Interesting links and notes on updates to my main website.



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SE cameraphone contest for Canadians

http://www.sonyericsson.com/ca/thesearch/

I would paste in the contest info but it's all in Flash so I can't.

Summary:
- open to Canadian residents only
- pictures from camera phones only (any model or brand, as far as I can tell)
- 9 semifinalists will each win an SE K850i
- grand prize winner also gets $10k "Picture Perfect Dream Vacation"
- upload as many photos as you want, as long as you don't put a photo in more than one category
- I think it can be any cameraphone photo you've ever taken, I don't think you have to take it during the contest period (based on my quick read of the rules)

Deadline is 11:59:59 EDT MARCH 23, 2008.

Via Flickr Sony Ericsson - Picture Phones group.

Now, can I get Flickr and my photo software to display only pictures from my cameraphones? Hmmm...

UPDATE: Oh bonus, according to Flickr, my Nokia N82 cameraphone doesn't exist

http://www.flickr.com/cameras/nokia/

Buggers.

If they do believe your cameraphone exists, you can do e.g.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=cat&cm=nokia%2Fn75

And in case you're wondering, yes, I try changing the URL with n82 instead of n75, but it just ignores it.

More bad news: it can find some of the photos from my SE K790a

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=rakerman&cm=sonyericsson%2Fk790a&s=rec

and by "some", I mean "three". I have taken lots more than 3.
You might think I could search on photos with DSC*, since my SE is the only one of my cameras that uses DSC* filenames, except that also doesn't work. Apparently it only does an exact match.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=dsc&w=...

"You don't have any photos matching dsc."

I should at least be able to use the DSC* approach in Picasa. I'll see what else I can come up with in Picasa, since Flickr is hopeless.

UPDATE 2008-03-15: In post title content -> contest.

UPDATE 2008-03-15: In case you're wondering, although I've taken about 1800 photos with my SE K790 and about 50 with my Nokia N82, my chances of winning are almost nil, as the categories couldn't be better designed to exclude my photography:

• Action & Adventure (motion)


• Fun & Games (sports)


• Everyday Moments (people hanging out, cats and dogs)

Whereas my main photography categories are something like:
* landscapes (ideally without people)
* cityscapes (ideally without people)
* sunrises and sunsets (ideally without people)
* still life and static scenes
* unusual stuff I saw while walking around

I almost never take pictures of motion, sports, humans, or ordinary events.

Labels: cameraphone, cellphone, contest, digital photography, photos

posted by Richard at 14:49 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

London calling. Ok, Euroanyone calling.

So I have this fancy cellphone on an outrageously expensive contract, in part so that it would be guaranteed to work in Europe, but it still wasn't easy.

So obviously first:
- make sure you have a GSM cellphone that works in some or all Euro bands
- make sure your cellphone provider has roaming agreements for Europe
- make sure your cellphone provider has activated roaming for your phone

Next:
- make sure you actually know how to dial local European numbers
- make sure you have a working test number that you can call

I thought I had taken care of all of the first set, but I was unexpectedly stymied by the second set.

Euro phone numbers look like

+44 (0)20 7387 ####

That's

+countrycode (I can make a + on my phone by pressing 0 twice)
optional-zero-if-local
phone number

The number of digits after the country code may, I think, vary by country.
So it makes it difficult to know if you have a well-formed phone number.
Also, I don't know what conventions, if any, there are for toll free ("green") numbers, and a lot of calls that would be free in US/Canada (e.g. check the weather) are toll numbers (e.g. a certain number of Euro-cents per minute).

Anyway, to call this number from outside the country, you're supposed to know you don't dial the zero after the country code, e.g. from Canada

011 44 20 7387 ####

but INSIDE the country you do dial the zero, e.g.

020 7387 ####

To call Euro-Euro (from another country), it would be +44 20 7387 ####.

So I tried a couple numbers and they didn't work,
so then I spent a long time on hold with Rogers one day,
and a long time on hold with Rogers a second day,
and then it worked.

It's possible, however, that it was working all along, but
a) I didn't have any valid numbers to call
b) I wasn't composing the numbers correctly

So the moral is: know what the hell you're doing.

Other options:
- get your phone unlocked, and then buy/rent a local SIM and phone number
- buy or rent an entire phone

RailEurope will sell you a phone that works in Europe for US$39.

http://www.raileurope.ekit.com/ekit/MobileHome

Labels: cellphone, travel

posted by Richard at 09:38 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)

sending emails using Rogers K790

I used to be able to send emails quite simply on my old phone using SMS.

My new K790 has an elaborate email sending interface under Messages->Write New->Email but unfortunately it appears to require a whole bunch of server settings that I don't know.

I spoke to Rogers and there is a quite simple way however to still send emails using SMS. Just enter the email address at the start of the message, followed by a space (I used the # key to generate a space - you can also make a space with the joystick, but that didn't seem to work). Then for the phone number to send to, enter 0000000000.

If you want to add a subject, put it in parentheses after the address, e.g.

Text:
test@example.com (my subject) Hi there.

Rogers will then gateway the email out from your phone email address (yourphonenumber)@pcs.rogers.com and will gateway any replies back to your phone via SMS.

Labels: cellphone

posted by Richard at 16:53 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)