if connected

Yesterday, I was distracted by a toddler falling off a low wall onto concrete… and my new’ish Canon 500D followed the child, dropping about 0.75m from my camera shoulder bag. The lens cap flew off on impact.

Astonishingly, the camera seems to work fine. The 500D isn’t IP-rated, to my knowledge. The only mark is a little scratching on the edge of the (cheap kit) lens by the word ‘Canon’. (Incidentally this photo was taken with the iPhone 3GS, which is a big improvement on earlier iPhones for close-ups).

I wish all gadgets were this robust. Full review of the 500D (Rebel T1i or Kiss X3) is here on dpreview.

This year I learnt a pile of new things:

At least one hospital cares little about mobile phone use. As my son was being born, a phone rang in the corner of the operating theatre. My other half started blaming me, but the consultant answered her phone so ending the argument.

Hospital walls are too thick for good 3g reception. I spent many a night browsing online with my laptop in a hospital room on mobile broadband, but it kept falling back to 2G.

Some cameraphones really do have good enough cameras. On an increasing number of occasions I have left my real camera at home, instead taking a mobile. I even went to a wedding with just my cameraphone.

Working for a company that is bought by a larger competitor has plus sides. Can’t talk in detail here.

Flash/SSD drives for laptops transform the convenience of using laptops. It’s their quietness as much as their speed that makes them a pleasure to use. Hopefully in 2009 I’ll be saying how much better their reliability is as well. It’s too soon to say now.

TV set-top boxes are becoming louder than PCs. Plus, they crash about as often, based on my experience with a UK pay TV DVR supported by a little Google searching.

Babies can be distracted from using your laptop with a fake keyboard. But only a real mobile phone will satisfy them.

WiFi works better for location finding in cities than GPS. Mobile handset GPS’ have particularly poor reception indoors. Even dedicated GPS units struggle.

Dell’s next day on-site repair is less convenient than a drop off service. Having to wait at home for several days in succession during a repeated failure to repair a PC is a much greater waste of time than using a repair centre.

Back in the day, Nokia had religious zeal for one-handed use and an aversion to touch screens. Now, with the just-announced N97 and the 5800, everything changes in Espoo. But there’s still a real need for mobile handsets to be usable one-handed.

I used to think the best test was to walk down a busy street with a bag in one hand, phone in other, while making calls, sending texts and reading emails.

With a baby in the house I’ve realised that isn’t a sufficient exam. Using that measure, here’s my take on some popular devices:-

• Nokia N82 – Pass, mostly. This is a fairly standard pre-touch screen Nokia phone. It has some one handed rough edges: Opening the lens shutter cover and rotating the device to use the camera is hard. The byzantine S60 menu structure requires too much thought to pass the baby test easily, except for pro users, although it’s fine in less distracting situations.
• Google G1 phone – Fail. The handset is too big. Plus, the asymmetric bump at the bottom makes juggling the phone in one hand very hard when using the keyboard. Typing requires two hands or at least two thumbs.
• iPhone – Pass, just barely. It’s almost great, but the software routinely places buttons in all four corners of the screen, making large hands essential for full one handed use. If that’s fixed, it would be A1.
• HTC Windows Mobile QWERTY slide phones – Fail. There are many examples of these phones, often they have operator branding. The Windows Mobile software is almost impossible to use without a stylus, which means two hands. The sideways slide is also a two hand task.

There’s still enormous room for improvement. I hope that Nokia hasn’t forgotten the basics in the rush to compete using touch screens.

Heard earlier today in a presentation, “My seven year old son gets terribly frustrated he can’t fast forward the TV.” Reminds me of Tapscott’s Growing up Digital from the 90s. Ooh, there’s now a sequel. Must take a look.

The colleague that suggested the idea showed me a photo of her, baby, and a desktop. I think that would work better than with a laptop.

But even with a laptop the decoy keyboard still helps for a time. Note – the second keyboard is upside down in the photo!

A colleague read the Zachary story yesterday (Baby + Nokia = fail. Google = fix) and suggested a technique for distracting babies: Have a second keyboard on your lap when using a computer. Baby plays with it and thinks s/he’s back seat driving.

Phones are different, apparently. Old handsets don’t work. Babies can tell the difference. They’re growing up mobile. The way Zachary eyes my shiny iPhone, I think my other half’s Nokia is already safe.

Please suggest other decoy ideas in the comments. I’ll take ideas that work temporarilly as a ‘win’, in the same spirit that there’s no such thing as baby-proof, only baby resistant. Even the best decoys will only work for a time.

My other half’s old Nokia phone is stuck in headset mode so she can’t hear any calls. Happened after 8 month old Zachary had had a little play.

She Googled the symptoms, as I’d recommend everyone to do, with any tech problem. If there’s an actual error message, even better.

Anyway, there are 28,500 results for: “nokia phone stuck headset baby.”

Online you’re never alone with a problem. My favourite comment, “mine kept doing this eveytime my baby girl gave it a suck!! worked once it dried out.” Main suggestion if that doesn’t work – hasn’t for us – are to clean the connectors at the bottom with an old toothbrush. We’ll try later on when she returns with the problem mobile. For now, it’s still good for texting.