N810 Followup

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I’ve been pretty pleased with my little Nokia N810 so far. It’s fit in well as a secondary/companion device – web access (almost) anywhere, navigation and media playback. Tnere’ve been a couple nagging gaps, though…

– Podcasts. I’ve yet to figure out if it’s possible to subscribe to podcasts in an iTunesish way. It looks like you can kludge your way through with RSS, but not easily or conveniently.

– Weather. There’s a nice looking weather app (omWeather) available, but I can’t get it to install. I’ve made the N810 take the red pill (Nokia-speak for loosening some of the controls) without success.

– Twitter. There’s (again,as far as I can tell) no stand-alone Twitter client for the N810. Reading tweets on my cell phone is no big deal, but I just haven’t acquired the numeric keyboard texting skills that I guess I need. I could always go to the Twitter web site, but I’d really like something more like the Twitter widget in Netvibes.

Eureka! I’d been thinking about putting a Nokia-optimized Netvibes page together, and yesterday I finally got motivated to do it.

Weather? Check. Twitter? Check.

Podcasts? Sorta-check. The small toolbar at the top of the netvibes page is the built in player. I can listen to The Onion Radio News so long as I have a net connection. It’ll do…

Now, if I can just get this self-charging hack to work, I’ll be sitting pretty.

Note – N810 + Wordpy + cell phone camera + texting-photos-to-Flickr = completely moblogged post.

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Turning Wicked

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In a recent email exchange, Steve turned me on to a great little phrase. I’d been going on about one of my favorite moments with pointing dogs – it happens once per dog and is that instant when instinct/breeding kicks in.

Me:

I love the moment the light bulb goes on. One minute the puppy is busting birds, blundering around, then you can see her get a nose full of scent, the switch gets flipped and bang! she locks up.

It is a fraught moment – an instant of ‘fit’ when the element that is the pup finds her way into the hunting partnership with a nearly audible click.

Steve:

“Moment the light bulb goes on”: called “turning wicked” by Brit longdoggers.

Now I know what to call it – repurposing the phrase isn’t too big a sin. As a bit of penance, a picture of a British gazehound from a Flickr contact. If you look at Ameerah’s face, you’ll see intense focus – she’s waiting – knows her business.

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Saluqihounds says, “Our dog point all the time whether its to tell us there are in a particular rabbit warren or something is in a bush etc. Some, Ameerah in particular will point in a fashion whilst stalking game in open ground.”

Purple hair and other attributes

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Continuing with our Drake theme- this time, emphasizing UFO hair – color, if not length: Charlie Stross (who’s heard of J. G. Ballard) writes a post explaining how much control an author has over the way their book is published (especially, in this case, influence over cover art).

Unless we’re talking about the small press or self-publishing, the answer is “zip”. The author is responsible for writing and delivering the contents of the book and, optionally, additional material such as a dedication and acknowledgements. But the way their manuscript — a typescript, typically prepared in accordance with the ancient and established Rules — is turned into a book is entirely up to the publisher.

Why would he feel that it was important to say this? Behold the US cover for his latest – due for a July release:

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As an aside – what better place for the immobile enhanced breast meme than in a CGI portrait…