Piping hot

As you will almost certainly be aware, I don't have an iPhone. And you will also be aware that I really want an iPhone but can't afford one. So I'm making do with a Nokia E63 smartphone instead, and the biggest frustration with this solution is that I can't avail myself of some of the really useful apps available for the iPhone.

I like the fact that you can upload photos and text to a variety of sources through the iPhone - apps like Evernote, Flickr, Twitter and so on. The iPod Touch (which I love) doesn't have the camera nor the "always on" connectivity so although it has the apps, it doesn't have the hardware.

I've found a fairly decent solution for my Nokia via the wonders of Pixelpipe. You set yourself up with a free account, download the software to your phone and then set up your "pipes" - essentially which services you want to connect to. I've enabled Twitpic, Facebook, Flickr, Evernote and Blogger. You can write text items or attach photos to individual posts and then select their destination. You can upload to all your services simultaneously, or select which pipes you want to use by using a simple tagging system. Once you hit the upload button, your post appears as if by magic on the internet. It all works very well.

Highly recommended for those of us "slumming it" in the land of Symbian...

Decision made

After much faffing (i.e endless hours of internet research and many visits to shops) I've finally decided on my new mobile phone. And the winner is?

This one! (I'm going to make you click this link in a vain effort to create some suspense, rather than just telling you outright).

I've gone with the tried-and-tested Nokia/Symbian S60 platform, combined with the convenience of a QWERTY keyboard, which for an old man like me makes texting, emailing and web browsing considerably easier. Wifi too, which is nice.

I've previously gone on at some length about why I haven't got an iPhone, so don't start asking me about it okay? I know your phone is better than mine.

Download gMail Mobile app v2.0 for Nokia/Symbian

If, like me, you've been wrestling with your Nokia Symbian S60 smartphone trying to get it to download the new gMail Mobile 2.0 app via your phone's browser (which is a well-documented issue), I'd suggest heading here and downloading it straight to your computer instead. Then you can bluetooth or sync it to your phone directly and Robert's your mother's brother. For some reason Google doesn't want you to do it like this, but it's so much quicker and easier than doing it the "proper" way.

And whilst I'm dispensing advice, I've just discovered Foxmarks, a Firefox add-on which keeps your bookmarks synced across multiple machines. Just what I've been looking for! And if you want to try it out, they've just released betas for Internet Explorer (why would you be using that?!) and Safari too.