New S60 application (mostly for women): Wellness Diary

Check this out! Nokia has developed a Wellnes Diary. Ok, I wrote in the title that it's mainly for women, but the overview shows that it's more versatile than just your average calorie-counter.

Do you keep track that you sleep enough? I will definitely check this out.

Overview:


" It is an S60 application for storing and analyzing wellness-related data collected from everyday life.

• Monitoring and tracking everyday wellness related issues


• Lifestyle management


• Monitoring, tracking and analyzing:
  
  
  • weight,
  • exercise,
  • number of steps,
  • eating management,
  • fat %,
  • sleep,
  • ... and more."

NRC - Wellness Diary

I found this one via Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish).

Bravely going places where no man has gone before..

Okey, I live in Helsinki Finland. We have had 3G for about two years. Well, sort of. Even to this day the coverage is not 100% in Helsinki city centre. Not at least with my current operator Saunalahti, which basicly uses the same network as Elisa.

Before I used Dual mode at the network settings. That doesn't however work too well if you want to maximise the download speeds and the 3G experience. Dual mode uses both gsm-edge and wdca (or UMTS or 3G) -frequencies and the device decides which ever to use according to the signal strength.

You start to appreciate how complicated these devices are when you notice that on places where the 3G coverage is weak and the thing starts to think that may by it should use the edge or even gprs connection now. It slows down the browsing experience and wrecks havoc on the battery life.

I noticed that with my N73 this thinking starts at a point where there still actually is 3 G coverage, but it's weakening. Lately I have been experimenting with the 3G-UMTS mode only. First impressions are positive. I don't know about dropped calls (and I don't mind a few dropped work related calls..), but the browsing seems to be as fast as it should be on a regular basis.

No thinking required!

Don't try this outside metropolitan (Hah!) areas.

The S60 browser HOWTO

Well, The Reg got it wrong. Others still don't get it, but fact remains the new S60 Browser is the best invention since sliced bread.

The Reg review was written by Adrew Orlowski. A man who's writings I often find informative and to the point. Lately I've discovered a pattern of excessive whining. At least when he is writing about "smartphones". Not inspirational, no, not at all.

See his take on the browser.

I haven't seen he apolosizing his careless and clearly unprofessional review. So Andrew, this is for you..

Note: This is how I actually use it. there are links for the more technical details.

1. Picture:


This how it starts. No, I know, doesn't look good. Well, we will start by pressing number 8 with our keypad, which is the shortcut for overview.

Please could I get the picture 2. please..

2. Picture:


Yes, now we are getting there. Good old The Reg. I hope you notice how nicely you can preview the page and the content with this view.

For me the S60 Browser has these advantages:

1. It is fast! And when visiting familiar pages you can even stop the downloading process and then go directly to the area of site you want to go without waiting the whole page coming down the wire. It's fast even with pictures. I have an all I can eat data-plan, 3 G.

2. It can go places others can't touch. Yes, it is even better than the Opera on my Nokia 770 Internet Tablet.

3. It shows pages as they are. No need to adjust the reading habits to obscure fonts and layout.

The text too small to your eyes?

Picture 3 please..

3. Picture:


You can manage the size of the zooming with the * and # shortcuts respectively. You can see the zoom level on the left hand upper corner of the display. Ok..two pushes with the # gives us nicely all the three columns of The Reg. posts in line.

Still somebody, like Andrew (you miserably old git), would prefer the comfort of small screen rendering and scrolling up down the individual posts. More on that later.

Now, on this picture you see one post highlighted. I chose it with the cursor you can control with the joystick. It can move around without limitations on the screen. So choosing a post to read is fast. You don't have to jump or scroll from post to another.

Oh no, didn't you notice! Andrew didn't like that! Let's see what he was writing:

"The decision to show a viewport onto a page, rather than formatting the page so it's one vertical column, makes for an immensely frustrating experience. It's like being on a boat in a storm - the user is constantly lining up the column to be read in a horizontal plane - a fiddly experience. And even then it truncates the text of many popular sites horizontally, obliging more scrolling.

The decision to navigate in two planes also robs it of the one navigation method that's become a de facto standard. Usingthe small screen approach taken by the Opera and NetFront browsers: a down key takes you through a screen at a time, while a left or right highlights the link. Nokia's designers also had the brainwave to keep a cursor on screen visible all the time. Nor, incredibly, are there any shortcut keys."

So, de facto standards must apply. Everything else is automaticly bad for us? And some shortcut keys are already been mentioned. Was busy with the deadline, ehh?

Ok, let's see what the hell is wrong with Google Deutschland.

4. Picture:


So here we have the actual post. see, how nicely it renders the individual posts. There is no need for boat trips. Or maydy you where having a another kind of trip?

Granted, you can see, that the topic goes a bit wider than the rendered page. That can happen with pictures as well, if they are wider than the text column. No need to start trippin' though, you can handle this with the zoom keys.

Well, of course it's not perfect. It needs password manager and auto-fill, would be nice. These are coming in the next version of the browser.

And if you pay highly on your data..well, mayby Opera Mini would be the right choice for you.

As for memory consumption.. I haven't had any problems lately after getting regular firmware updates from the NSU. The broser and it's visual memory works fine, but I wouldn't risk running too many apps during a browsing session..:)

For more information see mobile-review's excellent peace here. Eldar's English can sometimes be a bit funny (like mine), but at least he has done his homework.