Call cheap with Skype on Fring on Symbian Phones

OK, this is not a new news but my first trial on VoIP call from my mobile phone.

My headset broke, and I had to yell at my PowerBook to be able to talk with my dad via Skype. "HEEELLLOOO DAAAD?" 5 minutes of yelling made me tired. I need a new headset. But instead of buying another brand-new defected made-in-China headset on eBay, I decided to try Skype on mobile handset.

Since Skype hasn't gone mobile yet, I wanted to give some alternatives a try on my wifi'd N80 and just tried for the first time last weekend.

For some reasons, my first choice, iSkoot failed to connect, so after my 5th trials, I uninstalled it and installed Fring. Yay. This worked without any problem for me! I was able to make a call by logging into my Skype account. The sound quality is less than perfect, but so is Skype on desktop. I am pretty satisfied. But to call my dad, who has started losing his hearing a bit, I should just pay for regular phone bill.

fring (beta)

Mobile 2.0 @ Web 2.0 Expo

I was at Web 2.0 Expo at Moscone West on Tuesday. Mobile 2.0 Keynote, Nokia's new widget for S60 (Web Run-Time), and Google's big interest for mobile (looking for mobile start-ups for aqcisition?)... I was sure that the mobile would be next big thing for the year 2007 last year, and now I feel it. Apple's iPhone is coming soon too!

As a mobile web developer, I've been busy and will be busier for sure!

Also the Bento Box and organic white tea I had for lunch at Samovar Tea Lounge )located by Moscone Center)were delicious.

N76 Design Contest

I haven't design for ages but I'd like to try -something pink/girly! http://www.nseries.com/n76

Dare to Compare - Mobile Search

Soon after Yahoo! launched this new mobile search, oneSearch (news:Yahoo jumps ahead of Google on mobile phone search), Google tried to catch up with by adding a link to another search page with some new feature, just like Y!'s oneSearch (google.com/m). The images above are the actual screenshot of the serach result of "godzilla" on Yahoo oneSearch and Google's new search.

Also see this interesting comparison (pdf): Dare to Compare - Google vs. Yahoo!

Happy V-Day!

Ooo. I am a sucker for anything pink. Nokia Europe introduced the pink collections for Valentine's Day. Sweet.
Oh, wait. They are all S40, not S60... Girls don't need smart phones, do they?

Sweet! Apple's iPhone

Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, Quad-Band GSM (yay! world-wide phone!), EDGE (No 3G!?)
OS X, Safari (I bet this will work just like Nokia's S60 browser.)
Collaboration with Yahoo - free IMAP email to all iPhone customers!
Google Maps and Widgets

I am hoping this will work wirh Skype, but I don't think Cingular will like it at all...

The Price:
4GB model = $499
8GB model = $599
Shipping in June!

Wait. This price is for 2-year contract with Cingular.... I knew it...

Source: Gizmodo

Search 2.0?

Everything goes 2.0. What's next?
According to Read/WriteWeb, the next 2.0 is a "Search".

This article shows the results of the concepts to beat Google. The top idea of the next generation search is the Artificial Intelligence. Yet there's no true AI search engine on market yet, the closest possible so far is Hakia that I already liked it because more knowledge and news based results, mainly recently posted blog entries, are listed as the search results, and they are quite different from that of Google.

Here's a list of other suggestions:

1. Artificial Intelligence (e.g. Hakia, Powerset)
2. People Powered Search (e.g. del.icio.us, ChaCha)
3. Vertical Search (e.g. SimplyHired, Technorati)
4. Personalized Search (e.g. Collarity)
5. Clustering (e.g. Clusty, SearchMash)
6. Social Search (e.g. Eurekster, Rollyo)
7. Visualization (e.g. Quintura and Kartoo)
8. Previews (Snap, Live Image Search)

interesting.

I got a pink MacBook on Xmas...

...Not! I wished...

Available at: Coloreware

Hate to type on mobile phone! - Use QR Code!

I think it was back in 2004, when I visited my family in Japan, I found some weird looking barcode-like thingies everywhere on paper and magazines. They didn't look like the traditional barcodes with a bunch of vertical lines. I was stearing one as I was trying to figure out how to decode this cyptic message from outer space or something, then finally asked my brother. He was actually really surprised that I had no idea what they were.

Well, anyway what I saw was called QT code, a matrix code (2-D code) that contains info, mainly URLs of mobile websites. Use your camera phone and scan the barcode so you don't have to type them in with non-qwerty devices!

Now it is almost the end of 2006, here in the US, I finally have a chance to use the barcode with Nokia N93, which comes with a barcode reader software (and 3.2 megapixel camera!)

Then I wonder how I could adopt the QR code for own wap sites and googled it. Sweet enough I didn't have any difficulty to find some QR-code generators. The one I liked is qrcode.kaywa.com. The image below is the example I created on the website. This stored a URL for google's mobile site, google.mobi (I believe this is their new domain and slightly different from mobile.google.com. This site has UA detection.)

Related Sites and Articles:

• Wikipedia - QR Code
• Nokia N-Series
• Tommi's S60 Applications Blog - 2D Barcode Manifesto
• What Japan Thinks - QT Code Extremely Popular (Sept 2005)

Nokia Music Mixer

I got a new N93 before Thanksgiving and have been having fun with it since the holiday weekend.

Now I found that Nokia launched another cool toy I can play with my new N93 - Nokia Music Mixer. This is an web application (Flash) that allows you to remix tracks and download them as ring tones. This seems to be a part of Nokia 5300 XPressMusic phone campaign, and you can join the mix competition to win the new phone!