New Mobile Phone - Nokia N95 8GB

Well after a few months deliberating over which Phone to get and which Mobile provider to try I've finally taked the plunge and gone for a Nokia N95 8GB on Three here in the UK.

My trusty old O2 XDA IIi had served me quite well for almost 2 years, but was becomming incresingly unreliable as a Phone and callers were always commenting "This must be a bad line"...

It was a tricky decision to move away from Windows Mobile, but my XDA experience told me that Microsoft did not quite have the Pocket PC / Phone integration quite right.

OK, so the XDA was Windows Mobile 2003 and Windows Mobile 6 is available now.... but I wanted a device that was more of a phone, than a pocket PC.

Though the Nokia N95 8GB has been out for a while, Vodafone had an exclusive on it until the end on 2007. So I had to wait and bide my time, wondering if it would be worth going for the original N95.... or a new XDA from O2..... or an iPhone.

In the end, the Three datapackages proved to be very good, and as I can't get any T-Mobile reception at home, I've decided to go with Three

Pocket PC UPNP client - Rudeo Control

I have been running a UPNP client on my home PC to serve my MP3 files to my Netgear MP101 for quite a while now. I use Twonky Media server and it all works well.

Recently I've been looking for ways to try and access the MP3's from Twonky but on my Laptop or Pocket PC. It's proving difficult to find a client that works for the Laptop, but I've just discovered Rudeo Play & Control form the Pocket PC.
Rudeo Control
There seems to be several different parts to the program
- Pocket PC Rudeo Play & Control (UPNP, WMP, IR) $19.19
- Pocket PC Rudeo Control for Windows Media Player $19.95
- Rudeo MCP Control for XP Media Center $29.95

I'm only interested in the first one to access my UPNP server.

Installation
Installing on my O2 XDA IIi was easy as I already had the .Net CF 2.0 framework installed.
The rest was just a standard install.
I'm running the 14 day trial version just now

Running
To get it to work all I needed to to was fire up the XDA. Conntect to my Wireless network and start Rudeo. Click on UPnp Servers menu item and click Rescan Network. It found Twonky easily and I was away!

Thinks I like:
- Connects to Twonky
- I can browse my MP3's in the same way as on the MP 101 (Album, Artist, Genres, Folders, etc)
- It downloads the MP3's to my Memory Card, so I can play them offline later.

Things that could be better:
- I have to use the stylus as some of the icons are so small
- No album art
- Navigation of files on device is a bit basic.

Conclusion:
This is great. FAB that I can access my MP3 files from my Twonky server. It's great that they are downloaded to my memory card so I can play them offline later.
Think I'll give it a few days then buy it!

PocketBlogger: Update your Blog from your Pocket PC!

PocketBlogger: Update your Blog from your Pocket PC!

I've been looking for a Blogging application that I can run on my Phone / Pocket PC (O2 XDA IIi). This one seems to be quite good.
However, I'm having some trouble getting it to work.
Will report back if I have any success.

O2 Broadband, the rumours are true!

URL: Late, fast and pricey: O2 broadband is go
This makes interesting reading. The Register is reporting that later this month O2 will be launching their rumoured Broad Band service. Starting from £7.50 a month for up to 8Mbit/s service seems quit good. Unfortumately O2's ADSL2+ network only seems to cover urban areas.I've just about decided to leave O2 and go for a deal with three, as their data packages are excelent.