Category: Life

Today is the last day of the Mobile Application Design class that I’ve been teaching at ITP and I think it’s going to be an awesome class. Tonight, the students will be presenting their final projects – if you want to get a sneak peek – check it out here:
Final Projects – Mobile Fun-o-rama

FABRICA – I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU

Looks like it’s going to be a fantastic exhibition. Why? Well, because it contains work by Dan, Mark and Ann – that’s why!

If you’re anywhere near Seoul, take a bit of a break from snacking on silkworms (bun dae gi), put down that kimchee lollipop and head on over to this show. It’ll be worth it. I promise.

After moving into my new space featuring my jazz singer roommate, I immediately noticed that I was missing something. The internet. Fast internet. Slow internet. Easily accessible internet. Any internet dammit. All that was available was a single open Wifi node called Petstore whose lone bar of signal blinked in and out of existence at the whim of the gods. This was NOT going to do.

So, while I eagerly await something approaching decent internet access, I decided to use my brand new Nokia N80 to dial up to the interweb. Since I’d already been doing this happily with my Nokia 6682, I thought it would be a cinch. Uh uh. No go. When I tried to reuse the same connection as before, it would attempt to connect, I would see the Bluetooth busy icon on the phone light up, then I would see the GPRS icon attempt to establish a connection… then…. nothing. Disconnect. Every single time this happened.

So, after a day or two of relentless tweaking, I found a lovely web site called Janice on the Blog which informed in the most polite German, that I need to “Geht nicht – gibts nicht !”. Anyway, a quick trip to Altavista’s Babel Fish translator and I came out with gems like

Note: It can be that it only a Haeckchen under “announcements – network configuration” with your N80 to make must, so that it also emerges:

To cut a long story short, to set up your N80 to dial up to the Internet using OS X on Cingular in the US, this is what you need to do:

1. Download the Modem Scripts from here. Unstuff and move them into your /Library/Modemscripts folder
2. Pair with the N80 as a Bluetooth Device, make sure that you check – Access the Internet, and choose GPRS.
3. Fill in the following details:

Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
GPRS CID String: [leave this blank]
Modem Script: NOKIA 3G CID1

4. Go to Network Preferences -> Bluetooth. Make sure the phone number is blank. Click PPP Options, then ensure that both Send PPP echo packets and Use TCP Header Compression are unchecked.
5. That’s it. Dial up and bask in the warm glow that is the internet at GPRS speeds.

A clear view this time.., originally uploaded by michaelsharon.

Nokia Dinner at the Carnelian Room. 52nd Floor.

I spent the past weekend at the beautiful Stanford campus in Palo Alto attending a Python for Series60 Workshop given by the highly entertaining Jurgen Scheible. Met some awesome people whose work I’ve been tracking for a while – including Jukka Laurila, Kari Pulli and Joe McCarthy.

One of the highlights of the weekend was having a lively conversation about industrial design, boating, why he doesn’t own a Vertu phone and how Motorola is doing in the Third World with Tero Ojanperä over dinner at the Carnelian Room (52 stories above San Francisco!). Other highlights include making it to Manlio’s birthday party at the Hemlock bar (a place I seem destined to visit every time I go to SF), hanging out with Raffel, Cameron and significant others for Sunday brunch, dinner with Andreas and meeting up with Mor and Tonya for a great snack at Tartine…

Got at b3co.com!

I love this. Using logos of all the subway systems you’ve ever ridden is a wonderfully whimsical expression of creating a community around a shared experience. Tell me you don’t want to go to the site right now and click on everything. Now if only I could add the cute little Shinkansen logo…