I found the most amazing wallpaper manager for the Nokia N900. It’s called PRISMIC and it hooks directly into N900Wallpapers.com, so you can stay up to date with the newest and hottest backgrounds for your N900. The application cost me $3.75 and I tell you it is well worth it for the sheer choice in wallpapers.

Here are some awesome features:

You can browse all the available categories direct from the N900wallpaper.com website and it shows you exactly how many wallpapers exist in each category.

When you select a category it shows a scrollable grid of thumbnails. Notice some of the thumbnails have four squares in the bottom left hand corner. This shows you that the wallpaper can be spread over the four desktops that the N900 has.  The thumbnails without these squares are single images. You still have the choice as explained below to push the wallpaper to individual desktops or all four.

Lets say I select one of those multiple screen wallpapers. The 4 images appear and there are a couple of options at the bottom. The first icon allows you to save the wallpapers to your device without saving it as a wallpaper (for later use).

The second icon asks you to choose the wallpaper to apply to a desktop, meaning you don’t necessarily have to have all four wallpapers on your four desktops. (clever because you might like only one of the four wallpapers, or two of the four wallpapers).

The third icon allows you to apply all the wallpapers to all your desktops. It puts them in the right order as well. (very clever).

The fourth icon tells you who created the wallpaper. (nice, give credit where due).

Finally the fifth icon allows you to rate the wallpaper and this is extremely useful especially if one is looking for the Top 100 highest rated wallpapers.

Only once you select the image and how you want it displayed on your device, does it downloads.

There are so many awesome wallpapers to use that one is extremely spoilt for choice.

Highly recommended –

I will echo a recent post by Kerry Wright of www.wrightaboutnow.com that modern technology and applications such as Skype and Facebook are bringing us closer together regardless of ones location.

Today i chatted to my Mom on my Nokia N900 for over 2 hours and it cost nothing. My Mom was at her computer in Windhoek, Namibia and I was logged into Skype on my N900. Skype is built into the N900, which makes it all the more amazing.

The call came through just like an ordinary phone call. When I am home my N900 is automatically connected to my Sky Broadband via wireless, so the entire call was using my broadband, as if I was at my PC.

Now imagine what a call of this magnitude would have cost had we used good old fashion Telekom or BT?

The fact is, we most certainly would not have spoken for so long. Modern technology is amazing and we should embrace it at every opportunity.

I am currently listening to a wonderful story called “DECIDER” by Dick Francis on my Noka 5800.

I decided (excuse the pun) to put my new bluetooth headphones (BH-905) to the test. They have 8 noise cancelling microphones that are meant to block out the surrounding noise.  So far they are doing an excellent job. Noise is non-existent with one switches on the ANC button.

I am using a very cool audio application called “PowerMP3″ on the Nokia 5800.  I downloaded this from Symbian World and I would go as far as saying “it is better than the default music player on the Nokia 5800XM”.

Dick Francis – Decider, Architect Lee Morris has plans to restore Stratton Park racecourse to its former grandeur. But the combative Stratton heirs have violent plans of their own.

Related Links:

• Out with the Sony BT50 and in with the Nokia BH-905!

I am not a huge fan of Facebook and all the silly applications that come with it, but for communicating with friends and family it is brilliant. I’ve been using it on my various mobiles for quite some time now although none of the FB applications were that user friendly or in the Nokia 5800XM’s case “finger friendly”….. until now!

Symbian have release a new version of the Facebook application especially for the touch screen Nokia 5800XM and N97 and it’s a pleasure to use. The screen options are clear, there are nice big buttons and accessing the various menus are very easy and fast. One of the coolest features is the camera button (see top left corner). Pressing on this button pops up a choice to take a photo using the onboard camera, or one can select a photo from your phones gallery, but either way the photo is immediately uploaded into a new or existing album in your Facebook profile. It’s lightning fast as well. I was walking down Cannon street yesterday and literally snapping photos and uploading. It’s such a useful part of the application, especially if you are a happy snapper like me and want to share photos with your friends and family.

Other cool things are the quick access buttons to comments (see the little comments balloons to the right of the news feed) and quick access to your profile, status, friends, photos and Inbox. What makes this application work on the 5800XM is all the screen space. Nothing feels like it’s been squashed in and for that reason it’s a pleasure to use.

You can download the Facebook application from the Nokia OVI store on your PC, or download it FREE from the OVI store  on your phone. To install the OVI store application you need to download it from their website. It should prompt you to install the OVI application on your Nokia phone when you first login or enter the site. The OVI store is another cool application and allows one to download free or pay applications, music, ring tones, photos etc. There is a link below.

(Facebook application for S60v5 generation phones highly recommended).

I have had the Nokia 5800XM for about two months now and so far I have mixed feelings about it. It’s no where near as good as the Nokia N95, which was by far the best smartphone on the planet and which I raved about for two and a half years.

Obviously the N95 was an N-Series smartphone and the 5800 is Nokia’s first real touch screen and they have tried to give it a music feel to it. Not sure it really comes across as a music phone, as the music player is okay, or very similar to the N95 in what it does and shows on the screen.

I am not sure if Nokia made this phone and hoped it would compete against the iPhone or the Blackberry Storm or all the other new touch screen models out there. So the iPhone touch interface is slightly better, but that is about it for the iPhone as it doesn’t come close to this phone in terms of features.

The things I don’t like about the 5800XM:

1. Most definitely the touch screen or touch experience. The lack of buttons is a big thing for me. (If it had buttons and touch screen then maybe).
2. Texting which I do a lot of is now a pain in the arse, because the touch screen forces you to look at the screen, where as with a normal keys it was quite easy to feel your way around the keypad and type fast.
3. Typing is a lot slower, because of the touch screen, and one has to hit the screen quite hard and it has to be in the area of the letter.
4. The camera is only a 3mp, and doesn’t take great photos (if compared to the N95).

What I like about the phone:

1. Even though it’s not an N-Series phone, it’s got all the connectivity features of my old N95 (wireless, fast internet, 3G, Edge, HSDPA, A2DP bluetooth etc).
2. It supports SD cards up to 16GB. Very handy for storing music and videos.
3. It’s plays video in a lovely widescreen format, and watching videos is a pleasure.
4. It’s running the latest Symbian software, which is a pleasure to use.
5. There are hundreds if not thousands of Apps (lot of free apps as well).
6. There are many applications that work really well with the touch screen, such as Google Maps, LastFM, FoneFood, FriendView etc.

What I have loaded on the phone at present in terms of applications:

1. X-Plore (brilliant).
2. PhoneTorch (brilliant).
3. ScreenSnap (brilliant).
4. SMS Timer (brilliant) – allows one to schedule SMS’s, excellent if you don’t want to send a SMS immediately.
5. AccuWeather (brilliant).
6. PhotoBrowser – funky browser with magnifying glass. (Nice Gimmick).
7. TagReader – Microsoft’s barcode reader (Very Clever).
8. BarCode – Nokia’s barcode reader (Very Clever).
9. Split the bill – Very useful if you dine in large groups and have the habbit of splitting the bill.
10. Google Maps, Google Search, Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Translate, Gmail – All very useful applications which I use daily.
11. Soft Touch Stop Watch.
12. Friend View which uses the GPS to pinpoint you and your friends. (Very useful).
13. Nokia Maps.
14. Metro de Paris, NYC Subways maps.
15. FoneFood – A very clever and useful app from Lastminute.com – used to find restaurants in whatever area you might be in.
16. MyPhone – Ha Ha this is a classic application! It’s called “Exceeding iPhone” and they have somehow managed to use the iPhone UI (user interface) on the 5800XM. So you have a Nokia 5800 with an iPhone interface. It’s darn clever. Check out their website.
17. Bounce (game).
18. RT GR (game).
19. SudokuMaster (game).
20. Checkers (game).
21. MR2 (game).
22. Sensitive (game).
23. Solitaire (game).
24. Shuffle Shock (game).
25. Quickblock (game).
26. R.Bubbles (game).

I stumbled upon a new web browser (as if there aren’t enough of them already). It’s called Flock browser and is based on the Mozilla browser. It quite unique in that it pulls all of your favorite people, places and content together into a convenient view and delivers a more personal experience of the web.

I will give it a go for a couple of days and see how I get on with it. I am not really into all the social websites (Facebook, Flickr, Youtube etc), but it has a Mozilla feel to it, so worth a try out!

Flock Features

There is this great new application called Mobbler, that allows you to login to LastFM account on your mobile and to stream music. The set up is pretty basic and it worked very well provided there was signal.

I tried it out on the train this morning, and it was not as reliable as I had hoped. Once it loses connection, you have to manually reconnect. (Lets hope this gets changed in newer versions as it is a right pain if your phone is buried in your pocket).

Overall I like where they are going with this application and would highly recommend using it!

Note: you need to have an account on LastFM before trying to use this application. You can sign up here.

If you log into LastFM on the web, you’ll notice they have updated your library, which is very cool.

• Lyrics Plugin for Winamp – Bloody amazing how the lyrics just load up instantly. There is a Windows Media Plugin as well if you use the Microcrap player.
  
• VLC Media Player -  VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. I’ve loaded it, and it’s awesome!.
  
  

I know a few people who have rushed out like muppets and bought the new Windows Vista expecting to get this wonderful new operating system, only to discover some of it’s obvious limitations or problems. It begs the question, why someone would buy something without testing it first (through the beta stages, get to know the bugs, the limitations, the likes and dislikes) or waiting to read what others have to say first. I guess it’s because there is a sucker born every day.

Anyway, here are some reasons "Why not to get Vista just yet?

• Because CNET says so.
• ZDNET: Don’t buy Vista for the security.
• Switch to Apple Mac – That’s a good reason… NOT!
• Digit – Windows Vista: The best reason why to buy a MAC.
• Apple has confirmed that their software products, iTunes, QuickTime, Airport For Windows, Bonjour For Windows, iDisk utility, and AppleWorks for Windows does not work with Windows Vista. Sh12, that is quite a lot of key programs. Oh dear.
• Why you should wait to buy it? (does this sound familar?).
  
• APC has 10 good reasons why not to buy it. (below is the best reason).
  

I stumbled upon a really cool Vista / XP / Mac website called "wstaylor.net" that had some awesome desktop backgrounds. There are some amazing backgrounds here, well worth a visit. Simply click on some of the examples below, then if you are running XP or Vista, right click and click on "Set as desktop background…", otherwise why not visit wstaylor.net.