Google Background Images Are Going Away

I'm saddened to find out that Google Background Images is being killed. One of my favourite features of Google is that I can set the background image to my homepage. This helps me know which GMail or Google Apps account I'm signed into.

My current Google homepage with Wobbles on it.

Oh well, I wonder what Google have planned for the homepage if Background Images is being killed. Maybe a homepage like Yahoo's?

The popup announcement.

Here is a quote of the announcement:

Background images are going away on November 16, 2012

Thank you for using background images. As we build a more streamlined Google Search page for everyone, we’ll no longer be able to support customization with background images. So you will no longer be able to see your background pictures starting November 16, 2012.

Click Remove to stop using a background image now. Your current background image and Picasa web albums will still be available to you.

I'll miss seeing Wobbles (@fatoldgingercat) on my Google homepage. Oh well, I hope something good  is in store for us...

Polygon

During the night here in the UK, Polygon launched. Polygon is the SB Nation/Vox Media video game website which was incubated in The Verge for a while and is now out on its own at www.polygon.com.

The Polygon.com front page at launch

I had registered on the Polygon landing page earlier in the year and received an email during the night to let me know that Polygon had launched. I found the email very amusing and have decided to share it with you. So here's the text from the email:

A long time ago, on a landing page far, far away, you ignored everything your parents ever taught you and entered your email address into a form on the internet. While normally we would join your parents in frowning on this kind of behavior, this one time it seems to have worked out! You asked to be notified when Polygon.com — the new video game website from Vox Media — was live and well, friend ... today's that day.
So fire up your favorite web browser, be it desktop, tablet, or mobile-based, and load up:
http://www.polygon.com-Team Polygon

So there you have it! They have launched and already have lots of great gaming related content on the site.

I also found Nilay Patel's article announcing the Polygon launch very amusing. You can check it out at The Verge here: Polygon is here!

Well done to everyone involved in the launch, lets hope this isn't a symptom of The Verge Fragmentation...

EE's UK 4G tariffs leak: :-0

I've been toying with the idea of switching my personal mobile phone contract to EE, the first UK 4G provider, since I discovered that Edinburgh will be covered from launch. This morning while reading The Verge I saw the table of the leaked tariffs and ended up making an impression of OMG cat.

I was making an impression of this cat.

The tariffs seem to be extortionate  but then if you think about it as well as limited amount of data you do get unlimited calls and unlimited texts. Here's the table of the tariffs, as compiled by the clever Ben Kersey from The Verge.

EE's 24 month tariffs at launch, courtesy of The Verge.

Well, that was an inertial dampener on my rush to be a 4G early adopter... I think I'll wait until there is more competition on the 4G market before switching, especially because for less than half the entry level tariff on EE I can get All You can Eat Data from Three UK.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. If you are of Orange or Magenta persuasion, feel free to troll in the comments section below, I'll just ignore you.

Android 4.1.2

Over the last week I have updated both my Nexus 7 and my Galaxy Nexus to Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean).

Landscape mode on the Android 4.1.2 Nexus 7

Both on the Nexus 7 and on the Galaxy Nexus I have noticed improvements on screen responsiveness, fluidity of UI animations and a slightly faster performance when dealing with location based services.
On the Nexus 7, there is a new landscape mode for the homescreen, which makes things easier when the tablet is in a case in landscape mode.

Exciting!

It will be interesting to see how things change when Google announce Android 4.2 (Key Lime Pie). Maybe they will do it on Monday 29th October...

Huawei Ascend Y201 Preview

I've been playing around with a Huawei Ascend Y201 on Tesco Mobile recently. Here are some snaps of the device, the accessories that come with it and the device beside some of my other devices.

Huawei Y201 Homescreen

The Huawei Y201 has a 3.5" HVGA (320x480) screen, 800 MHz Cortex-A5 processor, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM (with 146MB available to the user) and a MicroSD slot. I've tested the device with a 32GB MicroSD card and it works fine. Out of the box, the Huawei Y201 is bundled with a 4 GB MicroSD card. On the back there is a 3.15 MP camera with no flash

Huawei Y201 Homescreen

Huawei Y201 customised Android app drawer

Huawei Y201 back

Huawei Y201 top with on/off button and 3.5mm headphone jack

Huawei Y201 bottom with microUSB port

Huawei Y201 clean side

Huawei Y201 with Galaxy NExus

Huawei Y201 with Nokia Lumia 710

Huawei Y201 with HP/Palm Pre 2

Huawei Y201 with Huawei G300

Huawei Y201 with Huawei G300 (backs)

Huawei Y201 customised Android lockscreen

Huawei Y201 weather widget

Huawei Y201 "About Device"

The Tesco Mobile Huawei Y201 runs on Android 2.3.6 and has a designated model number of U8666-1. I believe this to be a rebranded Huawei Ascend Y200 for Tesco Mobile.

Huawei Y201 dialer

Huawei Y201 bundled headphones

Huawei Y201 bundled mains/microUSB charger

Huawei Y201 packaging

Huawei Y201 back removed

I'll be writing a full review soon, so check back on www.todoleo.com before the weekend.

Technika Smart TV Box - Not Good Enough

This is my review of the Technika Smart TV Box. A quick disclaimer before you read any further: I work for Tesco, and the Technika Smart TV Box is a Technika product. Technika is a Tesco own brand. I have not been paid by Tesco to review this item, and I purchased the device at my local Tesco store. It is not a review unit, it is a standard retail unit, and I have been as impartial as I can while reviewing the device.

Smart TV boxes are devices you connect to your television to be able to use internet based streaming services, social networking services and play back media files which usually need a computer to play back (such as compressed video files). Smart TVs are televisions with these functionalities built in, and tend to be more expensive than standard TVs. Recently there has been a series of smart TV boxes and BluRay players launched on the market by different companies, which add Smart TV functionality to existing "Dumb TVs".

The Technika Smart TV Box offers to "Bring you the best of the internet to your TV" on the signature Technika green and black packaging. The Blinkbox, YouTube and BBC iPlayer logos are prominent on the front of the retail box, hovering above a sleek looking black rounded device with the Technika logo on the front. One thing I find interesting is that there have been some corrections of the device features on the packaging itself: at the "Access photos, music and videos..." feature, a sticker has been placed over the end as a correction and it completes the feature with "via USB". I wonder what is under the sticker.

Inside the rectangular green and black box you find the Smart TV Box itself, well padded in plenty of white plastic foam, with the wireless dongle already inserted into one of the two USB ports at the back. Beside the Smart TV Box in white foam, there is a cardboard enclosure with a power adapter, a remote control, a 1m HDMI lead and the quickstart guide, manual and Blinkbox offer leaflet. I'm pleasantly surprised to find an HDMI lead inside the box, usually this sort of device (just like set top boxes and disk players) does not come with a cable included.

The hardware setup is straightforward: power adapter into a mains socket and plugged into the appropriate input in the device, batteries into the remote control and HDMI lead from the Technika Smart TV Box to the TV. As I mentioned earlier, the wireless dongle was already in the device when I opened the packaging.

When turned on, you are greeted by a starry sky background with the Technika logo. The software and network setup are as straightforward as the hardware: through the guided prompts you setup screen resolution output (in my case 1080p), you opt in or out of the remote access support on the device, setup network connection (wired or wireless), if necessary enter your passphrase for the network and then check the name for the device.

All was well with my setup, apart from the passphrase for my network. When entering the passphrase on the Technika Smart TV Box the default case for letters is capitals, while most passphrases are in lower case. I should have known better, and entered a higher case passphrase so my Virgin Media Superhub refused a connection. After having re-entered the passphrase with lower case letters everything was fine though.

Lower case, I should have known better...

The remote control to the Technika Smart TV box is simple and pleasant to use. I particularly like the dedicated buttons at the bottom for the iPlayer, YouTube and Blinkbox. The rubbery directional navigation buttons have a reassuring click to them and aren't too stiff.

The homescreen on the Technika Smart TV Box is simple to navigate with the remote control. In the upper half you are presented with a large promotional button for Blinkbox content (Tesco's own movie and tv show   pay per view on demand streaming service), and at the bottom you have a carousel of options including iPlayer, YouTube, My Pictures, My Music, My Video. For My Music, My Pictures and My Video, you have to connect a form of USB sotrage with content on it. I have tried both a USB flash drive and a portable hard drive and it seems to recognise content on them (I say "seems to", so read on to understand why).

The Technika Smart TV Box homescreen

My first impression of the device was excellent. Value for money the device seems very good. For just under £50 (US$80) you get a relatively sleek bit of hardware with some useful streaming services. Sadly not all was well in everyday use: streaming YouTube, iPlayer and Blinkbox was unreliable and kept crashing in the middle of programmes, USB media playback worked fine on many different types of compressed video files, even some of the more exotic ones but would crash when pausing or fast forwarding through them.
I assumed that the crashing of streaming services was due to my network connection. (I have a 100Mbps cable connection through a Virgin Media Superhub). I tried connecting the Technika Smart TV directly to my superhub through an ethernet (standard RJ45 connector) cable, but still had the same problems.

iPlayer homescreen

In the support section of the settings of the Technika Smart TV Box I was advised to log onto the Tesco Tech Support website and follow the instructions there. The Technika Smart TV Box does not seem to have a firmware or manual section on the website yet, so a DIY firmware update was out of the question. I contacted the Tesco Electrical Helpline and a very helpful chap guided me through resetting the box, checking network connections and so on, but I still had the same problems with streaming and the occasional crash when playing back content from USB storage devices.

The advertised services on the Technika Smart TV Box are great, but limited to that. There is no option to add channels or services as there is on a Roku box or on other Smart TV services. So the usefulness when compared to a Sony Bluray player or a Roku box is very limited in my view.

I'll just summarise the pros and cons in bullet points:

Pros

• Good value for money (if it works for you)
• Included HDMI cable
• Sleek looking hardware
• USB media playback
• Many different codecs supported
• £5 free Blinkbox credit (if you can get it to work)
• Excellent remote control
• Wireless dongle included
• Easy to navigate UI
• Youtube (if it works)
• Ethernet port for wired connection

Cons

• Channels limited to iPlayer, Blinkbox and YouTube
• Limited support over helpline
• Crashes mid video on both streaming and USB playback

I was looking forward to enjoying the Technika Smart TV Box and was considering it as an alternative to the Roku LT (at the same £50 price), but sadly the crashiness and lack of support have really put me off the device. I hope Tesco/Technika can push a firmware update to solve the problems, but I'm afraid I'm not going to stick with it.

These are my personal views and experiences with the Technika Smart TV Box, as usual feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Diaspora* Will Now Be A Comunity Project

Diaspora*, the free, distributed and open source social network, is now a community project.

In an email to Diaspora* users and people who had signed up to people who had signed up at www.joindiaspora.com, Daniel Grippi, one of the founding members of the Kickstarter and project, announced the plans for the Facebook/Twitter FOSS competitor.

Here's the email text:

Dear Community,

We have been overwhelmed with your support the past week after our annoucnment of Makr.io and the opening up of signups on joindiaspora.com.  This week, we are excited to share with you some important Diaspora announcements.

When we started Diaspora two years ago, the project kicked off with amazing reception and support from people that believed in our ultimate goal: giving users ownership over their data. It's a powerful idea, one that captured the imaginations of millions of people across the world. This vision has expanded and evolved over the past two years that we have been working on it as the project has grown.

Diaspora* began when we were still at NYU—just four guys trying to scratch our own itch. We had an idea about how social networks could work in a new and exciting way. We intended to be done over the course of a summer, and with an expected budget of $10,000 from our Kickstarter campaign. The reception of this idea was so good that we managed to reach 20 times the expected amount in donations, and the project expanded to cover far more than just a summer. It's been over two years now, and we are proud of what Diaspora has become.

Today, the network has grown into thousands of people using our software in hundreds of installations across the web. There are hundreds of pods that have been created by community members, and it has become one of the biggest Github projects to date. It has been translated to almost fifty languages, with hundreds of developers worldwide contributing back to the project.

Diaspora has grown into something more than just a project four guys started in their office at school. It is bigger than any one of us, the money we raised, or the code we have written. It has developed into something that people all over the world care about and are inspired by.  We think the time is right to reflect this reality, and put our code where our hearts lie.

Today, we are giving control of Diaspora to the community.

As a Free Software social project, we have an obligation to take this project further, for the good of the community that revolves around it. Putting the decisions for the project’s future in the hands of the community is one of the highest benefits of any FOSS project, and we’d like to bring this benefit to our users and developers. We still will remain as an important part this community as the founders, but we want to make sure we are including all of the people who care about Diaspora and want to see it succeed well into the future.

If you look around, you’ll see that we’ve made an effort to open up to the community more to help better serve it. We’ve opened up our Pivotal Tracker for community developers help join in (You can sign up here), we’ve launched a tool that deploys one-click installations to the Heroku app hosting service, and we’ve updated joindiaspora.com to be more community-centric, showcasing other pods a user can join.

This will not be an immediate shift over. Many details still need to be stepped through. It is going to be a gradual process to open up more and more to community governance over time. The goal is to make this an entirely community-driven and community-run project. Sean Tilley, our Open Source Community Manager will spearhead community efforts to see that this happens.  Stay tuned to our blog for a message from Sean concerning next steps, as well as ways to get involved in helping with the transition process.

This is a new opportunity for Diaspora to grow further than ever before.  We can’t wait to see what we can do together.

Daniel and Maxwell


PS. We also want to give special thanks to a few people who recently, and over the past few years, have shown us what a special community we have. It is by no means complete:
Mr ZYX, sean tilley, David Morley, Jan-Christoph Borchardt, Joe Braun, David Morley, Hans Fase, Florian Staudacher, Movilla, Stephan Schulz, Sarah Mei, Tom Scott, kinky joe, denschub, justin thomas, Steven Hancock, Diasp, Jason Robinson 

So there you have it. In my view this is the project up on its feet and ready to roam the FOSS world and Internet. I am on Diaspora*, but don't use it much because nowadays I find Google Plus more interesting and to have more features.

With Dalton Caldwell's App.net starting to move and grow after his successful Kickstarter-like effort, and Diaspora*, Google Plus and other social networks, there seems to be much more choice for people than there was 18 months ago. Maybe Facebook should be worried about erosion of their users and users loyalty via small chipping rather than one large direct competitor.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions.

Hotmail is dead! Long "Live" Outlook

So, last week Microsoft launched Outlook.com, a refresh/relaunch of their webmail service. Outlook.com replaces existing Hotmail and Live user interface, beefs up the service and even gives users the opportunity to change their email domain from Hotmail.com to Outlook.com.

I've been using Outlook.com both through a new email address and with my existing Live account, so here are my impressions almost a week in.

The user interface, once you have either signed up or agreed to have your existing Hotmail/Live use the new UI, is clean. At launch, everyone was referring to the UI as the Metro one.

Metro UI is the design language/style used by Microsoft for their smartphones (running Windows Phone), the Xbox dashboard and on Windows 8. Later in the week, news broke of the fact that Microsoft staff and partners have been explicitly told not to use the term Metro UI, due to threat of legal action from Metro AG, a German retail group. Until Microsoft come up with a replacement name for their UI, I'll call it Metro UI.

My Winodows 8 Start screen. I call it Metro UI.

The clean UI on Outlook.com is a definitely better. The larger, more readable fonts and cleaner screen seem to be snappier than the now clunky Hotmail webmail. Media, such as images and video, can be set to open automatically within the email itself and images can also be viewed as a slideshow too.

An email with an image as an attachment.

A gallery view of the image attachments.

From the Outlook.com webmail page you can also chat with your MSN/Windows Live chat buddies, integrate your Facebook chat and soon you will be able to make and receive Skype voice and video calls. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Skype from Outlook.com compares to Google Talk from Gmail.

I have refrained from transferring my Live account over to the Outlook.com domain because of all the other services tied to my Live email address, mainly Xbox Live and my Windows Phone Nokia Lumia. Apparently switching your address to an Outlook.com one can break those services and accounts.

Outlook.com is obviously not finished yet. Clicking on the logo in the top left corner of the page, you get to switch from your webmail to other services such as People (contacts), Calendar and Skydrive. People is using the Metro UI design language, but Calendar and Skydrive are still using the old Hotmail/Live UI. I look forward to seeing how those services behave using the Metro UI.

Metro UI switcher to the other account services.

My Outlook.com email address synchronises perfectly with my Nokia Lumia 710, and it is as good an experience on the Windows Phone platform as Hotmail was. Essentially, nothing is new there. On Android, you can add an Outlook.com email account to the Hotmail application and get your email on the go there. My personal view on the Hotmail for Android app: it's pants, don't bother trying!

This Outlook.com webmail refresh is a good start for Microsoft, I like the shinily simple UI and service. Is it enough to win me over? Currently I'm locked into Google's services and webmail service, GMail, so it will be tough for Microsoft to do so. Check back in a few months time and see if I have changed...

These are the views of an Android fanboy, bear that in mind. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Nexus 7 Review: No More Manbags

It has been two weeks since I took delivery of my Nexus 7 tablet, so I now give you my review of the device.

My Nexus 7 with my Galaxy Nexus

Before I start, here's the background that influences my subjective view of Google's Jelly Bean running 7" tablet: I'm an Android fanboy and have been since 2007. I love tinkering with Android devices, much in the same way as I do with Linux on laptops, netbooks, nettops and desktops. My main device is a Galaxy Nexus, which has a pure Google Android experience, and no custom ROM. Since October last year I have also been using an Android tablet, an Archos 80 G9. While not as shiny as other tablets at the time, price and specifications were the main reason I chose the 80 G9. Very few customisations by Archos on Honeycomb meant that the 80 G9 had as close to a pure Android experience as possible, and that also made it fast for Archos to push the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) update.


While a hardcore Android/Linux nerd, I'm also a bit of a closet Windows Phone user. I enjoy Metro UI and like the service tie ins with Xbox Live. The Nokia Lumia 710 I'm using is a good piece of hardware, and just like my Android devices has replaceable batteries (unlike the Lumia 800). Windows Phone is different from Android, and I can see how it is less suited to the tinkerer than any Android phone, but is a very pleasant smartphone experience. I have to admit, at the moment I'm a bit of a BiOS smartphone user. (Just to make it clear, I don't partake in any of the Apple iOS tomfoolery, that's just not to my liking.)

So, back to the Nexus 7 review. After Google IO (end of June), I placed a pre-order for the Nexus 7 (the 16GB model priced at £199 in the UK) on the ebuyer.com website. At the time I had to choose between the direct Google channel and third party retailers. I ended up choosing ebuyer.com, because of their excellent service in the past. ebuyer.com was also a reasonable choice because they have had a good relationship with ASUS for years (ASUS is the company that manufactures the Nexus 7). As a result, on the morning of Friday 13th 2012, I had a knock on the door from Parcelforce and came into posession of a Google Nexus 7 tablet. (It was a lucky date for me!)

For those of you just wanting to get the specifications and then jump to the conclusion, here are the specs:

SCREEN
7” 1280x800 HD display (216 ppi)
Back-lit IPS display
Scratch-resistant Corning glass
1.2MP front-facing camera

SIZE
198.5 x 120 x 10.45mm
WEIGHT
340g
WIRELESS
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth
MEMORY
8 GB internal storage (actual formatted capacity will be less)
1 GB RAM
USB
Micro USB
BATTERY
4325 mAh (Up to 8 hours of active use)
OS
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)
CPU
Quad-core Tegra 3 processor
FEATURES
Microphone
NFC (Android Beam)
Accelerometer
GPS
Magnetometer
Gyroscope


The Nexus 7 is a 7" Nexus tablet running Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). A Nexus device is made by a third party manufacturer (in this case ASUS) for Google, who have close input on device design and specifications. Google use Nexus devices to showcase/ship the latest version of Android and also jolt the rest of the market into upping their game.

My Archos 80 G9 next to my Nexus 7

The 7" form factor may seem strange to those who are used to larger tablets but after using it for a while I understood that it made more sense. The Nexus 7 is well built and feels solid to hold, and the rubbery back makes it feel less likely to slip out of your hand than other similar devices. I love the fact that it fits perfectly in a jacket pocket, eliminating the need for a man bag for me. The Archos 80 G9 has an 8" 4:3 screen, so won't fit into the same pocket. Another advantage of the 7" form factor is that when typing holding the Nexus 7 in portrait orientation, two thumb typing is pleasantly simple.

No more man bag for me

The screen is an LCD IPS backlit one, this means that it has in plane switching technology, which gives you great viewing angles. Colours on the screen are good and the high number of dots per inch (216) means images on the screen are nice and crisp. While not the best LCD display I've seen, in a sub £200 device it is phenomenal.

A phenomenal screen for a sub £200 device.

The Nexus 7 has a front facing 1.2 MP camera, which is great for videocalling. I've used it with both Google talk and Skype and the only complaints about image quality were probably due to a slow internet connection. Again, the 7" form factor of the Nexus 7 is great for long video calls. Whereas with larger/heavier tablet computers hands/arms get tired after a while, with the Nexus 7 I haven't had this issue, and I do tend to do a lot of video calls on it. Unlike other tablets on the market at the moment, the Nexus 7 doesn't have a camera on the rear, so you won't lose any street-cred using it to take pictures at parties. There is actually no software on the stock Android Jelly Bean shipped with the Nexus 7 to use the camera as a camera. Thankfully Paul O'Brien from MoDaCo.com has a solution for this if you really want that feature.

Jelly Bean, Android 4.1, is the operating system running on the Nexus 7. Coupled with Nvidia's Tegra 3 chipset and 12 core GPU the device is buttery to use. Google had people working on the UI smoothness and responsiveness and the differences from ICS (4.0), while not immediately apparent, are enormous. The user interface paradigm remains the same as on Ice Cream Sandwich, with a few subtle improvements such as icon and widget automatic rearrangement. The notification system has been augmented from ICS and made more expansive with snapshots and previews. I like this notification system improvement, especially because it includes Google Now notifications.

Google Now is a new way for interacting with Google services. A sort of predictive search, it presents you with information before you start searching for it. When I'm at work for example, Google Now will give me bus timetables and an estimated time for me travelling home, and a weather forecast. Presented as cards, the Google Now screen can be pulled up as an offscreen gesture swiping upwards from the bottom. This is a very WebOS like gesture, I wonder how much of Matias Duarte's input there was for this... You can find out  more about Google Now here.

The Nexus 7 is an NFC device, which means that it can be used to share/use information shared via near field communication technology. Often if I get an email recommending a Youtube video, and I just tap my phone with the open link to my Nexus 7 and boom, the video opens up on my Nexus 7. Lovely but limited feature at the moment, as time goes by it will be a standard on many devices.

On the Nexus 7 you have access to the Play Store. Any applications/services you have purchased from the Play Store previously are available to you on the Nexus 7, provided the application/service is compatible. Most of my favourite apps work just fine on the Nexus 7, but some don't. Flickr for example does not work on the Nexus 7 yet, but I'm sure it's just a question of time before it does. Google state that for a limited time Nexus 7 buyers get £15 of Play Store credit. £15 credit with the £159 (8GB) and £199 (16GB) price tags just makes the value proposition of the Nexus 7 go up.

The Nexus 7 has WiFi, Bluetooth and NFC connectivity. There is no 3G (cellular) option, but tethering to a smartphone is easy peasy. I tether with both my Galaxy Nexus and Nokia Lumia 710 without problem.

Battery life on the Nexus 7 is excellent. I've used my device regularly both at home and at work and never had a problem with the battery running low. I usually charge the Nexus 7 overnight if needed, but usually it lasts me at least a couple of days. The Nexus 7 has a beefed up USB charger which juices up the device through the MicroUSB port. Sadly some existing MicroUSB chargers for phones and/or Kindles do not work with the Nexus 7.

OK, for those of you who skipped to the conclusion from the specifications, you can start reading again.
Overall the Nexus 7 is a fantastic device. Form factor and excellent operating system make it a delight to use. Google's services run impeccably on the device, as you would expect them to. For under £200 there isn't anything on the market that can offer you as good value for money, and the £15 Google Play Store credit is just the cherry on the icing. I love my Nexus 7, and know it will be an amazing success for Google, ASUS and the retailers selling the device.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. Bear in mind this review is my personal view on the Nexus 7 and that as I stated at the beginning I'm pretty biased because I'm an android fanboy.

My Nokia Lumia 710 is now running Tango! (Finally!)

I've been moaning about how slow Nokia/ThreeUK were to roll out the Windows Phone Tango update to my Nokia Lumia 710 recently.

Last Thursday the update was finally pushed to my device, and through Zune I finally updated.
The Windows Phone Tango 7.5 update brings two main changes to the phone, and others are marked as coming soon. The most important change is the addition of an "Internet Sharing" function (which can be accessed in the settings menu). Internet Sharing is essentially tethering, I can now connect my shiny Nexus 7 Android tablet to the internet using the Nokia Lumia 710 as a WiFi hotspot.

New option in the Settings menu: Internet Sharing

The other big change I have noticed is the change of the icon for the Windows Phone Marketplace. It may sound silly to you but this has great importance to Nokia, Microsoft and consumers who are just buying a phone and who don't worry about smartphone operating systems, software version numbers and service/hardware ecosystems. The Marketplace now has a Nokia logo'd shopping bag, which means the Finnish phone manufacturer has taken a big slice of Microsoft's brand value of the operating system as its own. This is a pretty loud statement from Nokia, as if they were saying "This is a Nokia smartphone, it just happens to be running Windows Phone." Apart from the icon, the Windows Phone Marketplace is much the same as it used to be. Nokia Collection is still a section of the Marketplace, but the Camera Extras are not available there yet.

New Marketplace icon. Strong statement from Nokia?

Apart from these two big changes (in my view), I haven't really noticed any other changes from Windows Phone 7.5 Mango to Windows Phone 7.5 Tango. It may be that the battery life is slightly better, but that may be because I have been using my Nexus 7 a lot and haven't had the need to tether, pardon me use Internet Sharing, much. The Nexus 7 is a fantastic bit of kit, I'll be blogging about that here soon.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

My Nokia Lumia 710 Update Woes [Updated]

I've had a Nokia Lumia 710 for a few months now. I like the Windows Phone running Nokia a lot, and even my Android fanboy feelings don't stop me from telling people that the device is excellent value for money, and an easy to use device for non smartphone geeks. Sadly Nokia have dangled the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update at me for months now, and I'm still waiting for the update to be available for my Lumia 710.

All is well with the device, I have had no hardware problems with it at all. I purchased non-original spare batteries for the Lumia 710 at a very reasonable price, and with my Galaxy Nexus it is currently always with me. I actually use the Lumia 710 as my main mp3 player. Zune, the desktop sync software for Windows Phone, allows me to manage my podcast subscriptions easily and quickly, as long as I remember to boot into Windows.

A few months ago I was excited by Nokia's announcement that the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update would be soon available for the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800. Since then there was a long period of silence on the matter and then at the beginning of July Nokia started the update the rollout. The update was available on certain carriers in the UK, and marked as "Waiting for approval" on other ones. H3G (Three UK) were one of the carriers "Waiting for approval" and when I checked back this morning it was marked as "Update Available".

On both Zune and the handset itself no update is available for my Lumia 710. I'm still waiting.

This makes me think that the one of the most important "features" of Windows Phone is a bit shaky. Android Fragmentation is often used as an argument against using Android. The lack of update support and the delay of updates caused by device manufacturers, network providers and regional settings may not actually be a problem solely existing on the Android platform. I have a friend with a Dell Venue Pro, a discontinued Windows Phone made by a company who has given up on the smartphone market for now. He already has the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update, while my shiny and relatively new Lumia doesn't. I'm peeved to say the least. Windows Phone updates are supposed to be rolled out almost all at the same time to everyone with a Windows Phone, avoiding a fragmentation of the market.

Not only the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update is a fragmentation issue. Windows Phone 8 has already been announced by Microsoft. Existing Windows Phone devices will not be able to support the new smartphone OS. Instead, Windows Phone 7.8 will be rolled out to existing devices with a few cosmetic changes and not much else. I wonder how long it will take my Nokia Lumia 710 to get the update to 7.8. Probably ages.

Please Nokia, if you want to survive as a business and win back customers, if you want to shine again rather than just be another Windows Phone OEM get the updates rolling out quickly and smoothly. Windows Phone Fragmentation is the last thing you need.

So my suggestion is that bloggers, tech journalists, and smartphone geeks start speaking of the teacup elephant in the corner: Windows Phone Fragmentation. Seriously, it is unlikely it will ever happen. At the moment and for the foreseeable future the Windows Phone market share is tiny and hiccups like these will only hamper its growth.

[Update] Less than a week after this blog post I got the Tango update. You can read my impressions here.

Right, I'm getting back to playing with my shiny new Nexus 7. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below. I'll update this post as soon as I get the Windows Phone 7.5 Tango update on my Nokia Lumia 710.

Picplz Shutting Down

Picplz was a photo sharing service similar to Instagram which had an Android client long before Instagram started being ported to Android. I have been using Picplz for years now, and am sad to find out that the service will be shutting down on July 3rd 2012.

The people running Picplz have very kindly set up a download service so you can download all your content from the site easily. Just go to Picplz.com and log in, follow the prompts and you will be able to download all your photos as a single .zip file. In my case there are 245 images, so the zip file was quite large clocking in at over 200MB.

It is a shame Picplz has reached the end of its service, I found it a useful way to avoid issues with rights to intellectual property (Facebook cough cough!), and to post images to almost all my social networking services at once (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter etc...). I'm not totally bought into Instagram even now that there is a full Android client, and sharing through Skydrive from my Nokia Lumia 710 is a bit iffy.

I'll let you know how I get on finding a replacement photo sharing service as time goes by. As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Nokia Lumia 710 And Ubuntu: They Speak To Each Other!

I've had a Nokia Lumia 710 for a while now.  This week I discovered I can use my Lumia 710 and manage media and content on it through my Ubuntu Linux machines, and I'm a very happy chappy as a result.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is one of Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 devices, the product of the Finnish company's leap of faith from a "burning platform" onto a lilly pad in the middle of a stormy ocean. Windows Phone 7 is Microsoft's smartphone operating system which it pitches as a competitor to Google's Android OS and iOS (which is shipped on Apple devices).

From the beginning of my ownership of the Nokia Lumia 710 I encountered frustration with some of the basic management of Windows Phone 7. Adding and managing media could only be done (up to now) from a Windows or OS X machine running the Zune software. Zune performs similar functions to iTunes, just that it uses a simplistically shiny UI which fits in well on Windows 8, but looks out of place and unintuitive on Windows 7. I have been an avid Linux user for many moons now, and Microsoft Windows is an OS I only boot into rarely if there is some slightly more complicated in phone rooting/ROMming that requires running applications on Windows. Hence my frustration: I have to restart my computer into Windows (7 most of the time on my desktop, 8 on my laptop), wait for the slower startup (it's so much faster in Ubuntu or Lubuntu!), update the antivirus (not an issue on Ubuntu or Lubuntu!) and open up Zune.

Zune is "shiny". I like it. I like it in the same sort of way that I like Windows Phone 7's user interface, and in the same way in which I adore the WebOS user interface. It's all about the UI, its fluidity and how intuitive it is. That's probably why I like the Android 4.0.x UI too: Matias Duarte, formerly of Palm where he designed the WebOS UI, is now the Director of Android operating system User Experience at Google.

Shiny! Shinier with Rachel Stevens

At the beginning using the Zune software didn't work for me. Plugging the Nokia Lumia 710 into any USB port (either primary or secondary) was useless, it didn't show up in the device manager and Zune didn't know there was a Windows Phone 7 device connected to the computer. Only after I had reinstalled Windows 7 on my desktop did I manage to get the Lumia 710 and Zune to talk to each other. Finally I was able to synchronise music folders and podcasts with the device. This was a relief because I had been streaming podcasts over the interwebs through a browser, and this was severely affecting battery life. Once I had got used to the routine of synching the Lumia on a daily basis, things were fine.

When on holiday in Italy I was using my Nexus S as my main smartphone and the Lumia was relegated to being a wifi device when at home for Skype calls, mp3 player functions and playing a fantastic Xbox Live game called Flowers.

After having updated my Ubuntu and Lubuntu partitions on my laptop and desktop to the newest version of the distribution (12.04 Precise Pangolin), I stumbled across the fact that the Nokia Lumia 710 could be mounted as a media player. Once mounted, I could read and write the contents of the folders, manage photos, music and podcasts to the device. On Ubuntu, it even offered to manage the media player in Rythmbox, the media management application bundled with the pinky-orange Linux based OS.

Now that I don't have to boot into Windows so often I'm a happier Wobbles feeder. I can also reply to John C. Dvorak who was reiterating the fact that you HAVE to use Zune on TWiT last week: not any more! You can now live a Windows free life with your Windows Phone 7 smartphone. Until the next OS/firmware update that is... ;-)

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions. I also started a thread on the MoDaCo forums about this so feel free to join the chatter about this there too.

BBC Mobile Homepage Beta Is Sleek!

The BBC has released the testing version (beta) of its new mobile website homepage. As with the relatively recently renewed BBC homepage for traditional computers, the design is cleaner, more dynamic and whiter.

BBC Mobile Homepage Beta On Stock Android Browser

You can get the new BBC Mobile Homepage Beta on your mobile device by visiting the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/home/mobilebeta . You can also scan the following QR code with your mobile device:

This QR code is for the new BBC Mobile Homepage Beta

I quite like the new BBC Mobile Homepage Beta, I find it to be clearer and easier to use comnpared to the current/older version.

The current/older version of the BBC Mobile Homepage on the stock Android browser

As the "beta" label suggests, this is not the finished product, and it is far from perfect. On the stock Android web browser it works fine at the moment, as with the version of Internet Explorer on my Windows Phone 7 device. It renders fine in Opera Mobile and Opera Mini for me too. Sadly the new BBC Mobile Homepage Beta does not render perfectly on the stock WebOS browser (it is useable, but some bits go missing) and the Chrome Beta for Android 4.0 just doesn't like it.

The New BBC Mobile Homepage Beta on the stock WebOS browser

The New BBC Mobile Homepage Beta on Opera Mobile on Android

The New BBC Mobile Homepage Beta on Chrome Beta for Android 4.0 (Beta + Beta = Fail)

I look forward to this homepage becoming the standard one for mobile devices. I hope the clever people at the BBC also manage to make it more dynamic and scalable so that it adapts to larger screens such as those on BAPs and tablets as well as phablets. Well done to the chaps and chapettes involved in the development and deployment of the page, I still feel like it is worth while paying my TV License.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Picnik Shutdown Getting Closer

The announced shutdown of Picnik, scheduled for April 19th 2012 is getting closer. Picnik is/was an online photo editing and publishing tool. Usable through a browser, Picnik had both a free and a premium paid for offering. In 2010 Picnik became part of Google.

This morning I received an email from Picnik reminding me of the imminent shutdown date and giving me advice on how to export my images and content.

Here's the message:

Important Picnik Announcement 

As we announced earlier this year, we will be closing Picnik on April 19th, 2012, and we want to make sure you have the information and support you need.
For more details on our shut down, or recommended alternatives to Picnik, please see answers to frequently asked questions.
Refund update for Picnik Premium
We have submitted all refunds for processing. For the few who have not received their refund, please do the following:

• Confirm you have not mistaken your refund for a new Picnik charge
• Contact the original financial institution you used to purchase your Picnik Premium membership to confirm they have received the refund notification
• If these steps don't resolve your issue, contact us by logging into your account and clicking Help.  Please contact us prior to our April 19th closure.

Picnik Premium
Picnik Premium will continue to be free for everyone until our closing date. So please keep creating!
Grabbing your photos
If you would like to remove your images from Picnik, please use Picnik Takeout to easily download your photos to your desktop in convenient zip files. You may request downloads as many times as you like until our closing date of April 19, 2012. If you choose to zip up now, you can still use Picnik and remove any new edits though April 19th. Make sure you can open your downloaded zip files. If you have any problems, please contact feedback-data@picnik.com.
Thank you,
Team Picnik

The Picnik website also doesn't let you miss the fact that the service is shutting down soon. Here's how it looks:

Difficult to not get the message.

I had used Picnik for a while after discovering the service on the Chrome Web Store. Nowadays many of the features in Picnik are offered as part of the photo service Picasa/Google Plus Photos. Hopefully all the rest of the features will be rolled over, then it will make sense to kill off the extra (little known by the general public) brand.

As usual, fell free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Posterous Bought By Twitter

Today I woke up to an email from Posterous. Posterous is an online blogging platform which aims to make publishing blogs easy.

In the email there was a statement which let me know that Posterous has been taken over by Twitter.

Here's what was in the email:

Hi todoleo,

I’m thrilled to announce that Posterous has been acquired by Twitter!

The opportunities in front of Twitter are exciting, and we couldn’t be happier to bring our technology and expertise to hundreds of millions of users around the globe.  Plus, the people at Twitter are genuinely nice folks who share our vision for making sharing simpler.

Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks.

You can find more information answers to other questions you may have here.

Finally, I’d like to offer thanks to everyone, especially those who have been with Posterous since day one. The last four years have been an amazing journey. Your encouragement, praise and criticism have made Posterous better, and I really appreciate everything you’ve done.

Thanks again and I look forward to building great things for you at Twitter.

- Sachin

(Sachin is Sachin Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Posterous)

We'll just have to see what happens with this: will Twitter expand into being a full blogging platform? How long will Posterous still be around for?

Posterous is very similar to Tumblr (and in a way Blogger too...), but with Twitter's backing/guidance/orders it may grow quick and big. Lets see what happens.

For the readers of this blog: do not worry, I will continue to use the reliable tried and tested Blogger platform.

Flying Over The Alps With My TZ20

Today I flew from Milan (MXP) to Edinburgh (EDI). I was lucky enough to get a window seat (no, not a Windows seat, because I use Linux...), so I took a few pictures with my Panasonic TZ20 in "Aerial Photo" mode. Here are the results.

 More after the break!

Gullane Golf Course where I took these shots

Cramond Island, which I visited with Picc0110 in the summer

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Three Web Cube - Easy WiFi

After a week of regular use, today I'm reviewing the Three Web Cube. 

The Three Web Cube is a wireless internet access point for the home. Rather than connecting to the internet through a normal phone line, the Three Web Cube connects to the internet through Three UK's mobile broadband network. This means no line rental or lengthy contracts with traditional broadband providers. If you need to move you can easily take the web cube with you: all you need to do is unplug the device from the power socket, take it with you and plug it in at your destination.

You can connect up to five devices to the Three Web Cube at once. This is now quite a likely scenario, since most people have more than one device that connects to the internet through WiFi (smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks etc...). I successfully had five devices connected at once. For all basic application and web browsing needs there was more than enough bandwidth to cater for all devices. 

Shiny blue light: it must be good!

As I already mentioned, the Three Web Cube connects to the internet through Three UK's mobile broadband network. At time of writing, the Web Cube is on trial in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds. I'm lucky enough to live in an area of Edinburgh where there is very good coverage from Three UK, that's one of the main reasons I use Three's network for my smartphone too. Setting up the Web Cube and getting online was a piece of cake: I just had to follow the simple instructions that came in the box.

The Nokia Lumia 710 connected to the Three Web Cube (@fatoldgingercat assisted with the testing and review)

The Web Cube I was sent came with a Three UK mobile broadband SIM card. Once that was popped into the Web Cube, I plugged the device into the mains and it lit up with a cool blue light. Deep inside me I always think that if it has a cool blue light it must be doing something very clever. All my devices could see  the Web Cube as a wireless access point. After connecting to it, I was prompted to enter the network access key, which is printed both on a sticker at the bottom of the Web Cube and on the instruction booklet. All my devices connected to the Web Cube without hiccups, apart from my Nokia Lumia 710. It turned out that the Windows Phone 7 autocapitalisation was interfering with my WiFi key entry...

Not bad during rush hour: that's faster than many people's home broadband

At peak times of the day (rush hour in the morning and rush hour in the evening) the internet connection was slightly slower than during the rest of the day. That's probably due to the fact that I live near a main road in a densely populated area of Edinburgh and that's when most of the mobile web is used. Even so, at peak times I was getting consistently good connection speeds of between 3 Mbps and 5 Mbps for downloads and between 1 Mbps and 3 Mbps for upload. Three say that potentially the device should be able to handle up to 21 Mbps download and 5 Mbps in optimal network conditions. 

Once connected to the Web Cube, all my devices operated as usual. To get into the Web Cube's administrator control panel, all I had to do was type "http://3.home" into my web browser address bar.

The Three Web Cube's web interface control panel

From the administrator control panel you can check the status of the Web Cube, read and send text messages (it's technically a mobile broadband device...), find out how many devices are connected and manage advanced settings. I decided to mess with the neighbours a bit and renamed the web cube to "NewsInternationalSurveillance" for a while...

An easy way to mess with the neighbours...

The Three Web Cube is a capable device, essentially a MiFi for the home. For many people it could quite easily replace a basic home broadband connection, considering how competitive Three's mobile broadband packages can be. It could also be handy for people who travel a lot, or just don't want to commit to a lengthy fixed line broadband connection. While not being as fast a connection as my Virgin Media fibre optic broadband one, the Web Cube performed very well and didn't really leave me wanting for anything more. So as a conclusion to this review, I'll give the Three Web Cube a big thumbs up!

A quick disclaimer: I was not remunerated by Three UK for this review, and the Three Web Cube I reviewed was on loan and will be sent back. All opinions expressed on this blog post are my own, are subjective and the speed test run is probably flawed and should not be taken as an objective result. OK, Leo Laporte vs Mike Arrington situation averted...

You can find out more about the Three Web Cube and if the service is available in your area here.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Samsung Galaxy Note - Prone To Screen Burn?

I was in  a Carphone Warehouse store today and saw a display unit of the Samsung Galaxy Note with visible signs of screen burn. Screen burn is when a screen has a static image (such as a menu/icon) burnt into the screen. The pixels in that section of the screen lose the capacity to display colours properly so you end up seein shadows of the static image (usually on white backgrounds).

Screen burn - annoying once you notice it...

Screen burn seen from a different angle

Apart from the screen burn, I really like the screen of the Samsung Galaxy Note. Fantastic pixel density!

As usual, feel free to ask questions and/or leave comments below.

Bada OS To Be Folded Into TIZEN

Samsung's Tae-Jin Tang (Senior Vice President of Samsung’s Contents Planning Team) has revealed that Bada OS will be folded into the Tizen open source project. Bada OS is Samsung's own mobile operating system, which has not been as successful as Android globally. 

Tizen is the new name for the MeeGo open source Linux based OS (itself formerly known as Moblin and Maemo). Backed by Intel and Samsung among others, Tizen may be found on some Samsung handsets released by the end of 2012. Interestingly Tae-Jin Tang indicated that Tizen would be used on Samsung's lower end smartphones, while the higher end ones would be running Android or Windows Phone 7.


Source: Forbes.com