Just a little video I though I’d share of Lucas beating Dave and I pretty badly at Wii Tennis, filmed on my Nokia N93i.  It’s pretty dark in our place at night, so the video quality isn’t indicative of the N93i ’s typical video output. 

I never would have thought Wii Sports would be so fun when having friends over - I can’t think of another game that gamers and non-gamers can have so much fun playing together.

When the crowd isn’t around, I dive into Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii… I can’t believe how much I love that game.  I’ve played every console Zelda game since the first - this might be the best Zelda yet.  Certainly the best Zelda in a while.

Even though I’m a little jealous of (though ultimately excited for) those out there that managed to get a hold of an N95, I can’t be too upset - I received my Nokia N93i this week and it’s quite a little powerhouse itself. And as you can tell from the photograph I took opening it up, dang shiny, too.

I posted a review of the N93 little while back, and this model is the follow-up “i” version that Nokia has historically released from time to time, to enhance the design or add features to an existing model. Fully knowing the improvements from reading about them online beforehand, I’m really impressed with them in person, and have already discovered a few more for myself.

I’ll be posting a “new features” overview of the changes made the N93i. I’m also looking forward to sharing some video and photos taken with the phone - hopefully something a little more fun that “test shots” that reviews typically have.

Normally I wouldn’t post something like this, but seeing it totally made my day. My buddy Darla Mack decided to do an unboxing video for the Nokia N95 she was sent from Nokia (your darn right I’ll be doing one for this handset, too!).

The surprise which causes her to squeal with joy is the best part. Congrats on the fun new toy, girl!

Even though it seems like forever (6 months ago?) that the Nokia N95 was announced, the community’s long wait is over.

The community? Oh, you know… the mobile tech-heads like myself that closely follow a certain circle of sites, blogs, forums, and web 2.0 playgrounds for the whisper of miracles in small, phone-shaped packages. And while we usually clamor over devices that are great upgrades to today’s technology, rarely are they a revolution (I just hate that word thanks to Jobs’ keynote revealing the neat multi-touch album art viewer iPhone).

If you’re unfamiliar with the N95 specs, here we go: HSDPA(3G), WiFi, GPS, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera lens and DVD-like quality video (640×480 @ 30fps), on-phone video editing tools, direct upload to photo services like Flickr and Vox, “Video Center” (YouTube and other great video feeds), mp3 player, standard 3.5mm normal headphone jack, built-in GPS navigation with pre-loaded maps, a honkin’ 2.6-inch 320×240px screen, dual-sliding mechanism, support of miniSD cards up to 2GB… *pant, pant*… And it’s shiny.

In the last 6 months, I’m surprised how quickly the Nokia N95 became “the one to beat”. And it’s pretty impressive that in those 6 months, we haven’t heard a comparable device even announced. It’s still on top. Usually by the time the phone we’ve been craving for gets in our sweaty little hands, there are announced phones we’d gladly toss it aside for, were they available.But it’s finally shipping, and it’s still king. And I can’t wait to have one.

This is crazy.  Justin.tv is a site where a guy has a cam strapped to his hat, and it streams live to the internet… 24/7.  There’s even a chat room, and he posts his cell number, so you can text or call him - live - and see it on cam.  It’s both absurd and intriguing. 

I’m going to watch when I have more time.   Though I guess I can tune in anytime, though I don’t imagine the hours when he’s sleeping will be very exciting.  Anyhow, definitely check it out… people will be talking about this real soon.

Fring is this great new application for mobile phones running Symbian. It lets you use a 3G, EDGE or WiFi connection to make free calls to anywhere. Fring also lets you send text messages or
“chat” to other fring users, in addition to Skype, Google Talk and MSN
contacts.

What makes it so cool? They’re making it do not just one type of call, but all sorts of combinations. VOIP to another Fring user in your Fring contacts. Or call any cell phone even if they don’t have Fring. And call any landline. Oh, and you can also connect to MSN Messenger, Google Talk, and Skype to use your buddy list there to IM and make calls. Any way you want it. Awesome.

I love that Fring is attempting to make this application just about as useful as possible. Many software companies would have limited the functionality to the left-hand side in the above diagram… in a greedy attempt to get their software on everyone’s phone in order for it to be of any use. However, by supporting almost everything combination under the sun, they’re making some news.

And that is why I’m making an official feature request, for icing on the cake. Video calling… via WiFi. I know tons of people with 3G phones sporting dual cams in North America. Sadly,they’re robbed of any video calling functionality due to our antiquated networks. And to my knowledge, Fring could be the first application to offer this functionality to the Symbian community.

Sadly, data plans in Canada are pretty unreasonable. Anyhow, the next chance I have to own or play with a Nokia handset with WiFi, I’ll be installing this sucker right away to try it out.

I’ve had an extra controller, Wii HD cables, and 3 games sitting in my closet for a couple months. I picked them up as I ran across them, knowing at some point, I’d get my hands on a Wii.

I did.

And it’s way fun.

This is might just be the new best thing ever.  Or at least for this week.

Meet Sondra Prill, singing "Nasty Boys", a la Tampa Public Access television in the early 90s.  Check how she breaks it down at 1:23 and 0:53 (on the time remaining counter).  I can’t help but burst out laughing at those parts, no matter how many times I play it back.

Nobody is quite sure where she is now… the hunt for her is on.   Someone even set her up a site.  She’s got other videos on there, too.

Thanks to OMG for sharing this little gem.

I thought I’d highlight some of the photos I took with my Nokia N73 on our recent trip to the big island. Of course, they’ll be in the mix on the moblog (photo journal), but I’m really happy with a lot of the shots.

I didn’t feel - at the time, anyway - that I was getting much in terms of photographs. But overall, I’m very pleased when I look at them now.

The N73 is still working great as my camera. While you may get less blurry photos with a camera phone with the Sony Ericsson K800i (or don’t need to be as careful to get a solid shot), the N73 really tops it in terms of color data. And when it comes time to edit photos - sharpen them up, level them out, or put some filters in the mix - I’ve found the smooth image quality of this handset really nice.

Now if only they’d catch up to Sony Ericsson and put a real Xenon flash in their phones… as many bar photos as I take, a real quality flash would really capture the drunken debauchery. :)

- Andy

I’ve gone through this before, and I’m doing it again. After using Typepad as the blogging engine for bravehound.com (the photo journal is actually still textamerica), I’m considering moving to Wordpress. I’d likely take a sweet theme template like K2 and customize it, but try to keep it pretty lean.But it’s hard decision to change to from Typepad at this point…

Reasons to consider a change to Wordpress

• Pagination, pagination, pagination!
  (support for next page of entries, etc.)
• More open blogging platform
• Time for a more usable blog!
• Highly adaptable engine
• Tons of plug-ins
• Flexible theme editing
• Free (but BYO hosting service)
• Host anywhere

Reasons to Stay with TypePad

• I’d likely lose my Google rankings for current pages (might be
  able to stop this by matching current URL permalink structure? Not
  sure..)
• No chance of overage fees for bandwidth (few people know this about Typepad)
• Consistently stable, has worked well over the years
• I’ve finally hacked the templates enough to look pretty darn custom

I know there are a handful of folks out there that have made the change
and have been quite happy. If you’ve moved from one to the other -
especially from Typepad to Wordpress - please comment and let me know
your satifaction, and namely how it effected your Google rankings.