Roland Tanglao's Weblog

After using an Eye-Fi card for about 3 weeks, I have to say it's fantastic and highly recommended!

Observations:

1. Shouldn't have to rely on a PC or Mac to configure it (although i can see why they do, it's the lazy/easy way, c'mon be creative and do it without a PC or Mac or Linux box!)
2. The fact that none of the digicam or SLR manufacturers have this built-in (Nikon's Wifi on their point and shoots is inflexible and the WiFi transmitters on digital SLRs are overpriced and far too big) shows their analogue camera heritage. Connectivity is the most important part of digital cameras and WiFi is the easiest and most ubiquitous connectivity and should therefore be built in
3. Eye-Fi should do RAW files and video files as well
4. Can't wait for the Eye-Fi Explore, the geo version that uses Skyhook technology
5. Please can we have an Eye-Fi version for Compact Flash as well as SD Cards? I don't want to have to buy SD to flash adapters
6. I'm going to buy another Eye-Fi and a SD to CF adapter so I can use it in my Canon 20D digital SLR and upload photos no muss no fuss at public events with WiFi
7. The fact that the Eye-Fi is *still* unavailable in Canada is unacceptable

Looking for a gift for a Canadian Social Geek? Then you are in luck. I'll show what's cool and give you a tour of the difficulties of being a Canadian Social Geek (there's no such thing as free trade in reality between Canada and the USA since it's even harder now than in the past to get gadgets over the border)

1. N95-1 Nokia Cameraphone ($650 from dell.ca)? Why because you can upload awesome cameraphone pictures automatically with suspend/resume to flickr for free over Wifi using ShoZu (every social geek knows where to find free wifi) and if you are rich you can do it over EDGE. Be sure to get your geek to upgrade the latest N95-1 firmware update which makes the phone much more stable when using ShoZu. And if you are really rich get an N95-3 ($619 US from Amazon USA) and upload over 3G over the r*poff Rogers and Fido 3G Network. Oh and you can do great videos but there's no automatic video upload solution (ShoZu will automatically upload 10MB videos which is far too little since that's less than a minute of full res video on the N95). Why not Sony Ericsson? Because ShoZu doesn't work so well on their phones (granted Sony phones take great pictures, better than the N95, it's just their software is even cr*ppier than Nokia's and even harder for 3rd party developers). Trust me your SGeek will love the quality of the N95 pics!
2. Apple iPhone - $US399 from Apple USA + about 150 bucks including shipping for a Hardware SIM unlock so it can work in Canada - lousy pictures but the most usable phone the world has ever seen for SMS, web browser for twitter, utterz, jaiku, etc. Notice how there are no CDMA devices on this list. That's because CDMA s*cks :-) (at least the Canadian and US implementations of CDMA s*ck, the fact that there are no SIMs means CDMA users are forever enslaved by the CDMA carriers) and even if it didn't there are no cool devices for it. Sorry Windows Mobile and RIM aren't cool and email is great but it ain't overly social :-) !
3. Chumby - display your friends flickr pictures and RSS feeds on this cute truly open hardware and software device - $179 shipped only to the US (but you know somebody in the USA you can ship this to right?)
4. Eye-Fi WiFi SD card ($US 99)- if you can't afford an N95-1 or 3 then this is the next best thing. Your point and Shoot or Digital SLR with SD to CF adapter = poor man's ShoZu. It ain't ShoZu because it doesn't have suspend and resume if connectivity is lost but it's the next best thing and the 2nd fastest way to get your pictures social. Ahem, not available in Canada. Buy in the USA at Walmart, Amazon, Costco.
5. One Laptop per Child (give one and get one for $US 400 and they ship to Canada, hallelujah!) - cool Linux laptop with built in mesh networking
6. Canon Digital Rebel XTi ($650 with decent kit lens but get the 50MM too):
   Rebel Xti + EyeFi Card and CF to SD adapter + Canon 50 MM f1.8 lens (about $100) + ISO 3200 + f1.8 = shoot in almost dark conditions and upload to flickr over wifi the moment you get to one of your locations with WiFi e.g. your house or work, the Nikon D40 is also an awesome camera but it doesn't take the Nikon 50MM lens so it ends up being more expensive (coz you have to buy a 3rd party 50MM fast lens or similar lens like the Sigma 30MM F1.4 to get a fast low light prime lens)
   
7. Nokia N800 ($274.99 from dell.ca) or N810 Linux (only available in the USA!) Internet Tablet - great for mobile blogging, twittering, jaikuing etc, also does mobile Skype very well! The N800 has two SD slots for a maxium total of 16GB of storage; the N810 has one slot but has a keyboard.

My FON router works! Hurray! Now sharing WiFi with the world! Couldn't get it to work with my hub like the ancient Airport Base Station does which makes no sense. If I plug it directly into the ADSL modem it works, just doesn't work plugged in indirectly like the Airport Base Station was! Do I need a cross over eithernet cable to make it work with my hub?

Other quirks: maybe this is a bug in Apple's Airport but sometimes the router works but doesn't show as connected. Also, it took forever (more than 5 minutes!) for FON_AP to show up as a WiFi network after plugging in the router. Finally, the registration webapp on the site wouldn't accept my street address as valid. I had to manually move to my location on the Google map to make it accept my address. Weird!

The Mylo looks sweet, but I doubt I will ever get one because it's Sony (which means it's proprietary in the wrong ways; I don't like Memory Sticks for example or the proprietary movie media format on the PSP) and I want the openness and hackability of Linux and I want Jabber. All of which the Nokia 770 does better it would appear.

FROM Sony Mylo - In Stores Now...:

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My first impression -- this may be for Sony in this decade what the Walkman was for them in the 1980's. Web access, photos, videos, WiFi connectivity, media player -- they were all there in a device smaller than the original Walkman.

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Happy belated Canada Day and happy July 4th to my American cousins.

I am still here. Just took a wee bit of a blogging rest.

Had a nice conversation with Andy Abramson at BloggerCon IV. He told me nicely that my 850 Mhz post was bogus :-) (and pointed me to a nice explanatory mopocket post about the cingular walled garden: "Basically this means that if Cingular does not recognize your phones International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number then you can't use things like MobiTV, Rabble and a host of other applications that companies that are on deck with Cingular have sent me to try but would not install. Your phone must be a Cingular branded phone which means the phones IMEI number will be registered with Cingular. ")!

My summary: it's more the fact that the carriers know exactly what phone you are running (and the N91 is unsupported and unknown to North American carriers as was the N70 and 7610 for the most part) and know you are roaming so they can turn off your GPRS data based on that aaargh!

There is hope. The WiFi stack on the N91 is verrrrrrryyyyyyy 1.0. It crashes and is less than a 100% reliable. However it works well when it works. If every phone had WiFi and every place had WiFi (as do most of the places I hang out in like home, the Bryght offices, and Take 5) and if Skype or a SIP client works reliably over WiFi, then it won't matter that the carriers will only let me do voice calls (and not data with "unsupported" handsets like the N91). Lots of "ifs" but it's coming. Mark my words. 5 years from now making voice calls over WiFi will be painless and something everybody does not just some early adopters!

[Hemmed and hawed about posting this since I probably shouldn't go since I need to prepare for Bowen Intro to blogging on Saturday!]

I say we move it to a place with WiFi since nothing in Yaletown appears to have WiFi and be open past 5:30pm. Say to Take 5 (don't believe the website, it's open until 8p.m.) at 429 Granville? Then we can do some podcasts and upload them live from our iRivers, M Audio Boxes, laptops, etc. courtesy of Take 5's sweet sweet free WiFi! What say you?

From Upcoming.org: Vancouver Podcasters Meetup at Beatty Street Bar and Grill (Friday, February 3, 2006).:

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Beatty Street Bar and Grill 765 Beatty Street (Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps) Vancouver, British Columbia ----- DATE CHANGED TO FEB 3 2006 ----- Sorry folks, I'm struck down by a chest infection. You're all still welcome to show up and hang out if you like, but I'll be at the "official" meetup which is now going to be Feb 3.

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Remember my predictions are worth what you pay for them :-)

Prediction number 1: There will be a usable (for early adopters, power users and geeks only unfortunately, the one for "humans" will come in 2007) Voice over WiFi client (using Skype or SIP) on a WiFi phone like the N91. All hail the start of the route around the mobile carriers.

Sounds like a great possible workaround the bandwidth oligopoly that we currently "enjoy"!

From Joi Ito's Web: Martin Varsavsky's FON.:

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FON is a cool P2P WIFI service which allows users to share their WIFI networks with each other eventually creating a global roamable network. They're launching first in Spain but plan to push out worldwide.

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