Now that I've had the phone for 2 months or so a bit more about it.

The PROS

I like the phone. Cant say why but MOST of the time i like it. It feels snappy, looks and feels slick, is pretty well designed. The screen is pretty decent too.

The CONS

Battery life is shocking. The phone can't get me through a day, and that is completely unacceptable. I still don't know if this is just my phone (starting to doubt it), a V800 problem (as possibility) or a network problem (also a possibility).

Although the phone can "multi-task" to some degree, you can't really have too much control over it. For example, if you receive an SMS while browsing you can reply to it, but I can't figure out a way to initiate an SMS while browsing without closing the browser.

Shortcuts are extremely limited. I would like to be able to set shortcuts to web pages, to java applets etc. The Motorola E1000 seems to do this, blow me down if I can find a way on the SE V800. Net effect, to get to ANY web page you have to connect to Vodafone live! first.

Full screen media playback. Again, the E1000 can do this (I had one on loan for a week, not a bad little phone). Can't seem to find a way to make the V800 do it though. It makes a big difference being able to watch the movies full screen.

DRM. Wont say more other than it really sucks.

A number of other issues, but I suspect those are network rather than phone issues. These include :

• lots of dropped calls
• calls go straight to voice mail instead of ringing on the phone
• large MMS messages (over 60k) are delivered only +- 50% of the time. And you are charged regardless
• often get static on the line

Overall, the SE V800 is a nice(ish) phone, but unfortunately I wouldnt recommend it to anyone. Rather stick with your current 2g phone and let Vodacom wake up to the fact there is a problem, and sort it out. If you can't wait look very carefully. There is no critical mass currently, very few people have video calls, and it isnt worth having the facility while the phone doesnt meet the basic requirements of allowing you to make and receive calls when you need to. Big thumbs down for SE V800, Vodafone live, and Vodacom for extremely poor service.

 

The saga continues.

Feedback from calls logged with Vodacom seem to indicate that they are doing something about the 3g content DRM problem. They will at some point allows you to re-download any software and content you lose due to upgrades. Although a pain this allows you to not lose out financially (although it is a pain to "reload" your phone).

With specific phones however the problem is worse. From what i have read elsewhere on the Net, the Sony Ericsson V800 is a bastardised (by Vodafone) Z800. One of the wonderful "features" they have introduced is that EVERY java applet downloaded directly to the phone is "content locked" by the phone itself. Net effect, you cannot take a backup of even FREE applets you have downloaded. You cannot move these applets to your memory stick. Go for an upgrade and you must re-download all of these yourself.

The Vodacom representative suggested I could contact Sony themselves and get them to load the Z800 firmware and "remove" the Vodafone software. I said this wouldnt invalidate the warranty. Guess this is the next thing to try when I get back from the UK.

While in the Vodacom service centres this morning and afternoon I bumped into some other 3G complaintants. Seems it isnt only me having woeful battery life on 3g phones. Others are experiencing similar complaints. My battery life is down to 4 hours of combined standby/useage. Currently I charge the V800 overnight, unplug at 7am, by 11:30am it is flat. That is with just a few calls (maybe 15m total) and a few sms. Sucks. Other guys had Motorolla E1000 and had similar battery life.

When complaining about this one of the Vodacom representatives said that Vodacom has a problem. The towers are too widely disbursed and this causes the 3g radios to have to use too much power and hence drains battery quickly. The suggestion was to disable the 3g network and use GSM only. Strange I haven't seen this mentioned in any of the Vodacom 3g adverts and this person didn't want to eloborate. The guy I met in the queue at Old Fort Road service centre had been given the same advice. hmmmmm.....

 

The summary is like this :

You can buy content from Vodafone. Content includes : Games, music, videos etc. They charge you good money for this.

The con :

• Content is DRM protected, however there is no mention of DRM anywhere in any of their adverts, web pages or at any time during the buying process.
• During the buying process there is an option to view terms and conditions. The option doesnt work, the terms are not available, other than general website terms which doesnt cover anything about DRM or the content itself
• The customer care line couldnt provide me with a copy of the terms, but told me it is all about payment, nothing about the content
• The DRM prevents you from backing up the content (perhaps fair enough)
• When your phone goes in for repair, it is the Customer's responsibility to backup content (errr.... you prevent me from doing that) and Vodacom take no responsibility of lost content (i.e. when they trash your phone).
• Hmmmmmm

To their credit, they are busy processing a refund for content that was deleted during the upgrade of my phone.

That said, how can they NOT think of this (through discussions with some tecchie it turns out they did) and FIX IT before launching this service?

Also turns out there are some other issues. If you buy content, save it to your memory card, it will be rendered useless if you :

• change your phone
• change your sim card (phone number)
• get a software upgrade

Hmmm, be careful not to buy too much content from them, because in effect you are licensing it for a very specific combination of hardware and software (though you are NEVER told that).

Be warned!

P.S. Are things the same in the UK ?

Finally got a new phone. Selected the V800, the reviews were quite positive. I walked into the Vodashop at Pavilion - spoke with the consultant, got assurances that the phone would be able to be repaired / upgraded / supported.

The phone is a little large, but doesnt feel large in use. The interface is slick, I really like it. The multi-tasking is great, can read and answer an SMS while browsing on the net. The screen is large and bright. The camera is quite decent, and the little flash light works quite well for close up shots.

So, I really like the phone. BUT and this is a big BUT. The battery life SUCKS big time. In the first week i had the phone i had to charge it twice a day every day. One night just for a test, fully charged it before went to bed, unplugged it, by morning it was mostly flat. SO, no talking, surfing, nothing and in 8 hours is pretty much flat battery.

I then spoke with Vodacom support (about unstable 3g connections) and they mentioned the Motorola E1000 had similar problems. So i disabledthe 3g, and then the phone worked just fine. So now it works well, but not as a 3g phone. So that is a bit of a disappointment.

Took it in this morning to the vodacare centre in Umhlanga. They were very unhelpful. Bottom line, they wanted to take my phone away and send it to JHB, cant be fixed in Durban. Seems i was told somewhat of a mistruth by vodashop in Pav. Rather annoying. After much complaining to vodacom, vodacare etc eventually the manager there made a plan for me. Much appreciated. I will get the personal phone of one of the Vodacom people as a loan phone while mine goes to Jhb. The effort is much appreciated. Still annoyed they sell faulty stuff and cant repair it like promised, but this gesture went a long way to making me happier. Cant ask for more than that from the manager. Thanks Navin.

That time again. I have been waiting since October last year to upgrade my cell phone. I waited until Vodacom was launching their 3g service. December came and went. What a laugh. Next time have a product before you announce a launch. They had a total of 1 (yes ONE) phone available, the ghastly Motorola E1000. Such bad reviews it wasnt worth touching. Then their agents (thanks Vodashop) assured me that 2-3 more phones would be out in Feb, well, it was APRIL before anything else came out. Oh well, today I saw on the vodacom site that they now have the Sony Ericsson V800 out. Looks half decent. Had my mind set on the Nokia 6680. Lots of good features (on paper) but some so so reviews too. Guess the V800 it will be. Hope Supercall get back to me tomorrow. Phone them this afternoon and they didnt bother to get back to me. Not a great add for their sales team but hey. Seems poor customer service a norm here in South Africa. This month been a bad one. First, there was Autopage cellular. They OWE ME about R900 on my daughter's account (yeah, they messed up a few times). Then they still go and take another R100+ rand off my account. Call them and they tell me I must have put through a transfer into their account (yeah right). Oh well. At least the guy took my banking details off their system so they cant do it again. Then there was wonderful, dear, useless Sentech. They didnt bother to bill me for almost a year. So we reached a compromise after I called their tech support to report the problems, and agreed to split the bill into 3 payments and deduct off. This month was the last, so they take the money, including the months subs, then cut me off. Great guys. To make it worse they do on a Friday afternoon, then the account department goes home early and NOBODY has the authority to turn me back on. I told them turn me on or refund my months subs and shove the service. Needless to say, they didnt turn it on until Monday, then they call me to tell me it's all resolved. yeah right. Still told them I want my refund. a week an a half later they call, only to tell me they did an investigation and they didn't take any money out. Strange, that isnt what their people said a week ago, or what my bank balance says. I will be so glad to get rid of them at the end of this month, still hoping I get back my subs for the month. Not sure that will happen with their less than efficient admin department. Guess I give them a week before letting rip again. :(

Tickets all sorted for the U2 concert in Manchester. Thanks Jesse. Now just need to wait for them to arrive and all be redistributed. Read bits and piece about the tour, sounds awesome and really cant wait. only 2 more months and then the big night happens :)

Added myself to feedmap.net

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Let's see if some of these work.

Update : Trade all done and tickets sorted. Thanks to all involved :)

Ok, so the u2 ticket sale pre-sale was a bit of disaster. End result, I have two tickets for Twickenham (Seated, sorry General Admission wasnt available). I am looking for two tickets to Manchester (General admission, but seated MAY be considered), and I would like to do a swap.

I am NOT looking to sell tickets at a profit or anything like that, just looking for someone who cant make the Manchester show, or who ended up with tickets there when they reallty wanted Twickenham.

SO, barter, trade, swop, Twickenham tickets x2 for Manchester tickets x2.

Mail me on tickets@j-j.co.za

I have been to shows from the last 2 tours and am looking to come over to the UK from South Africa, but can't make the Twickenham show. Really hope that this can be a deal that works for me and some other soul out there.

Here's hoping for a brilliant tour that erases the still sour taste cause by the ticket debacles.

Browsing the download list from Microsoft stumbled across a few interesting things.

Internet Protocol Security for Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Support for Internet Protocol security (IPSec) in Windows 2000 allows network administrators to secure network traffic without having to update applications or train users.

Log Parser 2.2

Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Windows® operating system such as the Event Log, the Registry, the file system, and Active Directory®.

Medium IT Solution Series (Version 1.0)

The Medium IT Solution Series is a part of the Microsoft Solutions for Small and Medium Business program, and it is targeted at businesses with 50 to 250 users. The series is intended to provide proven, integrated, end-to-end guidance for the IT staff of medium businesses to help them plan, build, deploy, and operate the entire IT environment.

Includes sections on everything from Antivirus, backups, Active Directory, through Pilot deployment and Migration.

See the introduction here

Lots of other great stuff in there for the medium sized enterprise out there.

Came across another interesting looking cookbook on Cool Tools.

 How to Cook Everything:Simple Recipes for Great Food
Mark Bittman
1998, 944 pages
$22

Will order it soon from Kalahari, let you all know what I think once it has arrived and been used a bit (yeah, that could be a while!) Read KK's review and order yourself one if this is your kind of cooking.

It might seem a small thing, but in some ways it is a great thing too. We (South Africans) now have our own Google.co.za home page!

After being (just a little) jealous when in the UK, US and Brazil seeing their own customised pages we finally get our own. Aardvark has been there a while, was fairly good, and was google powered. It worked fairly well but there was still little reason to use it above Google. The real thing just SEEMS that much better.

Per an article on Itweb this afternoon there is good news from Vodacom. As of 1 Feb they are offering much improved bundles for 3G (and GPRS) access.

Instead of only a single option of R600 for 1 gig (includes network card), now you can get smaller packages :

" R35 for 20Mb, R110 for 75Mb, R149 for 150Mb and R200 for R250Mb; all of which can be purchased on an ad hoc basis, with users able to change their package from month to month, as it suits their needs."

This is great, now must just get my PDA hooked up to my cell phone again via bluetooth. The previous cost was R35 for 1 meg, I am very happy to have 20 for the same price, and browsing from the PDA could now become a viable option.

Now they must just (please please pretty please) come out with a few more handsets.

Ok, so the analytical accountant showing in me.

I read on Cnet that some people in the UK are rather annoyed at being overcharged for their Mac Minis, so decided we arent alone in South Africa. The brits are being ripped off as much as we are. Ok, so went onto the store websites for UK, SA and USA, and then got todays exchange rates and did the calculations.

Uk : 27% Ireland  35.66%  South Africa 50.78%

What the heck, we are ripped off twice as much as the Brits. They are complaining, hope like heck more people here do and something can be done about it. This really sucks.

The full table in the attached image shows a couple of other products. The "least" overpriced items is the ipod mini at 35.87% over priced, versus 34.38 in the UK.

I read with great excitement about the release of the Mac Mini (and the shuffle for that matter). After all the rumours and speculation it turned out to be true. http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2370791

Priced at $499 for the smaller model and $599 for the bigger one, that translates into R3000 at current rates. At that price I was considering getting one to use a unix box on my network. The Mac OS (and the machine) has always been fun to play with.

Today the prices were listed on the ZA Store web site.  http://www.zastore.co.za/imacmini.php

Oh what a pity. The smaller mini is listed as R4579 and the larger at R5439. What an opportunity lost. I will be hard pressed to buy one at these prices when i can get an AMD64 machine with 512meg ram and much bigger disk space for less. Sure it doesnt have the impressive array of Mac software. But still.

The Shuffle didnt get off much better. The $99 there translated into R839. Still if the mini was done at that same rate it would have been priced at R4195. That would have been marginally better. Ok, so I hoped for around R3999. Perhaps when I get over my disappointment at being ripped off I will reconsider, unless I can convince a touring friend to bring me one back from the US (hey, no keyboard, no mouse, and the lightest mac ever) - best option perhaps.

 

Disorder | Rating Paranoid: Low Schizoid: Moderate Schizotypal: Moderate Antisocial: Low Borderline: Moderate Histrionic: Moderate Narcissistic: Moderate Avoidant: Low Dependent: Moderate Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/disorder_information2.html Found the link to it from : http://www.livejournal.com/users/poxy_roxy/, thanks

We have been hearing about the "cell" processor from Sony for quite a while in relation to the Playstation 3 and other consumer products they have in mind. Rumours had been spread and bits written about how these chips could be found in everything from the TV to the Washing Machine and Fridge, and also about how their inherent networking nature would allow extra processing cycles from one device to be used by another, so hooking up the fridge gives you an extra few frames in Gran Turisimo 5?

This evening I read a few more articles about how this wonder chip could affect the PC industry in many other ways. Take a read :

Xbox 2 "Xenon" likely to receive 3.5 GHz CPU : http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040629_113414.html

The Xbox2, code-named "Xenon", will include a IBM PowerPC processor, with a frequency of at least 3.5 GHz. The CPU consists of three independent cores; each of them will be able to issue two instructions per clock cycle. This allows games to use six symmetric hardware threads. At peak performance the CPU is expected to reach 21 billion instructions per second, according to the document. SiS will deliver the I/O hardware.

This thing isn't a Cell processor per say, but used most of the same technology.

Then Paul Murphy on LinuxInsider.com wrote an article : Fast, Faster and IBM's PlayStation 3 Processor : http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/34548.html

Paul talks around some of the outrageous speed claims made for the cell processor, and where they are derived from.

" a four-way assembly running at a planned 4 GHz offers 32 x 4 = 128 Gigaflops in potential floating-point execution. A 64-way supergrid made by stacking eight eight-way assemblies would have a total of 512 attached processors and could, therefore, break 2 teraflops if data transportation kept up with the processors. " "For games developers, however, the potential gains -- up to 50 times the best x86-based processor and graphics board combinations can deliver -- should outweigh the pain. Even minor software change, the kind of thing Adobe does to take advantage of the Altivec in Photoshop, should offer significant advantages to a wider programming community and enable floating-point-intensive applications to run a full order of magnitude more quickly on this machine than on Intel's best."

In a followup article : Linux on Intel: Think Dead Man Walking    http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/34707.html he goes on to talk about the impact of having a new desktop machine made available built on the cell. Some fairly outrageous thinking in there, but then why not. This chip is really something special and it COULD change the status quo if all the planets align and we all stand on our left legs. I certainly know I would love to play with one of these things. And since the Linux developers appear to have more than a passive dislike for the wintel platform, the availability of a high powered, cheap, linux supporting platform would be a no-brainer.

He then moves on in the next article to explain the potential consequences for apple. Some interesting points in there, but perhaps the threat is overstated - for now. Read "Apple Is Up the Market Without a CPU" - http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/38633.html

More out there seem to think that Apple's (rumoured to be : MacRumours, ThinkSecret and others http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/12/20041229012802.shtml) sub $500 will gain it massive entry into the first time buyer's market, as well as bring a whole ton more converts from the iPod, and perhaps also drive more too it.

I have used some Macs in the past, was privileged enough to own and use an old Powerbook 540 (the last generation before the PowerMac). Wonderful machine. I would love to get one to add to the collection of machines here, and for my kids, but with the cheapest Mac around being in excess of R10 000 (around $1666) compared to a clone AMD64 for less than half that, there isnt much of a contest. Bring in a machine for less than that and we suddenly have some more options. Got to love that idea, let's hope Apple come to the party, a cheaper Mac, an IBM competitor to Wintel, could be an interesting year ahead.

Much has been said and written around the liberalisation of the Telecomms industry in South Africa, and particularly around what the legalisation of Voice Over IP (VOIP) may bring. Since we are a little behind the times (and let's not go into that - Telkom) when it comes to bandwidth availability and broadband access, it is interesting to see the predictions made for last year in the US, as well as updated predictions for the year ahead.

Go on over to Voxilla.com to read "One Look Back, Two Steps Forward" http://voxilla.com/voxstory130.html

I wonder how much of this will come to pass in SA in the coming months. Let's hope that VOIP provides some competition to Telkom in the voice arena.