In Car with Nokia N95, which Navigation Software?

You see I still haven’t got it cracked, I use the GPS Sat Nav on my Nokia N95 all the time in the car. I set the route using the landmarks feature and calculate route. Then I show on map and start tracking. Generally, if I have decent satellite signals the GPS functions fine.

It is only a pity that you can’t use it in widescreen mode as the GPS receiver is located in the base of the N95′s handset. I have been thinking of trying to find a small LCD screen with video in ports so that I can use the TV Out of the Nokia to have larger screened in car navigation available.

Driving along I either glance down at the mobile on my dashboard ( I still have not got a decent in car cradle for my N95 but am looking ) or I hand the handset to my daughter who confirms yes, we are still on the blue line.

I am nearing the stage when these steps must be overcome; I need a cradle, a new screen, and above all, I need a screen with a better size, for glancing and I will need some Navigational Software so that I have voice prompts to tell me where I am wand when I need to turn and all of that stuff.

Looking online for Navigational Software ( I am loathe to click accept on the Nokia’s internal menu as this must be the most expensive option ) I find some interesting alternatives;

• CoPilot Live 6 : – from www.alk.com/copilot/pocketpc.asp at around £50 looks ok and is fully featured, but it appears not to use the same maps ( from smart2go ) as I am used to. I also worry about hidden data charges.
• Wayfinder :- from www.wayfinder.com has be recommended many times on the Symbian forums
• Route 66 from 66.com is also a frontrunner and the fully featured product Mobile 7 S60 looks by far the best I have found online

I will be trying to find online trials of demos of each of these different S60 Navigation Software for my Nokia N95 and will report once whey have been assessed.

Blank Canvas

Today, Wednesday September 12th I am at a loss. I have nothing to write. I have noone to call on My Nokia N95 ( gratuitous keyword inclusion ) and my brain is in a whirr, all kind of autistic static, like opposing forces bringing apparent balance through conflict though really straining at each other all the while.

So, don’t read this post, just search Google, search the world for whatever turns you on.

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ipod touch

Apple have announced the impending release of a new ipod, this time, aping the iphone and coming with a full, wide, touchsreen. The unit is obviously beautiful, impressivlemy designed and I am sure will be an absolute dream to turn on.

However, my video ipod suffices, indeed my 2nd generation ipod ( black and white sufficed ). The ipod works very well for me as a music player, either in the home hi-fi or in the car. It is a hard-drive music/ MP3 player and, with one hand I can flick the wheel around to my heart’s content and play virtually any some I may wish to. The point is, I don’t really look at it much at all, I navigate and listen; the Apple ipod touch is a kind of overkill, it is a kind of b’sterdised machine which has been lovingly crafted and function crammed, without really, I feel, having a sound market position in our gadget bags.

The , now, humble Nokia N95 is still eminently preferable to an itouch, it having, as previously intimated all the functionality a truly mobile device ( it even knows where it is with its built in Sat Nav ) should have and the itouch, is not really an ipod, nor an iphone.

I do not doubt for a second that it will be a huge success; our wanting generation ( or three ) will snap them up and love owning them, but I just kind of feel that this is an interim step, a nice and beautiful one at that though…..

Book a Last Minute Holiday

Now I am always desperate for some sun and sand, this year the weather has been so dire that a late summer holiday is looking like a necessity.

The school holidays are almost over and I have been looking for a last minute holiday booking. As I am an experienced independent traveller I will happily just book some cheap flights and find a place to stay by myself once I am there.

Lookin, though online at some of the offers available I found many last minute holidays at the Holiday Hypermarket, many of these include self catered apartments and flights. I am wanting to get some Greek Sun on my shoulders, some sand between my toes and some soft rembetika music drifing over the murmuring of the waves on the beach…they have some fantastic deals….

.. All I have to do is to book the holiday, apply for a passport for my eldest and get a sick note so that I can take her out of school on holiday during termtime.

Nokia N95 Coloured Covers

The more you use it the more you become convinced that Nokia have busted their collective cojones on this product.

Here is a beautifully accomplished and designed flash site offering customised coloured covers for the Nokia N95 over at Vaja Cases . They have crafted some wonderful looking cases and coloured Nokia Covers, finished in suede

I, personally may not wish to risk the $55 on tarting up my Nokia N95 but I certainly loved the site, the conepts and the colours.

The site also does personalised cases for other mobile phones, even the Apple iphone.

Doctor Marten Boots

As a child I proudly strutted in my first pair of “Docs”. I was a proud as punch in them. The very fact that they were :”Oil, Fat, Acid and Alkali resistant” was indeed a great thing for any shoe. That these perfectly buffed leather shoes had air filled soles and were resistant to all but nuclear attack gave them a huge status in my cupboard.

At the time Doctor Martens boots were a fashion statement in the playground, associating yourself with the SKA movement of Selector and the Specials. they also mad you feel ‘hard’, a rather addictive sensation for a 10 year old as I recall.

Now, in life one has many various types of footwear and it is not always possible to remember them all. A few pairs. though, have burned themselves onto the diary of my life so that they seem to represent eras with great fondness. I remember, for example, my first trainers which had ruber soles which kind of curved up at both the heel and toe; the feeling of potency they gave me whilst playing football was incredible : the ball went further, I turned on a sixpence and I could even dribble… I remember in direct contrast to my Doctor Marten air safety wear my sandals, purchased in a Spanish Market, afforded my feet little or no protection but the soft and pungent Spanish leather pleased me immensely.

My fascination with large and clunky boots continued for many years. I am rather embarassed to admit to wearing Timberland Safety Boots for a few years whilst at college. A rock climbing accident whilst wearing Caterpillar Safety Boots convinced me that safety shoes had a place, and that was on a construction site or place of potential hazard.

For the next few years I wore Spartan Sandals, purchased in the Athenian Flea Market at Monastiraki, sometime going barefoot through the dusty streets, my feet were able to breathe and sing, though they became blackened and calloused and indeed did not recover until my feet had spent a few days wandering ( and being beautfully buffed ) along the volcanic beaches of Perissa in Santorini. Soon my zorbaesque days had to come to an end and I returned to the shores of England. In this shark infested, heavily populated and severly congested area my foot protection became of utmost importance so I donned my online searching cap and located some flip horroshow kickboots online – some original, steel toecapped, oi, Doctor Martens Safety Boots

Tom Tom has a go

Tom, with whom I have worked with for a few years has now gone his way, setting off for a trip round the world.
He will be travelling round South Africa and Australia, with a few stop overs. He will be missed.






Tom’s desk will be left as he left it.
Picture taken with Nokia N95.

Bicycles are harming the environment

Recent government studies have shocked cyclists nationwide.

In an astonishing turn of events, sure to shake many well intentioned cyclists it has been proven that the use of a bicycle in populated areas actually increases carbon dioxide gas emissions as well as other pollutants on a macro scale. The average across town trip on a bicycle is estimated at 3 miles. Whereas the bicycle itself will discharge no CO₂, and on such a trip an average car will contribute around 3 litres of CO₂ to the atmosphere – a substance blamed for global warming and unrest in the Middle East. Now you may imagine that a bicycle is an environmentally friendly alternative, it certainly has always been offered as a way to reduce your carbon footprint.

Well it does reduce your carbon footprint.

The new statistics recently unveiled by the Department of transport and the National Centre for the Environment have shown conclusively that a bicycle, though not itself contributing to greenhouse gases, causes such disruption to the flow of other traffic that it will account for double the average CO₂ emissions of a car doing the same trip. A bicycle, using the road causes many vehicles to slow down, change gear, and accellerate, all having the effect of increasing their fuel consumption and subsequent emission of pollutants.

So, before you consider taking your rubber tyred bicycle onto the streets, please consider the environment.

Nicole Miller Dresses

Last week I was looking for nicole miller dresses as it was my mistress’s birthday and she loves the slinky style of the designer who
combines the ideas of elegance and rebellion to achieve a subtle sexiness that is the essence of modern femininity

I found a great selection online and was drawn to either the Nicole Miller Bubble Dress or the Nicole Miller Silk Charmeuse, wither of which would have ‘gone down’ well with my unofficial partner.

In the end I settled on a simple nicole miller dress which was both sexy, rebellious and well priced.

Nokia n95 with GPS

Wow, get me away from it, the Nokia N95 is calling to me, whispering sweet nothings to me, there is even an advert, a full wall advert, which waves at me on the way to work.

I would love to turn one on – and I am closing on it…..