17 posts tagged “n82”

Comic Con 2009 has come and gone.  It was quite an amazing experience.  Here's a summary of what I experienced.

PREVIEW NIGHT
Not much went on for preview night.  I spent the night browsing with my N97 tethered to my new at&t 3G account.

THURSDAY
The day started with walking the floor and scoring one of the big Warner Bros bag.  I also got a Star Trek foam finger from the Paramount booth.

My first panel was The Middleman.  This panel was a lot of fun with the whole cast of the show reading a lost episode.

I went on a wild goose chase to find an improptu Amanda Palmer performance, but never found her.  I tried to get into the Psych panel, but didn't get in after 60 minutes in line.

I tried to get into Hall H for Avatar but was far too late.  I did get to see a preview of Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, which another in a long line of surreal and visually splendid Gilliam films.

Later in the day, I got to see the Green Lantern animated movie, which was really great.  I'm a big fan of DC animation.
I then headed into downtown San Diego for a free metal show headlined by GWAR.  My roommate got me VIP passes, so I could watch from the balcony and get free drinks.

FRIDAY
Batman: Brave and the Bold was my first panel.  I sat next to writer Jim Krieg, we talked about local comic shops and I took a picture of him with his son.  The panel opened with the BatMite comic con clip. Then showed the Music Meister episode featuring Neil Patrick Harris. EPIC episode.

I then checked out the Disney panel in Hall H and got to see some of their animation in 3D.  The highlight of the panel was to see Hayao Miyazaki present his movie Ponyo.

I missed out on the TMNT25 panel.  I did get to see the Marvel animation panel, but it turned into a snooze.

The DC animation panel followed, which was awesome with Clancy Brown and Kevin Conroy present.

Next up was a panel for the movie Stan Helsing.  The movie was crap, but the stars of the movie were interesting, mainly Leslie Nielson, Kenan thomspon and Steve Hewey.

The best part of Friday was the big animation block that started off with the WORST CARTOONS EVER.  The highlight of this panel was a clunker called Rod Rocket, which featured Space Niggers with Russian accents.

Next up was the Spike and Mike Festival of Animation.  It had some great stuff.  This was followed by the Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted portion of the show.  The climax was the new Dr. Tran short: Fruit Hat

SATURDAY
The day kicked off with a celebrity sighting.  I caught up with Ryan McPartlin, who plays Captain Awesome on the show Chuck.  He said my Nerd Herd t-shirt was awesome.
I went on to wait in line for room 20 and the Chuck panel.  This was quite an amazing panel, opening with Jeffster performing Queen's Fat Bottom Girls.

Next up was a Seth McFarlane double shot of Family Guy and The Cleveland Show.  The Cleveland Show looked pretty good and I'll be watching it in the fall.  There was a great clip shown where Cleveland is trying to make his son more of a man, so he takes him to Comic Con and shows him how not to act.

Next up was the Matt Groening double panel of Futurama and Simpsons.  Matt gave out lots of weird prizes to the questioners.  A really well made Nibbler costume was a complete sereies box set encased in Bender's head.  Others won a Homer Simpson doll signed by Seth McFarlane and a Peter Griffin doll signed by Matt Groening.

I then proceded to wait 3 hours in line for the Venture Bros panel.  while waiting, I had an epic Tetris marathon with some people seated in front of me.  The Venture panel was a lot of fun.  I was so dissapointed missing it last year.

Afterwards, I checked out the Masquerade, which turned out to be quite boring.  I checked out the Heroes Carnival, but that sucked as well.  

SUNDAY
The day began with a Doctor Who panel followed up by American Dad.  I walked the floor a bit and then attended the talk back panel.  

This years chief complaints:  Twilight ruined Comic Con, lines, the meeting rooms are too small and the security were rude, stupid and useless.

I took the train home and had a very pleasant ride.  Looked out one window and saw the freeway jammed with cars while I looked the other way to see the sun set over the ocean.  
I sat behind a producer from Psych and he showed an upcoming epsiode.

The final stretch of a bus ride featured a major geekout with all the guys next to me.

MOBILES
The N97 did its job as a twitter phone and media player while the N82 handled pics.  Videos I tried shooting on the N97, but whenever I zoomed, it ended up looking terrible.  What I really need is a phone with qwerty, xenon flash and optical zoom. Maybe I should just get a dedicated camera to complement my N97

I got a couple of E63's today for my cousins.  I took the opportunity to take a picture of my box collection.   I closed the shutters so my room would be pretty dark.

Boxes on the N97.  Shot with auto mode.
As you can see, the boxes are not well lit and many things are a bit blurry.  The colors don't seem right.  Its almost as if its a picture from 1909.

Boxes on the N82.  Shot with auto mode.
Everything is sharp and bright.  Xenon flash makes a world of difference. I am going to miss my N82.

20081102407
Originally uploaded by Al Pavangkanan

Just noticed my picture is being used on wikipedia.
Shot with the N82

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Ki

Not impressed with Nokia's recent announcements, I decided to get a replacement N82 Black.  It arrived Wednesday and I immediately went about installing my favorite apps.

On Thursday, v30 firmware was released.  When I updated my N82, it bricked!  Much to my surprise, Nokia Software Update provided instructions for getting it back up and running.  Simply removing the battery and holding down the power button brought it back to life.  A second try with the update process and I had v30 firmware.  A great thing about firmware updates on the N82 is User Data Preservation.  I didn't lose anything when I updated.

Most news sites and blogs didn't notice any major changes, but I just found one that changes my viewing habits immensely.

It wasn't until Saturday night that I opened up the Video Center.  Normally I use a combination of Podcasting for my phone and Video Center for my Internet Tablet.  I watch a lot of video podcasts on my N800 since the screen is larger.  Some shows I watch on the N82, since it can handle higher quality video.

I added Rocketboom to my channels and noticed that there's some new options.  You can refresh your feeds and set up automatic downloads.  This is great news, to me at least.

From now on, Podcasting will be dedicated for audio downloads and Video Center will handle all video.  Some people will prefer using Podcasting to handle all their new media needs, but I like to keep things seperate. 

One good reason to only use Podcasting is for opml support.  You can import and export .ompl files that are filled with links to shows.   The Podcasting app makes it easy to import shows.  Using Video Center, you have to manually add shows.  Even with cut and paste or a bluetooth keyboard, it takes time to input. 

So why am I putting myself through that kind of torture?  Any video played from Video Center has a resume function.

Recently, the N95-1 and N95-2 also got v30 updates.  If you have one, does your Video Center also have these upgrades?

Back in June, I bought a Nokia N82 Black on ebay.  The price was $500 and included a 1 year warranty.  Combined with a Live Search promotion and a coupon, my final price was $325.  I was ecstatic.  I waited for it for so long.

After a couple of weeks, the right speaker went out.  So I tried to sent it back to the seller, who was located in Hong Kong.  I went to FedEx and they wanted $100 to ship it.  I tried USPS, and they wanted about $50.  My dad offered to ship it from Bangkok on his next trip, since the shipping would be cheaper there.

It was shipped on July 10 and has been lost ever since.  I really wanted to take the N82 to the San Diego Comic Con.  The pictures I took with a trial N95 8GB NAM were dissapointing. 

I'm in Bangkok right now and have learned there was no tracking number used, so its lost.  I'm quite upset about this.  Not just about the lost phone, but the experiences I'm missing.

I can't take pictures of things I find interesting.  I can't load maps to know where I am and find what's nearby.

Seeing as there's no phone that's been leaked that has interested me, I'll probably end up getting a second N82.

A few weeks ago, local tv station KCBS interviewed me about QIK.

The footage can be found here:
http://www.cbs2.com/video/?id=70193@kcbs.dayport.com

You can see me using my N82.  Funny thing happened that day.  I was supposed to meet them at 5PM at a nearby park.  On my way, I ran out of gas in a left turn lane.  Their news van pulled up behind me and called while I was waiting for AAA to help me out.

Under a rock
Originally uploaded by Dr Tran!

On July 4th at 2PM, nine inch nails updated their tour KML file for google earth.

Around 6PM, someone noticed something strange in the KML file. A question mark was placed in Burbank. The only info said "Under a Rock"

I was in the middle of barbeque and couldn't leave until 8PM. I drove to the location with help from my N82's Garmin application. I arrived around 9PM.

When I got there, I found the 2 rocks seen here. There was nothing under the one on the right. Under the left one, there was a lizard that freaked me out. I kept looking around, but it was no use, if something was there, it was gone.

I drove to the nearby park and watched the fireworks from the Rose Bowl. The show lasted about half an hour, so I went back to the rocks. I found an empty bank envelope and wrote down:

When I saw a coyote nearby, I left for my own safety.  I used Google Maps to find a Starbucks, since they have wifi there.  I got there and I turned on my N800 to participate in this thread at echoing the sound.  I got in contact with the guy who got the tickets. He got there maybe 10 minutes before I did.  When I came home, I posted the rest of my pictures here.

Overturned
Originally uploaded by Dr Tran!

Overturned big rig. South bound traffic was all the way to Nevada.

What I love about geotagging is that I know exactly where this happened.

The MOTO ZN5 is a 5MP camera phone with xenon flash.

There's a review at M-R here:
http://www.mobile-review.com/review/motorola-zn5-en.shtml

Things that jumped out:

• The camera UI seems WAY better than my N82's UI.  I love how the number keys have functionality 
• 500 mhz processor and dedicated optics processor: This means the camera loads really fast and images are processed faster.
• 32 MB or RAM.  No multitasking here.  Its not a smartphone, so don't expect any expansion.  This is also makes it a better camera phone.  If I have 5 or 6 apps running on my N82, it takes longer for the camera to load.
• RAW format.  Fucking awesome!  I would love for my N82 to have that option instead of compressed images.  I imagine the time wasted for processing the image for jpg compression would be no different than the time to write a large RAW image.
• Video quality sucks eggs.
• 3.5 mm jack makes it better than Sony Ericsson's C905.
• micro USB 2.0 makes it better than the N82

1. Nokia N82: smartphone OS and better video
2. MOTO ZN5: non proprietary ports, great camera UI
   
3. SE C905: 8MP camera, nice aestthetics, good UI
   

Hello my baby hello my honey..

20080619495