Ireland from a Polish perspective

Couple of days ago I have bought nice new gadget - internet tablet from Nokia. Nokia 770 is Linux Debian based handheld computer with wide range of capabilities and programs ported from original Linux Debian platform. There is very strong wi-fi card on board that sees far more available networks than my middle range laptop. In example - I am working on archaeological site close to Balitore (Co Kildare, Ireland). We are digging in the middle of the field, in the sight of telecommunication mast and nearest farm in distance of 200 metres, and my Nokia 770 can connect to the open access hot spot available over there (I don’t know if it is a home wireless network or the telecommunication mast).
What makes this computer very useful is the screen resolution: 800 x 480 px, and of course wide variety of applications available. I have many of them installed - Abi Word (text editor), MPlayer (Video, Audio and internet streaming), Opera Web Browser, E-mail client, RSS reader, VOIP software, PDF reader, sketch drawer, image viewer, FTP client, X Terminal (to gain root account and to be able to use some typical Linux software), Canola medial player, one PIM suite (with timesheets, contacts, to do list, callendar), Pidgin Instant Messenger (with all popular protocols - Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, etc), and even some games like Free CIV port for Nokia 770.

With some shell linux applications installed like Kismet, Aircrack, Nokia 770 seems excellent tool for every wardriver or network administrator. In fact, in a couple of days I am going to deal with wardriving and to check the level of security of Irish wireless networks.

Some technical specifications:
* Processor: 250 MHz Texas Intruments OMAP 1710
* RAM: 64 MB Flash
* HDD: 64 MB Flash
* Memory expansion slot: RS-MMC up to 2 GB
* WiFi: 802.11 b/g
* Bluetooth: v. 1.2
* I/O: Audio (3.5mm), on board microphone, USB (slave), power socet
* Battery: BP-5 Li-Polymer 1500 mAh
* Screen: 800×480 (wide: 109mm), 65536 colours,

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It is probably the first entry on my blog about technology things that has nothing to do with Ireland itself. However it describes a thing vital for my blog and pictures of Ireland.

Couple of days ago my camera - Konica Minolta DiMage A1 - has died. Actually not the whole camera, but CCD. It doesn’t take pictures of real life anymore, instead of it it takes pictures of something which is simillar to Northern Lights or kinda weird ghost pictures. I was deeply depressed because my Konica Minolta A1 was my main tool and now it is dead. Luckily, I have found official manufacturer statement, that all Konica Minolta cameras (including DiMage A1) manufactured between 2002 and 2004 have a bad CCD construction failure so they are going to be removed even the guarantee period is over. However I have to go to Poland and to my Sony (former Konica Minolta) service. Thus I am without a proper camera for next month or so.

The only thing I got now is a 3 megapixel so called camera in my Nokia N73. To be honest, I don’t understand people who are creazy about megapixels in their mobile phones. Doesn’t matter if your mobile has 2 megapixels or 5 megapixels. Camera in the mobile is just a toy and the quality of the photos won’t be as good as from the regular camera even with CCD with less megapixels. Despite those facts I have to use my mobile as a camera for at least couple of weeks.

Anyway, how does that Nokia N73 3 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lenses work? First of all - it is hard to set up everything and manual mode (the only one I accept) is limited to the minimum (ISO - low, medium, high; Light conditions - automatic, sunny, cloudy, fluorescent; Aperture from 1 to 10 and that is all) and the quality of the photos is rather low. It doesn’t matter that the pictures have resolution 2048 x 1536 when you can see pixelisation and high compression on them, despite the camera is set up for best quality photos. There is no proper white balance, so all of the photos are reddish.

So, my conclusion is, so called “cameras” in mobile phones sucks, but now it is my only option. Maybe next month I am going to by a proper big digital reflex camera with some replaceable lenses.

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