Both yesterday and today I’ve been having a bit of a play with applications for the N95 as well as internet access via the phone.

First all, it’s REALLY easy to convert a Wordpress blog like this into a mobile application. The free WordPress Mobile plugin is rather good. It comes with a plug at the bottom for the author, plus 50% of any advertising revenue goes to them too - unless you pay a one-off fee of £25. As I don’t advertise, this isn’t an issue

So, if you now visit my site via your mobile phone you’ll find it display as appropriate for that format.

The screenshot of this is to the right and was created by a very simple free Symbian app.

Now, whilst playing with the aforementioned Mobile plugin, I noticed that they offered a QR barcode to add to each page - scanned by an appropriate mobile phone or PDA, this would link back to the URL of the page. Now, I’d noticed the barcode scanner function on my phone but couldn’t see the use.

Instead of adding one for each page, I’ve instead put one in this blogs sidebar - scan that on your mobile phone and it will give you the general URL of the site - far quicker than typing it in! I can see other uses for this (it can hold all sorts of information, not just URL’s) and I’ve already seen it used in magazine adverts.

There are a number of a QR code generators on the internet, so there’s really no excuse not to dabble!

N95 application wise, I’m also trying out the Nokia Step Counter (yes, yes, I know). What I’m really excited about, though, are a number of apps by a chap named Samir - at the moment they’re all in a closed beta, but he intends to make them freeware once complete. These includes utilities to perform actions if the phone is turned over or shook (I love the idea of turning the phone over at night and it automatically going into a silent profile!).

Lastly, I’ve recently taken delivery of an ultra-slim Bluetooth keyboard, made by iGo. It’s superb and a really good price too - less than half the price of most others. Now, ignoring the fact that they’d decided to put a sticker on it running from front to back, and not one that easily comes off, or the fact that the manual that comes with it is next to useless, it’d heartily recommend it.

However, there are no N95 drivers for it, so you have to use those that are available for the N73. I contacted iGo to find out when they might be available and it would appear that they never will be as the keyboard is no longer being made. So snap them up whilst they’re cheap! And still available!

I’ve learnt two things today.

First of all, it’s possible to crash IE 6 via a single line of code…

<style>*{position:relative}</style><table><input></table>

It doesn’t crash Firefox, Opera, etc. For whatever reason, it causes a fatal error in mshtml.dll.

If you want you can try it here.

The second thing I’ve learnt today, thanks to a throw-away line in a magazine, is that you can email a Wii console.

The Email address is wxxx@wii.com, where xxx is their friend code. For example, w123456789012@wii.com (no, that’s not mine).

Nice.

Today my new phone turned up.

My provider rang me yesterday asking if I wanted to end my current contract early, and they’d send me a new phone. Well, offers like that I can’t refuse. Especially when they provide me with free internet access on it too.

So, I’ve moved from a Sony Ericsson K800i to the Nokia N95 8Gb, replete with Wi-fi connection and 5mp phone. Hmmm.

Now, if you get one of these, I’d recommend heading to play.com where they do a splendid leather case for it, along with car power cables and the like for just a few points - cheaper than you can get them on eBay.

One thing I have had problems with was my wi-fi connection at home. The connection keeps dropping out. Thankfully a quick Google found my answer, thanks to a forum post. It would appear this is - erm - side effect of having a Netgear modem. It can be worked around though.

Lastly if, like me, you use Google to organise your life I’d like to recommend GooSync, which enables you, free, to sync your Google Calendar with your phone (and not just the N95 - many others). For some cash (about £2 a month) you can get them to sync multiple calendars plus (crucially for me) your Google contacts.

The aforementioned problem with my router also affected GooSync working too - however, as the sync problem occurred first I didn’t initially know I had a much wider issue. However, GooSync have an excellent contact system, as well as forums. I’m always grateful when products such as these come with good support. In the end, though, I found out the above router fix before I got a response, but ended up posting the above to their forums as well (you never know, it may affect someone else too).

Now, I’m not a network expert in any way shape or form. Therefore when my Nintendo Wii started having network problems last night, I was in a bit of a panic. I also have a wireless streaming MP3-thingy in the living room and that wasn’t working either.

However, I knew my wireless network was working as I’d been tinkering on my daughter’s laptop earlier, which was fine.

Anyway, I kicked off my work laptop which has a wireless connection and that worked fine upstairs, near my wireless router. Taking it downstairs, it kept failing.

I’d heard about NetStumbler and so installed this free software onto my laptop. Upstairs it picked up a number of nearby networks, all on different channels. Moving it downstairs, a load more appears and up-popped someone on the same channel. It wasn’t very strong but never-the-less I thought I’d trying changing my networks channel. I chose 4 as nobody was on this - in fact no-one was either side of it either (i.e. channel 3 or 5 - not sure if this helps but, hey, worth a try).

I now have a solid wireless network again.

Unfortunately, I was on channel 6 because I have a Super-G modem and that channel is required for it to work. By changing channels it means my daughters laptop is now using a standard “G” speed (54mbps) - for her use she won’t notice a difference but when I back up her computer across the network I guess I’ll notice it!

I could always track down the slacker using “my” channel….

I’ve earned a bit of extra money recently from some web ventures, so I’ve been able to buy some thing that I’ve planning for a while.

First of all, it’s my wife’s 30th birthday in a months time. I’d planned to get her an Asus EEE PC. Stock seems to be quite variable, so when I saw one in stock at a reasonable place I ordered one.

I’ve also been after a new scanner too. My eye was on an EPSON V350, which has a film loader built into the lid.

After cocking up delivery, and accidentally ordering next day, instead of free (and a cock-up that cost me £8. Grumble) I received both yesterday (the former now hidden away, naturally).

So, what do I think?

First of all, the EEE PC. It drew quite a crowd and work and everybody loved it. I have no intentions to install Windows on it, but leave the standard Linux install on it instead. I’ve performed updates to the existing software and set up the default settings. It reads all my USB keys and SD cards (including SDHC), including the Windows files that are on them. To my surprise it read a key formatted as NTFS (this is not usual in Linux). So, once home, I tried to get it to access my NTFS formatted NAS drive… it worked! She will now have access to a half Terabyte drive wirelessly, including my entire CD collection. Fantastic.

The Asus is easy to type on and incredibly easy to use. The only gripe is that every time you restart the machine it doesn’t automatically re-connect to your wireless network - you have to go and select it again and re-connect. After such a quick boot up time it’s disappointing that you’re then way-laid by such a simple thing.

The box doesn’t have a huge amount in - CD’s and DVD’s with manuals and Linux builds on, a really smart power supply (with the transformer on the plug, rather than a box half way along the cable), and a black slip-case.

Recommended? God, yes.

Now onto the EPSON V350 Photo scanner. What can I say? It’s a scanner. However, it does have a neat film feed in the lid which will perfectly scan 35mm film. I’ve not tried it yet but reviews say it’s excellent. However, I did get a chance to scan a single item - something my previous scanner struggled with. It’s a certificate in a sealed frame. My old scanner had problems with reflections in the frames glass. The EPSON? Perfect. And damn quick too.

Lots of software too including a copying facility that, matched with a printer, will turn it into a photocopier.

My only bug-bear (and there has to be one) is the amount of power it consumes when not in use. The alternative is to have it turn off with the PC, but that means the scanner making a noise and calibrating each time I turn the PC back on again. My solution was simple - leave it unplugged. But I’d like to think that manufacturers can think of better alternatives to this.