Nokia E62 on Oracle Calendar via syncML
As part of the ‘mobile tech project’ I have been using a Nokia E62. It is great but slow so I usually use my own Nokia 6680—it just works and I don’t mind typing SMS on the normal phone keyboard. Now that might change as I have my Oracle calender syncing properly (something I can’t even do with my Mac). I was directed to a post from a Oren Sreebny over at the University of Washington (another UW) where he posts how to fill out the sync profile for Oracle Calender in a E62.
This is great but he reports no luck with SSL and the only access to syncML on our campus set up is via SSL. I made a couple changes and it seems to work fine. The following are the settings I used:
Under a sync profile for a calender I used:
- Include in sync: Yes
- Remote database: ./Calendar/Events
- Synchronization type: Normal
Under Connection Settings:
- Server version: 1.1
- Data bearer: Internet
- Access Point: Always ask
- Host address: https://bookit.uwaterloo.ca/ocas-bin/ocas.fcgi?sub=syncml
- Port: 443
- User name: my Oracle Cal user name
- Password: my Oracle Cal password
- Allow sync requests: Yes
- Accept all sync reqs: Yes
- Network authentic: No
This is essentially the same thing as Oren’s posted settings besides the port number and host address. At a guess this might work on all modern Symbian phones for those that have Oracle Calendar.
Now I can just sync my E62 with iSync and iCal works… how cool is that? My 6680 doesn’t support syncML as far as I can tell 
A baby boy!
Rarely do I write a personal post on here but I think this is worth an exception—early Friday morning (January 19th) my son was born. He and his mom are happy and healthy. Addison Murphy-Rodgers came in at 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long.
For the next two weeks I probably won’t be writing much or approving comments, I am going to spend some time at home.
Browser usage for January 2007: IE 7 is 23%
About a month ago I posted that IE 7 was at 16% of IE users that access the UW home page (around 65 000 visitors a day). It is now up to 23.16%. It looks like the jump in IE 7 usage is following a pretty good trend. Starting next week, managed Windows systems will be updated to run IE 7 so I am imagine there will be a big spike in usage. I am hoping to see IE 6 drop below the 10% mark in February.
Overall IE (6 and 7) make up 74.25% of the traffic, Firefox at 21.93%, and Safari at 2.11%. The others are all under 1% (less than 2% combined).
Student ‘Scholarships’ for Web Directions North
Web Directions North is probably the best web conference in Canada for 2007 (wish it wasn’t all the way out in Vancouver) and it is now offering a deal for students. There are about 30 seats available for $195 (CDN) which is about $600 off. That might take care of the price of a flight from this side of Canada to the west coast 
If you are graduating this year and are looking at the web world for a job, the contacts you can make at this conference would certainly be helpful.
I wish they had edu pricing… and it was closer.
Mobile technology pilot project begins
Tonight marks the start of a pilot project here at the University of Waterloo that will explore the feasibility of replacing land lines in Residence with mobile phones. There are, of course, a lot of other things we hope to learn from the project but what this first part needs to figure out is how:
- How useful are mobile phones really?
- How much will it cost (support, monthly service plans, device costs)?
- What is the coverage like on campus, in buildings, etc?
For this first pilot, we have around 50 students (half first year, half upper year) that live in residence. They get either a Blackberry Pearl or a Nokia E62 and are asked to use it as their primary device. There are a number of surveys to collect some data on how they use the devices as well as some group discussions planned.
The UW home page now redirects mobile devices to a customized version that is a lot lighter than the current home page you get on your computer. It has all the elements of the home page but in chunks.
This is part of a larger initiative being led by Housing and Residences to explore the use of leading edge (for Canada) technology in the living and learning spaces here at UW. I am really happy to be a part of the project team but more on the project later… I am really excited about this project and what it could lead to.
