update 10/04/06: changes are coming, really! I’ve been overloaded with work, but progress has been made.

I currently own a Sony Ericsson P800 which I bought at an extortionate price practically the first day it came out in Belgium (Gadget lust). And, to be honest, I think it’s a very expensive piece of shit. As powerful as it may be, the interface feels like it was built for engineers, not users. The pseudo-keypad broke quite fast, and I’m now running it in virtual keypad mode, which is very nice sitting at a desk, but another story in the street. I’ve gone through at least 10 stylii, luckily the Sony-Ericsson center seem to like me and I get new ones for free or that would have been quite an expense already. Granted, some of these things were fixed in the P900/P910 but were no quantum leap either and certainly not reason enough to upgrade. The P950 looks better but is overkill for me.

My needs have also changed and I don’t need a phone that can call the space shuttle or make toast in the morning.

So, what’s my ideal model like?

- It should pass the bike test: I should be able to pull it out of its holster and answer it with one hand. It should also be strong enough in case it hits the bars or, worse, the road. Good audio while standing next to passing vehicles and a ringer I can hear in those conditions would be great too. Maybe a clamshell design?

- It should work with iSync via bluetooth.

- I need a simple agenda. Input mainly happens on the mac, so entering data isn’t a priority, reading it and getting reminders is. Ideally, next appointments should be displayed on the wait screen, does this exist? You always seem to have to dig down, unless you’re using a smartphone/pda.

- A todo list would be great too. Also easily accessible and syncable.

- I don’t need GPRS, MP3, MMS or any other acronyms. I don’t need a camera either, although I’m sure it will be difficult to avoid.

- In an ideal world I should also be boycotting Sony for that evil rootkit trick they pulled.

Any suggestions? I tried asking salesmen in a couple of shops and all it did was make me understand why people buy online.

Thanks

Google Analytics is free, that’s going to hurt a lot of other services out there. I used Urchin in my previous job and it was an extremely well thought-out stats package, if you get that for free now it’s one hell of a deal (notwithstanding the whole “Google owns all my information” uneasiness, that is).

Who will make the next move? 

I’ve tried or at least checked out a lot of them: Google IG, Netvibes, protopage, suprglu, goowy, even My Yahoo and most recently Microsoft’s very own Windows Live which, not surprisingly, didn’t work too well on a mac. None of them got past the novelty barrier for me. There’s a lot of information out there and I like absorbing it through separate channels instead of a giant scrapbook. NetNewswire for RSS feeds and opening everything else in multiple browser tabs gives me a better experience.

Now, granted, I probably ingest more online information daily than many people and maybe I’m just turning into a grumpy old bastard (probable...) but the whole idea of a start page seems as bad now as it did back in the days of My Excite or whatever it was called. So my question is: do any of you use these services on a regular basis? And if you do, what do you like about them? If you don’t, how do you sort through all that daily noise? Are these start pages a passing fad or a useful online tool that liberates you from the desktop?

As I type, another one is getting ready to join the flock: Zoozio. It’s getting crowded in that space, what am I missing?

For example, did you know that Belgium ranks third in bottled water consumption and at number 5 for soft drinks consumption?

As far as tobacco goes, Belgium has the questionable honour of ranking in second place worldwide for its number of daily smokers. In light of this, the public opposition to a smoking ban in bars isn’t surprising.

Keeping off the roads here might be a good idea considering the fact Belgium comes in second just behind the United States for motor vehicle deaths. When you look at the number of motor vehicles per 1000 people it makes the previous stat all the more frightening: the United States is still at first place but Belgium has dropped to number 14. The roads of Belgium must be populated by homicidal maniacs…

If you should have a car crash with one of these homicidal maniacs, would you call the police? Only 51% of Belgians trust the men in blue. Talking of trust, a measly 34% of Belgians trust other people, ranking down at number 15 worldwide, that’s sad.

Even sadder is the fact that this little country is right up there on the top spot when it concerns not wanting immigrants as neighbours. Belgium’s position at number 3 for voting far-right won’t come as too much of a surprise then (Ireland at number 1 neither - their late entry into the world of immigration has provoked lots of spitting of venom).

No surprise on the tax chart either, we have a winner!

And that’s only a taste of what’s available. Dig away!

On these sites, this link is located below the post’s title, but before the actual content. You can see this in action at Asterisk or plasticbag.org, for example; I’m not picking them out specifically, it’s something I’ve seen in many places, they’re just the two that spring to mind as they’re part of my regular reading list.

I would imagine that the logical sequence in which you would read a post would be:

1. Title
2. Content
3. Optional “read more” link
4. comments

If the link to comments is in second position, you need move your focus back up the page after reading the post in order to check out existing comments or add your own.

I can see an advantage in having the comments link above the post for return visitors who, having already read the post, will head straight for the comments. In that case, wouldn’t a setup like that of John Hicks be better? He duplicates the link above and below his posts.

Have I missed something? I’ve thought about it a lot but can’t see an advantage to it unless it’s purely aesthetic or simply no longer considered important in the age of RSS.

Any tips or ideas?

How was this possible?

It was all thanks to a birthday: Belgium is 175 years old, which anyone living here probably knows by now unless they’ve been living under a rock (from a Belgian quarry, of course). And in honour of this event, the Belgian railways would like to encourage you to visit this little country you live in.

So, during every weekend starting now until the end of December you can buy a return ticket to any location in another region for 5 Euros in second class or 7 Euros in first class. Living in Brussels gets you the best deal of all considering this is the smallest region, you can basically go wherever you want for that price. The ticket is also valid all weekend which means you can leave on Saturday and come back on Sunday if you feel like spending the night deep in the Ardennes.

As far as I know, they haven’t been making much noise about this special offer but you can find all the info you need on their website.

I’ll be taking advantage of this more than once.

A favour that can be removed at any time via the implementation of methods like copy-protection, even though you already pay tax on blank media in order to compensate said labels for extra copies.

Meanwhile, the labels sit there wondering why sales are down while simultaneously shooting themselves in the foot multiple times.

It would seem pretty obvious that copy-protection doesn’t harm professional pirates, they’ll mass-produce analog copies if needed. The only people being hurt by all these shenanigans are private users. As prices keep rising without reason and technology makes it increasingly difficult for people to enjoy recordings in their own space, average users will, by default, turn into “pirates” using any means possible to enjoy their music without the barriers of high cost or technological complexity.

Make music more affordable and deliver it in simple, open formats and I’m pretty certain the recording industry will enjoy much larger profits in the end. But the dinosaurs aren’t listening, plenty of people have expressed that opinion well before me.

Three Four desktop wallpapers are up for grabs at the moment, but more will follow.

In keeping with the subtitle and design of the site, they’re mostly related to Brussels in one way or another. So if you feel like adding a little touch of Bruxelles to your monitor, feel free to download one (or more) of them.

We have the incredible luxury of being able to get water at any time by just turning a tap and what do we do? We go and buy it in bottles made of plastic which has an impact on the environment (yes, we recycle but not using them is even better) and have travelled in fuel-guzzling trucks to get to your local shop where they sit in refrigerators that are either open top or have their doors opened every 2 minutes, both being pretty unefficient.

On a mineral level, tap water is on par with or better than most of the bottled stuff. Just check out the water company’s site for Brussels as an example. And if you’re really paranoid get a Britta filter or something like that but be warned that what it does is mainly remove taste, not evil chemicals. It’s basically charcoal and cotton wool.

Only when you’re out and about can I see a use for the bottled stuff and even then a drinking fountain would be so much better…