I love Opera Mobile on my S60. Its content adaptation and page re-flowing at client side is very good where some other mobile browsers fail. It is even better than marvelous S60 Webkit browser, as it is a great memory consumer and crashes sometimes with certain pages containing lots of JavaScript.
About memory consume by Webkit browser, it is one of the main reasons for me to want Nokia N95 (160 MBs of internal memory vs N80's 40 MBs).
Well, the fact is that the trial period of Opera Mobile expired and I decided to buy it (I think it is worth 19 €). And I decided to do it from my N80. I went to http://www.opera.com/buy via S60 browser and problems started when I had to input data into a paginated form. No problem in 1st page, as I entered my personal details. But as I had to enter the EMEI of my phone (in the 2nd page of that form), I went into troubles. My phone tells me the EMEI, Opera Mobile tells me the EMEI but... no option to copy it. It is shown on the screen but I have to remember it or write it anywhere else.
Besides, S60 deletes partially filled inputs (at least in Opera Buy page) if I change the focus to another application (to see the damn number). And in one of my attempts, S60 Browser crashed. Luckily, Opera had already sent me an email confirming that they have all my personal info (as entered in the 1st page of the purchase form) and gave me an email and password.
Once again, email and password, when read through the mail client integrated in S60 3rd edition phones, cannot be copied and pasted (so we are again with the same problem).
At last, I will finish the purchase in a desktop browser. We are still far far away from mobile web nirvana.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Label clouds
I am adding a new page element called label clouds, where you will be able to see two pictures of the labels in use in my del.icio.us and in this blog.
The first one is something I found out thanks to my workmate Wikier's blog. It is called extispicious and it lets you get a text cloud showing all the labels/tags used in the bookmarks of a del.icio.us user.
The next picture shows how it looks like. The real service returns an HTML page (not a picture in fact) where each piece of text composing a tag is an hyperlink to the folder in my delicious with all the bookmarks tagged with such text.
The service can also return a collage made with pics taken from Yahoo Images which are tagged with the same tags found in my del.icio.us.
The second one, I got to it thanks to Andrea, as I saw it in his blog. It does the same but with the labels applied to the posts in a given blog (in blogger.com).
The first one is something I found out thanks to my workmate Wikier's blog. It is called extispicious and it lets you get a text cloud showing all the labels/tags used in the bookmarks of a del.icio.us user.
The next picture shows how it looks like. The real service returns an HTML page (not a picture in fact) where each piece of text composing a tag is an hyperlink to the folder in my delicious with all the bookmarks tagged with such text.
The service can also return a collage made with pics taken from Yahoo Images which are tagged with the same tags found in my del.icio.us.
The second one, I got to it thanks to Andrea, as I saw it in his blog. It does the same but with the labels applied to the posts in a given blog (in blogger.com).
Online status
I have just added some scripts in a new page element named "Online status". It is meant to show my presence and status in Twitter, Jaiku, Skype and other VoIP and IM services. I have been using some of them for weeks, some others for years (ICQ for over a decade, wow!).
Active users in Gizmo project
The answer to the question I made in my last post: What makes a Gizmo Project account Active?.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
More on VoIP in Nokia N80
Some months ago I talked about VoIP in Nokia N80, the mobile pet with me for the last eight months.
Yesterday, I read in the RSS feed of Nokia Beta Labs the announcement of a new beta tool: Gizmo for S60.
I was a little bit surprised, because it seemed to be the release 1.21 of that tool, and I remember I had tried a version 3.xx. Some other stuff that confused me in Beta Labs announcement of this tool was the requirement to install Nokia Internet Services Support Package before Gizmo rel. 1.21 (it wasn't needed when using the .sis file downloadable in Gizmo Project official web page).
But they talked about IM messaging and online presence detection and it itched my curiosity. So I had to scratch it :-)
Besides, I had read somewhere that voipcheap.com (the SIP-based VoIP that won my personal contest) needs 80 Kbps while Gizmo (the other contestant) only needs 20 Kbps.
After installing both .sis files, Gizmo integrated itself with the Contacts tool of S60 3rd Edition. A new tab is displayed between Contacts and Groups called... Gizmo :-) There you can go online and all your Gizmo contacts will be displayed, showing their status. You can phone them to mobile phone, to landline phone or to SIP phone, and even chat with them. Great!
The decision I took in the past in favour of vopipcheap.com was based on two features: firstly, the chance to call for free to landlines of several countries worldwide, and transparent integration with S60 3rd Edition VoIP/SIP engine.
Being online in Gizmo and accessing the Internet Phone dialog in S60 3rd Edition OS kept on telling me that I was already connected to Gizmo and then the dialog closed. I do not know if I had tried this when I chose voipcheap (I could swear I did and it did not work but my lack of memory is legendary), but this time I tried to connect using Internet Phone dialog before using the Gizmo interface in contacts and it asked me to go online in voipcheap.com. Nice, this time Gizmo did not overwrite my preference of having the other VoIP service as default.
But the big surprise, after a successful connection to voipcheap.com was Internet Phone asking me to connect to Gizmo too. This is the best configuration, so you can be connected to as many SIP-based VoIP services as you want at the same time using the same OS-integrated interface.
Then I went to Gizmo tab in Contacts and I was online and seing my Gizmo contacts' state.
It was all OK except for:
- I tried to call my wife from my N80 via WiFi to our PC and sound quality was poor. She said she could hear me perfectly but I heard a lot of noise (and we repeted the experience three times). So I still have to check that great performance of Gizmo with such a few bandwidth.
- I tried to call my landline phone and a nice voice told me that I had no call-out credits. Gizmo web site says that you can call other contacts' phones for free (see instructions in their web page). My wife is a contact and our phone is shown in her profile so... I do not understand what happens. voipcheap.com is greater about this. You have a list of countries with free calls (and some of them include mobile phones, not only landlines). I guess it has to see somehow with the fact that I am not an "active user". I will have to check what that is (I thought it was achieved by following the 3 steps in Gizmo web page, but it seems to be bot enough). I will take a deep look on this.
Yesterday, I read in the RSS feed of Nokia Beta Labs the announcement of a new beta tool: Gizmo for S60.
I was a little bit surprised, because it seemed to be the release 1.21 of that tool, and I remember I had tried a version 3.xx. Some other stuff that confused me in Beta Labs announcement of this tool was the requirement to install Nokia Internet Services Support Package before Gizmo rel. 1.21 (it wasn't needed when using the .sis file downloadable in Gizmo Project official web page).
But they talked about IM messaging and online presence detection and it itched my curiosity. So I had to scratch it :-)
Besides, I had read somewhere that voipcheap.com (the SIP-based VoIP that won my personal contest) needs 80 Kbps while Gizmo (the other contestant) only needs 20 Kbps.
After installing both .sis files, Gizmo integrated itself with the Contacts tool of S60 3rd Edition. A new tab is displayed between Contacts and Groups called... Gizmo :-) There you can go online and all your Gizmo contacts will be displayed, showing their status. You can phone them to mobile phone, to landline phone or to SIP phone, and even chat with them. Great!
The decision I took in the past in favour of vopipcheap.com was based on two features: firstly, the chance to call for free to landlines of several countries worldwide, and transparent integration with S60 3rd Edition VoIP/SIP engine.
Being online in Gizmo and accessing the Internet Phone dialog in S60 3rd Edition OS kept on telling me that I was already connected to Gizmo and then the dialog closed. I do not know if I had tried this when I chose voipcheap (I could swear I did and it did not work but my lack of memory is legendary), but this time I tried to connect using Internet Phone dialog before using the Gizmo interface in contacts and it asked me to go online in voipcheap.com. Nice, this time Gizmo did not overwrite my preference of having the other VoIP service as default.
But the big surprise, after a successful connection to voipcheap.com was Internet Phone asking me to connect to Gizmo too. This is the best configuration, so you can be connected to as many SIP-based VoIP services as you want at the same time using the same OS-integrated interface.
Then I went to Gizmo tab in Contacts and I was online and seing my Gizmo contacts' state.
It was all OK except for:
- I tried to call my wife from my N80 via WiFi to our PC and sound quality was poor. She said she could hear me perfectly but I heard a lot of noise (and we repeted the experience three times). So I still have to check that great performance of Gizmo with such a few bandwidth.
- I tried to call my landline phone and a nice voice told me that I had no call-out credits. Gizmo web site says that you can call other contacts' phones for free (see instructions in their web page). My wife is a contact and our phone is shown in her profile so... I do not understand what happens. voipcheap.com is greater about this. You have a list of countries with free calls (and some of them include mobile phones, not only landlines). I guess it has to see somehow with the fact that I am not an "active user". I will have to check what that is (I thought it was achieved by following the 3 steps in Gizmo web page, but it seems to be bot enough). I will take a deep look on this.
Real Sporting made it...
We won 2-0 against Salamanca. A decade ago 1st division match taking place in 2nd division. The danger of going down to 2nd B Division is gone. It is a pity that we were among the three chosen teams to go up to 1st Division in the middle of the season and then finish it saving our butts 4 weeks before the end of season. If we manage to keep the same team, we'll have a lot to tell next year. This is the problem of having the 2nd youngest team (after Real Madrid Castilla).
I mean... keep the same young boys and super veteran Edwin Congo. What a great striker!
I mean... keep the same young boys and super veteran Edwin Congo. What a great striker!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
It could have been worse...
Real Sporting won 1-0 although the referee did his best to make it as hard as possible for us. Two defenders went to have his refreshing shower before the final whistle, Edwin Congo fell in the rival area but the only one who did not see it should have been punished with a penalty shot was the referee... but in the minute 85, Edwin scored the goal that brings our aim of staying in 2nd Division a little bit closer.
The second miracle of the weekend was not possible. After Sporting-Numancia, Gijon Baloncesto played the match of its history. I entered the arena late, waiting for a pal who gets always late to his appointment. 2nd quarter has started and... 9-34 in the scoreboard!!!! Our guys got 6 points close to Gandía and shot a 3-point bomb which did not enter the rim in the 3rd quarter. Gandía increased its advantage but Gijón Baloncesto managed to launch another 3-pointer in order to be 3 points below. And no luck again. In the end they lost by 15 and will have to play in LEB-2 with big chances for them to disappear. I hope they will be born again from the ashes and that we all shiver and shake with good basketball in our Palacio de los Deportes.
Ah, and Fernando Alonso risked a lot in the first curve of the race, Massa touched him (wasn't it a bit illegal as Fernando's car was some inches ahead?) and he got out of the asphalt. He got back into the path in 4th place and only an electric problem in Raikkonen's car let him finish 3rd. A lot yet to say in this F1 Championship as the season has just begun. By the way, these seemed to be the big names in this season, and Hamilton is already the leader making no noise.
The second miracle of the weekend was not possible. After Sporting-Numancia, Gijon Baloncesto played the match of its history. I entered the arena late, waiting for a pal who gets always late to his appointment. 2nd quarter has started and... 9-34 in the scoreboard!!!! Our guys got 6 points close to Gandía and shot a 3-point bomb which did not enter the rim in the 3rd quarter. Gandía increased its advantage but Gijón Baloncesto managed to launch another 3-pointer in order to be 3 points below. And no luck again. In the end they lost by 15 and will have to play in LEB-2 with big chances for them to disappear. I hope they will be born again from the ashes and that we all shiver and shake with good basketball in our Palacio de los Deportes.
Ah, and Fernando Alonso risked a lot in the first curve of the race, Massa touched him (wasn't it a bit illegal as Fernando's car was some inches ahead?) and he got out of the asphalt. He got back into the path in 4th place and only an electric problem in Raikkonen's car let him finish 3rd. A lot yet to say in this F1 Championship as the season has just begun. By the way, these seemed to be the big names in this season, and Hamilton is already the leader making no noise.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Dramatic weekend for Asturian sports fans
Tomorrow is an important day for Asturian sports fanatics. Besides the F1 race in which Fernando Alonso will take part (happenning in the catalonian circuit of Montmeló), two teams will have to fight for their future.
Real Sporting is my football team. We were 18 years in a row in Spanish 1st Division, fought for a championship against Real Madrid and lost two Cups in a row against Real Madrid and Barça. Now we have been in 2nd Division for 9 years :-( and, although this season seemed very promising in its first half, the fact is that we are only 1 point above the positions leading to 2nd Division B (the weird name for our 3rd division, making Third Division be really the 4th one... nice, isn't it?). Tomorrow we are playing against Numancia and we really need the victory.
Half an hour after Sporting-Numancia, Gijón Baloncesto (my basketball team) play the last game of the play-out leading to LEB-2. In Spain, we have the ACB, then the LEB and right below there is the LEB-2. We were in the ACB in the 90s and have historically been one of the teams to beat in LEB, but the fact is that history is history and tomorrow we are playing the game of our lifes.
I will attend both games and report... If I live to tell.
I hope Fernando won't finish me next Sunday :-) Win easy, please!
Real Sporting is my football team. We were 18 years in a row in Spanish 1st Division, fought for a championship against Real Madrid and lost two Cups in a row against Real Madrid and Barça. Now we have been in 2nd Division for 9 years :-( and, although this season seemed very promising in its first half, the fact is that we are only 1 point above the positions leading to 2nd Division B (the weird name for our 3rd division, making Third Division be really the 4th one... nice, isn't it?). Tomorrow we are playing against Numancia and we really need the victory.
Half an hour after Sporting-Numancia, Gijón Baloncesto (my basketball team) play the last game of the play-out leading to LEB-2. In Spain, we have the ACB, then the LEB and right below there is the LEB-2. We were in the ACB in the 90s and have historically been one of the teams to beat in LEB, but the fact is that history is history and tomorrow we are playing the game of our lifes.
I will attend both games and report... If I live to tell.
I hope Fernando won't finish me next Sunday :-) Win easy, please!
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