Archive for the ‘Xda Orbit’ Category

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iPhone launch

Friday, July 11th, 2008

O2 Xda Orbit

So … it would appear that the new Apple iPhone 3G was launched today. (That’s obviously not a photo of the new Apple iPhone 3G above, or even the old one. That’s my O2 Xda Orbit running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.)

I didn’t know that until today. Until I started reading folks’ posts (called tweets) on my Twitter stream, and watching videos on Qik.

It would appear that the Worldwide Apple Cultâ„¢ managed to keep that news well and truly hidden from me. Well done!

Our man in Milton Keynes

Documentally … well, documented the day fabulously well. From getting up to arriving at the Apple store in Milton Keynes, standing in line, being served, going to the Apple store loo (!), and at one point even had one of the Apple assistants holding the camera while he unwrapped the Apple iPhone packaging — the man’s a genius!

Okay, I’ll qualify that last sentence. He’s not a genius simply for unwrapping a box. That could have been done by a simpleton.

No, there was an inclusiveness in that Apple adventure today in his Qik videos, that reflected something of the excitement and camera-derie (sic) of the day.

I watched a couple of other videos on Qik today, of folks standing in other queues, outside other Apple stores, in other towns and … well, they were probably about as embarrassing to watch as they were to make: no-one wanted to speak with the poor fella with the camera.

This is my favourite Qik post — cutting to the chase — this is the moment that the boxed Apple iPhone 3G became Christian’s. I love the cheer! The Apple Cultâ„¢ as one.

What’s new?

So, what’s all the fuss about? The new Apple iPhone 3G has:

  • 3G network connectivity so you can surf the Web
  • Built-in Global Positioning System (GPS)
  • Install 3rd party applications
  • ‘Push’ email, contacts and calendars with Microsoft Exchange

Wow! Cool! I can see you’re already impressed.

My Microsoft Windows 6 powered O2 Xda Orbit mobile phone has had three of those facilities for … well, since I bought it in April 2007, and I don’t want the fourth: Push email. I’m happy to synchronize it with Microsoft Outlook 2003.

Meanwhile, back in St Andrews …

My colleague Kevin came into work today with — can you guess?

That’s right, it was a new Apple iPhone 3G. Oh, sorry, did I not tell you? Apparently the new model was launched today.

He got the last one in St Andrews. Of course, when I say “the last one” I also mean the eighth one in St Andrews.

He wasn’t even intending on getting one. He just happened to pass The Carphone Warehouse on Market Street and decided to join the small queue that was already forming.

A few minutes later the manager emerged from the store and said,

Good morning potential customers of St Andrews in Fife. Thank you for your patience. I can announce to you, the consuming public of this Royal and Ancient Burgh, that we have a grand total of eight new Apple iPhone 3Gs.

So if I may, I shall ask the first eight customers who have formed this orderly and polite queue outside the shop window of my shop to kindly step inside and off with the rest of you, to your daily routines.

My best wishes to you should you quest further afield in search of this technological wonder which, if you ask me, has three out of four of the built-in functions of the O2 Xda Orbit a telephone that came onto the market over one earth calendar year ago.

And that was it. Those eight lucky fellas got their hands on a shiny new Apple iPhone 3G.

Well, seven of them did. The guy at the front of the queue, who’d been there since 5:00 am and who had been thoughtful enough to bring with him a wicker chair unfortunately hadn’t been thoughtful enough to bring with him his wallet!

I think the official and international response to that is: D’oh!

… and finally

This coverage of the launch, which happe… what do you mean the launch of what?! This coverage of the launch of a new kind of chocolate washing powder in New York City was brought to my attention by the splendid Sizemore:

… and rudely

And for those of you who like to read rude words on the internet, like ‘bum’ and ’squelch’, there is always Maddox’s review.

This was brought to my attention by a visiting consultant today. And I thought I spent too much time on the internet!

The paragraph that made me laugh the most was:

[The iPhone is] not three devices in one any more than my laptop is you morons. Using Jobs’ loose definition of what constitutes a separate device, technically my laptop can be considered 8 devices in one:

  1. A clock
  2. A calculator
  3. An “Internet communications device”
  4. A phone (I can make voice calls with my modem)
  5. A pornographic media storage device
  6. A video player
  7. A word processor
  8. And an “iPod” (see below)

Posted in Computer, General, PDA, Reviews, Telephone, Twitter, Xda Orbit, YouTube | 5 Comments »

Fife on wheels, Scotland on Rails, Gareth on Twitter

Thursday, April 3rd, 2008

Bike

Fife on wheels

I can’t remember … much actually! No, I can’t remember any other new year where I’ve been clobbered with quite so many bugs as this one.

I seem to have had at least one new stomach bug or virus each month. Some months I was greedy and had at least two.

So I approached going out on my bike for a half-hour cycle last night with some trepidation. I still didn’t feel 100% and I didn’t want to push myself over the edge. Or indeed pedal myself over the edge. But I went out, all the same.

My word! Did I feel great today!

(Answer: yes.)

So I went out again this evening.

Scotland on Rails

I predict that tomorrow I’ll feel even greater.

Or at least I would, if it were not for the fact that I need to be picking up my colleague (Dougal*) in St Andrews at 06:30 and driving to the two day Scotland on Rails conference in Edinburgh.

Gareth on Twitter

I don’t expect to be blogging from the conference, but I shall likely be Twittering from my electric mobile telecommunications device. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/garethjms.

By the way, Scotland on Rails isn’t about railways or trainspotting, it’s about Ruby on Rails, a programming framework brought to life by the lovely folks at 37Signals.

Footnote

* My colleague isn’t really called Dougal. He’s called Kevin. But since he introduced me to colleagues at the University of Edinburgh during a meeting there last month as Darren I’ve been calling him something different every time I see him. Even if his enquiry is important to us!

Posted in Bike, Edinburgh, General, Health, Places, Web, Xda Orbit | No Comments »

Text truncated on device

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

O2 Xda Orbit in cradle

The problem

Here’s something that I found annoying a few weeks ago, until I found a hack: when I have particularly long text notes stored in my Outlook tasks and then synchronize them with my Windows Mobile 6-powered O2 Xda Orbit phone/PDA I discover that the notes are truncated. I get this message at the foot of notes:

[Text truncated on device]

Which is really annoying, because I track a lot of projects using these notes, and on a couple of occasions I’ve lost notes that I really needed to refer back to.

The hack

After a search on the Web I discovered on the PocketPC magazine forum that there is a hack to get around this. The forum topic is ironically called “Active Sync MS Mobile 2005 Truncated Contacts Issu”.

  1. Download and install a Registry Editor for Windows Mobile — I used the demo version of Resco Explorer 2007.
  2. Open up your Registry and apply this hack: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ActiveSync] “BodyTruncation”=dword:00005000.
  3. Switch off the screen, then reboot the PDA.
  4. Wait 3-5 minutes after rebooting to absolutely make sure that the Registry has been updated.
  5. That’s it … when you next sync your PDA you should be able to sync longer notes.

Posted in Computer, General, Telephone, Windows Mobile, Xda Orbit | 4 Comments »

O2 Xda Orbit desktop cradle

Wednesday, September 12th, 2007

O2 Xda Orbit phone in cradle

When I first got my O2 Xda Orbit I decided to get a desktop cradle so that my shiny new phone could sit upright, alert and ready for me to answer a call rather than slumped lazily on its back.

However, I struggled to find one that was guaranteed to work with an Xda Orbit, and any that claimed to didn’t back it up with photographic evidence — they only had photos of the HTC P3300 sitting comfortably in its new desktop home.

Keep it in the family

It would appear that the Xda Orbit is a variant of the HTC Artemis; other models in this family are:

  • Dopod P800
  • Dopod P800W
  • HTC P3300
  • MDA compact III
  • Orange SPV M650
  • Xda Orbit

but some users claimed that the location of the USB port on the base of these machines was slightly different from model to model and so while the cradle might work for one machine it wouldn’t work for another. I don’t know whether this is true or not.

What I bought

In the end, having read quite a few reviews, I took someone’s advice (and a gamble) and ordered what claimed to be a “O2 Xda Orbit desktop cradle” from Discount Sat Nav on eBay for about £4.99 + P&P. Bargain!

And to my delight it worked! … as demonstrated by the photograph above. In fact, I now have two: one for home, the other for work.

It would appear that there are two models available: one with a spare battery charger or one without. Mine also came with a USB cable and an A/C adapter cable for quicker charging.

Where to buy

Here are the locations that I’ve found that sell this kind of cradle:

I hope that’s helpful to someone.

Posted in Computer, General, Hardware, PDA, Telephone, Xda Orbit | 2 Comments »

Upgrading my O2 Xda Orbit to Windows Mobile 6

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

Windows Mobile 5 compared with Window Mobile 6
Before and after: Windows Mobile 5 (left) vs. Windows Mobile 6 (right)

I’d read a few days ago that O2 would be offering a free upgrade to Windows Mobile 6 so yesterday I went in search of such delights, and lo! as it says in the good book: seek and ye will find: software update for O2 Xda Orbit only

Browser caveat

Except, it doesn’t warn you in the Bible that if you’re trying to download the Windows Mobile 6 upgrade from the O2 website you can’t use Mozilla Firefox, it has to be Internet Explorer (or, oddly, Opera).

I spent ages entering my Xda Orbit’s serial number again and again only to be told that the serial number was wrong. I tried it again a little later in IE7 and got straight through to this page: O2 Xda upgrade page on HTC website, where I was able to download the 44.7 MB upgrade file.

Installation preparations

Installation was thankfully very simple and straight-forward. Here’s what I did to prepare for the upgrade

  1. Download the software upgrade (for O2 Xda Orbit only)
  2. Deactivated Co-Pilot 6 using these instructions (PDF, 28 KB)
  3. Connect the O2 Xda Orbit to my PC and synchronize with Outlook using Windows ActiveSync 4.5 (for Windows XP or earlier — Windows Vista does its own thing).
  4. Run the installation file, which is called RUU_Artemis_O2_UK_3.4.206.2_4.1.13.28_02.67.90_Ship.exe

Here’s a walk-through of the installation screens while upgrading from Windows Mobile 5 to Windows Mobile 6.

Step 1: Welcome

Welcome to the ROM upgrade utility

Not exactly a quiz this screen: just understand that this installation will wipe clean the Xda Orbit’s memory (but NOT any MicroSD card that you may have installed). That’s why it was important to sync with Outlook before the installation.

Tick the box to say that yes you want the software to purge the phone/PDA of all its sins, then click Next.

Step 2: Instructions

Follow the instructions

Aha! Instructions:

  1. Connect the PDA Phone to the USB cable.
  2. Establish an ActiveSync connection with your PDA Phone.
  3. Disable the standby and hibernation modes on the host PC.
  4. Make sure Main Battery has a charge greater than 50%.

If you’ve completed those steps then tick the box. The third instruction is quite important: the last thing you want to do is have your PC go into standby or hibernation midway through the upgrade.

Tick the box, click Next.

Step 3: Current ROM version

Current information about your PDA ROM

The application then checks the Xda Orbit and gives feedback on the Operating System ROM version found.

On my machine, running Windows Mobile 5 it found:

Image version: 1.25.206.2

Click the Update button

Step 4: New ROM version

New ROM version

Next the application tells you what OS ROM version it will upgrade you to:

Image version: 3.4.206.2

Click Next.

Step 5: Confirmation required

Confirm you are ready to update

After all that information, you are now finally ready to update your Xda Orbit’s OS to Windows Mobile 6. This screen simply tells you what to expect:

  • The PDA Phone is prepared for the update process.
  • The progress bar is displayed on the host PC and on the PDA Phone.
  • The completion screen is displayed on the host PC.

If that all sounds fine click on Next.

Step 6: Update in progress

Progress bar

The dialog window is now replaced with a non-closable progress bar window. (I tried to capture the shot at 45% but it was just too quick for me.) As indicated, the progress bar also appears on the Xda Orbit.

Step 7: Update complete

Congratulations! Your ROM update is now complete.

After a few moments the dialog window appears again indicating that the planets have aligned, there is once more a star over Bethlehem leading wise men from the east and the update to your PDA Phone’s OS has completed successfully.

First impressions

My first impressions of Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) are that it appears to be running a little faster and is more responsive and stable than WM5. It feels like Windows Vista’s ‘Mini Me’, with a more pearl-like Windows logo and some tasty Web 2.0-esque gradients.

Sadly the enhancements to Office Mobile don’t appear to have been in the areas that it could have most used them. For example, I still find the Tasks application unnecessarily complicated (for different views) and limited; Calendar still doesn’t have the flexibility of Pocket Informant or indeed of the Psion Agenda application from 1999!

One new-comer to Windows Mobile 6 is the inclusion of Windows Live, which now integrates with Windows Live Messenger. But be warned: if you don’t logout of Windows Live it will not shut down and will constantly attempt to connect to the Web via GPRS which could prove to be costly.

On the whole — niggles with Windows Live aside — I’m very impressed with Windows Mobile 6. I still don’t think that Office Mobile has a patch on the Psion EPOC R5 operating system applications (found in the Psion 5mx, Revo(Plus), Psion 7 or netBook) but that’s a topic for another blog post.

Recommended software

As it stands I’d say a newly upgraded Xda Orbit with Windows Mobile 6 is a pretty good mobile phone. But by adding a couple of commercial applications from SPB Software House it suddenly becomes an incredibly good one:

Thanks to …

With considerable thanks to the folks at Xda Developer’s Forum for advice, and XDA-Orbit.com for just being there!

Posted in Computer, General, Reviews, Software, Telephone, Xda Orbit | 54 Comments »

Screen capture software for Windows Mobile 5

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Windows Mobile screenshot

Here’s a quick, easy and free application for taking screenshots on your Windows Mobile 5 device: Ilium Software Screen Capture.

As the website says:

Using Ilium Software Screen Capture takes just six simple steps:

  1. Start the program on your device
  2. Use the Options menu to define the key you want to press to take your screenshots
  3. Leave the program open – do not hit the Exit button yet
  4. Take your screenshots! (If you have sound on, you will hear a camera “click” noise when the screen is captured)
  5. To stop the program, open it again and hit the Exit button
  6. Find your screen captures in the My Documents folder on your device

Hardware keys

Screenshot of buttons assignment in WM5

You can easily find out which keys are which in Windows Mobile 5 by going to Start > Settings > Personal tab > Buttons.

On the Xda Orbit I’ve assigned Button 5 (Camera) to Screen Capture, as it seemed most logical to me: it’s for taking a picture!

Posted in Computer, General, Reviews, Software, Windows Mobile, Xda Orbit | No Comments »

Off to IWMW2007

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

York skyline, showing York Minster
York skyline, showing York Minster. (Photo from York Musical Society.)

At lunchtime today I’m heading down to York with one of my colleagues from The University of St Andrews to the Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) 2007 at The University of York.

Assuming that I can get my wireless setup properly there (unlike at the IWMW last year — mind you I was using my Psion Series 7 which couldn’t quite cope with the amount of security thrown at it!) I should be blogging from there, and may upload a photo or two to Flickr if I get the opportunity.

So it should be business-as-usual at the geeks’ conference!

New rules

I have some new rules for this residential conference, that I’m going to try to stick to:

  • Only one bag
    I usually end up taking far too much stuff on residentials, so this time I’m taking just one bag: my laptop-rucksack. Everything that I want to take has to fit into that; it’s the SAS approach!

  • Convergence technology
    I need to take as few gadgets as possible. So given that my O2 Xda Orbit phone covers GPS, WiFi, Calendar, Contacts, Phone, and Camera this is the first residential that I’m not taking a digital camera or a Psion PDA (sorry old friend!)

  • Online applications
    Wherever possible use online applications to manage resources that I might want to share with others or access at work after the conference without copying data from PC to PC via memory stick, e.g. files, email, bookmarks, RSS feeds, etc.

Wish me luck!

Posted in Computer, Flickr, General, IWMW2007, Places, St Andrews, Web, Xda Orbit | 2 Comments »

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