Lifeblog

Does Anyone Use Phone Booths Anymore?

A long forgotten phonebooth
Originally uploaded by schickr

PhoneBoy asks this question (link below). Indeed, I think the folks who have been ramping down their phonebooth assets were so narrow-minded (as in 'phone booth are for folks who need a to place a call and do not have a phone') that they blew a golden opportunity.

In telecomms, one perennial battle is for locations to put stuff - poles and pipes for wires, plots of land for towers and dishes, rights-of-way for repair trucks, and little squares of sidewalk for phone booths.

About two years ago I came up with some (IMHO) great ideas on how to use phone booth. For starters, there is still a place for them everywhere for quiet space for the talker or for peace for those around the talker. Indeed, on some Finnish trains there are phone booth for folks to use with their mobile so as not to disturb the passenger. I use it all the time for privacy.

It take no genius to realize what one can do with a booth if someone is sitting there for 3 minutes or more (and PhoneBoy is asking the right questions). It can also be a booth for offering other services, such as booth-only WiFi (to make the person come into the booth), or directory information.

The hard part of setting up a service like that today is securing the little plot of sidewalk. But the phone booth guys already had all that: location, a wire coming in, electricity.

And the telcos and their partners blew it all thinking that we don't need phone booths anymore.

Link: Does Anyone Use Phone Booths Anymore?

Maybe instead of ripping out the hardwired phones from these phone booths, maybe they can leave them there as a reminder of days gone by or for those times when you need a little bit of piece and quiet when you’re trying to make a call? Or better yet, turn them into pico cells for the mobile network operators?

Download the Nokia N73 Time Zone Upgrader

Go figure. I had recently heard of the new Daylight Savings Time rules in the US (at least) and saw some discussion regarding Apple and such.

Well, at least my companie's hands are sort of clean. :-) Here (link below) is a file to update the time zones on an N73. I guess there are other ones for other Nokia phones. At least the S60 ones.

This makes me proud.

I'm curious to know who else had been making such files available - Apple? Sony Ericsson? Microsoft? Please let me know.

Link: Nokia - Smartphone - Phone software - Nokia N73 - Product support - Get support and software:

Nokia Time Zone Upgrader
Nokia_N73_TimeZone_upgrader.SIS
23-Feb-2007 | 15.30 KB | English

The date of the "Daylight saving time" will be changing in certain countries during 2007. This application updates database in the device containing the daylight saving time dates. This will help e.g. in avoiding a conflict in calendar synchronisation if the device and PC are having a different time. Please restart your device after installation for the changes to take effect.

Update: While I was posting this, I was doing an SW Update check and, lo!, Apple is also offering a Time Zone update. Yeah!

Pre-conference interview at bloxpert.com

Nicole Simon is at it again! She's interviewing folks who will be at Le Web 3 next week.

We had a quick chat yesterday and here she has it (link below).

 

Thanks, Nicole.

Link: Leweb 3: Interview with Charlie Schick (Nokia) - bloxpert.com.

Charlie Schick leads product management for Nokia Multimedia's online products and gives a little bit insight how the company 'ticks'.

Download MP3 (19 min, 12 MB)

* how Nokia is structured for new developments
* as well as their change from being just a manufacturer and towards a "solution provider" for the mobile person   
* how the history of commerce can be linked to Nokia   
* his passion and how he got into his new job   
* 1996/7 or 2006 - bring back the old slides! The vision is still the same but now people and technology embrace it more   
* what is the next big thing for him?

WidSets adds more stuff

Just got a note in my mailbox that WidSets updated and added a bunch of things (link below).

On paper, it all looks promising. I've just updated everything, did a clean out of my old wids and popped in a few more, like the Manhattan Story Mashup wid.

Get the Story wid:

Let's see how they've been growing. They're young, but if they are on the right path, and if we are patient enough to give them the time, there is hope that they can kick some tusch.

Link: WidSets.

The WidSets service was launched a little over 3 months ago, and now is time for the third release, meaning it's time to reload your mobile client and make the most out of the new improved WidSets.

... After about 30 mins of playing with it:
Yeah, they've added some cool things since I last used WidSets: alerts, being able to send a wid to someone (that's clever), some light management of wids from the phone, and a list of the last 10 wids added (under the system wid). Even the website has added some things, like better management of wids, more ways to create wids, and, of course, a ton more wids.

And I suggest you check out their clever main page (you need to logout). They've highlighted a few ways to use your wids depending on if you're a social butterfly, a blogger, or a news junkie and such.

What I can say, is that there are so many small little things that WidSets has that one might not notice, but that the WidSets team has implemented in very mobile-savvy way. This is not 'just' a widget app. They also have quite a bit of clever infrastructure and usability around such an app.

Keep it up guys. You're still in the right track. Don't let up.

BTW, if anyone manages to build a wid using the dev kit they offer, please let me know.

New PC Suite - version 6.41

There's a new PC Suite version out that some guys I work with say has a few neat improvements, such as a new Bluetooth Wizard. A few techies I know got stuck trying to synch over Bluetooth. I think they had messed with the drivers or had two stack version on one machine. The Wizard seemed to make it easy to configure Bluetooth for PC Suite synching, even with two stacks on one machine.

This version also comes bundled with the cable drivers so you don't have to install them separately (I think the previous version did, also).

I installed it, and in no time was synching to Outlook over Bluetooth. Then, I disconnected and in no time was connecting to Lifeblog over the USB cable (my preferred method).

Check it out.

Link: Nokia - PC Suite Download Page.

Lifeblog posting protocol specification 1.0

This is the technical document that explains how we use Atom to post multimedia content online. Use this document to figure out how to adapt your servers to use Lifeblog 1.5.

Download the Lifeblog posting protocol specification 1.0.pdf

I will be putting this document eventually on the Nokia Lifeblog website, under the blogging FAQs. I just missed the big update and will put it up later.

A word of caution: if you are looking for support here, I cannot really give it, but can try to find someone who could – no guarantees, though.