Month: April 2008

Holux M-1000 and my Nokia E65 phone now play nice

Back in December, I bought myself a little present in the form of a GPS receiver.
I wanted to get it as it could work well with my then spanking new Nokia E65 phone.

After scouring the GPS websites, of which there hundreds, I eventfully decided on getting the Holux M-1000. This little gem was an absolute killer: more accurate, longer battery life and a smaller form factor than anything else available in regular Dutch high street shops.

So I got me one those little monsters from my local MediaMarkt and tried to get it to work. Sadly, the results were abysmal and most of the time I couldn’t even get a signal. Or so my phone said.

Well today I took the time do a thorough scanning of the internet. It turns out that both apps I used (Nokia Maps, Google Maps for Mobile) rely on the underlying Symbian 6 3rd Edition to connect with GPS devices. For some reason, Nokia’s version of Symbian seems to screw around with the Bluetooth connection and fails to maintain it.

To my relief there seems to be a reliable work-around for this. The work-around involves removing the Holux M-1000 registration in the paired devices list within the phone. You need to do this every time before you start a GPS-enabled application. It’s irritating to have to do, but so rewarding when you see the thing connect with 12(!) satellites within 2 seconds flat.

Now my GPS receiver works like a charm and I’m going to have a great time playing around with it. Yahoo!

Thanks to the great comments from dayoka on the Nokia forum.

Second Life woos corporations – too little, too late?

Just recently in the news, Linden Labs (the creators of Second Life) and IBM have announced that they will allow corporations to run isolated portions of the Second Life universe on their own administrated servers to cater their business needs.

I used to work at a company that was exploring the business uses of Second Life. Sad to say the subject has been so dead over here in Europe that this all seems a lot like something that should have been ready during the hype 2 years ago.

Not to mention, this whole setup sounds all to familiar to the way in which ActiveWorlds works; and a lot of good it did that.
For years, Linden Labs has argued that its sole hosting of the Second Life universe was a unique selling point, something that made it more secure, more reliable than its competitors.

Sorry Linden Labs, you really have lost me.
I’m ready to jump aboard the OpenSim, Croquet and Multiverse projects!

See: NY Times Article “Second Life: Tamed for Corporate Consumption”.

Stephen Colbert Still Has A Wish

It’s been almost a month now and yet poor Stephen Colbert has still not seen his life long wish fulfilled: to have a presidential hotdog lunch.

He has gone to great lengths to make his heartfelt plea to president George W. Bush (as seen on the 2008-03-06 episode of the Colbert Report):

In his desperation poor Stephen has been repeating his plea to the president for every show!

Yet to no avail.
Please mister president heed Stephen’s call; make him the happiest man in the world!

President Bush, Have a Hotdog Lunch with Stephen Colbert!

please?