Physical QWERTY phones are wanted!

I just found the Concept-phones.com website which lists imaginary phones found all over the web from different people. Once I found the site, I browsed it enthusiastically, and one of the best devices there is Omar Piela's Lumia Communicator concept. The satellite phone function aside, it's a very nice concept. I went and praised the device on the website and on YouTube.

There's also an iPhone Communicator, which is also quite nice.

Also the Nokia E7 form factor has been an inspiration for at least one QWERTY phone:

http://www.concept-phones.com/nokia/nokia-lumia-960-tablet-runs-windows-rt-adopts-7-inch-display-nokia-e7-form-factor/

Maybe the time for Communicators will come once again: it's clear that people still want them and there is a huge demand of such devices. A lot of business users and the majority of previous power users are fed up with the current devices. Check the comments section of this article, for example.

"I would gladly fork out a nice hunk of change for a high spec android cell with a brilliantly made QWERTY keyboard. As someone who travels frequently and has family and friends scattered all over the world, texting is by far, much cheaper than calling. Hence, I won't buy an android cell if it doesn't have a physical keyboard. Not only is is more accurate but I can type touch with a physical keyboard. This is very handy on the go."

"MAKE A HIGH QUALITY QWERTY KEYBOARD PHONE I'M TIRED OF FULL TOUCH SCREEN PHONES- LG G2 owner."

"With 9 out of the top selling 10 Android apps being games, it seems that those of us who want to use our phones as tools for increasing our efficiency are a minority. Most people use their phones as time wasting devices optimized for playing "irate poultry" and upload pictures of high school drunks to Instagram.
I suspect that's the reason for the lack of qwerty-phones."

The bolded part is the problem. Manufacturers don't care about the power users any more. Phones are made for the masses, the irate poultry that doesn't do anything useful with their phones.

There is no company that makes quality phones for power users any more. It's a sad fact, but hopefully it will change one day.

Blackberry makes QWERTY devices, but the keyboards are ridiculously small and cumbersome to use. Why can't they make a full QWERTY clamshell like the old Nokia 9500, for example?

Meanwhile, all we can do is to keep on believing and use our old QWERTY phones. I'm currently using Nokia E90. It's a nice device, although S60 isn't as good as the old S80. My current dream would be Nokia E90's form factor, and inside there would be Ubuntu Mobile or Android. Like this.

Ubuntu on a Nokia E90 Communicator. That would be nice.

Paras vekotinverkkokauppa/ Best gadget webstore

Olen jo hyvän aikaa tilaillut DealExtremestä tavaroita kotiini, ja aina ne ovat tulleet alle 7 arkipäivässä postilaatikkooni. DealExtreme on siitä mahtava verkkokauppa, että siellä hinnat ovat lopullisia - niihin sisältyy postikulut!

Viimeksi tilasin sieltä USB-peliohjaimen tietokoneeseeni, joka toimi kuin junan vessa jopa Ubuntu 7.10 Linuxillani, ja sen laatukin oli todella hyvä. Nyt on taas tulossa kaksi tuotetta ja innolla odotan niitä.

DealExtreme voittaa kaikki suomalaiset putiikit hintatasollaan ja valikoimallaan ylivertaisesti.




For a while now I've been ordering products from DealExtreme, and every time they have arrived within 7 business days into my mailbox. DealExtreme is magnificent, because the prices are final - they include shipping fees!

Last I ordered a USB gamepad from there for my computer, and it worked like a charm even on my Ubuntu 7.10 Linux operating system. Its quality was very good also. Now there are two items coming from there, and I'm waiting for them enthusiastically.

DealExtreme is superior to any other gadget webstores on the Internet.

Ubuntu: Unreal Tournament GOTY

Eilen sain päähäni kokeilla Unreal Tournament: Game Of The Yearia Ubuntulle ja katastrofihan siitä seurasi, niin kuin saattoi odottaakin. Nukuin yön yli ja tänään sain toimimaan ko. pelin. Ajattelin auttaa kanssapelaajiani asentamaan pelin onnistuneesti Ubuntu 7.10:lle (ja ehkä myös aiemmille versioille) alla olevilla ohjeilla. Tärkeää on, että sinulla on pelin 2 CD:tä saatavilla. En ole varma, tarvitsetko Wine-emulaattoria pelin pyörittämiseen, mutta jos peli ei lähde käyntiin lainkaan, niin siinä tapauksessa kannattaa kokeilla sen asentamista.

Proseduuri menee näin:
1. Lataa Linux-asentaja täältä: http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51 (tiedosto unreal.tournament_436-multilanguage.goty.run)
2. Avaa Pääte ja muuta oikeutesi rootiksi (komento "sudo -i"). Mene kansioon, johon latasit tiedoston.
3. Kirjoita Päätteessä "sh unreal.tournament_436-multilanguage.goty.run"
4. Asenna ohjelma haluamillasi valinnoilla. Kun olet asettanut CD 2:n, juuttuu asentaja paikoilleen pitkäksi aikaa, mutta älä huoli: tietokone vain purkaa karttatiedostoja. Voit tarkkailla prosessia Päätteessä.
5. Kun asennus on valmis, mene sijaintiin, johon asensit pelin (oletus /usr/local/games/ut) ja avaa System-kansio.
6. Etsi tiedosto ut-bin ja tuplaklikkaa sitä. Peli lähtee käyntiin minuutin-parin kuluttua ja sinun pitäisi päästä pelaamaan sitä.
7. Oletuksena Päätteessä ei toimi komento "ut", jolla peli lähtisi käyntiin, mutta sen saa toimimaan kirjoittamalla "sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash" ja vastaamalla "No" kyselyyn, joka tulee eteesi.
Jos Päätteeseen tulee ilmoitus: "Couldn't run Unreal Tournament (ut-bin). Is UT_DATA_PATH set?", niin sitten sinun täytyy antaa Päätteelle komento "export UT_DATA_PATH=/usr/local/games/unreal/System" (jos polkusi on eri kuin tuossa, niin korvaa tuo sillä).


Yesterday it got into my mind: trying Unreal Tournament: Game Of The Year on Ubuntu. But as expected, the installation became a complete disaster. I slept over it and today I got the game working. I thought I should help fellow players to install the game succesfully for Ubuntu 7.10 (and maybe also for earlier versions) with the instructions below. It's important that you have the game's 2 CDs available. I'm not sure, if you need Wine emulator to run the game, but if the game doesn't even start, you should try installing it.

The procedure follows:
1. Download the Linux installer from here: http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51 (file unreal.tournament_436-multilanguage.goty.run)
2. Open Terminal and become root (command "sudo -i"). Go to the folder where you downloaded the file.
3. Write "sh unreal.tournament_436-multilanguage.goty.run" in Terminal.
4. Install the program with the selections you want. When you have put the CD 2 in, the installer gets stuck for a long time, but don't worry: the computer just extracts the map files. You can monitor the process in Terminal.
5. When the installation is complete, go to the location where you installed the game (default /usr/local/games/ut) and open the System folder inside it.
6. Find the file ut-bin and double click it. The game starts in a minute or two and you should be able to play it.
7. As default the command "ut", which is used to launch the game, doesn't work in Terminal, but it can be set to work by running a command "sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash" and by answering "No" to the query that comes in front of you.
If Terminal says: "Couldn't run Unreal Tournament (ut-bin). Is UT_DATA_PATH set?", you must give it the command "export UT_DATA_PATH=/usr/local/games/unreal/System" (if your path is different, replace that with it).

Linux ennen XP:tä/ Linux over XP

Kun olin jonkin aikaa lueskellut Nokia N800:n käyttäjäkommentteja ja arvosteluja, päätin ottaa selvää Linux-käyttöjärjestelmästä. Totesin, että sitä kannattaa aikakin kokeilla, ja varsinkin sen vuoksi, että Windows XP rullaa tässä tietokoneessa (500 MHz, 320 MB RAM) aivan liian hitaasti. En ainakaan menettäisi mitään.

Päätin valita Ubuntun (7.10, Gutsy Gibbon) jakeluversioksi. Se osoittautuikin todella hyväksi valinnaksi, koska nyt tietokoneen käyttö on todellakin nopeutunut huomattavasti. Tietokoneessa on vielä hieman liian vähän muistia, koska Operan ollessa päällä (monta välilehteä samaan aikaan) on vapaata muistia noin 10 megatavua. Mutta emolevylleni saa laajennettua muistia 3 x 256 MB:n verran eli 768 MB:iin, joten siihen tähdätään. Jos sinulla on myytävänä PC100-yhteensopivia 256 MB:n kokoisia DIMM-muisteja halvalla, niin olisin kiinnostunut :)

Linux on kyllä erikoinen järjestelmä, ja olen todella vaikuttunut Lisää/poista-ohjelmasta. Siellä on massiivinen lista ohjelmista, jotka sopivat tähän jakeluversioon ja riittää, kun rastitat listasta haluamasi ohjelmat ja sitten ohjelma asentaa ne järjestelmään. Lisäksi Pääte-sovellus (Windowsin Komentoriviä muistuttava ohjelma) on todella hieno, koska siinä on C- ja C++-kääntäjä integroituna ja kirjastoja (esim. SDL) voi lisätä haluamansa mukaan.

Olen todella tyytyväinen Windows XP:stä Linuxiin siirtymiseen. Vielä täällä on toinen (tai oikeastaan kaksikin) kone, jossa on Windows XP, eli XP:n ominaisuuksia tarvittaessa ei tarvitse asentaa uudelleen sitä tähän tietokoneeseen.


When I had some hours read Nokia N800's user comments and reviews, I decided to read some information about Linux operating system. I discovered that I should give it at least a try, and especially for the reason that Windows XP runs just too slow on this computer (500 MHz, 320 MB RAM). At least I wouldn't lose anything.

I determined to single out Ubuntu (7.10, Gutsy Gibbon) as the distribution. It showed to be a very good choice, because now using the computer has become noticeably faster than before. There's still a bit too little memory, because when Opera is on (many tabs at the same time), the amount of free memory is about 10 MB. But my motherboard can hold up to 3 x 256 MB amount of memory, so I'm aiming at 768 MB of RAM. If you have PC100-compatible 256 MB -sized DIMM memory modules for sale, I'd be interested :)

Linux sure is a extraordinary system, and I am very impressed by the Add/remove program. There's a massive list of applications that are compatible with this distribution and it's enough to check the boxes of desired programs. Then the application installs them onto the system. In addition to that, the Terminal-application (equivalent to Windows' Command line) is very neat, because there's an integrated C and C++ compiler and one can add libraries (e.g. SDL) into it when the person wants.

I'm most satisfied for the transference from Windows XP to Linux. Yet here is another computer (actually two), where there is Windows XP, so when I need XP:s properties, I don't have to reinstall it onto this computer.