beatnic - just wondering

I’ve had my Nokia N95 phone since June. I’m pretty pleased with it. It’s good for looking at websites, the camera is great despite the shutter lag, video quality good. It’s ok for having phone calls on. Battery life’s ok. I haven’t got the patience with the GPS, and sometimes I do wonder if it’s registered a key press…

There a couple of things I find virtually impossible to remember how to do…

1. Changing the “desktop icons”

   Well that’s what I call them. It’s the menu which lets you access six applications quickly from the phone’s desktop or start screen. I guess it’s because they’re called Active standby apps - not a name that I could easily have guessed.

   Here’s the path you’ll need to take to change them:

   Main Menu > Tools > Settings > General > Personalisation > Standby mode > Active Standby apps

   Phew! Now you can select which apps you want to create short-cuts for.

2. Deleting multiple text messages

   Deleting all your messages in your SMS inbox is different from previous Nokia models, which as far as I can remember had their own delete menu.

   With the N95 (and possibly across the N-series) you’ll need to use the Mark/Unmark feature.

   In your message inbox, highlight one of the text messages you want to delete, and select Options. Select Mark/Unmark then Mark all. This will be indicated on-screen by placing a tick next to each message that’s marked. You can now perform tasks on all the Marked messages, including delete.

And what’s the difference between a Tool and an Application? I’m sure there’s a logic in there somewhere, but I find it very confusing. To me they’re all tools and they’re all applications.

These are the text message (SMS) templates that came with my phone:

1. I am late. I will be there at
2. I’m at home. Please call
3. I’m at work. Please call
4. I’m in a meeting, call me later at
5. I will be arriving at
6. Meeting is cancelled.
7. Please call
8. See you at
9. See you in
10. Sorry, I can’t help you on this.

I’ve never used them. I’m not sure I ever will.

“Sorry, I can’t help you on this.” Seriously!

I mean they all seem to be written in some strange language from a bygone era. For starters they all have complete words and correctly used punctuation.

It got me wondering what templates you’d end up with if you went round asking people what text messages they send the most.

Adaptonyms (also known as textonyms and cellodromes) are words that can be typed with the same sequence of keys on a cell phone using predictive text. For example the sequence “2-3-3″ can produce “bed”, “add”, or “bee”.

Source: Wikipedia

Yesterday I texted a friend to let him know we’d “good to pub”. What I meant to write was “gone to pub”. Anyway he got the idea!

It got us talking about the perils of predictive text.

One friend pointed out that when you want to write “Mum”, the phone insists on offering “Nun” first, even though it’s much less commonly used and comes later in the alphabet. “Book” being offered before “Cool” is perhaps more understandable, but not when you think about which age group does the most texting.

The other day I got a puncture on my way in to work and wanted to text ahead to warn people I’d be late. “Got puncture in Canceryell” (hello, I’m trying to write Camberwell, what on earth is this word?)

Andy becomes body… there are loads of examples. Fortunately I don’t think I’ve offended anyone yet but I can see how it could happen.

And even though I must have written my name hundreds of times my phone never learns to offer it first. When I tap 642 I want Nic not Mic.

Sign on train today…

Just wondering… what constitutes using a mobile phone these days?

I read the news on mine today quite happily (and quietly). If I’d read it to someone else would I have been arrested?