Today I am going to step away from all technical subjects I've been talking about here, and share some thoughts on environment, the problem of global warming and energy shortages. I came across a very interesting short article, which probably sums up my thinking quite very well. It's called "Why Recycling Can Be Utter Garbage" (I love this sentence) and is written by Dr. Eamonn Butler for the Adam Smith Institute. I am not one of those people who think that global warming isn't happening, but rather I am about taking logical actions as opposed to stupid, expensive, and a complete-waste-of-time actions all under the slogan "we must become green".

I was therefore very satisfied to hear Lord Howell and his colleague Carole Nakhle speak at the evening talk this Tuesday about their new book "Out of the Energy Labyrinth". You can familiarise with his opinions by reading the article "The vanity in 'green' virtues"on his web-site.

Yet another piece of evidence to confirm how right I am has been in the news informing us that the energy saving light-bulbs are actually harmful for our health because they have mercury in them (the article can still be found on the Guardian web-site). Thousands of people are actually having an acute reaction to such bulbs and cannot stay in spaces lit up by them for long time.

Let's hope that we will live till the day when we will find appropriate technological solutions for our environmental problems, which will minimise the harm to Earth as much as the harm to ourselves.

(The picture is taken from "kerstin_d's photos" on Flickr)

I am off to London tomorrow on a business mission and having written some brief notes for my meetings in OneNote, which are not long or large enough for MS Word file to my liking, I've decided that I would give ActiveNotes (see my previous blog entry) a try. My laptop is quite heavy - about 3.2 or more kgs - and my own persona definitely does not resemble a Rambo man or Beatrix Kiddo in any way, but rather something of Elizabeth Bennet in miniature, and hence I prefer to use my N95 as much as possible to avoid carrying the Toshiba monster. So, I understood that we could open ActiveNotes files in any browser on our PCs, and along came an idea to look at the HTML code of a note and then add text and files from the computer and copy the note back into N95. I must say things are not so easy. I haven't managed to make the note work in the phone with file attachments simply because I couldn't produce correct thumbnail images of them. However I was able to add new text and leave file attachment to be done directly in the phone (in fact, it's probably more convenient anyway). The additional text should be added with very simple codes:

It's as simple as that. Of course, you need to copy both the HTML file and a file folder back to the ActiveNotes folder in the mobile. I used FrontPage to edit everything, and was using the HTML view to do it, because if you work in Regular view adding new text then FrontPage will invent some very complicated code for it, which your mobile won't be able to show.

Today I am all about N95. You see, I have periods of using my phone without noticing much of it as if it is Nokia 8310: my first ever Nokia, - and even though it is the cutest phone ever N95 is like from science fiction compared to it. After some weeks of such idle and irresponsible use of the smart mobile species I suddenly realise that wow, I've got a smartphone that is evolving and I have to check out where! So, I throw myself into the cyberspace, forget all my love life and work life, forget about feeding myself and start discovering all the news, uploading and installing new apps, cleaning up the memory and deleting all the rubbish collected during the "idle" times. I am a geek, am I not...

Today I've discovered an excellent video trick called Popcorn Machine (this is a link to upload the file for your N95). It will definitely amuse the children and people who have phones to do phone calls only, who somehow equal to children anyway. It comes from www.symbian-freak.com , and many people may have heard of it by now. Allegedly it originates from an iPhone devoted web-site, and I am really happy that we N95 enthusiasts do not have iPhone as a rival! :P
When you open the file in your mobile go to Options and press Play Full Screen instead of usual Play.



I also found a very comprehensive N95 blog here on Blogger: http://sjc-123.blogspot.com with plenty of excellent new N95 apps including a Screenshot [this is a direct link to the file] and Active Notes: both are going to be in my phone in just 5 minutes. I will let you know how I've used them and if there was any trouble at all, but as I can see from SJC's blog he knows what he is talking about. Make sure to read the Active Notes User Guide first.

Hmm... Internet is the most amazing thing ever! As soon as I registered with Del.icio.us, I found Digg and StumbleUpon. The former didn't quite appeal to me as it is more oriented to those who want to spend loads of time online discussing everything what they cannot with their grandma. As for StumbleUpon : it's a beauty. It combines the strengths of Delicious with very nice Web 2 interface where you can both catalogue your favourites, discuss things, see most viewed pages, and in addition stumble upon a page that falls within your interests. The "StumbleUpon" button is the best feature to my taste as I spent hours reading stuff about the elegant universe, string theory, and Einstein's brain, which I would never find on my own - not because of the lack of interest, but because of the lack of time to look for it. My page there is http://foreigngirl.stumbleupon.com/

The second find of the year is Pandora radio from Music Genome Project. You can create your own stations, but this is not original and surprising anymore. What Pandora does differently is the way it classifies songs to find those that match your preferences. You can read all about how it is done here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project . I can only say, that it works perfectly, and it's simply the best, just the very best, music / radio web-site currently available.





The only problem is that it is licenced to work only in USA. When I was registering my account I indicated a US zip code, but after several days it didn't work anymore and I was coming into an apologetic page indicating my non-US IP. Believe it or not, but I was able to solve this problem. I thought that among all those millions on the Net there should be some similar desperate people who did not want there true IP addresses being revealed. There is a solution for all us security obsessed Pandora-lovers: it's a free Tor+Vidalia+Privoxy software bundle that helps you to obtain a random IP address from different countries. It works best with Firefox as there is an add-on for this browser, which helps to manage Tor. I admit that it's not really convenient as IP address assigned is always different and I have to disable Tor and then enable it back again several times in order to obtain a US IP for Pandora, but given the benefits of accessing Pandora I am prepared to do this!

After a long while I am starting this over again and will focus on my hobbies only. My hobbies are Nokia mobile phones, Web 2.0 for a general and unsuspecting user, popular science (nuclear, quantum physics, space), environmental concerns and everything related to de-mystification of various efforts to reduce pollution (like energy-saving light bulbs, which damage our health), and social networking. I should have mentioned the latter in relation to Web 2.0 but it's such a huge phenomenon that deserves its own emphasis.

My first piece is about Del.icio.us and Twitter. I knew about Del.icio.us for a long time, but it's only several days ago that I have finally decided to try it myself after one of my friends told me she was astonished at all the new stuff she could find via the web-site. I can confirm the fact everbody knows probably better than me that Del.icio.us rocks. I was able to find loads of relevant information like Chernobyl nuclear disaster pictures and the World Economic Forum site.

The WEF introduced me to Twitter here http://www.davosconversation.org/ and then off to http://twitter.com/davos. When I looked at Twitter's home page I thought it was a waste of web space. Then I made a search and found several blogs writing about Twitter in a favourable manner:
http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about.php
I thought if it could make me more efficient when I was on the go then be it, I would sign up. So, I am there, too: http://twitter.com/foreigngirl