Smartphones may have evolved since the first Nokia Communicator, but what made that phone such a success was the telnet client - system admins could fix their IT infrastructure from anywhere. Smartphones evolve, but managing your IT from the handset is still a worthy goal, as Simon Bisson finds out over at IT Pro.
You were right to save your money and not go to CTIA in Las Vegas - everything you need to know about what was shown is represented in Rafe's comprehensive CTIA 2008 image gallery for free, with pertinent analysis and commentary where needed. It's all here, from tweaks to new Symbian OS-powered hardware, to software innovations, from WiMax and LTE to demos in the sky.
Props to Devin for a fabulous guide to improving the quality of your photo results taken with a smartphone's auto-focus and LED-equipped camera. From fill-in flash to partial focussing, I couldn't have written a better guide myself - a must-read.
You may recall some months ago that the instant social messaging service Jaiku was bought and absorbed into the bosom of Google... and promptly went into hibernation. Well with spring on the way, boss Jyri Engestrom has blogged that Jaiku will rise again under the new Google App Engine. It's still being developed, but watch this space.
In the interests of public knowledge, I can't resist linking to this news story, reporting that (confirming customers' suspicions when using 3.5G-capable Nokia smartphones) the UK network O2 have been artificially limiting 3G and HSDPA connections to a meagre 128kbps, slower than EDGE. Any correlation between this observation and the fact that O2 are the same exclusive promoter of the EDGE-only Apple iPhone in the UK is entirely a figment of your imagination, surely?
In Insight number 20, Rafe and Ewan talk about what they saw on their recent trips, to CTIA in Las Vegas, and to Over The Air in London. Subjects covered include US operators, LTE and WiMax and Symbian SQL Lite. Listen here and subscribe using this RSS feed.
Nokia's PC Suite just got a biggish update, with Calendar viewing on your PC screen, plus full Text message handling. And there are cosmetic improvements too. Here's the PC Suite download page. Comments welcome. (via S-F)
At least it does for Rita El Khoury, who's written a most insightful and passionate article about the advantages of T9-style predictive typing over and above qwerty thumb keyboards and other software-based input systems. Well worth a read.
A second video link for this morning, this time to 'Gadget Show WEB TV', who reviewed Fring, the free VoIP and chat utility over the weekend. Great to see the coverage but the ultimate negative verdict was undoubtedly flavoured by the data speeds and coverage in the single demo area. What about Wi-Fi? What about 3.5G? Comments welcome - how well does Fring work for you?
OK, so they're a trifle basic, but it's a start. Google Mobile Help is the name of a new (official) YouTube channel, with videos helping newcomers to use Google Maps for Mobile and YouTube for mobile. There are four videos to watch at the moment (not counting an old GMail test one), mainly demoed on S60 and UIQ 3 hardware. Worth adding to your YouTube subscriptions list?
It ran all weekend in London and proved to be another good seeding ground for mobile ideas. Ewan's been at the Over The Air event and reports back here. And didn't you just know it would end with a Doctor Who spoof and light sabre duels? Big kids? Hah.
Oh yes, from this, Smartphones Show 56 onwards, there's both a traditional QVGA version to play and a hi-res VGA version as well. And they each have their own RSS feeds, so you can decide which one to pug into your feed reader or aggregator. Show 56 has News, a show FAQ, a photo tutorial and a brief video review of the Nokia N81 8GB. See below for all the links.
Ocean Wars is yet another Java game that's popped up recently in Nokia Download! Here's Ewan's take on whether Ocean Wars is worth stumping up for. At first it disappoints in that at heart it's a very old game, but we think there's just enough innovation here to please seafaring gamers.
With Rafe at CTIA, Ewan at Over The Air and others all on holiday, it's time for a little Friday catchup, with some links you may have missed. All-Format Writer is a freeware Java application that can create documents in the various competing ‘next-generation’ electronic document formats (ODT, DOCX, UOF and PDF) (via The Symbian Blog). Antony Pranata has a great tip for cleanly uninstalling PC Suite under Windows Vista. Al at the Nokia Blog has a great post about creating photos with High Dynamic Range (evening out extremes of light and dark). Finally, the insane(ly great) N82-toting Stavros has addressed the world. Again. Listen and learn!
You'll have heard of Mippin, the RSS-based web portal for your feeds and interests, we've featured it before. The same developers have just announced Mippin Maker, a "free service that creates a perfectly rendered mobile edition of the publisher’s web site and allows them to generate revenue". So you use Mippin's mobile rendering system for your RSS-compatible mobile site and you share the ad revenue. The link and full press release are below, if you're interested in following this up.
