University & Unicorns – Page 54 – Mature student life in Scotland

6 September 2007

The New Love Of My Life – The Nokia 6300!

“Am I in love? aaaaahhhhhh I must be in love!”

It might still be the honeymoon period at this stage (as I’ve only had my phone just over 48 hours), but I *LOVE* this phone. I was hesitant because of reviews I’d seen. People seem to either love it or hate it.

It’s WAY more advanced than my old Siemens SF65 (which always has a starring role each week in The Bill) which makes me feel like I’ve joined the 21st century.

The phone is just PACKED with features:

2 mega pixel camera
video record and play
bluetooth
music player
radio
mp3 ringtones
organiser
fully integrated SMS, MMS, MMS+, video messaging, flash messaging – even Push To Talk
themes
wallpapers

Just everything I wanted to upgrade for. My Siemens had a camera, but it was only an SVGA quality, 1.3 mega pixel camera. Photos looked crap from my phone. I had no PC linking capabilities with my phone because I use a Mac. No probs now with my new phone as it has the LOVELY Bluetooth!

A lot of reviews say “2 mega pixel camera, not good enough”, but I am very happy with the photo quality. The highest resolution of this camera is 1600 x 1200 and it takes some great photos. It doesn’t have a flash, which makes it struggle in low light levels (not great for the UK market, really), but in day conditions, it’s fine. The digital zoom does start to make a meal of the image when you use it – you really don’t want to have to zoom in too much – but that’s the bane of digital zoom. At full resolution in good light conditions, the photos are good.

Video is great albeit small at 178×144 not the 320×240 as seemed to be promised in spec. Being my first video phone, I am happy with the quality, it makes a somewhat “blocky” but very watchable video clip. I’ve even finally opened a YouTube account and added videos from my phone to the account already. Bluetooth just makes everything SO easy!

I find the ease of use with bluetooth for file transfer really good and fast. Mp3’s, video clips and photos all transfer in seconds. I LOVE being able to finally make up my own mp3 ringtones and load them on the phone. The joys of being a Mac owner. No DRM to mess about with, bluetooth already in the Mac’s system – not having to use any PC suite (bblllleeeerrrrrkkkk WindoZe) – EASY!

I saw one person in a review complain that the phone only had one alarm!!! ONE ALARM?! HOW MANY DO YOU WANT? At first I was thinking there might have been a back-handed valid point to this seeing as my Siemens had 3 alarms. But upon quick reflection I could see that you could have limitless alarms with the Nokia because of the organiser. Either the person making that comment had no brain or…well, they just had no brain obviously!

The only downside I have seen with my phone so far is the common complaint – battery life – but as I’ve been playing with the phone quite a bit to familiarise myself with it – I doubt this will be a real problem for me in the near future. I’ll see how it goes.

The only other slight down point is the highly probable ease at which this phone would become disfigured. I have invested in a crystal hard case which goes around the phone but still allows all it’s functions to be available, so keypad is accessible at all times, as well as the input and output points (charger input, USB cable input, etc). The most important things are protected…screen, corners, back. Other cases I looked at either would make the phone look ugly or would be impractical as you would be having to take the phone in and out of the case all the time to access all the phones functions. The crystal cases are cheap as well, so once they start to get too marked and scuffed, you can just buy another.

I really, really love this phone! Rated out of 10, I would give it (minus points for fragility and battery life):

9/10

6 September 2007

Long-tailed tits!

Guess what we had yesterday morning in our garden? We had not just one…or two, or even three. We had approximately TEN long-tailed tits!! Up to five of them were on the feeder containing the fat balls. They stayed less than five minutes, and when they were ready to leave, they all left one by one from the tree. I’d NEVER had long-tailed tits in my garden before (either here or at Birchen Grove) and to see so many all at once was just brilliant. Cute little birds – I dearly hope they come back and it’s not a one-off!

3 September 2007

If it looks too good to be true…

Well, I got my D520 phone, but alas the thing were dog-done no good. The eBay seller said “100% working order”…erm, WRONG! The camera packed up after I took one picture, I couldn’t get into the music player, and the mp3’s that were on it were corrupted. Beside that, I expected it to be in used condition, but it looked like it had seen a few pavements in its life.

The seller said they were unaware of those faults as they had not used the features on the phone. It had been their sons phone and he had not mentioned that they didn’t work. I sent it back and they gave me a refund, so that was all and good. But then I was left without a phone, as I had sold my own phone to help fund the “upgrade”.

So my search continued. Initially I wanted to get a Nokia 5200 but was disappointed with the camera spec. Then I started to look around for a Nokia 5300 instead. I could get one on eBay at a reasonable price, but I was very “once bitten, twice shy” because of what happened. I looked into getting one new through a dealer, but they are sold out all over the place. Whilst looking for a Nokia 5300, I was also looking at another Nokia model – the 6111. Down sides to that was fixed memory of only 23mb, but it was a decent spec. Then I saw ratings people were giving this phone. Loads of people saying it was shit – a common fault being that it turns itself off and on all the time. Not good.

I relly wanted to go back to having a Nokia phone. I like the way the work. My old 3310 was such a good phone, and although equally my Siemens had been great, I didn’t think to look at their modern phones (of which there wouldn’t be many). So, after more an more searching I have decided to go for a Nokia 6300. It has all the stuff I want, 2 megapixel camera, video recording, play, streaming, mp3 player and ringtones, FM radio, MMS…and even pluses I might be able to use later down the line like Push To Talk. I can see there are down sides to the phone already. People say it doesn’t have adequate internal memory, which does sound low at only 7MB, but it can take a 2GB micro SD card, so it shouldn’t be a prob. The biggest thing people complain about is battery life. At best most people say a 3 day charge. I am use to several days with my Siemens, so I might get a little frustrated if the battery life is really piss poor, but others say battery life is no prob.

I’ll soon see. It arrives tomorrow and I’m reserved, but excited. I REALLY hope this phone will be *it* and I won’t have to worry about upgrades for a good 3-4 years now. Fingers firmly crossed.

29 August 2007

Things coming up (or that have been) that are exciting me.

After you see the list, you’ll see I’m VERY easy to please 🙂

Firstly, I purchased myself a “new” used mobile phone on eBay. When I was in Oz, my niece had a Samsung D520, I thought it was a nice looking phone and had the things I wanted to upgrade my phone for – mp3 playing and ringtones, video play and record and Bluetooth. I knew it was a Samsung, but had to check with her what model it was. After getting her reply, I looked on eBay (before that I’d be chasing a Nokia 5200 but wasn’t having much luck getting one for the £40 mark) and someone was selling a used D520 for £30. I thought great price for a well specified phone, so jumped at it. Now I am EAGERLY awaiting its arrival in the post.

Samsung D520

The other thing that is exciting me is the sight of two baby goldfinches in the garden. They arrived yesterday with the regular pair, who I can only assume are mum and dad of these babies.

Last but not least, the prospect of being able to get out and about next week as we might be hiring a car for several days so Em can help out a mate of hers with his computer stuff. Somehow getting around the UK on public transport is just not very appealing. I’ll give you an example why.

We live around 35 miles (around 56 kms) from Cambridge. When we had a car, we might visit Cambridge 2-3 times a year. Needless to say we’ve not been there since being without a car. That journey to Cambridge by car would take around 45 minutes. That same journey via public transport would take at least an extra hour and cost £40 (around $95 Australian) for two people!! We could hire a car for the day and be able to buy the fuel to get us to and from Cambridge for the same amount of money! It’s obscene! That’s why we “don’t do” public transport in Britain. Not because we don’t want to, but because it’s a total waste of time and money.

26 August 2007

Stevie, the wonder fish!

About a week ago now, we (me and my partner) saw a little tiny fry (baby fish) in our tropical tank. When we set up the tank last year we bought several mollies, a few tetras and a male guppy. The very next day we had fry! The mollies had just let their kids drop overnight! We ended up with 6 or 7 surviving fry, but over time they have fallen ill and died. The tetras and guppy went the same way too. All we had left was one single molly. Now, we assumed initially that this a fry from the molly that was left. We though it was a bit of miracle seeing as the molly hadn’t had company for so long, but it’s not beyond the realms for mollies to incubate eggs for several months.

The fry was very, very small when first spotted, but within the last week has grown somewhat. As of yesterday, it has now become obvious that Stevie (named after Stephen Fry – fry=small fish, hence Stevie) is in actual fact a TETRA! We’ve not had a tetra in the tank since around Xmas, and there has been several tank cleans that have taken place since then. And unlike mollies who are live-bearing fish, tetras lay eggs. So, given all this, Stevie is truly a miracle fish!!

As you can see he is a little fish. The pic is a bit blurry, but you can’t get fish to stay still for you!!

20 August 2007

Bats in the belfry (well, the garden anyway).

The are some perks to the English summer, in particular a damp one. Because damp summers mean lots of insects and lots of insects mean BATS! Yes, our little sonar friends are making an appearance again and it’s wonderful. I love standing outside watching them fly around. To see them in flight is amazing, they are so adept at flying, then I suppose you’d be pretty good at it if you relied on sonar. I’m sure lots of people would be put off, as they can get pretty put off at the thought of a bat flying past their head (and they do fly right past us if we stand in the right part of the garden), but I think they are amazing little creatures and really enjoy seeing them each night. A little “wonder of the world” in my own garden. Brilliant!

A Pipistrelle Bat (of the type we think we’re seeing)

5 August 2007

I Saw A Tit!

I could hardly contain myself yesterday. For the first time this summer (baring in mind I’ve only been back in the country since July 18, after being absent since Feb 28) I have seen a Blue Tittie in my garden! Yay!!! And the said tittie was eating from an apple that was stuck out on a post. I’ve not seen a tittie go for an apple before. Well, not the ones that visit here anyway.
Also at the moment (I must try and record this) we have a female blackbird who seems to like to spend almost the entire day telling every one off in the way only a blackbird can! At first you hear very high-pitched shrill calls, then there is a burst of annoyed tutting which is as loud as a car alarm! She gets SO pee-d off! At what, I have no idea…life, I presume. It borders on both funny AND infuriating as she can go on one of these “tuts” for a good 15 minutes!

Wildlife – you’ve gotta love it!

3 August 2007

Albino Sparrows in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland.

I was looking at the BBC News website this morning. I like Fridays on Beeb news as there is a quiz called “7 days, 7 questions” which I like doing. ANYWAY…as I was looking on the website to try and locate the quiz, I came across this story.

Albino Sparrow story (click to read)

Amazing that there is two of them! They are the CUTEST little things! It was only yesterday while looking for appropriate blackbird pics to add for my previous post that I saw pics of a partial albino blackbird, but this little “knees-up” is totally white. I hope they get to live to a ripe old age. Life is tough for albino animals. Here’s hoping to a long life…

2 August 2007

But which Thrush is which?

I only got out of bed around 30 mins ago, and only just come downstairs to my kitchen around 10 mins ago. I was standing in my kitchen, making a cup of tea when I see a rather bedraggled blackbird. Poor thing! It looked like it was either a dad who’d had too much on his hands during the spring and was moulting, or it was a baby that had just got his black adult feathers. Then I see another bird…very speckled on the body. At first I dismissed it as a juvenile blackbird but then thought “no, way too speckled” and then wondered “could it be?”. Could this speckled creature be a Song Thrush?

I think it very well might have been. Here’s the evidence.

Song Thrush

Juvenile Blackbird

I’m still not entirely sure, but the bird was quite speckled so I hope it was a song thrush.

1 August 2007

Oh dear, it’s a deer!!

We (Em & I) went on an adventure yesterday. Since around October/November last year we’ve been without a car. Our car died and it’s gonna take a lot of money thrown at it to repair it. We just don’t have that sort of money, so when he have needed a car for a day, we’ve hired one. More often its shanks’ pony or taking a bus. We haven’t done any travel like that together this year until yesterday. We went to Hitchin for the day. The bus goes around all the back villages of Hertfordshire. It’s only a short walk to the bus stop from where we are. Anyway, because the route the bus goes around the Hertfordshire countryside, yesterday we got to see a deer leaping across the road as we hurtled towards it! It was a young fawn, still very Bambi-like, but it had some speed. There were about 8-10 of us on the bus and there were gasps and cries of “It’s a deer!”. Fleeting as it was, it was really lovely to see. Bus trips around village backwaters DO have their advantages!

A Beautiful Red Deer fawn.