registry of stolen IMEIs in the United States.

There have been a lot of incidents of muggings for mobile phones in my area, I’d say at least six a week. I have to think that if the $thing being stolen had minimal or no value because it couldn’t be used, that this may stop people from taking them.