Clouds

You know, over the years, I've spent much time (not to mention money) trying to get my perfect device. As you know from reading this blog, I've thought on more than one occasion that this Nirvana was finally reached, only to find that there was something not quite right about the current toy. This has left me with a sometimes minor feeling of "Oh, what a pity they didn't just add..." whatever it was.

The 5800 is a really superb phone, and blew away the N78, which, as you know, took me to a whole new realm of geek-gasm when I bought that. But there I was in bed last night trying to IM a friend of mine using Nimbuzz (I'll go into that in a minute) on a phone with no physical keyboard. Now, on the Palm I'd have been writing the message on the screen with the character recognition - at which I got pretty damn quick, I can tell you (although moving from graffiti to graffiti 2 was a pig, because writing a "t" suddenly became much more of a deal - after all, it's one of the most used characters on the keyboard, and to have to put 2 strokes, well that just makes it more annoying. That and the "i"), but the character recognition on the Nokia is weird, and I've not had the time to get used to it that I'd had with the Palm.

Inevitably I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I'd got the wrong phone, and I should have gone for the N97 mini, a gadget I was able to get my hands on at an evening out with my brother and some other Nokia people not long ago. The reviews would have you believe that the touch screen, not being capacitative, is a completely unresponsive thing, fit only for the very ham-fisted amongst us. However, it turns out that I LIKE this kind of screen - my lack of desire to spread my fingerprints all over my niece's iPhone brought home this point. On the iPhone I have to use the pads of my fingers, I can't use my fingernails or a stylus - somehow I think there'll be few former Palm aficionados converting to the glossily good-looking iPhone! I found the keyboard on the N97 mini to be usable, even for my sausage-fingered self, and the touch screen did what I wanted with a small tap of my nail.

However, I've waxed lyrical about hardware for long enough (it might even be suggested that I'm a little over-enthusiastic about gadgets). I'm here to talk about something completely different. No! Not Monty Python! It's something which, somewhat sneakily, I suppose, has found it's way into my every day life without me really thinking about it that much. And what is it? It's The Cloud.

I may have the wrong interpretation of cloud computing, but for me it's all about being wherever, and having access to my stuff. My documents, my internet shortcuts, my music - my STUFF. It started off slowly with my introduction some 2 or 3 years ago, to Googlemail. There it was - all my mail, available wherever, whenever, and on whatever hardware I happened to have. And lets face it, I'll have some kind of hardware available - always.

Then I got the blog - all my thoughts for anyone to see. I mean, sure, I don't update it as often as I should, but it's a great place to throw my thoughts. I know that one person reads it - anyone else would be a bonus! There are times when I would love to be able to sit down and write a Harry Potter, but really, what the blog has taught me is that I'd be better off writing something small and snappy. I'd say "Watch this space!", but I wouldn't want to get your hopes up too much. Anyway, the real beauty of the blog is for summer updates. It's like an online, slightly geeky diary of holiday events.

Then last year I found Delicious. And it is! I can't believe it took me so long to find something so useful - that's ALL my interweb bookmarks right there - whatever the hardware, however often I re-build my machines (and I can point to a previous blog, and say it's not infrequent - in fact, its been mentioned that I should blog as often!) I don't lose my favourite internet sites.

It has to be said that a lot of my Cloud stuff is with Google, the new Microsoft of World Domination, so when they decide they've given enough away for free, I'm completely boned! I've got my calendar on Google syncing with my phone, so I can either enter appointments with Google (and a proper keyboard) or on my phone, with the not quite so easy to use touch screen.

Part and parcel of my Gmail account are my contacts. And then there are my Skype contacts. Of course, by it's very nature (Voice Over IP), Skype's going to be a Cloud type thing, but I love that I can use those contacts from any machine on which I can log in to Skype. And this is where we get back to Nimbuzz, mentioned so briefly, yet enticingly, at the beginning of this post.

This is, essentially, a social networking client. Sure, if I had a Facebook or Twitter account, I'd be able to use Nimbuzz to sign in and do whatever it is one does with those accounts. But it's Gmail/Orkut (it appears I've got a social networking account despite every attempt to avoid them) and Skype which are the important ones. (and, if I ever remember the password to my windows live account, I can get to that from Nimbuzz too.) Nimbuzz will sit in the background on my phone, connected to the world, telling my contacts on Skype and Gmail that I'm available to chat and call. And thus we return to the beginning! There I was, trying to type in a message to one of my mates on the phone, using the on-screen keypad, and I realised that the keyboard, fine for the odd text is inadequate for the rigours of a quick back and forth conversation.

The search continues...

Getting Trim

Some weeks ago I was browsing the interwebz (puh-lease! When am I not?) and one of the discussions I was following mentioned that a film called 99F was worth watching if I could ever find it. Now, as it happened, one of the open directories I'd seen just that day had a copy of the very film - it's quite likely the discussion came up because of that. So I grabbed a copy to view later. There were various other films I would have liked (for example: Juno), but since they were all dubbed in French, I felt there was little point in downloading a film created in the US, dubbed in French and then adding the subtitle file so I could understand it.

Of course, since the open directory was clearly owned by someone whose first language is French, and anyway, 99F is a French film, it was clear that I needed to find some subtitles in order to watch it. Thankfully there is a whole world of subs out there, and it was easy enough to find an SRT file for 99F.

In a little aside, I'd like to point out that not all subs are created equal. And by equal, I mean of equal quality. Since watching many Japanese and Korean dramas, not to mention the Chinese, Taiwanese and, I seem to remember, one Thai film, I've come to rely on some really good fan-subs over the last year or so. In fact, many of the Animé I've watched have some extremely comprehensive subs, detailing not only the voice translations, but also extra writing in the background, as well as providing encyclopaedic information on many terms/words used during the show. Since I have very little knowledge of any of these languages, I have to trust that the translations are pukka, and that is, in fact, what the people are saying. And since it's usually a labour of love for these people, I'll believe it. All this said, the translations for 99F are, well, somewhat loose, is probably the nicest way to put it. My French is not really good enough to watch a film without the subs, but it's certainly adequate to the task of being able to pause a movie and say "Hang on! That's not what he said!"

The main problem, though, is that the subs I downloaded, and the film I grabbed, do not match up. It became clear within a couple of minutes that the subs were 10 seconds ahead of the actual words. This is where a small knowledge of the language comes in very handy - had it been an Oriental language, I'd have had no clue until quite some way into the film, and would have been totally freaked out by the fact that sometimes the subs came on when no one was speaking.

Now, a typical .srt file is editable in any friendly (and indeed unfriendly) text editing tool. The difference is that even if you've got an unfriendly one, you probably don't use it very often. Probably never. Anyway, the file usually looks like this.

00:00:56 - 00:01:02

'Allo? 'Allo? I will say this only once!

And thus, when the video's been running for 56 seconds, the line "'Allo? 'Allo? I will say this only once!" will be displayed on the screen until you get to 1 minute and 2 seconds. At which point it'll stop showing. As you can see, it's easily editable. However, can you imagine going through a whole 1 hour and not quite 40 minutes of dialogue, changing the timings so that everything comes up 10 seconds later? Well, so can I, and I didn't even want to go there (I did actually start editing it, which is how I came to this conclusion.)

And so I started to think that finding a way to trim off the first 10 seconds of the film might actually be easier. After all, if it was an MP3 file, I'd put it into something like Audacity, trim off those extra seconds, and save the file. Simple doesn't cover how easy it is. After a quick grope round the interwebz, I decided I'd see if VLC could do it - after all, there have been many discussions on how totally awesome VLC is. In fact, it's so awesome that I use it in preference to any other video viewing program. And Windows Media Player isn't even on the long list, let alone the short list here!

Using the Convert option that VLC has, I was able to specify that I wanted it to convert my video to the same format, but start 10 seconds into the film. Yay!? Well, no, not yay. It did, indeed, trim the first 10 seconds off the video, but all it did was to play audio for 10 seconds, and then spring into video window after then - and the subs were still out!

So I went back to my old mate, Google (how many times have people kindly told me that "Google is your friend." when I've asked dumb questions on forums (fora?)), and had another try. And this time I clearly entered a better search phrase. This was the result. Ignore the beginning of the thread, you need to work your way down to the first comment by perspectoff - this is the user who solved the problem for me. I did exactly that at a command line, and shaved off those precious 10 seconds. And thus my subs sync successfully!

But the reason I had to come here and talk about it was because of the discussion which came after - the rest of the thread is like a super-tutorial for ffmpeg, as two forum users (perspectoff and FakeOutdoorsman) discuss the best command line switches to get the exact result required, in the shortest length of time! In many places they've expanded on what each switch they use does, discussing how best to enter the command in order to achieve optimum speed and efficiency while converting/shaving your video.

And once again, I love the internet!

A little bit of Trumpeting

I know that society frowns on blowing one's own trumpet. However, there are days when you're so pleased with yourself that you can't help but tell the world what you've been up to.

As you know, I do a little bit of support for friends, family, friends of family, and complete strangers recommended by anyone in one of the aforementioned groups. I also alter my pricing according to the people for whom I'm working, charging the most for complete strangers. Not so long ago I was called upon to help an old chap who wasn't at all computer literate sort out his internet connection - this was a guy who had a really lovely computer, specced up by his much more computer literate friend, but who didn't want to spend the money for broadband (and it has to be said, he wasn't going to use it), so was consequently still using a dial-up connection. What a blast from the past! Now, I didn't want to have to charge the old dear too much, so after I'd succeeded in getting his internet working correctly, and I'd shown him how to use email, and written him extensive, long hand and fully verbose notes, I tried to leave. I'd been there an hour, at this point. However, the chap, who was rapidly becoming a right pain in it, insisted I stay for a further hour to walk him through starting up everything again. And again. And again! In the end I felt fully justified in charging him the full price for the whole, soul-searing two hours, at my top price, too!

But this story's not about him, it's about my most regular customers. They're parents of a mate of mine who married a Canadian and moved over to Canada some years ago. We'd finally met up, after I don't know how many years, at Lego Land. We had a lovely day out, and during the course of the day, her parents asked me,

"So, Sian, what do you do for a living?"

"Oh, I support computers."

"Really? You could have a look at ours then?"

You know that sinking feeling? Yeah, that one!

"Oh, I suppose..." reluctantly.

"We'd pay you!" Sinking feeling gone!

Now, they don't pay my full on rate, partly because I like them a lot, but mostly because they're my most regular customers, and come back time and again for my own, unique brand of abuse.

And so it was that I found myself back at their place last Tuesday, for a look at all their ailing machines.

"There's a problem with the kitchen laptop."

"Oh yes? Remind me, I've not been on my computer in days, and I can't remember what the email said."

"Well, it doesn't start up properly."

"OK - let's have a quick look..."

I pressed the power button, and was presented with a message which said something to the effect of,

"Your hard drive is in imminent danger of failure. Please backup your data and replace the drive." I was exhorted to press F1 to continue.

"Oh, there's your problem then." I said.

"What is?"

"Your hard drive is about to fail."

"Oh dear. What do we do?"

"Back up all your data and replace the drive..."

At which point it dawned upon me that, just maybe, styling myself the IT Goddess could have a few drawbacks - like someone believes that you can, in fact, produce miracles out of thin air. I suggested, with some trepidation, that we could replace the disk relatively cheaply, and continue to use the PC (it's a not too old Sony Vaio with an 80Gb drive and 500Mb RAM), but after finding some disks on the internet for about £90, they decided that they'd be better off putting the money to a replacement PC with a web-cam built in, so they could use Skype in the kitchen. At which point they offered me the PC, to see if I could maybe do something with it.

And this, dear reader, is where the trumpeting can begin!

I brought the laptop home, and attempted to boot from a Linux (Ubuntu) cd, but somehow the PC didn't want to do that - the errors thrown up gave me the hint that the drive was really on the point of failure. At this point I had a look on Amazon, and found a 160Gb disk for a whole-lot-more-palatable-than-£90, £46, including delivery. I ordered that, and when it arrived the next day (some of the sellers on Amazon are pretty damn swift!) I proceeded to put my plan into action!

I did have some trouble, initially, getting the new OS onto the new disk. When I first removed the old disk and inserted the new (and Oh-dear-God, how many itty bitty screws are there to remove and replace when you change disks in a Vaio?), the Ubuntu CD booted nicely, but I, possibly foolishly, chose the option to check the disk. Apparently this meant "Check that there's an OS on it", and when it failed to find one, it refused to boot up with the CD again. I ended up having to put back the old drive (9 itty bitty screws, that's how many), booting the CD, shutting down, removing the drive again, putting in the new one (all 9 screws again) and was finally able to boot from the CD. And this time I wasted no time in choosing the "Install Ubuntu onto this PC, please" option. Actually, I seem to remember that it doesn't say please. Software is so impolite, nowadays!

But that's child's play. While I can't claim to be anything but a total noob where Linux is concerned, installing Ubuntu hardly qualifies as Rocket Science. Nah, that's not where I'm proud. I wanted Spotify, but they don't make a Linux version. On Googling "spotify on linux", I was presented with a bewildering array of possibilities, from running the actual Spotify installer under a windows emulator, to downloading and installing one of the open source Spotify clients out there. That second option seemed, initially, to be the better of the options shown, so I started trying to work out how to download any of the packages, but was completely stumped. Which is somewhat surprising, 'cos I'm a serious downloader, if you know what I mean ;)

So, Windows emulator it was to be!

And while it may be my own trumpet I'm blowing here, I'd like to acknowledge the massive teaching resource that is the whole internet. I can possibly claim some credit for being able to phrase a search query to obtain best results, or a little credit in being totally fearless when it comes to messing with the command prompt - after all, what's the worst that could happen? Well, I suppose I could end up messing up the whole disk and having to re-install Ubuntu again. With all the attendant itty bitty unscrewing... But digression is occurring, and I'm here to tell you that I succeeded!

I found someone who'd put down the command line commands, complete, to get, install and configure the Wine software. I was able to google the error messages which came up, and found solutions to them (OK, I found a solution just before I found someone else saying that it wasn't really an error and not to worry about it). And eventually, after a few re-boots (this is very like Windows in some respects), I was able to run Spotify successfully. Finding and installing Chrome and VLC was a breeze in comparison.

I was particularly pleased to find an old laptop memory SIMM (512Mb) laying round the house, which installed perfectly, allowing me to run Ubuntu with a whole gig!

So my "new" laptop is humming away, and I'm feeling as if I did something really clever! Do you think this is how a normal person feels when they achieve something everyday in Windows?

It's been a quiet week, News wise.

You know it's been a quiet week for the news people when you get 3 consecutive days of the same ruddy story, advancing it only insignificantly each day.

On the way to school, after I've dropped the girls off at their school with a cheery, "I'm going to kiss and drop today, MUAH!"*, I like to turn on the radio and listen to Chris Moyles. This usually guarantees that by the time I get to work I'm either grinning like a loon, or actively cackling - a mood which can only be ruined by the activities of the children on their worst days.

This morning was no exception. The team have been fund-raising on behalf of Sport Relief, and this week they've been devising ways to torture a fellow DJ, Scott Mills by making him travel a mile each day in a novel way. The fact that I find Scott Mills a spectacularly awful DJ has only enhanced my enjoyment of this particular item. On Monday he was to be sponsored walking a mile through the sewers of East London, a task which must have been as fascinating for the old, Victorian sewers as it was disgusting for the stench - obviously this prompted many poonami and turdalwave jokes. I can't remember what Tuesday's challenge was, but yesterday, Wednesday, was a corker. They had the poor man walking a mile up and down stairs - ouch! The joke, however, was that he'd have an iPod of inspirational music for the task, but there'd be only one track, repeated for the whole day. The chosen track was Crazy Frog does the theme from Beverley Hills Cop.

However, this is a radio show and as such must entertain the listeners for as long as possible, and one trick employed is the, "We'll tell you what your task is... After the news!" Which is what is prompting this morning's rant. Not, you understand, that I think this a scurvy trick, unworthy of such a radio station. No, it's the content of the news this week which is bothering me.

Anyone with any kind of decent World News feed (the BBC, maybe. Al Jazeera English, perchance) will know that a couple of weeks ago, a young lad by the name of Sahil Saeed was kidnapped while in Pakistan. Now this is a story with a happy ending, as young Sahil was returned (on payment of a not insignificant ransom, I gather) and has been reunited with his father. Yay!

The problem is that the BBC radio news has been reporting this for 3 days - oh, they've been reporting the story from the moment it was discovered that he'd been kidnapped, they're not that slow on the uptake. No, the point is that earlier this week he was returned. That was their headline news story.

The next day his dad was flying out to Pakistan to be reunited with him - headline news.

Today - Sahil's dad has arrived in Pakistan, and has been reunited with him. And that's the top story!

Now this is just silly. News would have been if his 'plane had been blown out of the sky by the very kidnappers while he was en route. Today's headline story was not news, it was the inevitable outcome of the previous days barely-news story. News would have been if the dad had arrived in Pakistan to find that the kid who was returned was a ringer, and poor little Sahil was still missing.

Honestly, I'm sure the BBC has more to report than this, and I always had a whole lot more respect for them than I've got right at this moment.

I am awaiting, with anticipation, tomorrow's headline news on Radio 1.

* Kiss and Drop: This is where you don't walk them to their classrooms, you eject them from the (hopefully stationary) car with a kiss and a promise to see them later.

Some days any solution will do.

I know it's not a long time, but for the last couple of days I've been actively trying to sort out a problem I've been having with one of our pieces of software. I've actually been trying to solve it since we moved to our new file server, about 3 weeks ago, but there have been other, slightly more pressing problems for me to focus on, all of which have served to deflect my interest in this particular issue.

The software in question is a rather good maths program called RM Maths, provided by Research Machines. Unlike some of the software, which will be replaced as soon as my ability to get it all done using Group Policies matures, I have no trouble recommending RM Maths. The teachers like it, because it allows for a nice 20 minute session where the kids log on, and are presented with maths problems, all the while actually being taught. The teachers like it because the kids like it, and actually spend those 20 minutes quietly trying to get a 100% score. I don't know that it's the most exciting piece of software, but I don't get many complaints - and when you've been in the education sector for any length of time (I know, it's only 6 years), sometimes NOT getting complaints is as good as effusive compliments.

The problem is that on migration to the new server, the new program doesn't work. Now, I've gone through the registry (I know, "Just how badass can this girl get?" I hear you cry) and changed the keys pointing to the old server and share, making them point to the new server. And, just for a moment, I can get the software to work. And then I reboot my machine, and the keys are back to pointing at the old server again. What? WHAT?

So I did an experiment. I completely removed the software from my machine. I trawled through the registry, removing every instance of the software in there. EVERYTHING! All of it. Nothing left - Nada. You're getting the picture here. And I rebooted.

And there it all is again. No sign of the software on the PC, all evidence of it erased from the registry, but it's all back on reboot. In fact, I bet if I simply logged off and back on again, it'd be there again. I think that sometime, somewhere, someone has made up a little script/Group Policy/whatever to add those bits of information to the registry on logon. The only problem is that I can't find the offending piece of policy/code/whatever.

OK - while I'm not going to give up completely, let's take a step back, and see if we can have some kind of success, just to encourage us along, shall we? There's something that's been bugging me for the last two years. Well, about that long. For quite some time now, the students in the school have been able to see the System Tray (or Notification Area, as it's now called), and the staff haven't. It's not a really big deal - it's not as if they really need to see this. It's just annoying, because it means they have to search for an icon on the desktop to adjust the volume, and they can't see if the machine has the Sophos blue shield. I'd even logged a call to my technical support (yes, I have an extra layer of technical support behind me - I can't do it ALL!), who were unable to help.

Well, since I completed my Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment course just after Christmas, I've felt ever so much more confident in messing with such things as Group Policies - and not just for the local machine. I'm up for tinkering with ALL the group policies available on the whole network! Despite having Googled for "hide system tray" for ages and coming up with nothing, I'd never put in "group policy hide system tray", because I wasn't sure that was it. Well, after a very short search, this popped up, giving me exactly the information I needed.

A quick change, a quick "gpupdate /force", a quick test logon as a member of staff - Eureka! You'd think, by now, the children in school would be used to my somewhat ungainly Victory Dance!

Still no solution to the old RM Maths problem, but sometimes just getting a solution to any problem will make the search seem worthwhile. I'd better get back to it...

The constant grind of upgrading

I know I'm all fired up when it comes to computer stuff, as I'm pretty sure you all know, too, since I will keep harping on about it on these very pages.

However, last year I downloaded the Release Candidate of Windows 7 (supposed to allow me a year of free Windows 7 - wow!) and finally got round to installing it in September/October time. It was quite exciting, after only 10 months of working with Vista (which didn't bug me nearly as much as it's obviously bugged a lot of other people), to upgrade to a fresh, new OS. And I always feel it's generally a Good Thing to refine ones programs, and get rid of anything one just doesn't use, but has forgotten to uninstall.

So I spent 5 months working with Windows 7, and thoroughly enjoyed it - there are so many things to recommend it, although I'm not going into them here, because there are many other blogs/reviews/articles in which they are far more completely covered. So, five months, and much time (really, much time) spent getting the system to do exactly what I wanted. Five months of saving bookmarks on Chrome. Five months of downloading and installing the useful little utilities without which any system is but a pale imitation of a computer. The system was singing like a Nightingale!

Until a couple of weeks into February when I get a message from Microsoft telling me that it's now time to upgrade my RC version of Windows to a "real" version. Which is all very well, you may think. I've got until June before it'll stop working, haven't I? Well, not exactly, no. Apparently, from 1st March the system will start shutting down every 2 hours. What? Two hours? WHAT?!

OK, it's no trouble. Surely I can just upgrade. Again.

It actually becomes a fag, after a while. Especially since I've also just upgraded my phone, and have to get that doing what I want it (and there's a year and a half of installs going on there!)

So, anyway, I thought, at least I can go back to my Vista partition (I did set up the RC as a dual boot with the originally installed Vista), but to my sincere annoyance, it wouldn't let me upgrade. Oh poop - but this is a Very Good Thing! It will force me to refine my programs all over again. If I'd realised that I wasn't going to be able to upgrade, I'd have got the 64-bit version of the software, though!

So I'm feeling massively grumpy because I've got SO much work to do during evenings and weekends for a while, and with all the working out I'm doing on my nordic ski machine, I really don't have that much time to spend on the computer at the moment. What with my newly discovered social life, movies on a Saturday night and all, you'd almost think I'd stopped being a sad, lonely git!

I may not have my Jet Pack yet...

But Google have finally come up with something I've been expecting for the last, what, 10 years? I've been an avid Palm user since the end of the last century.

How cool is that? Talking about what I did last century!! I mean, I've been a gadget fan forever, but last century my dad gave me an old Palm Pilot, onto which I installed an ebook reader and some ebooks. I used the calendar on the device until my brother introduced me to a better one, but my problem was that I never had the device with me when the annoying little, reedy squeaking that was the alarm went off. It wasn't my "everything" device. I expended much effort and money over the years searching for this device.

I thought I had it a year and a half ago when I got the N78, which, if you've read my previous posts, came pretty damn close. It would, at least, give me my calendar functions in a device I always carry with me. Obviously I always carry it with me because it's a phone, and I hope that some one will actually call me. The fact that I receive relatively few calls is a source of constant disappointment.

I do have a new phone now, which is coming equally close to that "everything" device to which I aspire. It's a Nokia (of course, I wouldn't want to face the wrath of my brother!!) 5800, and to make it even more desirable, it's got a nifty red stripe round the side - I'm sure that helps make it go faster... I like the full screen, although one needs to use a certain amount of caution with some apps which tell you they're not compatible with the phone - Mobipocket, for example, the first app I always install on my devices. If you put it into full screen mode (very useful on the somewhat small screen of the N78) you can't actually get it out of this mode, because there's nothing on the screen to press, there are no buttons which will bring up a menu. All you can do is read your book (the volume control knob will allow you to scroll up and down through the document) and exit the app. In the end I uninstalled and re-installed, because the default is NOT full screen. One thing the phone's really great for is browsing. I mean it's nothing on a full monitor, but it's pretty damn good for something that spends most of it's life in my pocket/handbag. And I keep a pretty small handbag - I'm just saying. I like it more than the N810 for browsing, although the screen is smaller, because I can choose which orientation I like.

It's got to be said, though, the reason I went for this phone was because it has a great application from the Ovi shop called Banner. Oh, and I managed to get the handset for free, and reduce by £10 my monthly contract. While getting the full on web-browsing bolt-on too. Let's hope my delight lasts me the 24 months for which I've signed up this time!

However, and you know I'm going to say this, I'm digressing. Allow me, if you will, to get to the point.

Google have, without fanfare (that I noticed, anyway), produced what they call Google Mobile App. This little app on your phone allows you to search by just saying what you want to search for. Yep, that's right, just speak into the phone. Now I don't know about you, but I've been expecting much of voice recognition since I bought, at huge expense, I might add, a copy of Dragon Dictate Naturally Speaking last century (oh, and there I go again!) While it's really not a very prominent thing, I sort of expected more voice recognition because I watch a lot of Sci-Fi, and assumed that by now I'd be talking to my computer, not having to type it all in. And I always thought it'd be such a brilliant thing to have on a mobile device. It'll save all that pairing with keyboards, or trying to type stuff on a T9 keyboard. Or even trying to type stuff on the onscreen qwerty of the new phone (or the slide out of the N810). Just hold down one of the (admittedly very few) buttons on the phone, and speak. Phone does the rest.

I will say this - voice recognition requires a lot of thought and training. And I don't mean on the part of the computer. You have to be fairly concise about what you want to say, otherwise the programs I've used will attempt to translate background sounds, which come out a bit silly. However, if you've got a pretty good idea of what you want to type in it seems to be good. I've not used it since I lost that somewhat expensive copy of Dragon Dictate. Oh well. I think that was installed on the Laptop I got last century!

OK, the Google search application is fairly limited - it'll only search the entire web for me. This has a lot to do, I believe, with the fact that the application said it wasn't compatible with my phone, and possibly the fact that I don't have many actual buttons on my phone - it wants me to press C to search. However, within the application, it searches pretty well on the matches it finds, and it seems to understand what I say fairly well. It wasn't 100%, by any means, the search for "The X Factor" turning up searches for "PX", which seemed somewhat random. My search for "Windows Server 2003" was spot on!

I will admit that the phone comes with a rudimentary voice search option - sadly it doesn't seem to understand my overly cultured tones, and when searching for my mum, came up with the suggestion of Jeannie, a lady in my contacts list. Since when did the word MUM sound anything like Jeannie? Trying to find Google (it is an application, after all), the phone can't even find a match.

In conclusion, Google has come up with a pretty good tool here, one that I truly wish was compatible with my current phone. I wonder if having that banner application will make up for the slew of incompatible programs which will half-work over the next two years? I also believe that while Nokia are clearly the greatest phone manufacturers in the universe, they need to spend a bit more time on their voice recognition tool. And the Morph - they need to get that realised, too. I bet when they do, though, I'll find that none of the apps I want is compatible again.