Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Takes on Apple iPhone

Nokia  unveiled the 5800 Xpressmusic, its first touch screen phone, priced well below Apple’s iPhone model.

The Finnish cell phone maker hopes to tap consumers for whom the iPhone has been too expensive, selling its 5800 XpressMusic at $395 (279 euros). Consumers in many large markets will get the phone for free from operators when signing up for a contract.

With touch screen technology, the 5800 XpressMusic introduces the Media Bar, a drop down menu for access to music and entertainment such as tracks, videos and photos.

The Contacts Bar highlights four favorite contacts on the home screen. With a single touch, users can track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

The 3.2-inch widescreen display has a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording. It features a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. Images and videos can be shared via Share on Ovi, Flickr or Facebook.

It has a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus and a plectrum.

The music player includes a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, a 3.5mm jack and support for digital music formats. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer powerful sound.

“As Nokia’s first mass-market device with a touch screen, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic turns a user interface into a human interface by truly putting people first,” said Jo Harlow, Vice President of Nokia. “We have used touch technology where it really adds value such as the Contacts Bar, Media Bar and clever shortcuts from the homescreen to menu items such as calendar, profiles and clock.”

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be available worldwide beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Cell-phone spam can be curbed

source: The Columbus Dispatch – by Marshall Loeb

NEW YORK — Cell-phone spam still trails computer spam, with the average cell-phone user receiving no more than a few spam text messages per year. But in some ways, it can be even more intrusive, causing your phone to ring or vibrate at inopportune times and cost you money — 10 cents to 25 cents per message if you don’t have a data plan.

 

Since 2005, the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault on Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) has prohibited commercial e-mail and text messages to be sent to cell phones without express authorization. Unfortunately, the law leaves lots of loopholes.

From Consumer Reports magazine, here are four ideas for what you can do to minimize the chances of getting unwelcome text messages:

• Act fast. Call your carrier as soon as you receive a spam message. You might have more luck getting a handful of charges waived than waiting until, say, several dozen have accumulated.

• Block cell spam at the source. Go to your cell account online and access your e-mail and messaging preferences. Then activate the setting that blocks messages over the Internet.

• Register your cell number to block spam. You might already have registered your landline with the National Do Not Call Registry ( www.donotcall.gov). Using the same Web site, you can also register your cell number to block telemarketers.

• Don’t invite more spam. Free or inexpensive ringtones and games from third-party vendors might be tempting. But each such download might put you at risk of spam messages or other headaches, such as fraudulent charges and identity theft.

Omitting cell phone users may affect polls

WASHINGTON – People with only wireless phones may differ enough from those with landline telephones that excluding the growing population of cell-only users from public opinion polls may slightly skew the results, a study has concluded.

The finding, in a report this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, may increase pressure on polling organizations to include people who use only cell phones in their surveys. While many major polls including The Associated Press-GfK Poll already interview cell phone users, some do not, largely because doing so is more expensive.

Earlier studies — including a joint Pew-AP report two years ago — concluded that cell and landline users had similar enough views that not calling cell users had no major impact on poll findings. The new report concludes that “this assumption is increasingly questionable,” especially for young people, who use cells heavily.

Combining polls it conducted in August and September, Pew found that of people under age 30 with only cell phones, 62 percent were Democrats and 28 percent Republicans. Among landline users the same age that gap was narrower: 54 percent Democrats, 36 percent GOP.

Similarly, young cell users preferred Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain by 35 percentage points. For young landline users, it was a smaller 13-point Obama edge.

Scott Keeter, Pew’s director of survey research, said he believed this was because young cell-only users are less likely to own homes and be married than young people with landlines.

“Those are two variables that are associated with being somewhat more conservative and more Republican,” he said.

The report released Tuesday said that in Pew presidential polls from June, August and September, Obama’s lead was 2 or 3 percentage points smaller when cell users were omitted. Though such small discrepancies are usually within a poll’s margin of error and not statistically significant, this suggests some bias could exist by omitting cell users, which could be crucial in studying a race as close as this year’s presidential race.

It has long been known cell users are likelier to be younger, lower income and minorities. Pollsters routinely weight, or adjust, their data so it accurately reflects the age, race and other demographic features of the entire population.

According to federal figures, 16 percent of households had only wireless phones during the second half of 2007, and another 13 percent had wireless phones and landlines but seldom used the landlines to take calls. Cell-only households have been growing by 1 or 2 percentage points every half year.

Source: Associated Press

Don’t Throw Away the Map Just Yet!

Recently, my nephew took a road trip to South Carolina with a couple of friends. They had a great time with plenty of sunshine, nightlife, and laughs.

As he was traveling home, on his way back to Ohio, he decided to take to the back roads. Who could resist the opportunity to take the road less traveled and take in the scenery along the way?

Thinking that using his iPhone for a GPS device would be a great way to keep from getting lost, he overlooked the obvious. There are still places that you can not receive a signal for your wireless phones and devices. It happened! In the middle of nowhere, we all have been there, he lost his signal.

His dad had told him to take the old fashioned, printed on paper, seemingly obsolete, maps that were left over from a previous trip to the same place. He was using his iPhone as a GPS device so he would not get lost because that was the coolest way to go and those maps were a thing of the past.

After a time of searching for somewhere to stop and ask directions, he was finally pointed in the right direction and the right area to boot back up.

Maybe he should have had that map with him as a backup? I dunno but I hope he enjoyed the scenery!

Personal Memories

Personal memories and notes about events from your life and the lives of loved ones are numerous.  Use these ideas to help preserve and document these memories, with the ultimate goal of getting these memories into a scrapbook album to share with others.

 

• Keep a daily journal or a journal that you write in after each photographic event.  Note the date, place, and people as well as any emotions, happy or sad happenings, or memories from the event.  Jot down your thoughts.  You don’t have to use all of this information in a family scrapbook but it will be a good device to jog your memory when you do make the scrap book page.
• Keep a “snap shot” log with your camera.  Each time you return the camera to it’s storage spot, jot down notes from the snapshot session just completed.
• Tape recordings, recorder buttons and videotapes are great devices for recording the elder generation.  Interview them at length and transcribe the notes for later.
• Keep computer text files in a word-processor program.  Memories can either be verbose or simple; from rough notes to elegant essays. Keep track of the feelings behind the events. You can even import poems, quotes or images into the file for later use.
• Jot short blurbs down on sticky notes and attach them to the backs of photos as soon as they are printed.
• Never throw away your anual calendars or day planners.  They hold a wellspring of information about the events of a year.  Get in the habit of recording as much information about daily life as possible on a calendar and store the calendar with that year’s photographs to help jog memories about dates, times, and events.

 
Scrapbooking Products

Digital Photography Secrets

Everything Cricut

Sharing Your Scrapbook Pages Online

Taking pictures of your pages with your digital camera is a quick and easy way to share them with friends and family who live far away. Digital photos are perfect for photo share sites, online contests, etc. You can also capture photos of your scrapbook pages to save digital copies in the event of an unplanned disaster.

#1-Use bright, indirect lighting: the best lighting is actually sunlight. So, on a sunny day, you can layout your pages and capture them using indirect light from the sun. Be mindful of shadows, glare, etc..

#2-Turn off the Flash: Any direct light from camera flash, overheard bulbs, lamps, sunlight, etc. will cause glare on your page photo. This will not look very good once you upload and post your page.

#3-Snap your photo directly in front of the Page: Don’t shoot the photo at an angle. Try using something like a music stand, book stand, even a plate holder or lay the page on the floor and stand directly over it. You can even lay it on a table and stand in a chair..carefully. The key here is to be as squared off as possible to your target.

#4-Don’t fill the entire view finder with page: Leave space around the page so you can crop it later

Digital Pro Scrapbooking

Online Photo Sharing

Do you ever share your skills?

I would like to give a cheer to my wife for doing something I feel is just very nice and gracious.

We have some friends that recently took a trip to New Orleans.  One day at work, our friend brought her pictures in to share with everyone. My wife told her that she had some very nice pictures and of course suggested she she put a scrapbook together.

Not being a scrapper or even having the interest in doing so, my wife offered to take the pictures home and put something together for her, as a favor.

She is about to finish this book and it has turned out so beautiful. I am astonished at how much care and concern she has put into this scrapbook just because she wants our friends to have something wonderful to use to remember thier vacation .

This is not the first time that she has offered her services. We frequently “dog-sit” for a friend when she and the family leave town.  Over time, we had collected quite a few photos of “Molly” the dog, playing with our dogs and our kids. So, we thought how nice to give them something we know they would love. A scrapbook called “Molly’s Vacation Getaway”. They loved it and tears even flowed. It is amazing what these scrapbooks actually do for people.

I only shared all of this because I just think it is great to do something nice for someone and focus our attention on someone else for a change. Creating a visual to spark the internal memory a person has of something or someone special in thier life is a completely priceless gift. If you haven’t done this before, you should give it a try. If you have or do this already, then here’s a CHEER for you as well!

CJ
Digital Pro

Online Photo Album

At the risk of being accused of shameless advertising, I am going to announce that we finally put an online photo album on our site.  We have been asked by more than one person if we would do this and we decided to go ahead and make one.

What does this mean? It means that anyone who wants to share photos with friends, family, or anyone can create photo albums and share them as they are posted online.

We also look forward to seeing photos of scrap pages posted because we know that so many scrappers have unique ideas and want to share those ideas with others.

Ok…so there’s my spam.  I am the only member so far, as I just uploaded the software to the server last night. (March 14)  Maybe in a few weeks we will have a nice gathering of people willing to share there photos and pages!

Oh yeah…the URL is http://digitalpro.prosponsored.com/coppermine/index.php

Spoiled but not Ruined

As we continued up isle number 3 in the store, once again I had to say, “Put that back! You can’t go in a store and expect to get everything you want.”  This was probably the third time I had said that. I asked myself, “Why do they have to put all the tempting things so low on the shelves?”  Seems like everytime we go in that store she brings something home with her.

As we rounded isle three and began our trek up the isle of tasty goodies chocked full of mono-whatevers and poly-whatsitcalled, I turned around just in time to blast out a quick “NO!”  before she put whatever that was in her mouth. Oh man, that was close. She certainly would have swallowed that and who knows what the rest of the day would have been like for her and for me?

Maybe her mom is right. I have spoiled her way too much. Letting her do what she wants, when she wants. Constantly putting her needs before my own.  I can’t help it you see. From the first time I saw her, those big blue eyes that totally melt your heart and that thick red soft hair. Those silly little facial expressions she makes when she has something to tell you or needs something from you. I can honestly say, it was love at first sight.

Maybe it’s true, I don’t have to share a picture off my Razr Phone at every opportunity or seem too anxious to share what she did that day.

She has grown to be so tall and her red hair is thick and soft. She is so intelligent, she even out-smarts me at times. Fast! She is so fast, she should be in some type of sporting event, very atheletic.

So she doesn’t always listen. Who cares if she leaves her toys all over especially in high traffic areas? I have stumbled on bouncy balls and stuffed animals so many times it would seem like something was missing if I could walk across a room without some obstacle to get around.

I love those gentle nudges to wake me in the morning and the way she snuggles on the sofa with me as I watch a movie. There is warmth there, some understanding, and maybe some empathy for what I endure each day before finally settling down to relax.

So here I am, seems silly, but I am softened by this red haired, blue eyed girl who seems as fond of me as I do her. So After speaking so highly of her, let me share some pictures with you. Hope you like them….

Dakota at 2 months   Dakota now

Clueless Dad…

As the father of a 12 year old girl and an 11 year old boy, I am beginning to realize that I really don’t know anything about anything. For example,  why is it cool to buy clothes at a second hand store that were worn by strangers yet very uncool to wear “hand-me-downs” from a friend or relative? 

I appreciate that my daughter is popular and has quite a few friends. I listen to her chat to one friend on the phone while instant messaging two, three, maybe four at a time on AIM. (instant messaging service from AOL) Now that is talented, yes? Why then, do the words “Pick up your things from the family room.” seem to put her into a state of confusion?  It’s just way to much to deal with.

I think it’s kinda funny when my kids and there friends are playing Guitar Hero II. Why? Well, they are hearing and learning songs that I listened to as a kid and they have no clue I was once that COOL! An example of this happened recently when I picked my son up from school. I had the radio tuned into a Classic Rock station, and  “Message In A Bottle” came on and my son said, “Turn that up Dad! That’s a great song!” Why is it when I turn the music up in the car I am being “embarrassing” yet when the Jonas Brothers happen to come on the radio we must blow the speakers and start a dance revolution right there in the bucket seats?

Funny thing is, as a parent, I have come to realize that the kids aren’t confused…we are…the parents. As much as I thought I remembered what it was like being a kid, I am reminded daily that I have no clue what I am saying…just ask my 12 year old daughter if you don’t believe me.  

Truth is, I can’t complain. I have two great kids who are growing to be fine “young people”.  One day, they too will be complete idiots in the eyes of thier children who will soon forget everything they have ever learned. Should I tell them that they will one day be just like me? Nope, I thing I will let it be a surprise, just as my parents did to me.