The Nokia N810 – perfect for skyping
Personally, I’ve always had an affinity to Nokia – My past 3 phones itself being the 3310, the 7260 and currently I’m using the 7390 of the L’Amore series.
When I was given the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet on loan for a some weeks thanks to Supriya of Text100, I took to it like fish to water.
At first glance, it’s a really beautiful gadget with its grey blue exterior. Switching it on, it did not take too long to get used to the interface. Even though it uses a linux operating system, it was pretty easy that anyone who knows how to use a handphone would be able to handle it.
Being pocket sized, I find myself carrying this gadget often and especially to events when I could do live microblogging using twitter or plurk.
It has to be clarified though, that the N810 is not a handphone. There is no slot for a sim card. Thus I was perplexed on how to connect to the internet on demand. But I am pretty sure that it was possible, as I’ve seen youtube clips of people being able to connect to gprs maps using the device.
Hence, the only way that I could connect during this review was to rely on wifi connections. But so far it hasn’t been much of a problem for me as I have wireless connection at home and fortunately for me, wiress@sg was rather reliable at the places that I patronized.
And though the N810 is sometimes compared to the popular UMPCs, I feel that it would be like comparing it apples to oranges as they are both in different leagues.
One of the notable part of the N810 is that it shares a developers website where you could download softwares coded by people who uses the maemo platform, which the N810 uses. I love open source! It was a nice touch to be able to find additional softwares like games as well as applications like pidgin so that I was able to chat on msn and gtalk.
However, one bugboo to take note of is that at this point of writing, N810’s latest operating system – The Diablo OS2008does not support Pidgin. Personally, I find it a shame as instant messaging was a function that I use very frequently.
And another thing that bugged me was that although it played youtube videos well, trying to play clips on the more graphics intensive vimeo was laggy, making it uncomfortable to view.
Regardless what I liked best about the N810 was the sound quality. Both the speakers and microphone was excellent as I could hear and speak with no problem at all. Thus it was a joy for me to use the skype function on the N810, which probably what will make me miss the N810 the most.
What would make it better would be if there were a video-conference function in skype. And at this point of time, there is none and I don’t think that there will be in the future.
The device being small, I could just chuck it next to me and lie down comfortably on the bed while talking to Cartcart. His voice was comforting that inevitably, I’d be fast asleep a few minutes into the conversation.
I haven’t been doing any late night skyping anymore since returning the review unit. I’ts not easy to lug my desktop to bed!
Anyways below is a quick overview on the interface as well as its different functions :
An overview of the Nokia N810 from rinaz on Vimeo.
My apologies for the quality of the video. It was 4am at the time of recording and I was plagued with the flu. But such a sexeh voice I have there! š
Have you used an internet tablet before? What do you think of it?
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Help! I bought too much make up!
I was a completely well adjusted young adult till recently I’ve gone completely bonkers!
It all started innocently with Wishbone was recommending some cosmetics samples from Pure Luxe. I did some research on it, there were many good comments about it – especially this Rainbow Eyeshadow Tutorial, which impressed me.
I picked up the courage to order just a few items online. And this was what came in the mailbox some while after :
Later on, Sylvia posted about some links about free minerals sample kits which intrigued me. I ordered a sample kit from Everyday Minerals.
After using it for a while, I found out that I enjoyed using them – my skin took it well and I liked how natural it looked on me. And before I knew it, I started to click on the purchase button. And look at what came to me some weeks later.
Goodness!
And on top of that, I’ve also discovered LiveJournal sprees! I recentlyĀ Ā got fascinated by this very colourful 88 Eye-shadow Palette and decided to get one for myself.
The day I got the palette, even though I was not skilled at eye make up, I had a blast of a time trying out different eye looks. It was so exciting to me. I feltĀ like a little girl given with a lot of colours to play with!
And for some reason, I was itching to try something new. I decided that I wanted a neutral palette this time. However, the one at Coastal Scents were a tad too expensive when I calculated the dollar conversion as well as the shipping charges.
It was only when I stumbled uponĀ a seller from ebay. Based in Hong Kong, she was said to be the manufacturer of the palette. So I’m getting it direct!
This is my new 28 neutral eye-shadow palette. Isn’t this absolutely gorgeous? I love playing with all of my new colours! It’s so much fun!
At this point of time, some of my loves would be Pureluxe’s Nymph Blush as well as the Nymph-o-mania lip colour for its healthy, natural, yet sexeh shade š
Unfortunately now, I have so much mekap now that my side table could hardly contain all of them that its spilling to the floor! Definitely no moreĀ cosmeticsĀ for me for now.
At least not until my next obsession.
I love Flight of the Conchords!
It was an experience to remember being in the HBO office!
I was invited by Sumin of the PR agency text100 for a preview of HBO’s comedy. Having enjoyed HBO’s shows, notably, Sex and the City, I happily confirmed my attendance.
It was a long ride all the way to the HBO office. We recognized the building when we spotted the large satellites on top of the tall building. When we reached the floor, we were welcomed warmly by Sumin. It was an impressive place to be. There were loads of televisions everywhere. My eyes were attracted by the numerous shows that was playing simultaneously.
Our hosts brought us, as well as the other invited bloggers on a tour around the office where we explored the different departments. There was a green room, where one of the guests acted out and one of the engineers keyed in a background to the footage. There was a sound room where Jerrick’s voice was used as a sample sound for a tv commercial. And we were also brought to the control room where the there was one staff there that was manning the broadcast, LIVE!
Being someone who likes watching as well as editing videos myself, it was fascinating for me to watch the different processes. Unfortunately, due to security reasons, I cant publish any images from the production area. Regardless, there are loads of information on the internet about this.
After the tour, we were seated in a screening room where were previewed an upcoming comedy series called, “Flight of the Concords”. Apparently, the show roused quite an interest in the US.
Thats Jermaine on the left and Bret on the right
In a nutshell, Flight of the ConchordsĀ a quirky show whichĀ revolves around two artists who sings parodies of their day to day situation. The story seems to remind me a little of the gem of a show by MTV called, 2gether which parodies the obsession of boybands during the 90’s.
It canĀ a little hard to get what the actors were saying, due to their New Zealand accent. But once you’ve gotten a hang of it, Flight of the concords is a really fun watch. There was a scene where Bret refused to play in a gig with Jermaine and eventually, he got replaced with a cassette tape.
Or the scene where Jermaine wanted some of his money back from his manager :
Jemaine: Murray, we need some money.
Murray: Oh, okay. How much? (fetches a lock box from a drawer) We’ve got four dollars in here.
Jemaine: I thought we had ten dollars?
Murray: This box cost six.
Among all the characters, here was one actress in particular, who was familiar to me –Kristen Schaal, who also acted in the immensely funny internet series, Horrible People – a parody of soap operas.
I sure am looking forward to just plonk down and zone out in front of the telley to watch the next episodes of Flight of the Concords! And with that, I’ll leave you to one of my favourite music clip by Flight of the Concords – Foux da fafa :
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Come and join me in the Scooter Charity Ride!
If you have a scooter, do come and join us on the 13th of September, this Saturday for the Scooter Charity Ride convoy to the Malay Heritage Center.
I’ll be there, as well as the Vesporeans and other various scooter organizations in Singapore. No scooter? Not a problem. You can be my pillion!
Convoying is heaps of fun! We’ll be convoying to Taman Warisan, and after that, we can explore the musuem as well as the stalls around it. Do join me! Really hope to see you there! š
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Ramen Ten – Yummy Japanese Food
I’ve always liked Japanese food, hence when I found out that a colleague liked to eat Japanese Food, she recommended me to Ramen Ten. Thus recently I was at Ramen Ten with fellow bloggerĀ Mintea, and all in all, we liked our lunch very much!
The place
Ramen Ten is situated in Far East Plaza, a popular hangout with youths in Orchard Road. It can be a little disorienting being surrounded by youths donning the latest fashion trends there.
Regardless, when we reached Ramen Ten, it was a bright and cheery place – the walls were decorated with modern urban themed murals. The furniture was pretty simple with white plastic chairs and wooden tables.
There were a number of people already there, mostly groups of friends, couples and families.
The Service
Prepare to be greeted very loudly as you step into the restaurant itself – every time a customer walks in, the staff will shout out an energetic “Arigato Gozaimas!” – for me, I thought that it brought a sense of bustling energy about the place.
As we sat down by the friendly waitress, we poured over the menu and took a while to decide what to order. I looked at the glass panel across me and saw the cooks busy at work, tossing and frying their food over the fire.
For some reason, the food that we ordered took much longer than usual, which alarmed Mintea and me. We saw other customers that arrived later than us getting their food earlier. Mintea informed me that she’s never had such an experience before, having eaten here several times.
Thankfully, a helpful waitress noticed us and ushered the cooks to hasten our food for us.
The Food
But the food was worth waiting for! For appetizers, we had sushi.
The one on top was my spicy fried ebi maki ($3.90) deep fried prawn sushi which was really hot – being covered with chili flakes. But it was really tasty to me and I liked it a lot.Ā The ones at the bottom were deep fried maki ($2.90) which were like my sushi, without the chili flakes – Mintea liked it very much š
After our appetizers, we had our main dish. This was Mintea’s Tempura, grilled salmon, Chawanmushi bento set ($15.90)
Mintea said that she enjoyed it. For someone who doesn’t usually enjoy eating salmon, she liked it as it was not as fishy tasting. She also enjoyed her tempura as well as the chawanmushi – which was basically steamed mixed egg.
However, Mintea thought that it was the soup that marred the bento set, with it being sweet rather than salty.
This was my Super Spicy Ramen ($7.90)
This was really tasty to me. It was a unique taste of seafood stock, cream and chicken meat and a whole load of heat! My mouth was tingling with each bite and I finished my bowl of ramen.
About a week ago, bro and I went to Ramen Ten and ordered for ourselves :
Beef Ramen which bro loved very much. Again, it was an interesting taste of milky, seafood stock with cooked, marinated beef ramen. It was a unique and tasty at the same time.
As there was a promotion of free soda with the bento set at the time, I had the mixed sushi and cold ramen bento set. ($14.90) It was Ā a delight in the mouth. The deep fried prawn sushi were lovely and crispy, although I found it a little strange to have mayonnaise on top of it. The chawanmushi was like an eggy hidden treasure with bits of chicken, prawn and crabstick as you dig into it.
The salmon was extremely tender that I didn’t even need to chew on it much – I slurped it down contentedly.
I did have some issue with my bento set though. I thought that the plate for soy sauce was so tiny. I could hardly dip my sushi in it without my sushi crumbling. And my cold ramen was rather tasteless. Is it meant to be that way? If it wasn’t for the accompanying soup, it would be rather boring to eat.
Regardless, the both of us liked our food a lot. Although I can’t vouch for the authenticity of the food, I really liked the food here and I think that this is a place worth going to.
6 thumbs fingers up!
Here is a quick video review after our lunch :
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