Nokia N97 - a useless blogging tool, Blackberry Bold 9000 still wins.

Above is a link to Nokia's forum where there is a thread, with many screaming about the useless cut and paste functionality in web pages. As a Blogger, you challenge. It makes life a lot easier if a machine like N97, went just a little bit extra by allowing the touch screen to select blocks of text or words, so that we can drop them into our blogs. That way we can clearly point out when an article is wrong. Unlike my Blackberry Bold 9000, the N97 cannot drop texts into text of sites like Blogger, to write a Blog. To produce this article I had to send the link via email in the N97. So it allows you to capture the url and puts it in a text message or email, but that's it. Its clipboard then is limited to email and text messaging. What a shame, in what is otherwise a really beautiful piece of kit. Below is my unique experience as a Blogger. If you are not a mobile "on the go" Blogger, then ignore it.

The media interface is nice, even though there is no accelerometer. You have to open the keyboard for the landscape layout to work. There is no option for column layout of web pages. All this means is that you have to tap around on the screen a lot. Imagine me with a sandwich. Half the sandwich would end up on the phone. As it is, I have to use my Blackberry Bold with the left hand, and eat the sandwich with the right hand, and there is little mess. The N97 has a normal phone alphanumeric screen in portrait mode that allows cut and paste. But it is a serious waste of space. You have to use the normal phone key pad, and then once you get the print showing in the box above, you can run your fingers over it, and they will highlight for cut and paste. You can't do it any other way, by using a cursor as there isn't one. So it's jam and marmalade all over the screen. So then you open the keyboard where it is easier to type, but you are so limited in what you can do. All that space, and that is wasted too. Why, because some clever dingdong decided to not have that touch screen shading you had in portrait mode, in landscape mode. Nightmare! Why can't they make that into an iphone inputting system, which then becomes a virtual screen in any language you want, that uses an accelerometer in landscape. Now that would sway me. That way you have a bold and iphone in it as well, and it would then replace a laptop.

The N97 has the potential of being a thumber scroller blogger phone like the Bold, but it fails badly at the moment. It seems to be targeted at passive browsers only, that are not web editors. I actually wrote this with great difficulty, with two hands, using that silly space key and a dumb shift key, as I am used to the more intelligent Blackberry Bold keys. Ok the multimedia side of things are brilliant and we can't blame Nokia for not having enough widgets yet, which will eventually surpass the iphone, as the operating system is open. But I seriously wonder what type of brains are at work at Nokia, if they slip up so easily.

So I hope that some clever Blogger will create a cut and paste system for blocks of text. I hope that the new Skyfire will allow it, and all will be fine. So yeah, for £500, it leaves a little to be desired outside the world of entertainment. It is then not a replacement for the good old Blackberry Bold 9000 fitted with a Mini Opera. Maybe Opera will come up with the cut and paste solution for N97? In the mean time give that guy in charge of this machine a serious chatting. He obviously does not know a thing about Blogging. All we need is a function that captures the block of text and then asks if we want to Blog it. A bit like the BlogThis! function. Is it really that hard to do?

Blackberry Bold saved me

Last night the telephone line went dead. The internet was still working. I had to call BT to get it fixed. I happened to have another landline, but at the wait was awful with all those buttons to press. I was told to use the internet to get it done fast. Duh! What do you do? I used this Blackberry Bold that I am using to type right now, to browse over to bt.com/faults and actually managed to fill out the forms using the Opera Mini browser. All along the phone was waiting in the queuing system for a human to answer. Well I had a text back from BT they were on the case, and still no one had picked up. Finally a lady answered and said that it was requested already. So I get up to answer the front the bell and it is the BT man and it was all sorted. So the moral of the story is, get a mobile phone with a good browser and if you can't type a Blackberry. Thanks be to all who keep all this stuff going. The world is getting better all the time and we don't need one person all the time, but when one of us goes down (as did BT) the other systems are there to help. Rock on.

From Blackberry Storm to Blackberry Bold again

Crazy isn't it. I have now done a full circle. A while back, I was really wound up on the new Bold. When it came, it looked enormous compared to my 8310. But now a bunch of new phones later, I can see where the designers are going.

The bold is bigger, but it is easier on the fingers, and the screen is not a compromise compared to the Storm. What the Storm lacks is cursor control. Actually I saw a colleague at work, who had just got a Google Phone or the G-1, and that have a roller ball. That is what the Storm should have done. Fiddling around on the screen with your fingers is useless. With a scroll, it can land on the smallest button or link, and make it work. Try hitting a small link with your finger. Now with the phones that have styluses like the Palm Treo Pro it is ok, but there you have other problems with the browsers and the email.

So the Bold wins big time. It does not have touch screen, but you need it, as much as you need touch screen on your computer. The email, and the browser, and in particular two particular add-ons are really neat. Read on.

Google Sync is a cool tool if you want to truly release the mobile phone from the computer. Actually come to think of it, I have not connected my new Bold to the PC and etc. Why? Because I just downloaded Google Synch and all my Gmail contacts and appointments were synchronized over the air. And speaking of Over The Air or OTA, this is where Blackberry is really winning. The OTA software make the Blackberry mobiles truly independent.

And the very best OTA software has to be the Opera Mini. Download that into the Blackberry Bold 9000 and you have a superb mix. WOW! Now you don't have that error I spotted and posted all over the net. The one where the text does not indent automatically when posting on bulletin boards or forums. Opera opens another window, you edit it and it just posts it in the forum box. Superb. Especially if you are addicted to Newsnow.co.uk.

So there you have it. If you want to Blog and post on the web and don't want to use a computer, you can do it in a Blackberry Bold 9000. And the best network, with the most helpful people are the folks at Vodafone. They have put up with all my switching. Hats off to all of you.