However, right now the question is what mobile tech should I take to use and test?  On the list so far:

• Truphone and Rebtel for cheap international calling
• A local China Mobile SIM possibly with some mobile data
• A SIMable chip so I can swap SIMs into any phones I like
• iPhone for music and a simple Mandarin language course
• Some offline maps with Olympic venue POI such as Garmin’s
• An N82 for pictures
• Several Proporta backup batteries
• A netbook for mobile blogging (which one?)
• The Macbook Air for proper computing
• A decent gadget bag – something that doesn’t scream ‘laptop’!
• Some high quality headphones for the flights – perhaps Entymotics?

Any other recommendations / options?  Have you been to China and what was useful / rubbish?

As you know from my last post, the multitude of tools available to the modern day, festival going mobile geek really is quite something… So here, for your pleasure, is a quick rundown of what I am taking with me, starting with the hardware…

Handsets:

I’ve packed my N95, my N95 8GB and my E61i. The E61i is perfect as an ‘emergency’ as the battery on that baby is HUGE and it lasts FOREVER, (well – about 5 days). So if it all goes pear-shaped I can resort to using that. ?The N95s I’m going to tag-team throughout the day/festival. One to carry with me and one to charge. ?Speaking of chargers…

Power:

When it comes to keeping the batteries fully topped up, I’ve covered all bases with this one. I’ve got a Nokia DC-8 battery charger, bought this today, £25. Steep, but I’m a sucker for the branded stuff. It’s worked ok so far.

I’ve also got a Free Loader Solar Charger – this thing gets kudos just for the fact that out of all of the chargers, this was the only one that came with a Nintendo DS adaptor. Which made my girlfriend very happy indeed; Mario Kart for her while I type this passing Stonehenge, (fact).

Finally I have a ‘GoHello’ wind-up charger and, as Ben Smith so rightly said in the last podcast, they ain’t called ‘wind-ups for nothing’. …seriously, I’ve got nothing out of this thing yet. Nothing. Boo.

On top of all that lot, I’ve got four N95 batteries. All (currently) fully charged. So we shall see how long they last!

Software:

Well, stuff like Qik, Google Maps, VOX, SpinVox, Moblog etc… I kinda covered this last time round. I want to talk about the new stuff. Since writing that original piece I’ve acquired two pieces of software; both of which have – so far – impressed me much.

First up is ‘ViewRanger’. I downloaded this in the week and first take I thought ‘What a load of rubbish’. However… THEN I downloaded the Glastonbury specific maps – aka ‘Worthy Farm’ – and WOW, was I impressed! Check out this screenshot:

You can see that they’ve pre-loaded the app with the relative ‘points of interest’ – heh – and if I hit ‘GPS’ it’ll tell me where I am. Rock on. Can’t wait to use this properly.

The other piece of software is from Orange. It’s called ‘GlastoNav’ and at first I really couldn’t get this to work..

..however, once they ironed out the gremlins etc this little app has turned out to be very handy indeed. Not only can I look at the (much richer interpretation) of the map, but also I can plan my schedule for the event… and THEN I can share that schedule with my fellow festival-goers!

That – so far – has again, really impressed me. 

For actual ‘mobile’ stuff, that’s all. But, I have also been given some other cool pieces of gadgetry to use/play with. One is the Flip, which I think Ewan has spoken about a fair amount – my only problem with this is that once my hour of recording is up, I can’t upload it until I get to a USB connection. Bah! We’ll see how I get on with that one… The other piece of REALLY COOL stuff I’ve been given is the Loc8tor which, hand on heart, is the best thing yet (in theory anyway).

I attach the small part to something I might lose (i.e. the other half) and then, if I do lose her, I switch the big part on and it beeps to tell me how close I am etc… I had a play before I left the house and it rocked my socks. So… again, we’ll see how we get on.

That’s it from me, I’m nearly at Glastonbury and my laptop is about to die. Thanks to Ben Smith for editing this for me and putting the media in etc… You can keep up with my exploits at http://www.glastonblog.co.uk.

See you soon!

J.

The cleverness about this campaign is the way they’re using mobile technology:

“Bloggers from the three organisations will be roaming the festival, taking pictures and video clips and posting them to  http://leavenotrace.org.uk, which is also available as a mobile website, http://m.leavenotrace.org.uk for easy access on-site. Because these posts will also be marked on a Google map, we’ll be showing where the best examples of green living are – whether it’s solar-powered showers, sculpture made from recycled materials or water-saving systems – as well as highlighting the nooks and crannies of the festival which might otherwise be missed. Plus everyone on the farm can contribute images and video can be posted to the site by sending an SMS or MMS with the keyword TIDY at the start to 07786 201 241″

The bloggers will also be using another of our favourite mobile technologies Spinvox to post to the site during the festival meaning they’ll be producing the entire site’s content from an entirely mobile platform.

Excellent stuff, but also both technologies available to everyone to use right now… It’s incredible to see how quickly mobile blogging technology is maturing.

CellSpin Launches the First Mobile Blogging Service for Twitter and Pownce to Support Audio, Video, Picture and Text Posts

CellSpin enables users to post audio, video, pictures and text ‘tweets’ from 300+ phones worldwide

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire/ — CellSpin (http://www.cellspin.net/) today announced its support for sending ‘tweets’ in all four media types (audio, video, pictures and text) to the popular micro-blogging sites Twitter and Pownce.

Users can post multimedia tweets using the CellSpin mobile application, now available on 300+ mobile phones worldwide, or by using the CellSpin website.

CellSpin lets users move beyond Twitter’s 140-character limit and take their expression to a new level. Pownce users can share whole range of multimedia experiences with their friends on-the-go using CellSpin.

According to Bobby Gurvinder Singh, CEO and co-founder of CellSpin, “We’re really excited that you can now tweet in your own voice and not be limited to text only. You can also share picture tweets and video tweets of your life as you live it, from anywhere in the world on both Pownce and Twitter. This is the next obvious step in the micro-blogging revolution.”

According to Ian Fung, co-founder of CellSpin, “CellSpin makes posting to Twitter and Pownce very easy, and makes it more convenient for users to post multimedia in real-time. This will definitely broaden the base for micro-blogging beyond those who use it only to describe what they had for lunch.”

Good stuff!