Year: 2005

As you might have noted in my last post, and lack of posts prior to that one last week, I’ve been extremely busy. I am crashing through an amazingly high profile and short term client project which will have quite a few of us cranking through the holidays. I am actually booked on it full-time which is funny considering my other projects make for a “full-time” job is well. Not exactly how I was allocated per our retainer, such is life. It’s all good – even though my wife thinks otherwise since the hours and recent and pending travel are nutty.

When I accepted this gig in May, I thought it was going to be what is actually starting to really become… patience young jedi. I am working on some very cool stuff (to a geek like me anyway) and dealing with some new and very smart people on the client side.

It’s nice that the significant uptick has taken place right after my switch over to the Powerbook since that is the best and most comfortable place for me to manage the unbelievable assault of email and information. I am accustomed to a lot of email, but I get an average of 150-200 work emails a day that all require a nice piece of my attention. That in addition to a constant flow of meetings and traveling between locations makes for interesting days and weeks. I’ve amazed myself at how much information it seems possible to manage though frankly it’s totally daunting all the same. I’ve been working through Kinkless GTD and OmniOutliner as my primary keeper of info and think it’s a solid combo. Mail is locked to Entourage, though Mail.app seems to connect nicely to Exchange. No chance being even more fringe than I already am as the only non-creative with a Mac.

Otherwise all is well here… Suburban life is excellent and we are enjoying the house beyond expectations. There are many projects here to complete to further enhance things, but it’s a complete quality of life improvement.

Technorati Tags: Personal

Andy hooked me up with a Nokia Europe link today that enabled a config for the N90 and made getting online (as I am now) via bluetooth quite simple.

I highly recommend this as a great way to gain access beyond Wifi. If I was on Cingular, I could be enjoying EDGE or better, but TMO currently only does GPRS. It still works well for email – even with my VPN active.

Here are the steps for anyone else looking to do this:

• Head to the Nokia Site for starters and follow the on-page wizard.
• Once you’ve received your configuration MMS messages and saved them you should have a config for your carrier (T-Mobile in my case) ready to rock on your phone. I was actually missing this step before and made an incorrect that the unlocked N90 knew anything about how to connect to my data service without this.
• Now that the N90 is ready to connect, you need to make sure that your computer is also ready. On my PowerBook, I opened Network Preferences and added a new connection entitled Bluetooth. While it’s not necessary to make a new connection, I find it easy to manage the litany of ports and VPN details I need by keeping things separate. In the Bluetooth network connection choose the second drop down which says Network Status by Default and seen here:

• From the Network Status menu, you want to choose Network Port Configurations and if you are following my plan to keep it simple and separate, you’ll want to uncheck all but Bluetooth and VPN if you need it.
• Assuming you have not done this before, you’ll need to make one more stop online before we can complete this process… Ross Barkman has created an amazing set of modem scripts for various phones. choose what you need and follow the simple installation (copy the files).
• Heading back to Network Preferences, you can now select, Bluetooth again from the second drop down menu. Add internet2.voicestream.com as your phone number in the PPP tab.
• In the Bluetooth tab, you need to pick a modem and courtesy of Ross Barkman, you now have quite a few new options. I am using the Nokia GPRS CID1 script and so far so good. Be sure to disable error correction and uncheck the wait for dial tone setting.
• Under TCP / IP make sure your configured for PPP.
• Hit Apply Now

You are basically done at this point. I leave the modem icon in my menu bar and have my connection set to connect as needed, though you can initiate manually as well. I just got this working today and was connected for the better part of my one hour commute home tonight on Metro North.

Technorati Tags: Commute, N90, Nokia, N-Series, DUN, T-Mobile, Mobile

Not really sure why this was on the Metro North train, but it was right next to me this am….

If you can’t recognize it, it’s a PSP not some kind of new lollipop.

Technorati Tags: Commute, Marketing, N-Series, N90, Nokia, PSP, Travel

I just love having a capable phone like the N90 handy for moments like this… no need to worry about whether the video camera is around, let alone charged with a clean tape.

Priceless…

Shot 12/3/2005 @ 7:48:08 PM

Technorati Tags: Home movie, N-Series, N90, Nokia, Personal