The lesser mabinogion

Since updating to Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop, and doing some research into my problems with wireless and the Cisco VPN client, I am now fully able to work without wires once more.

In 7.10, when using wireless (intel 4965 chipset) or using a USB broadband modem attempts to use the VPN would result in a kernel panic and a hard freeze, with just the numlock and capslock lights flashing. Wired usage was fine.
On updating to 8.04, it looks like I can use the VPN with a broadband modem now – I managed half an hour of usage before I stopped, whereas previously it’d be less than a minute before the crash.
As for the wireless – that still causes the crash, but on doing some further research it appears that Cisco don’t support SMP. It happens to work with some network drivers, but not with others. So the workaround to that is to disable one core before connecting to the VPN via echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/online.
Obviously that’s not an ideal solution – but it’s probably the best we’re going to get, and most of the time I’ll have access to wired network anyway. This just means that if I do feel like sitting on the couch to work, or sitting outside in the sun, I can.

In fact, I was going to exercise my new found freedom today by heading down to the lake for a bit, but in the end I decided it’s probably just a little too cool for that, and I’d just disrupt my current run of semi-productivity.

I am approaching my thirty second birthday, and have two very important, life changing, and soul destroying decisions to make.
These are the things that keep me up well into the night, and lead me to places I’d really rather not go as I agonise over the options placed before me.
When I tell you the choices I have to make, you will understand my plight, for it is terrifyingly daunting. If I choose wrongly, then I shall have to live with the horrible consequences of my actions for years to come.

I will now lay the choices bare before you so that you can see them in their true horror.
1. XBox 360, or PS3?
2. Get an LG Viewity now, or wait two whole months for an iPhone?

As you can see, my situation is grim.
Fortunately, I think I am approaching a turning point, and can nearly see the correct path before me. In fact, in the case of the first decision, I’m nearly completely decided.
After spending more time in the mall than I’d like looking at various game shops, I’m pretty confident that I’ll be getting a 360. There are just not enough games for the PS3, and even the few that exist really don’t tempt me.
I must have Oblivion, that much is certain – but it’s available for both anyway. Besides that, I really want some more multiplayer co-operative action RPGs (or even full RPG if possible) that I can play with Caitlin – something along the lines of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, and D&D Heroes. Unfortunately, it seems that these simply do not exist – for either of the new consoles, which kind of throws a spanner in the works. The closest I could find is the Spiderwick Chronicles game – and I’m wary of movie tie-ins.
The PS3 has the Gran Tourismo series going for it – in particular the fact that there’s a bundle with GT 5: Prologue out right now, and there’s also Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune which looks very interesting – but aside from that, there’s nothing that particularly interests me.
The 360 however, seems to have a whole lot of very interesting looking (if single player) RPGs, and a much larger game library overall, thus increasing the chances of there being something I haven’t noticed. The XBox also seems like more of a well thought out and put-together package – it seems to me that Sony were too obsessed with BluRay, the Cell processor and the success of the PS2 to think about how they were going to make the PS3 actually a decent console – the confusion over their controllers and lack of a coherent online strategy shows that.
So I think that an XBox 360 is definitely the way I will go. By the time the PS3 has enough unique games to interest me, it’ll likely have come down in cost enough that I’d consider buying one too, but for now the 360 will do.

So that out of the way, I now have the more difficult decision – Viewity or iPhone.
Until yesterday I didn’t even know there was a choice – my current phone (Motorola A1000) is just about out of contract (in fact, if I stick with 3 I can upgrade immediately) so I’ve been looking around at alternatives. My requirements are:
* 3″ Touch screen – the A1000 has a screen around that size, and it seems to be just about right.
* No physical keyboard/keypad – at least not one that makes the phone larger, or sacrifices screen size.
* Good web browsing support
* Able to access GMail
* Able to use SSH
* Alarm support
* PIM with support for recurring appointments
* Notepad
* Camera, preferably with video support.
* Not be slower than an underclocked ZX81.
* Able to rely on being able to complete a phone call and hear everything the other person says.

My current phone, the A1000 actually satisfies pretty much all of those (at least it does with the aid of a few Java apps), with the very unfortunate exception of the last two.
In fact, if it weren’t for the last one I’d probably be fairly content to just keep the phone, as feature wise it’s pretty good – the interface is a little crappy in places, the battery life sucks, and the text entry is a little painful, but otherwise it’s been great – except for the absolutely horrible call quality.

I was leaning towards an HTC Touch for a while, though the concept of using a Windows Mobile phone made me uneasy, it certainly seemed to have all the feautures, though it’s slide out keypad bothers me, as it makes the phone both thicker, and more fragile feeling that I’d like.
But then, I discovered the Viewity – very large touch screen, fairly slim design, no moving parts, very impressive looking camera, including a flash and the ability to record slow motion video at 120FPS, and a pretty good looking web browser that looks like it even handles Flash. The more I looked at it, the more I was certain that was the phone for me.
All this time, I was under the impression that Apple had no solid plans for bringing the iPhone to Australia, and that there was no point in waiting for it. But then it turns out that there’s a pretty strong rumour that not only will the iPhone be out at the end of June, but that it’ll be a 3G (possibly HSDPA) version, and not exclusive to any particular carrier. The last two points are significant – apparently only Telstra supports EDGE, which is used by the current iPhone.
So, all this time I’d assumed I’d buy an iPhone when it came out – but now that it looks like it’s very close, I’m no longer certain. This is only a rumour of course, and whilst I’d believe the phone will be out at the end of June, I’m not sure how much I believe it’ll available from multiple carriers, or that it’ll be new piece of hardware. It’s possible that people are confusing the release of the 2.0 software with a new hardware revision and have let their imaginations run away with them from there.
So, given the (possible) imminent arrival of the iPhone I’ve now had to re-evaluate my choice. I had thought the Viewity would make a good “next best thing” until the iPhone did actually arrive. However, after further reflection, I think that for my needs the Viewity may actually be superior.
Of my requirements above, the iPhone satisfies most. It lacks an SSH client out of the box, but then so does the A1000 and the Viewity. The Viewity supports Java, so I can add all the apps I used on the A1000, but the iPhone does not – however, the version 2.0 software will support the SDK and downloadable apps. Unfortunately it’s probably not likely that there’ll be any free apps available without jailbreaking the phone, but I suspect I would still be able to achieve my goals.
The real difference for me comes down to the camera – it’s conceivable that the Viewity would be able to take the place of a carry-everywhere point-and-shoot. It doesn’t come close to the quality of my aging (in Digital Camera terms) Nikon 3200, but it does look like it would be Good Enough, and would mean one less thing to carry. The iPhone on the other hand has a more typical phone camera in it, no flash, and surprisingly – no video. It’s possible that the 2.0 software, or the mythical 3G version of the phone may have video recording capabilities, but that’s not certain either.
Other than that, the only other differences are either interface / design issues, or features I don’t care about. The iPhone interface certainly looks very nice – but the Viewty one doesn’t look horrible either, and after the A1000 it looks like it’ll be wonderful. I’m not particularly interested in the music capabilities of either phone – I already have an iPod, and if I can’t have all of my music on the phone, then it won’t be replacing my iPod any time soon though 16G version comes very close. Video playback interests me – but both seem to do that very well, and the Viewity supports DivX. The main difference is storage size – but a 2G microSD card is more than enough for any movie, and you can always carry a couple. whereas the 8 or 16G in the iPhone is non expandable (and it’s apparently mostly possible to use a 4 or 8G MicroSDHC card in the Viewity anyway).
The final point is price – I know I can get a Viewity and pay less than I’m paying right now. Currently I’m on a $29 cap with 3, and am paying $30 a month extra for the handset, and $5 for their web+email package (unlimited email, 10MB web). With the Viewity, I’d stick with 3 and my $29 cap, and pay $10 a month for the phone, and would probably upgrade to their X-Stream service instead of the web and email pack which would give me 100MB of data usage.
With the iPhone, I have no idea what I’d have to pay, although I’d suspect it’d be $30 on the $29 cap like with the A1000, as it will apparently cost around the $600-$800 range.

Of course, I could just wait two months before making the decision, but then I’d have an old phone, for two months in which I could have had a new phone. ARGH – it’s too much!