Categories
broken gear End User

Apple iPhone faults

An apple - grown in my back garden at homeWe have an excellent team in our logistics1 department. Phillipa has efficiently found me a temporary HTC One S whilst my trusty Galaxy S3 is sent back for a new screen. This time it wasn’t a fault of Samsung – the last two times were faulty headset socket and a faulty connector that meant the phone wasn’t charging, or at least only intermittently.

This time the phone was accidentally dropped on a hard floor and unfortunately the display smashed. Ok s*&t happens. It’s gone off to the menders for a week or so and in the meantime I have a temporary HTC One S.  The One S is ok but smaller than the Galaxy S3 so I keep hitting the wrong keys. It’s also not quite as high a spec but hey, I only have it for a week or so.

Setting up the One S was very simple, as for all Android phones though I note that with Samsung all the apps I have previously downloaded are re-installed on a new phone whereas this hasn’t happened with HTC. This is probably a Samsung service that might well be replicated by HTC but I clearly haven’t signed up for it.

Anyway when I handed the S3 in to Phillipa in logistics1

Categories
End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S3 factory reset – phone not charging battery

Samsung Galaxy S3 reset to factory settings for sending back to, you guessed it, the factory. Hasta la vista baby. I’ve given it 24 hours to fix itself but it is still only charging the battery when it feels like it. The symptoms are identical to those I had with the Galaxy S2 – PC doesn’t recognise USB device and can only see it intermittently.

The new phone is plugged in and charging. Rather than waiting for the full charge I’ve switched it on and it is set up to go whilst still charging. It started reloading the 98 apps at 09.51 and it finished at  10ish. It’s now doing a firmware upgrade. Not taking long.

There restore doesn’t go to the extent of organising the “desktop” or whatever the equivalent is in mobile terminology but it is still easy going.

It’s all very well having great software but there is no excuse for having unreliable hardware in this day and age, especially at the volumes that Samsung is shipping the S3.

Stay tuned…

Categories
broken gear End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S3 not charging problem

Samsung Galaxy S2 water damageShort news bulletin to inform you that this morning my Samsung Galaxy S3 is not charging. This follows on from the same problem I had with the Galaxy S2.

The diagnosis for the S2 was water damage despite my assertion signed affidavit that it has never been anywhere near water.

It looks as if I’m going to have to get the S3 sent away for repair/analysis. Not good. All I can say is if the same diagnosis comes back  as for the S2 I’m going to be hounding Samsung. It’s too much of a coincidence or at the very least poor reliability in the design. Note this is already my second Galaxy S3 – the first had a headset connector problem.

The header photo is the “water” damage on the old Galaxy S2. Stay tuned for updates on this hot news item.

PS to make it easy for those who are interested I’ve pasted links to all the other posts that talk aboutSamsung Galaxy S2 and S3 problems:

http://www.trefor.net/2012/09/07/samsung-galaxy-s3-factory-reset-phone-not-charging-battery/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/06/17/headset-socket-on-my-samsung-galaxy-s3-is-not-working-audio-problem/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/07/06/water-water-everywhere-mobile-phone-water-damage-samsung-galaxy-s2-s3/
http://www.trefor.net/2012/09/26/galaxy-s3-mended-under-warranty-faulty-usb-socket/

Categories
End User mobile connectivity phones

Monthly mobile data usage August using Samsung Galaxy S3

August mobile data usage using Samsung Galaxy S3It’s been a busy month on the mobile internet usage, what with the Olympics and being on holiday. So far this month, and it is pretty much over, I have consumed just shy of 20GB of internet bandwidth using my Samsung Galaxy S3. That’s 2.40GB of 3G/mobile data and 17.13GB using WiFi.

My hard drive tells me I have taken 9.38GB of photos and videos and I’m sure there are a few sound files on top of that though they won’t contribute much towards the total.

The first screenshot shows the applications that were the heaviest mobile data users.

Note that Gallery is the number one user by far. I like the way that Android pulls down albums from my online Google+ store but clearly there is a price to pay for this with the data usage.

At number two Tweetdeck comes as no surprise and I’m thinking OS Services must mean operating system upgrades and / or general system management though I’m not totally sure about this. I’d normally save any major OS upgrades for WiFi.

During the month I did a lot of speed testing which shows up in the stats as that app came in fourth.August WiFi data usage from Samsung Galaxy S3

Straight internet access/web browsing was only the 6th most popular activity! In total 56 apps used the mobile data connection to some extent in August!

The next screenshot is of the WiFi usage from the phone.

Obviously it was used a lot more when in range of WiFi.

You can see that the amount of photographs taken is reflected in the usage of Google+.

I also took advantage whenever I had good WiFi, as I did in a number of places around London, to upload videos to YouTube. This way I could easily embed a video in a blog post at a later date whilst on the hoof.

In all 55 apps used the wifi connection in August.

The next screenshot is somewhat revealing and in some respects tells me I need to get a life.

I spent nearly 26 hours in the month using Tweetdeck wtf?! That’s almost an hour a day.

time spent using data connectivity in August

16 and a half hours using chrome. Interesting to note that the times spent on specific applications haven’t resulted in those apps beign the heaviest users of mobile data. Shows how light Twitter traffic in particular is.

Then it was nearly 14 hours using TouchWiz which is the Samsung user interface. All that time spent prodding the phone. I’ don’t know how much time is allocated per prod but this seems to be a lot.

Maps I can understand – that four hours is probably a couple of car journeys.

I’m not sure I know what to do with all this information but it is certainly food for thought.

You can see from the pics that the app I used to gather all this data is My Data Manager. It’s great. Go get it and let me know about your own usage.

Categories
End User olympics

No WiFi on train but power points more important

John and I are wending our way back from Cardiff to London in First Class with First Great Western. I like to teach my kids the right way to travel.

FGW doesn’t have WiFi like Eastcoast does but actually I’m finding that power is more important. 3G is good enough and having a fully charged phone for this afternoon’s Olympic kayak slaloms at Lee Valley is more important. I think 24 hours of battery life at flat out use needs to be the benchmark – 2 days for contingency. We aren’t there yet.

The lad is dozing whilst listening to some sounds on his phone. His copy of the Times newspaper made him nod off:)

I’m feeling a little rebellious. Last night we took a vuvuzela type horn into the GB v Uruguay match. It was on the list of prohibited items but if the Uruguayan supporters could take an entire drum kit into the ground it would have been entirely unfair to confiscate our modest source of atmosphere and excitement.

Today I am wearing my HP branded Commons and Lords Lions tour polo shirt and we have a Nike day bag. Totally against he rules laid down by the Locog heavIes. We also have a packed lunch which is apparently ok provided we don’t take too much – presumably in case we start selling food inside the venue. We could undercut the concessions and make a fortune, our only overheads being a modest Waitrose bill and the cost of the tickets. The latter has been covered by the mortgage so repayments will hardly be noticed over the 4 years between Olympic games.

I read somewhere yesterday that some politician (I can’t remember his name, which will obviously be a disappointment to the individual concerned) has said that the food prices are in line with other major events and that a family should be able to feed themselves for forty quid. That’s as may be but for most people forty pounds is a lot of dosh and I bet his family only consists of four people. Being a highly virile couple we have four kids which by my reckoning works out at sixty notes for lunch or roughly twelve pints of lager if you live in London as many readers of this blog do.

What a choice. Feed the kids or drink lots of lager. I suppose I could drink slightly fewer lagers and save some cash for a curry or a kebab afterwards (the hidden costs of a night out on the town). No no no only joking. Honest :).

Look out for me In the kayakIng crowd in my red HP polo shirt. Hasta la vista baby.

More later on my OlympIc holiday, from the WordPress dashboard of the Samsung Galaxy S3…

Categories
End User olympics

Millennium stadium postscript – 3G data performance & Galaxy S3 battery life

The mobile data service turned out great.I suspect if you weren’t on o2 it might have been a different story though I have no evidence of that.

The upload capacity did come under a bit of strain. It started at round 1.6 megs and dropped to 0.85 megs at half time but that is still good going.

I only really had 2 problems. One was with WordPress for android – it didn’t like the panoramic photo I included in the post.

The second was battery life. I hit the s3 hard with a lot of internet use and photographic activity. I was at the millennium stadium for two matches. By the second half of the second match the battery was running low so I switched off as I needed to make phone calls afterwards. This still wasn’t bed. After roughly 4 hours of pretty solid use I was down to 24% battery power remaining.

The catering at the ground was a different story – It was sIxquId for a sandwIch! My son queued for 45 minutes for a pizza only to find they had run out when he got to the front of the queue. This was during the first match! Whoever the caterer was I don’t have anything good to say about them.

It dIdn’t spoil the overall enjoyment of the evening which was a super family affair. The caterers could have taken a lesson from McDonald’s where I fed my son afterwards. It seemed as if the whole of the 70, 000 present at the ground went there. The queue went down quickly and it felt that those burgers were being served at speeds Usein Bolt would have been proud of 🙂

Posted using Samsung Galaxy S3.

Categories
broken gear End User

Water water everywhere? Mobile phone water damage Samsung Galaxy S2 S3

Samsung Galaxy S2 water damageJust as I took ownership of my Samsung Galaxy S3 my S2 died on my. Good timing? The battery ran down over the weekend and it would not recharge.

I still needed the phone. I sent it off for repair. The repairers came back and said it had evidence of water damage. I can tell you that that phone has not come into contact with water. However you can see problems if you use the phone in a damp environment. I my case it is likely to have been listening to BBCRadio4 using the Tune In Radio app over the internet whilst having a shower. The phone has not been “in” the shower – just in the shower room.

This is somewhat unacceptable. Phones should not be this vulnerable. For now I don’t think there is anything to be done but designs need ruggedizing for the future. I’m going to see if I can fix it myself. Stay tuned but for the moment keep your phone out of the bathroom.

Categories
End User mobile connectivity Net olympics

Olympic torch relay, Samsung social media and getting down with the kids

I don’t know about you but I for one am reallytref with Olympic torch in Lincoln looking forward to the Olympics. I have tickets for three sports – footballing in Cardiff, Kayaking in Lee Valley North London and High Diving at the Aquatics centre in the Olympic Park. I could have bought more in the last release, including the much joked about beach volleyball but at £95 just for the ticket I decided I had to draw the line somewhere.

My own Olympic story started on July 6th 2005, the day the winning bid was announced. I was in London, doing some presentations in the City. That afternoon we celebrated alongside everyone else in town, a victory tinged only withOlympic torch in Lincoln a slight hangover as the next day London was under attack with the July 7 bombings.

Some time later I went on a sewer tour to look at the huge amount of latent communications capacity there is in the fibres running underground in the capital. I was told that the sewer runs right through the Olympic Park. I don’t fancy being a guards having to check down there during the games. Then for the last year or so the ISP industry has been starting to think about its requirements to keep the network running during the games. It’s mostly about bandwidth.

The 2012 Olympic games is going to be all about information handling. Of course it is also about winning medals, taking part and all the good sporting stuff but this will be embedded in a communications wrap the like of which has never been seen before.

In the UK the communications build up has been massive and not without its glitches – the ticketing website and process has attracted a lot of criticism. Now that tickets are being dispatched hopefully that memory will fade.

The serious communications infrastructure preparations have been going on for much longer.  BT kicked off its network planning in July 2009 and most UK ISPs will now have
their plans in place on how to cope with the growth in internet usage during the games – basically by buying more bandwidth from BT.

The media build up has also kicked in big time as the torch makes its way around the country. A quick glance at the Facebook page of “Olympics” shows it has 2.8 million “likes”. The London 2012 page has fewer at 379k likes – clearly a newer page and a slightly lesser brand though far more specific to this summer’s needs.

There is a Facebook App “London 2012“ which with only 900 monthly users looks decidedly unofficial although there are lots of links to genuine Olympic resources. Then there is “ London Olympics 2012 “ which is clearly unofficial with only 3,435 likes. I’m not really here to comment on whether something is official or not, the fact is there must be a huge number of social media pages dedicated to the event.

Last night I went to the Olympic Torch event in Lincoln. I was a proud dad as my daughter was dancing as part of the entertainment. Everyone there had a fantastic time. There is clearly a huge amount of support for these games in the UK.

Most of the entertainment was provided by three of the Olympic sponsors:  Samsung, Lloyds TSB and Coca Cola.

The Samsung act was particularly impressive because of its use of social media. It included “Twist” and “Pulse”, apparently a popular dance duo. It was at this point that I realised how out of touch I was. I had pushed myself to the front of the crowd of 10,000 people as I wanted a good view of my daughter dancing. I found myself there with “the kids” – mostly 12 – 16 year olds I’d guess. They knew all the acts and all the words to all the songs.

Anyway at the end of the act Twist (or Pulse – you tell me  🙂 ) went on about how these were the “connected games”. All the dancers took out a Samsung phone and started to take photos of the crowd. Twist was elevated onto a platform and took a photo of the entire crowd. That’s 9,999 people (should have been 10,000 but my youngest son was playing cricket – beat Scunthorpe U12s by 10 wickets!).

Samsung entertainers Twist and Pulse with dancers taking pictures of the crowdHe then told us that the photo had just gone live at Samsung.com/takepart. People were then encouraged to visit the page to tag themselves using their Facebook ID. I did this – you can see me here (somewhere).

Think about this. The torch is visiting 70 locations. If there are 10,000 people on average at each location then that is 700,000 people being encouraged to engage with Samsung online.  Everone who tags themselves  are effectively providing Samsung with valuable social media marketing data. These people are also all going to tell their friends to take a look at them in the crowd and at the same time they are all uploading their own photos.

There are two types of person going to the Olympics this summer – us and them. The “us” are represented by all the punters, with or without tickets at the venue or milling around just taking in the atmosphere of London.

The “them” camp is divided into competitors, media and the rest of the Olympic family – the hard working folk of Olympic committees around the world over for a junket to oversee the smooth functioning of the games.

These games are likely to be the most technologically rich Olympics we have seen so far. BT has installed a 60Gbps core network in preparation. Despite encouragement from Samsung the heaviest users are going to be the media. 60Gb amounts to 2.7Mbps for each of the 22,000 accredited media personnel at the games. That’s around 30  x  maximum usage per connection seen at a typical business ISP and sensibly has a significant amount of headroom built into the capacity requirements.

As we approach the Olympic fortnight I’m going to be taking a more detailed look at the technology that has gone in to making it all (hopefully) a success – both from the point of view of the “Olympic Family” and us normal folk. Stay tuned.

Also check out this video of the Red Arrows flying over the Olympic torch relay event – they are  regular visitors to the skies over Lincoln. On this occasion their leader spoke to the crowd over his intercom – uber cool.

Categories
End User phones

Father’s Day special – like father like daughter

Because it is father’s day I have special permissionfathers day - give us a kiss to publish some previously unseen photos of me and my daughter Hannah. They were taken earlier this month at the Sir Joseph Banks conservatory at the Lawn in Lincoln.

As you can see she is the spitting image of me.

I have entitled the first photo “Give us a kiss”. The second is “Where’s my teef?” and the third is “The Cheesy Grin”.

The quality of the composition is clearly of the highest order though the naysayers out there  will say it is easy when you have great material towhere's my teef work with:)

The photos were taken with the Samsung Galaxy S2 – they predate the delivery of the S3.

Hannah is a real sport and although she has almost certainly inherited some wonderful traits her one great misfortune is that she also has my sense of humour.

I say if that is all she has to worry about she will be ok:)

The Cheesy Grin

Categories
End User phones

Telegraph pole picture – another Samsung Galaxy S3 masterpiece

It’s my blog. I decide what goes in.telegraph pole in Lincoln Here is a picture of the label on the telegraph pole near my house. I still look most days for signs of the cabinet being upgraded to FTTC. Nothing yet. End of June is not looking good. It’s already slipped by three months from end of March to end of June. We’ll see.

Photo taken with Samsung Galaxy S3 (fwiw).

PS don’t ask me to interpret the code – someone might leave a comment explaining.

Categories
End User phones

More photos from the Samsung Galaxy S3 series using the macro function

daisy with ladybirdIt’s the weekend. I don’t normally do trefor.net stuffred rose with aphids over the weekend but I have had a very productive day, whistled through the jobs list and more, and am settling down to watch the football with the kids so posting to the blog seems like an useful thing to do.

Annoying though the non functioning headset socket might be the quality of the camera on these new phones continues to impress me. The camera on the Galaxy S3 is pretty much the same as on the S2 apart from some software features such as the burst mode. Notwithstanding this I find myself taking snaps of all sorts of ordinary things just because I happen to have my camera in my pocket.wet rose

When I do this I find some interesting things unexpectedly appearing in the photos I take. The red rose on the right for example has green aphids on it. Looking at the photos I can also see what I can only call red aphids. I suspect these insects are colourless and are just showing the colours of the background object.

The next rose still has droplets of water on it after the rain. These photos all use the macro function on the camera.

You are beginning to see what a softie I am. It’s just that I’m so impressed that I can take photos like this. In the “old” days I used to have to take a whole reel of film (36 shots) to get a couple of decent photos. Now, with the screen for me to be able to line up the shot properly and great autofocuspink rose technology I probably only discard two pictures in every 36 I take. One more rose, for luck.

I also had to put in this other ladybird photo. When I took the picture I hadn’t noticed that there was a small spider nearby. I wondered whether the ladybird was after the spider for food. There were plenty of aphids nearby had it but known:)

I liked the contrast between the bright primary red and black of the ladybird with the delicate pastel colourings of the flowers around it.

I’ll have to draw the line on nature shots for now – these pics ladybird near to a spidertake time to edit.

If someone could tell me what the purple flowers below left are I’d be most grateful. They are in our back garden.

purple flower from the Davies back garden - what is it?

Categories
End User phones

Headset socket on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is not working – audio problem

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2Much as it pains me I have to tell you that the headset socket on my Samsung Galaxy S3 is not working. I found out because during the week I started to net no audio on my phone though it would work in speakerphone mode.

When this first happened I checked all the settings and there was nothing obvious. Switching bluetooth off seemed to do the trick and I put it down to somehow the phone not having unhitched itself from my Parrot car kit. I can see my car from my panoramic office window:)

It must have been a coincidence because it is now happening all the time. In the wee small hours of this morning I woke up and googled the problem. I found an android forum with a thread that showed the same problem on a different model of handset.

If you had been using the headset sometimes the sensor didn’t work to show that the plug was no longer in the socket. I had to wait until morning to confirm this on my phone. My wife Anne would not have been too happy if I had accidentally switched something noisy on the phone during the night.

I can indeed confirm that the problem lies with the headset socket. Nothing in fact works through the headset.

Sigh. Someone on Twitter mentioned that this sort of thing often happens when a phone reaches end of life. Unfortunately this is the wrong end.

Its worth noting I still haven’t finished testing all the features on the Samsung Galaxy S3. The bit where the phone isn’t supposed to switch off doesn’t seem to work all the time and I have supposedly disabled the LED for alerts but it still comes on. Early days for the S3 I guess.

We are about to find out how well the returns system works!

Other Galaxy S3 problems here.

Categories
competitions End User phones

The name that Samsung Galaxy S3 phone competition

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2The guess the name of the Samsung Galaxy S3 phone competition from Monday was somewhat buried in the review. It is one of the least entered megaprize competitions I’ve run. This is possibly because it was buried in a long review of the Galaxy S3 or maybe the chances of winning were slim becasue there are lots and lots of names it could have been.

I’m going to assume both so this is a short post just to highlight the competition. Then I’m going to narrow down the possibilities as to what the name might be by telling you that it has biblical associations.

I’m not going to limit the number of prizes here. The competition is going to run all day and anyone who gets the name right gets a prize. There is also going to be a further prize for anyone who comes up with the most unusual biblical name (I’m the judge and my decision is final1).

This competition is also open to Timico staff. If they turn their noses at the mug then I’ll think of a different internal prize but it’s a mug for everyone else. Btw the one answer I did get on the previous post was “Tref’s phone”. Although it is the name displayed on the locked screen I am after the bluetooth name which is different.

Get guessing.

PS if you have already won a mug in a previous competition I can find a different prize for you.

1 though it isn’t beyond the realms of possibility that I can be bribed on this one but the bribe is almost certainly going to have to be for a lot more than the prize is worth.

Categories
End User phones

Unstructured user review of the Samsung Galaxy S3 & comparison with S2

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy S3 for three days now. I don’t think you can sensibly rush out a review within hours of getting your hands on a device particularly as these phones are not simple gadgets anymore. They are highly complex and despite any focus on usability and simplicity there is so much to learn and find out about them that it inevitably takes time.

My first concern was somewhat mundane – the size of the phone. The Galaxy S2 was just about ok for me  – I struggled to read the top of the screen with my thumb and was worried that the S3 might be significantly bigger and thus harder to reach. This aint the case. Although the S3 is advertised as being bigger it isn’t that much different in real life, which is good. I also sat it next to a Samsung Note and it isn’t much smaller than that either but a lot more usable as a phone. I suspect we are getting the best of both worlds here.

The  Samsung Galaxy S3 is otherwise known as the GT-I9300. I know that this is the underlying model number of the phone because whilst trying to name it something to hook up with my Parrot car kit it automatically connected itself. It was easy. All I had to do was enter the car kit pin number.

I couldn’t, in my desire to get going on a Friday evening, find out how to name the phone. It must have been me because when I discussed this with one of the kids the next morning it took him seconds to find out how to do it. I wanted to call the phone “Rosita the Dragon Slayer”. The kids thought that was daft.

Categories
End User phones

crystal ball gazing – mobile tech style

I’ve been gazing into that mobile market crystal ball again. I can see nooootthhhinggggg. That’s because all the main phone vendors have sued themselves into the ground in every single market they operate in. This time Samsung is ringing the changes by suing the Australian Patent Commissioner. I don’t need to say more – you can read it yourself on the beeb.

I’m pleased I just got my Galaxy S3 because it is going to remain state of the art for years to come – until the army of corporate lawyers grow so old they trip over their ever lengthening beards, bang their heads against one another and self-destruct. That’s a wake I’d like to attend. It’ll be champagne and caviar all round all paid for out of the rich estates of the dearly departed.

Other than that you aren’t getting an S3 review until Monday although I will say that I have discovered the burst mode on the camera and it is super cool.

Categories
End User phones wearable

Galaxy S2 & Galaxy S3 side by side

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2Le Samsung Galaxy S3 est arrive. 삼성 갤럭시 S3가 도착했습니다.Mae’r Galaxy S3 Samsung wedi cyrraedd.Որ Samsung Galaxy S3 է ժամանել.وقد وصلت سامسونج غالاكسي S3.આ સેમસંગ ગેલેક્સી S3 આવ્યા છે.Samsung Galaxia S3 iritsi da.Samsung Galaxy S3 gəlib.Samsung Galaxy S3 đã đến.স্যামসাং আকাশগঙ্গা S3 এসেছে.La Samsung Galaxy S3 alvenis.三星Galaxy S3已经抵达.The Samsung Galaxy S3 kominn.سیمسنگ کہکشاں S3 آ گیا ہے.Samsung Galaksi s3 a te rive.An Réaltra Samsung S3 tagtha.Ang Samsung Galaxy S3 ay dumating.Das Samsung Galaxy S3 ist da.Samsung Galaxy S3 прибыло.سامسونگ کهکشان S3 وارد کرده است

Ok folks. As you can see the Samsung Galaxy S3 has arrived and is in my hands. I’m going to kick the tyres over the weekend and give you a considered opinion of it compared with the Galaxy S2.

In the meantime, seeing as it’s Friday afternoon there is a prize for anyone who can tell me which languages (in order of writing) I’ve used in the above announcement. If no one comes in with them all right then the nearest  best attempt wins (all assuming I can remember myself).

Categories
End User phones

I’ve ordered a Samsung Galaxy S3

I’ve ordered a Samsung Galaxy S3. I don’t know if it is the right thing to do. Part of me says moving to a new phone means that you should be moving to a significantly better device – I have an S2. Every new phone seems to be “just an iteration” of the incumbent spec. Certainly that’s how it seems with the iPhone and also with other devices that Samsung has brought out since the S2. I’m still on the original iPad!

On the other hand we live in a very fast moving world where even the smallest competitive edge can make a real difference. Can we ascribe this to our use of smartphones? I don’t know, perhaps. I think the S3 probably has just enough on the S2 to make it worth the upgrade. I need to do it because otherwise before I know it everyone else will have moved on to the S7 or S8 and I’ll be so far behind the times I will really have to think of packing it all in.

Categories
4g Apps Engineer mobile connectivity

Samsung media event date announced – should we get excited – 4G & photos

I have to be careful here because whilst I am a Samsung fan I have no desire to be labelled a fanboi in the manner of Apple afficionados. Samsung has announced a media event at Earls Court on Thursday 3rd May and the speculation is that this will be the Galaxy S3 launch. This might be exciting.

I use a Galaxy S2 which is as far as I am concerned still a great phone. There has to be a lot of new functionality for me to want to upgrade – certainly more than appears to have been the case with the various flavours of iPhone churned out over the last 12 months.

What might these improvements be?

Categories
Cloud datacentre End User

Samsung 1TB hard drive for £54!

Samsung1TB external hard driveMy recent post on the pocket cloud was a joke. Today I have taken delivery of a real pocket cloud. It’s a Samsung 2.5inch portable external hard drive and it cost 54 quid! My aging laptop has a 232Gig hard drive that is almost full. That apart it is a perfectly good laptop and I didn’t see the point of getting a new one. I also didn’t want to delete anything and likely start the faff that would be the periodic decision making process on which files to ditch and which to keep.

Problem solved. I am now just moving my least used files onto the external drive.  They will be mostly photos and videos that are also backed up elsewhere.  It is certainly arguable that many of these files are not work related but it is difficult to separate the two lives.  Consumerisation entering the workplace again.

Storage is now so cheap that there is almost no reason for anything to be thrown away ever. Also I think I have become a Samsung fan 🙂view of construction of new Timico datacentre

On a different note our carpark is almost full today. A sure sign that the summer holidays are well and truly behind us. It won’t be long before we are overflowing into the new carpark behind the new data centre build.

Photo is a perspective from the first floor of the Timico HQ building.

PS any bets on when I will fill the TB drive?

Categories
datacentre End User phones

Smartphones: Samsung Galaxy S2 vs. HTC Desire HD

HTC Desire HDPeople who know suggested I should move phone operations from HTC Desire HD to Samsung Galaxy S2 so I have. My main motivation (and you have to take this as read) is not to just have the latest and greatest gadget. Things are moving so quickly in the tech world that I need to stay in touch with the art of the possible. It would also be a good exercise in seeing how easy it was to do the migration.

In reading this post you have to consider that I am not a gadget freak and I don’t spend my life understanding the nuances of different versions of OS or processor hardware specifications. I may therefore make mistakes in setting up a new phone that the geek would not but in this I can’t be any different to most people. My other criterion for success is that I shouldn’t have to rtfm, ie have to look something up in the online support.

I have two benchmarks for comparison – the HTC Desire HD and the iPad both of which broke new ground for me.  iPad was very easy to set up but has clear deficiencies and the HTC represented a learning curve in smartphone tech.

The features I use most on the HTC are Tweetdeck, Dropbox, camera, voice recorder, internet and gallery, mail, calendar, sms and foursquare with a smattering of Bambuser,and ESPN (seasonally) thrown in. I use the internet rather than plugins to access Facebook (keep in touch with my kids) and LinkedIn (rarely) as I haven’t found these plug ins to be much cop. For some reason I don’t use the phone for Empire Avenue and I’m actually currently struggling to get my brain round why I might want to access that particular network.

So in moving from HTC Android to Samsung Android it would be useful for me to see how seamless

Categories
End User mobile connectivity

Crazy confused world of the mobile deal

I was chatting to someone earlier who took out a new contract with O2 for a Samsung Galaxy S2. £149.99 for the phone plus £13.50 a month for a 24 month contract with 50 minutes and 250 texts. He also got £150 cashback off quidco.com, the initial referring site.

He promptly sold the Galaxy on eBay for £465 – don’t ask me why people buy these on eBay over the odds when a PAYG SIM free version new is £400. Take a look – there are similar bids ongoing.

This person then bought a brand new iPhone 4G off a pal coming back from the USA on holiday for £300.

The upshot is a new iPhone costing him £8.67 a month compared with the £304.99 plus £18.50 a month he would have to pay for a new iPhone contract (ok he gets fewer minutes and texts in his bundle but he is ok with that).

Not everyone has a friend that can bring them back a phone from the USA but I have to say the mobile world is getting crazier by the day.

Categories
Business phones

Nokia knocked off top spot in WE smartphone sales – ducks not lined up – IDC

look out for that cliff edge

In June 2008 I wrote that the writing was on the wall for Nokia. However in August of that year I got myself an E71 and saw that it was good. I note that by June of 2010 I was using a Nokia N97 which at the time I thought was the best phone I had ever had. Although it was targeted at consumers I couldn’t see why business users would not want it.

By November 2010 I had ditched the N97 for a HTC Desire HD. Symbian for Android. Old world for brave new world. Now the HTC is the best phone I ever had – this is a continuing saga.

According to IDC whilst Nokia remains #1 globally for smartphones in Western Europe the Finnish company has slipped into second place behind Samsung.

In a quarter that showed a 76% year on year growth for smartphone shipments Nokia suffered a 10% decline. Samsung grew only 5% and HTC a whopping 271%, admittedly from a much smaller base.

This isn’t really an “I told you so” post and of course it is about operating systems these days not handsets. It is however interesting to be able to read the historical blog posts and be both a spectator and participant in this game.

You would think there have been enough case studies on companies disappearing off the map having been left behind in technological revolutions for modern day participants to see problems coming a long way off. For Nokia the cliff edge is perilously close with only a fence built by Microsoft between them and oblivion (breaking up on the rocks/watery grave etc). Would you bet on the Microsoft fence?

PS the imagination is running riot here with a severe risk of winning an award for most clichés used in a blog post. I could also have used “one last window of opportunity” when describing the Nokia/Microsoft relationship.

Any further appropriate clichés left as comments will be appreciated. No prizes – just points 🙂

PPS header photo is something to do with having your ducks lined up (ok I know they are probably geese but it isn’t Christmas yet)

Categories
End User phones

What went wrong with the Samsung Galaxy tab?

Richar Wright of Timico discusses Samsung Galaxy tab with Apple CEO Steve Jobs

STOP PRESS – Richard Wright reverts to iPad from Samsung Galaxy tab

Back in the dim and distant days before Christmas 2010 I wrote a post describing how Timico sales manager Richard Wright had switched from the iPad to the Samsung Galaxy tab. Well gadget freak Richard has switched back!

With echoes of the Consumer Electronics Show still swirling around the ether with tales of 26 new tablets on view I thought I would find out why the sudden reversion. Richard’s feedback is provided below:

  • Android Marketplace did not have as much choice
  • A few apps he used on iPad either weren’t available or not written as well. This was especially true when it came to “sharing” eg Stumbleupon – the iPad app shares very easily but with Android he had to download a 3rd party app called Facebook share – also Stumbleupon just puts the url in.
Categories
Business UC voip

Real Life Example Of Geographic Integration Using VoIP

Timico is a classic case study of a business that has expanded by both organic growth and acquisition.

When the company began, 4 very short years ago, almost the first thing it did was buy a Nortel BCM telephony system. On the way up it bought KeConnect which has an Asterisk Open Source PBX and Twang.net which is a user and reseller of Avaya IP Office systems. At the same time the Timico mobile workforce uses hosted VoIP clients based on the Nortel AS5200 Unified Communications platform. Quite a mishmash of telephony solutions.

In years gone by the business would have probably had to factor in CAPEX to harmonise the phone systems around its various locations around a single vendor in order to be able to adequately connect the sites. Even then the connectivity would have been expensive.

This has all changed with the advent of the VoIP SIP Trunk. Using SIP Trunks all Timico sites can talk to each other over a low cost IP connection. What’s more salesmen on the move are able to demonstrate the technology from a customer’s premises using a local wifi connection. 

Just as impressive, Cisco and KeConnect resellers showcasing the Cisco SPA9000 iPBX with the travelling demo kit, are able to connect in to the office technical support using SIP. The same applies in respect of the Nortel SCS500 Unified Communications system, Samsung IP telephony systems and Cisco Call Manager Express and a variety of other manufacturers’ systems.

The point of this name dropping is to highlight that it is a great example of what SIP technology was intended to achieve – seamless connectivity using open standards. Timico’s site to site telephony costs are now tending to very low or zero. I can’t say that SIP interoperability has achieved universal ubiquitous status yet but it is getting there.