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OCTOBER 2004 |
24th October 2004
I got a new phone just over a week ago, a Handspring Treo 600.
I've had my fair share of Nokias and they are for sure some of the best phones around. This time though, I wanted something powerful, something with a keyboard. I've wanted a Treo for a really long time, my Orange upgrade was due and it was cheap (the Treo 650 should be out very soon, so they are clearing their stock of these). Orange had been out of stock for a while and I phoned quite a few of the Orange retail shops before I found one in Covent Garden that had one which I went to pick up straight away.
It is well worth the effort and far better than the hype! I love this thing, its actually pretty small, about the same length and thickness as the Sony Ericsson T610 and shorter than my trusty old Nokia 6310i (not including the chubby aerial). Its about one and a half times the width but still a really neat device. As it doesn't have any flips or nonsense so it feels a lot less unwieldy than a P800/P900 and its smaller and neater than the older model wide Blackberries. Anyway, I think the best way to explain the capabilities is to show you what I have on it, alongside the standard camera, photo, phone, calandar, notes, photo messaging, and email features... here's whats on my Treo 600:
- Acrobat Reader - Useful for reading books
- Coconut Fern - A Connect 4 clone game
- EzFTP - File transfer over GPRS
- FileZ - An essential file manager
- Go81 - I'm trying to learn to play Go
- Handchess II - Useful for those long train journeys
- Happydays - Great application keeps track of my contacts birthdays
- iServices - A database of network ports and what they are normally used for, useful!
- LGet - Similar to wget on unix machines
- Mergic Ping - Ping things from my phone, very useful
- MonoPalm - Monopoly! Quality game.
- MunduIM - MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger anywhere via GPRS
- PacDude 100% - PacMan, the game for the Commodore 64 generation
- Phoinix - Gameboy Emulator! Tetris, Super Mario World and Bomberman installed
- PilOth - Othello
- Pocket Tunes - MP3 player, a freebie from PalmOne when you register with them
- OmniRemote Pro - Use your Palm as a learning remote control for your TV. Very limited range though
- SiEd - Text editor, I actually wrote my last log entry on my phone with this
- Sketcher - Draw notes on the touchscreen
- SoundRec - A much needed voice recording program with great sound quality
- TrafficStat - Keeps track of GPRS traffic usage, pretty essential
- Treo Allegro - I use this to change the colour of the status LED when I have a waiting SMS
- TuSSH - A killer app for me, server administration from anywhere
- upIRC - A neat IRC client
Track of the day: Dum Dums - Everything
2nd October 2004
Got up pretty early but I was far too excited to be tired. After a short while and some Weetabix for breakfast we set out down to London on the train (don't know a cycle route in yet) on a mission to find a bike shop. Another one of my friends recommended CycleSurgery as they match prices found on the Internet, so we headed for the one in Selfridges, Oxford St.
It was a really fun cycle around in London, the sun was shining and although there was a fair bit of traffic we made it through from Euston in no time. Oxford St was buzzing with trendy shoppers and their designer bags of expensive clothes as we rolled into Selfridges with our bikes. Kitted out in our cycling gear and threading through the narrow isles past the perfume stalls, it definately felt like we didn't belong. All the more fun. Finally got up to the cycling section and had a brief look around but it was quite far from being reasonably priced. Well, I probably was expecting too much, this is Oxford St after all. I asked about price matching and was told this is available in all the stores apart from this one. Doh. We are running out of time a bit, but looking at a little map there is another branch in Spitalfields around the corner from Liverpool St station which is where we are heading anyway. I thank the nice man and we get moving. We cycle like crazy down to the other side of Oxford St, and an immense ride it was too.
The Spitalfields CycleSurgery is definately the best bike shop I have been to in a long time. They have a wide range of stuff, the staff are friendly and helpful but best of all is the prices are reasonable and they will match whatever is offered on Wiggle. I was already pretty sure of what I wanted when I head into the shop so it really didn't take me long to pick out a pair of Shimano PD-M520 SPD pedals, Specialized Sonoma 2 shoes and a Giro Animas helmet. Perfect, and all for less money than if I got it online.
SPD (clipless) pedals are scary. For all those who don't know, they work with special shoes that have cleats in the bottom which clip securely into the pedal. You need to twist your foot to escape them. This is the first time i'm riding them and I am hearing a lot of scare stories from others that I am going to fall off a couple of times before I get used to it. For the first couple of minutes it was pretty hard to clip in, but you soon learn where the cleat is in the shoe and where you need to clip it into. The dangerous part is to remember to clip out cleanly when you stop, else you would just fall over. Every set of traffic lights is a major event and sets the heart racing a bit. This is going to be interesting. We head out down the road and in a few minutes we're on a train to Ipswich.
I took photos of the UK atlas/roadmap late last night and had a quick look at what I had taken on my camera. It wasn't all that clear and we couldn't really zoom in far enough on the playback, which is a shame really considering it is 4MP. Hmm, we head in the towards some signs that point in the direction we are heading in.
The rain is here. Its quite heavy but I am wearing Sids over-trousers which are keeping me cosy and dry. I am glad for my SPDs as they are at least keeping my feet on the pedals, which used to be a real problem in the wet. It doesn't rain for long, so I guess our plan to go east worked and the clouds just skimmed past us. Before we know it we are on a pretty big road, the A137. Its pretty big, we shouldn't really be cycling here and to top it off there is a very annoying headwind as there are no buildings around to break it. We can't really turn around either, its bad enough going in the same direction as the traffic. We don't have much of a choice but to keep going. Our average drops dramatically and its pretty hard to keep up. I don't think we are going to make it to Cambridge, Colchester seems far enough.
Finally we get to Colchester, and I am totally knackered. We head back into London to meet Jon for dinner. By the time we get in it is pretty dark and the three of us are cruising around in the city. By far the mosy fun part of the day are these little trips cycling fast through the traffic. We stop by a small restaurant that we happen to be passing near Leicester Sq which had a great looking buffet. I had not been to a buffet with such good food before, it was really awesome, damn we ate a lot!
We rolled away to Waterloo to see Sid off and meet Paul. After a short while I too had to head back so we had another exciting ride through London to Euston. After that meal I had that nice warm feeling inside and really looking forward to getting into bed. We waited around a little while for my train in the relatively empty station and cycled over to my platform at a crawling pace when it was ready. In front of me Paul stopped to have a look at a poster and without thinking I tapped the brake. *Crash*. I forgot to clip out of my pedals, so I couldn't put my foot down and just fell over in a hilarious way. Inevitable really.
Track of the day: Outkast - Wailin'
1st October 2004
After getting back from work in the evening, I head straight back out again to meet Sid at Euston station. Once he got to London we both head out towards Tottenham Court Road to meet Ambi, Priya, Raveen, Matt and Pooja. It was so great to see everyone again, it had been far too long! So much catching up to do. We set out for a stylish little restaurant around the corner and ordered some noodles, rice and tofu.
It was all over far too soon, after dinner it was already late and we had to split. I really hope I'll see everyone again real soon. Sid & I walked back over to Euston and got a train over to Harrow and Wealdstone train station. It was late on a Friday night and the roads were empty in Wealdstone. Sid had his shiny new Scott Roadster bike with him, and as I took a bus into Harrow town center, he followed like a madman. I wonder whether all night bus drivers drive like Schumacher? We walked back to mine from the bus station and tried to make up a plan for the weekend.
It wasn't easy to figure out what we could do. The weatherman said that there is heavy rain, storms and gale force winds coming in from the west, and engulfing the country on Sunday. It looks like an epic weekend cycling adventure is out of the question, it wouldn't be fun in such bad weather. We can't really give up though. The plan is now to head east from London, not too far, and as early as possible to try and avoid the rain. After a while, we decide on a run from Ipswich to Cambridge, meeting Jon there for dinner. Sounds great.
Sid picked up some cycling gear for me, so now I had a new jersey, lightweight waterproof jacket and a really nice Cateye HL-EL300 LED headlamp. Great stuff. For months now I have wanted to try out clipless pedals, as I don't seem to have a lot of grip on my current setup. It would be nice to get some cycling-specific shoes as well as my trainers don't breathe enough. We are going to stop by a bike shop on the way out tomorrow morning and I will give them a go. By the time we have sorted ourselves out, its so late we only have about three of four hours to get some sleep before we should get moving.
Track of the day: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Venice Queen
