Things that make ya go hmmmm

So, I have been involved with the O2 Litmus project now for quite a while, which...well, lets say it has been a little slow from a user/testing point but more importantly, it was a big learning process for the mobile provider itself (O2) and to the developers. The time has come though to release Telefónica's new baby into the wild (kind of, as its in closed Beta at the moment). Quick intro vid: [vimeo vimeo.com/17369019] So, its great to see something innovative like this to come from O2 i.e. Telefónica in this form and a great opportunity for mobile developers to take advantage of the free tie in to the O2 APIs for creating mobile websites or apps. At the moment, this is only available to developers in the UK, Argentina, Mexico and Spain but more countries and more APIs will be added soon. You can apply to the closed BlueVia beta here . Monetise your apps by plugging in our powerful, risk free API’s offering you revenue share business models. Altogether, BlueVia represents now th...

Well, theres two hopes of getting my car out the garage. Bob and No . A 3 foot mountain of snow against a car that although AWD only has about 22cm ground clearance.

So, its been snowing. Not normal snow, like an hour here and there, small issues and off you go. It's actually been snowing pretty much 80% of the time for 2 days. Its like being on holiday (of the winter variety). The side road of the main road near looked like this after day 1. The roads are shut and people are actually walking to the local shops instead of taking the car! WOW! There is suddenly a great togetherness too, that makes me love living here even more. I walked about 10 mins up to the shop, kids & sledge in tow, and past about 15 people on the way. Every single person I passed said hello, commented on the snow, laughed about the kids being dragged in the pure luxury of the sledge or had some other friendly banter. The local market though was devoid of any fresh baked goods (which wasn't a surprise) and had no milk or other essentials. A walk down to Tescos was more effective as they had just had a delivery, but people were already starting to bustle to get thei...

I really do like Twitter. Really. I just fell into it. Not sure what really happened but like with all good things in your life, I can't imagine not having it now. I find it more useful, amusing, helpful etc. etc. every day and have 'met' some great people through the service. Actually, despite putting inverted commas around met, I have met some users face-to-face and they are all good enough people for me to still be happily chatting with them. ;) As of now, my tweet stats prove just how much I do like the service and this is my wordle cloud!

OK, I've how just about hit breaking point with this service. Following on from the previous posts, the backup that I did of the tracks completely failed. Not only that, but when restoring the data it takes AGGGGGEEES!!! If you want me to define 'AGGGGGEEES' I mean 6 hours to reach 8% of the track restore (17GB in total) Not only that, but the restore is pointless as you still need to go and re-acquire the license. So that made me think, forget it. I'll just download them all again. Which I have started doing. But guess what. DRM comes back to bite me in the ass again, as re-downloading an album from the history page seems to only do that, and NOT THE ACTUAL LICENSE FILE to play the DAMN TRACKS! It is totally ridiculous. When this subscription year is over, (although with all these issues (some undocumented here) are taken into account, its more like 10-11months) I wont be going anywhere near Ovi Music Unlimited side of things. Of course the store itself is good if you ...

Well, after waiting for it all to upload back to the handset it failed. All the tracks are back, but no licenses which means a whole load of clicks now to get all my tracks back. I really hate DRM music. Essentially, you can TOTALLY IGNORE MY PREVIOUS POST!!

So... recently I've started to have a load of problems with my Nokia X6, mostly around the battery just getting totally wiped by something pushing/pulling data constantly. I've had a whole host of apps on it and so I guess there could be some remnant of an app thats still fighting. I'm possibly thinking whatsapp.com, Mail for Exchange, or Nokia Messaging... Anyway, it got to the point where I just thought... fuck it , I'm wiping this device. Then I came across a problem. As it's an Ovi Music device and I've had it for about 6 months now, it's loaded with music to the tune (do you see what I did there) of 17GB. What to do then, about keeping this music, including all its DRM strapped-ness and not having to go though the laborious process of 're-licensing' each and every track. One of my mates Jon recommended trying PC Suite to run a back up of the info. So, that's what I did. I've only backed up the music files and it took a good 30mins or ...

This is DEAD simple actually and it allows you to start to use the Orange Network when you have no T-Mobile signal. (which is better than it trying to go on Orange just because the signal is better). If you want to opt in to this, you have 2 ways to go about it. 1st, go to the T-Mobile web page right here and follow the instructions. Your 2nd option is to skip all that and just send a message to 2121 with the body of the message simply saying 'yes'. You will then get a text back confirming your phone has access to the Orange network. A word of precaution though, this dual network access is really aimed at allowing you to send SMS and make calls. When you sign up to access the Orange service, you are in actual fact only accessing the 2G network from Orange. This will kick up a few data issues, so look at the 'quirks' list below that T-Mobile present before you sign up, to get a bit of a better understanding. You can always opt out too. Simpy send a text to 2121 saying ...

So, whats better than the new Nokia N8? 2 Nokia N8's! Or you may have thought so... But in this case, its not... as sadly the 1st of these brand new Nokia N8's was faulty out the box, randomly rebooting itself via the white screen every minute of so. You could put this down to a number of things, I'll leave you to it. I ran a hard reset on it (Volume Down PLUS Camera PLUS Menu Button whilst you turn it on whilst holding those keys) which totally removed both Ovi Maps and Ovi Store. (so only do it as a last resort as I and other users have had serious issues trying to get those apps back on the handset). What to do, what to do I thought... but, FEAR NOT THOUGH... The cool people over at WOMWORLD/Nokia (who kindly lent me the Nokia N8 in the first place so... we could talk about it) rapidly sent out a new one that is working perfectly almost perfectly. You'll find plenty of blog posts around about the N8. Some praising, some slamming, but either way I look at it, the wo...

So, over on the various forums I've frequented, and with the interest in mobiles and cars, I've been asked this question many times. It nearly always revolves around someone having a Nokia Phone and a problem with them syncing that phone's contacts to the car for communication via the dash or the head unit. There's not a problem with calls, its just this issue with being able to see your phone book. So if you are one of those wondering, "How the hell do I get my contacts to my car from this Nokia N8?" ... or Nokia N97 or whatever Nokia you may have picked up, this will help. To quote myself from the 1st time I wrote this out (I thought this was worth salvaging from the old blog posts) You need to download a file from Nokia that is called "810 contacts Download Application" and just for you, this is the link . Find your phone or equivalent and get that version. If you have the Nokia N8 the 5th edition version works just fine, even though you're on...

Years ago, there was a blog here that I started on mostly football (with a dash of ranting and some interesting product chat). Times were good back then and so was the football. Now, it's mostly 3rd tier action and right now this is the state of play for my beloved Sheffield Wednesday . And with that out the way, and not 1 mention of the takeover (ahh bollocks I just did) I'm looking to add some more here. I have a good presence online and have met some really great bloggers and social media contacts that's got me wanting to add more to who I am, or really, what I'm thinking about. I've a great interest in Mobiles/Smartphones working with O2/Telefonica developer communities and the AllAboutSymbian.com site, and have been somewhat a known Nokia fan for a good while now. There'll be more on that throughout this blog, in the 'Mobile' category. I also run a forum with some other friends for Volkswagon/Audi group owners and fans over at VAGoc which, if I d...

Welcome welcome, Im turfing everything out and replacing it with .... well... new stuff.