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Weekly Wrap 165: Distractions and decisions, of a sort

HMAS Advance (P83): click to embiggenIf there was a unifying theme for my week Monday 29 July to Sunday 4 August 2013, it was Distraction.

I distracted myself with the Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial. While I’m getting some useful real-world experience of the two products, it’s probably not going to generate any revenue, and it soaked up a lot of my time. I distracted myself even further by fiddling around with video editing.

I was distracted by delayed trains on Thursday night, sadly due to a death on the railway line at Mt Druitt, which meant I didn’t get back to Wentworth Falls until 0100 the following day.

I was distracted by Telstra’s changes to mobile broadband allowances — apparently they’ve now dropped the maximum data allowance they’ll provision to a mobile phone to a mere 9GB a month, so I was living the scenario I wrote about recently — and I had to trek to Penrith on Saturday to buy another device or risk being sodomised by their 10c/megabyte over-run charges.

And finally, today I was distracted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd finally deciding to call the election for 7 September — which means I’m distracting myself even more.

Articles

  • So you call yourself a geek?, ZDNet Australia, 29 July 2013. There was quite a bit of reaction to this column, possibly for the wrong reasons.

Podcasts

Media Appearances

  • On Thursday, Channel TEN’s The Project recorded some of my comments about geoblocking, but they have not been aired yet.

Corporate Largesse

None.

The Week Ahead

[Update Monday 5 August 2013, 2155 AEST: This section has been changed to reflect the unfolding reality.]

On Monday I’ll write a ZDNet Australia column, making up for the one I’d intended to write on Friday, and then rum some errands to Katoomba.

On Tuesday I’ll write for Technology Spectator, work on revenue-generation for The 9pm Election, and complete episode 3 of the Corrupted Nerds: Conversations podcast, amongst other things.

On Wednesday I’ll head to Sydney for some of the Check Point Experience, an event hosted by security vendor Check Point. Thursday will be another Sydney trip for a medical appointment and a few other bits and pieces. And Friday will be a day of podcast production,I hope.

The weekend is currently unplanned.

[Photo: Attack-class patrol boat HMAS Advance (P83) (click to embiggen photo), formerly of the Royal Australian Navy, now with the Australian National Maritime Museum, photographed on Sydney Harbour on 1 August 2013.]

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Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 3

Approaching Sydney Central, a frame from "Strathfield to Central": click to embiggenOn Thursday I decided to check out the Nokia Lumia 925’s video capabilities. That’s a frame grab above I continue to be impressed with this phone’s image quality.

Indeed the video, which I’ve entitled Strathfield to Central for obvious reasons, is the highlight not only of Day 3 of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial but of the entire trial so far.

I had hoped to embed the full video here. But I’m on mobile bandwidth today, and unless I upload a gigabyte or two of data, it simply won’t do it justice. So it’ll have to wait a while. Stand by.

Meanwhile, here’s the rest of my bullet-point observations from Day 3.

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Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 2

Wattle blooming near Bunjaree Cottages: click to embiggenI didn’t leave home base today, so I just gave the Nokia Lumia 925’s camera another quick try-out. I continue to be impressed.

It was an overcast winter’s day here at Wentworth Falls, but everything was looking nice and crisp after some early rain. I figured that a few snapshots around Bunjaree Cottages would be in order.

So, for Day 2 of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial, here’s 24 photos. All of them have been uploaded to Flickr exactly as they came out of the camera.

The image at the top of the post is a good example of the close-up capability — and I’m pleased that Nokia calls it “close-up” and not “macro”. The image certainly holds up when you zoom in and tweak the contrast.

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Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8 trial: Day 1

Katoomba railway station: click to embiggenSetting up the Nokia Lumia 925 was straightforward, and I’m impressed with the smartphone itself. But while there’s plenty to like about Windows Phone 8, I was also struck by the lack of key applications and a few rough edges.

These are my bullet-point observations from Day 1 of my Nokia Lumia 925 / Windows Phone 8 trial. You can also follow it live on Twitter, where I’m using the hashtag #LumiaWP8trial.

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Nokia Lumia 925 and Windows Phone 8: the trial begins

Nokia Lumia 925 smartphone pictured against the Reviewers Guide: click to embiggenStarting today, I’m going to try using a Nokia Lumia 925 running Windows Phone 8 as my primary smartphone. I plan to run this trial for a week, through to the end of next Tuesday 6 August 2013. This post explains the why and how of it all.

The why is easy enough. I write about this stuff, and both Nokia and Microsoft are hoping these products will be their saviours. I should therefore take a closer look, and what better way than to actually use them.

The how is easy enough too. As soon as I’ve finished this blog post, I’ll take the SIM from my current smartphone, put it into the Lumia, and go from there, attempting to use it in exactly the same way as I go about my business each day.

While I’m doing the set-up, I’ll be listening to a Patch Monday podcast episode from a year ago, Windows 8: Rectangles for all the things explained. I’ve already read the companion article, Windows 8 interface’s design heritage.

I’ll be tweeting my observations as I go, using the hashtag #LumiaWP8trial, writing up my observations at the end of each day, and recording them for a podcast. There will also be a Flickr set of all the photos.

Finally, here’s some background information on how I work.

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