What’s wrong with Nokia?

Today Nokia “announced” its newest Nseries, the N86.  It has all the usual Nseries goodies including a 3.5mm jack, WLAN, GPS, and comes with some extras like an OLED screen and an 8MP camera—the first from Nokia.

But something is wrong with this picture.

She should be a motivational speaker

This is an actual quote from my mom’s boss—something she said to her 2nd grade son after his Valentine’s Day party on Friday, which involves candy and chocolate passed out to all the students:

Just realize that every time you put sugar in your body, you’re killing it

The mom is 40.  She is deathly afraid of this age and is doing everything to remain young, to the point of pushing cruel and unusual eating patterns on her children.  Children that could, at their age, eat dirt and remain healthy.  But now they’re going to forever be afraid to eat anything because they’re being taught that food, essentially, kills slowly.

Note to people with political bumper stickers

The elections ended in November.  Your bumper sticker, no matter what position or which person it’s for, is irrelevant now.  If you still have it attached, you’re either (a) gloating, or (b) a sore loser.  Please stop.

OK, Mr. American Radio Batman Announcer…

When you’re doing your little Batman giveaway commercial, it’s pronounced NO-kia, not no-KIA.

no-KIA is what you say in response to the question: “Tarzan, do you own a Kia?”  I realize Nokia has very little market share in the United States, but that’s no reason to mispronounce their name.  You’re putting the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle and you sound like a moron.  Please stop.

NO-kia, NO-kia, NO-kia.

I’m back! I think…

Well!

I get back from Vegas only to find out that while I was gone, a comedy of errors took place.

First, a lightening storm obliterated both the modem and the wireless router.  Then, my car’s Check Engine light came on.  Shortly thereafter, my dad’s car overheated.  Then a man who was supposed to fix the washing machine broke a copper pipe and nearly flooded the basement.  To dry the place out, my parents tried to use the dehumidifier, which instantly broke.

On the Internet front, the entire day I’ve been back has been spent trying to fix it.  It worked in the morning (apparently) but broke as soon as I tried to use it.  I managed to help fix it, but the signal wasn’t strong enough to reach my room, so we had to get another range extender (we had one, but it was of course incompatible with the security placed on the new router) in order to broadcast the signal into my room.

AND I have to go back to work tomorrow.  DO NOT WANT.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to check up on stuff.

On a positive note, Vegas was awesome.  I loved every minute.  Took some great photos and had some great times, so I’ll hopefully share all of those soon.

Oh, and I’ve picked out my new phone. 😉

LK’s pennultimate iPhone rant

I saw this pop up on the WordPress Dashboard and thought it would be a great springboard for why I hate the iPhone in general.

While it’s been called a smartphone, the iPhone is, for all intents and purposes, a dumbphone for people who want to look smart by comparison.  The original iPhone didn’t support third-party applications and was more closed than even Java-based phones, which can still install programs.  Only by hacking (which voided the warranty) could people install programs on their phones.

The original iPhone was also severely over-priced.  For $699, you could have an 8 GB iPhone (carrier-locked, no less), whereas for $650 you could have an unlocked Nokia N95 8GB  (with US 3G).

A turning point?

I just read a report that kind of pains me yet has me excited at the same time.  Apparently, Sony Ericsson isn’t doing too well.  According to a very reliable online source (a guy who gets basically every prototype unit from every company several months before release), all of SEs phones from now to at least April 2009 aren’t cutting the mustard.

In the last quarter, SE has fallen from fourth to fifth largest phone manufacturer, losing out to LG of all companies.  Kind of embarrassing.

They also just barely broke even in the finances.  That means no profit.  But they’re not in the hole…yet.

According to the source—whose Web site is here—SE is in a serious rut as of late and doesn’t have any signs of getting out.  Even the C905, a phone I was looking forward to possibly getting, will probably fall victim.

It’s too bad, really.  I like SE, but I agree that they seem to be on the wrong track and no one seems to know exactly what the problem is.  Part of the problem, I think, is SE’s insistence on the “advantages and disadvantages” system of phone building.  They have Walkmans and Cyber-shots, and they don’t like the features of either to mix.  That means crappy cameras on the Walkmans and sub-par music players on the Cyber-shots.  For power users like me who demand high-tech perfection in everything, this is kind of frustrating (moreso since SE has said one of the reasons for the financial issues is lack of high-end phones).  The Cyber-shots have the edge, technologically, but are too expensive for a lot of people, so they don’t sell as much.  (And their camera quality has steadily gone down hill in the past few years, and SE, which was the undisputed camera phone king, has lost to Nokia for the past two years.)