Holly Day

August 01, 2007 | Comments

Normally during this week in August I pack my bags and wander up to the British Aikido Federation Summer School up in Chester, but at the last minute I chickened out this year. I didn't feel adequately prepared for my next grading (having cut my training down to twice a week since Christmas, almost by accident), and given that my only other holiday this year is 2 weeks in the US incorporating a visit to Burningman, I fancied some time off to actually relax.

And it's been lovely so far. The weekend came and went in a flash, as weekends do, and on Monday Soph and I got up at a lazy hour and drove over to Barcombe. We've been meaning to get out to the country again for ages, and despite her enduring car problems and vandalism, Streetcar came to the rescue and got us out to greener pastures: a pub lunch in the middle of nowhere and a wander along country lanes.

Tuesday was more of the same: a late start, wander down to the beach for lunch at the Oh So Social (food: nice, service: OKish), then took a bag of books up to Queens Park and sat in the sun, alternating reading and dozing. The subject matter wasn't exactly restful (me: Robert Fisks The Great War For Civilisation) but the environment almost managed to make up for it. Then back home for a snooze and out to dinner at Mae Ped Ped Ped (food: very good, service: rubbish) followed by a cocktail or two at Valentinos whilst we watched the local youth mucking around with their bikes in the pedestrianised streets outside.

Today was a bit of a step backwards, as Devi and I got the train to Sussex University to see the MSc poster presentations. I was a bit disappointed this year - only 3 students actually did a presentation, and in the past I've found them much better attended; but there was still some good stuff there, and it's nice just to get out to the campus and chat to academic types. A visit to the office followed, and a 10-minute "I'll just reconfigure that router" turned into a 2-hour stressathon, which I've now completely forgotten thanks to sunshine, cats, and ginger beer.

Tonight: the coding dojo (and popping of my Ruby cherry), a chat with local agile-ish folks, and maybe some noodling with things that I have meant to noodle with for far too long. And tomorrow I'm thinking of dusting off a pen and paper (even if virtually) and actually writing something. Something non-technical. After that I'm half-planning to drive to Wales and go for a clamber around Snowdonia, but that'll depend on the weather and my accumulated lethargy....

Meanwhile, news from Chester: all the Airenjuku students passed their gradings with Marisa rokkyu, Yvonne gokyu and Steve sankyu. Nice one guys :)

Cocoon: 1 week on

July 30, 2007 | Comments

So I've now spent a week using an O2 Cocoon as a primary phone for all my personal stuff. In fact this was a test of several things: the handset itself, a clamshell (which I've never used in real life before), O2 as a network, and being a PAYG customer (which I noticed made me *way* more price sensitive and less inclined to use 118 or mobile data in general).

I've been gently impressed by the phone in many ways (it grew on me to a disturbing extent over the first few days of use), and I reckon it's the best operator-branded handset I've yet seen, but there's a few things about it which were frankly awful and had me pining for my trusty Sony Ericsson K800i:

Despite the manual saying it does, I've not managed to get the device to sync with my mac, or even appear visible to it;
I couldn't tell whether the charging cradle ("The Nest") worked or not. Certainly the phone charged when I plugged the cable directly into it, but via the cradle things were less clear;
A biggie: I couldn't get photos off it by Bluetooth. For some reason the handset fell over when I tried to pair it with my laptop or send photos from it, leaving me with a load of pics I just cant get off;
The phone sped up when I removed the animated wallpaper from the home screen; up until that point it was annoyingly slow;
I couldn't work out how to reply to an MMS with a text message, which was *really* annoying;

These aside, it's quite a decent device though; and whilst it's not for me I could see it taking serious market share away from the RAZR and chums or LG. Not everyone I showed it to liked the aesthetic, but I suspect it's a love-it-or-hate-it look, and I fell on the side of loving. As version 1, I think it's really interesting, but wouldn't buy it or use it myself. Version 2 I expect to be more tempting tho. Things I particularly liked about it:

Having the first few words of a text message appear on the outer casing when it arrives; great for glancing at, though I can see how this might lead to problems depending on the content of the incoming message ;)
The use of colour in the UI; nothing fancy, but it was clear and felt very coherent as an O2 device;
It makes such a good alarm clock - to the point that, when the device is nestled in its cradle, it almost looks like a cheap and rather tacky digital clock. I don't think this is a bad thing, personally - it's recognising a behaviour that might belittle the lofty aspirations some operators have for their devices, but is nevertheless important to real people;

So there you go. I've been sent some other documentation on the background to the design of the device by the guys at O2s agency; but I don't want to get into the habit of posting anything they send me up here unless folks specifically want to see it. Drop a comment if you do.