Internet Freedom of Speech

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I’m always suspicious when a company US games company sues British blogger. What is the point of elevating an obscure blogger to Internet prominence? All this law suit is doing is broadcasting the bloggers opinion further, and if the blogger’s opinions are ‘untrue’ this just makes any damages to the company worse rather than to defend their ‘reputation’.

I think they are operating under the old saw that states ‘there is no such thing as bad PR’ , or they have bribed the courts in Australia, or they are seeking a clever way to declare bankruptcy.

In any case they are seeking to destroy Internet freedom of opinion, by using the more restrictive Libel laws from another country to censor this Blogger. Why not use the Iranian courts, then they could have sought to have the Blogger put to death, or something. I’m sure the Irish Blasphemy Laws could have been used. 🙂

The Nokia N900 is a Fake

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From the email this morning…


We regret to inform you that the following items have been delayed as we are still awaiting stock from our suppliers :

“Nokia N900 Mobile Computer with Maemo 5 Software”
Estimated arrival date: December 17 2009

One of Amazon’s aims is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have fallen short. Please accept our sincere apologies.

I order this on the

2nd of Oct 2009

and this is the third delay. Could Nokia get the release of this phone more wrong? No! they have nothing to release, it’s a fake, vaporware! There are stories out there of Nokia shipping empty boxes to keep up the illusion. I’t no wonder that the boxes themselves look so cheap, they are cheap mockups.

Time to look for another REAL smartphone.

UPDATE: It REALLY is a fake I just received this email from Amazon on Sunday the 13th;

We regret to inform you that your order will take longer to fulfill than originally estimated. Our supplier has notified us that there is a delay obtaining stock for the following items you ordered on October 02 2009.

And the Amazon web page now states that the ‘Product’ is “Currently unavailable.
We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock”

The Nokia N900 Carl Zeiss optics

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From the photos being posted on the Flickr N900 Pool I have been observing that the Carl Zeiss optics (Tessar) installed in the N900 is exhibiting, particularly in Macro or near macro focus mode, a classic shallow depth of field focus typical of a small f-Stop.

The N900 specs indicate that the Lens has an F-Stop of 2.8 and a Focal length of 5.2 mm, which for such a small sensor is good. But a real camera it’s not, from all it’s behavior, it looks like the F-Stop is fixed wide open which make any control over the depth-of-field meaningless. The lens does exhibit classic Carl Zeiss high contrast, which results in a very sharp photo. but there appears to be no real ‘shutter’ either. Motion effects behave more like video scanning where all sensor elements are NOT sampled at the same time like a real shutter would produce.

Over all the ‘Camera’ in the N900 could best be qualified as a very high end WebCam.

With regard to the sensor itself it appears to be relatively low in ‘noise’, probably more due to the restricted ISO controls than to the sensor. However one thing that I’ve noted is some jpeg artifacts that could probably use a little refinement in a firmware update. And guess what? no ‘raw’ mode from the camera, unless someone in the Maemo community wants to add this feature.

Still, I wish I had my pre-ordered N900 now … I could have posted my own photos. 🙂

Displaying Toys

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Conor got a cheap thrill from some of my Amazing Collection of computer Toys that I brought to the BarCampCork III meet up. I was more than happy to bring them out for an airing, although my back, and Walter’s will be thanking us later for our efforts. I would definitely offer (like in free beer) the collection to any group who would display, preserve and teach the history of these (and other) machines from my collection. And I support Conor’s idea of a computer/science/technology museum in Cork. After all, just because the UCC Computer Science Department refused the offer, doesn’t mean that citizens of The Republic of Cork should be denied the gift.


Antique_computers_Bar_CampIII

UPDATE: IS this going to be opportunity to have a Museum Cork Science Park

The Nokia N900 in Portrait mode

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One thing about the Nokia N900 (Maemo) system has always bother me. And that was it’s dependance on operations in Landscape mode, usually with the hardware keyboard extended.

Often I have heard other potential buyers put this restriction as a deal breaker. And while the Phone DOES operate in Portrait mode (in fact it switches to the Phone application when in Portrait mode) it could not operate the other applications in Portrait mode. This issue was also due to the lack of a Portrait virtual keyboard. Most of the complaints I heard were that people would use one handed operations while the phone was in Portrait, and that the N900 was flawed if it could not.

Now, watch some YouTube videos some time, if you watch other phones in operation, particularly when using their virtual Portrait keyboards, it’s never one handed. Almost without exception, the user brings both hands into play holding the phone with both hands. This more or less renders the argument moot if the user always uses both hands. The N900 in Landscape would be equally operated with both hands, and in fact be easier to use with either the larger virtual keyboard, or the hardware keyboard.

Problem, and flaw, resolved. By human behavior.

An Idiot talks about the Nokia N900

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While most of what this guy said is short sighted and generally idiotic it did touch on something I agree with


But the fact is that by the time the M900 hits store shelves, it will be competing with not only Apple’s iPhone, Palm’s Pre and Research in Motion’s second take at the Storm, but the first of what figure to be many Droid phones, all of which have serious brand recognition in the United States. By the time Nokia gets around to reintroducing the N900 — this time with pricing and a carrier — all the oxygen will have been sucked out of the market by the likes of Motorola, HTC and LG, running on Google’s Android.

Nokia, NO MORE DELAYS!!!

More Nokia N900 Slippage, Shit!

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I’m saddened and disappointed to report that Amazon has reported another Nokia N900 shipping delay.

“Nokia N900 Mobile Computer with Maemo 5 Software”
Estimated arrival date: December 03 2009 – December 09 2009

That places the Nokia N900 dangerously close to a Vaporware classification. And moves the Nokia release date to the very end of November, rather than the early or middle of the month as was hoped. This is a bad move, one that put’s it’s release AFTER the Motorola Droid and all the other Android handsets. It makes the Nokia an Also Ran handset Maker, a Me Too! in a marketplace soon to have a large number of failed and marginalized handsets.

The real Question, from the big Picture.

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A fellow Blogger at A Networked World made the connection with another blogger. And Got me thinking about The Real, Next Big Question! He states;


…the talking heads all talk about this recovery, but its always a recovery “from” the crash and never, ever, about what our lives and communities and economies will look like once we have “recovered”.

What are we recovering TO?

It can’t really be the same as it was before. We have to seek new things, new jobs, and a different way of life than that which was before. That world is gone! IT will NEVER return, or better yet, SHOULD NEVER be allowed to return. It’s unsustainable and WILL collapse again (for the worst) should we ever ‘Recover’ it.

What’s needed is Vision and leadership, something sorely missing in the Irish mindset, let alone the mindless Government mindset.

Another Reason to Love Nokia and Maemo

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It’s not Google and it’s Deadly Power of Data I have always been leery of Power. I don’t buy Microsoft , and I’ve stopped playing into Apple fandom. The last computer I bought was a home-brew DIY Server built from parts I chose, powered by OpenSolaris So now it’s another validation of my still unshipped Nokia N900 and Maemo! Please let Amazon ship it soon 🙂

Vaporware label only requires 3 delays.

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I’m hoping that the Nokia N900 doesn’t become Vaporware as it has now delayed, or at lease allowed the perceived ship date to slip twice now, from October 2009, to End of October to now ‘November’. If there is a third slippage, it begins to make the N900 the subject of Vaporware rumors, and that kind of talk is death to a new product.

Smartphones, thick as Flies!

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Well if anything, you can’t say there there are too few choices in the Smartphone arena. Joining in the iPhone , Rim, Palm Pre , Windows Mobile firefight, there are now Maemo and LiMo. The later two (Maemo and LoMo) are entering the market just as there is an Android explosion of new phones. And while the Android phones are very tempting my requirements still point me at the Nokia N900, and I think that unless the Vodafone M1/H1 360 doesn’t get traction early, LiMo will be an early dropout.

NOTE: as predicted Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

Nokia N900 slips shipping date.

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I looks like I’ll have to wait a bit longer for my Nokia N900, the ‘supplier’ has slipped the ship date from Oct 26th to Nov 5. I’m already anxious with anticipation, now I’ll have to take extra blood pressure pills to last out extra 10 days. The only consolation is if they manage to remove more bugs, add more software, and maybe throw in portrait mode operations 🙂

Ireland offline, as in no broadband.

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If anyone wants to know the benefits of having an Internet connected population only needs to skim this article Economic Benefit of Getting Everyone Online in the UK


– Digitally excluded households are missing out on average savings of
GBP560 per year from shopping and paying bills online

– The most economically disadvantaged families are missing out on savings
of over GBP1billion

– 1.6 million children in digitally excluded families could increase
their lifetime earnings by GBP10.8billion

– Unemployed people who get online could increase their lifetime earnings
by over GBP12,000

– If 5% of digitally excluded unemployed could find work by using job
websites it would deliver an estimated GBP560million to the UK economy

– Internet savvy workers can earn an average increase in lifetime
earnings of over GBP8,000

– Government could save at least GBP900 million a year in customer
contact costs if all digitally excluded adults got online and made just
one electronic contact per month

and while the amounts will be different in Ireland, the benefits will be similar, maybe even better.

Nokia 900 Meetups

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As part of the Nokia Push of the N900 they are having meetup maemo_meetup_blogimage_2
where you can meet the Nokia Team in the Nokia flagship stores in Helsinki, Moscow, London, New York, Dubai & Chicago. Too bad it’s not in Dublin, I’d be there, but I guess I’ll have to wait until my Pre-Ordered N900 arrives.

Take that Android Lovers 🙂 the fight for mobile dominance begins.