Learning with the Fang

After much geekery, hackery and feckery I am pleased to announce that I now have a new favourite device at the centre of my personal learning, working and playing environment. After nearly two years of somewhat unnatural attachment to my old iRiver ifp880 (via a single earbud to my left ear) I have finally found a new device that delivers what I want, the way I want it. Furthermore, I have finally let go of my old (2002) smartphone prototype I scored while working for Microsoft. (But I still refuse to pay more than $15 every two months for top-ups to my prepaid sim card).

That device would be a Nokia N80i (unencumbered by Telco ‘Value Added’ services).

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of what I like about the N80i, let me explain that my Personal Learning Environment consists of a range of things that connect me with people who have found and shared great information. Most of the connecting and finding happens on the internet, generally via desktop or laptop computers. Sure, some learning happens there, but because I have spent 25 years ‘WORKING’ with computers it all feels a lot more like work than play, so i try to minimize this WORK. But, when I get away from the computer, and out of the house I find that listening to audio feels a lot more like PLAY and, my brain feels like it is having a warm bath - while I learn stuff. As you can see from my previous posts about MyPLE, I generally load up the iRiver with podcasts, stick the earbud in my left ear and jump on my bicycle (with my trusty old smartphone in the other pocket).

So, the centre of MyPLE is my podcast listening device (which now happens to do a bunch of other useful things).

With that out of the way, lets look at what is great, good and bad about my N80i. (in descending order of greatness).

• it does a great job of playing podcasts
• it does great phone (and does the right thing when listening to long podcasts)
• it does a great job of getting podcasts
• it sounds good for both spoken word and music
• wifi works a treat in 90% of the places I need to ‘work’ (thanks to InterNode hotspots, generous friends and clients)
• web browsing, email etc work as expected over wifi
• it works well with a bluetooth keyboard (so I can finally compose blog posts while away from the ‘WORK’ distractions on my computer screens)
• it has a camera good enough to take snaps and e/mail to my flickr blog post address as a way of composing blog posts
• I can use VoIP to talk to many people for free and anyone at reasonable rates when in wifi range (which means I can do some of the connecting WORK while im out and about)
• Anyone can call me on my mobile number, pretty much anywhere I go
• it will play some videos (like rocketboom and other good vidcasts)
• I can (afford to) SMS anyone I need to contact quickly
• I can call people when I need to (but I am being a deliberate tight-arse about it)
• fring lets me keep in touch with SKYPE, MSN messenger, GTalk, VoIP (usually gizmo), Twitter friends in both chat and free voice calls when in wifi range [this seems too good to be true and will surely not last - but Im loving the convenience while it lasts]
• it has a resonable video camera should I have the need to use it (e.g. next time I see a car drive off Glenelg Jetty)
• it uses almost standard MiniSD cards that cost $40 for 2GB
• bluetooth and iSync on mac are pretty useable for contacts, calendar and small podcast transfers
• nokia PC suite works well for backups, updates and large podcast transfers (without having to juggle memory cards)
• memory cards can hold more podcasts and music than I can consume in any single outing
• now that I have removed the other ’swiss army’ applications it has plenty of freespace
• if I don’t try to do too many things at once it is stable and responsive

the bad news…

• SOMETIMES the battery drains too quickly (haven’t figured out exactly why yet - and it’s not all the time)
• Typing long usernames and strong passwords is just evil - and the handy dandy ‘paste pencil’ doesn’t always do the right thing (this was a show stopper on my first two attempts to connect to wifi at a coffee shop)
• Nokia allow the Telco’s to ‘value add’ some models of the N80 in such a way that most of the above goodness (especially the VoIP stuff) cannot work without some fairly courageous modification.

By way of example, lets examine my previous post:

me - ADELAIDE review

Was conceived, drafted and published while exploring the coffee shops of Hutt Street, Adelaide. Here’s how it went:

• I finally remembered to take my bluetooth keyboard and spare battery into the city
• Parked at the corner of Hutt and Gilles st, known internode hotspot
• connected to the ‘open’ internode wireless access point but had to type my long internode username and secure password into a tiny browser window (this is not trivial with my clumsy thumbs, so I used the bluetooth keyboard).
• ran the gmail mobile application to confirm I had a good wifi connection - all good
• made an ‘internet call’ to my second gizmo test account by selecting the contact in my addressbook and choosing ‘internet call’, the registration to the gizmo VoIP server was automatically made (I had to confirm choice of internode as wifi connection)
• fired up fring which logged me into MSN messenger, SKYPE, GTalk, VoIP (Gizmo, primary account), and Twitter
• Sent a quick test IM to my mate George W Bush on MSN - working fine
• Updated twitter and watched the tweets from my peeps scroll by
• Rang my mum (at my place) ising 2c/min Gizmo dial out (VoIP call to +6188295xxxx@proxy01.sipphone.com - sounded great
• browsed the web for location of other internode hotspots nearby and noticed that every major intersection on Hutt St had one
• Browsed thru my combined buddy list to see who was online
• Shot a quick IM to John Driscoll - no reply
• Shot an IM to Ben O, who replied by calling me from Skype
• CHANGED BATTERY (it was 3.30pm had listened to podcasts all morning)
• Had a quick chat with Ben O over skype, sound quality was good but the skype lag unnerving on a handset (Im used to it with headset)
• Made test SIP calls from fring to a bunch of numbers I know - all fine (all free)

• Put the handsfree on and went for a walk up Hutt St to see how fring would handle going in/out of wifi range

• Found to my surprise that I never went out of range - good one internode!!
• Ducked into the chook shop to see if they had a copy of this weeks Adelaide Review - they did
• Grabbed a coffee and read the article featuring me and the pic they grabbed off my website (cheeky buggers, there was supposed to be a photographer come to visit me)
• Snapped a shot of the article and my empty coffee cup (clearly forgot to set camera to ‘close up’ focus
• Emailed the photo to flickr blog (used my clumsy thumbs to type the brief post, the bluetooth keyboard was in the car)
• Quick check of gmail and play with the ‘WiFi WLAN wiz’ trying to figure out where the internode boxes are
• Back in the car, queue up a couple of fine podcasts including episode 3 of Transforming Education and episode 21 of Napolean 101 for the drive home
• Used the voice commander to ring Mandy and tell her how geeky I am (no answer)
• Got home, checked flickr and edublogs.org to see if my post worked - YEP

Fang - Mike Seyfang

technorati tags:myple, ple

technorati tags:ple, myple, net2blazers