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Miss NorthGeek 2010 – Win a new phone courtesy of NorthGeek and Sony Ericsson Canada!

It’s true! You could win this brand new, PINK, Fido-branded Sony Ericsson T715 phone. Win it for yourself or that special someone in your life – a perfect gift for this coming Valentine’s Day!

Miss NorthGeek 2010 is awarded to the most tech-savvy, geekiest (in the coolest way possible), awesomest femenita in the NorthGeekosphere. To win it, you can either nominate yourself, or nominate the Geekette in your life. She will win the T715 phone, the glory, and the respect of kajillions of adoring fans.

All you have to do, is tweet your story (be sure to include #NorthGeek) or comment in this post, with your best tech-enabled (so that means it could be a text message, an email, or some social media form of communication) romantic story. Maybe you asked someone out on a date by SMS, or perhaps you wrote a song, recorded it, and posted it to YouTube? Whatever it is, let us know, and you could be our lucky winner! Remember, the story has to involve the person you’re nominating as Miss NorthGeek 2010!

We’ll be announcing the winner – selected by an esteemed panel of NorthGeek judges and industry experts – on Valentine’s Day – February 14th 2010, at 12:00pm PST.

Good luck, internet lovers!!

Some info on the handset:
- 3G high-speed experience
- Quad-band phone
- 3.2 megapixel camera with video recorder
- Integrated Facebook application
- MP3 player
- External memory expandable(MicroSD)
- Bluetooth® technology
- Handsfree speaker
- Picture and Video Messaging (MMS)
- Flight mode, calendar, to-do list, calculator, unit converter
- World clock, alarm and note pad

iPhone, Nexus One 3G Frequencies

Also known as, why you can’t use the new Google phone in Canada… yet.

The chart shows the 3G frequencies (different from 2G) supported by each of these two devices, as well as the 3G frequencies of four mobile carriers.

Rogers/Fido does also use 1900MHz but it seems only for 2G, not 3G. Bell and Telus’ new HSPA network uses 850MHz (possibly also 1900MHz — this is unclear but irrelevant here).

Can people run the Nexus One on Wind Mobile in Canada? It seems so. So why can’t you buy the Google phone in Canada yet? Or you could always bear with EDGE speeds from The Three Stooges. And considering that option, I still think it’s a terrible shame you can’t buy this shiny new toy in Canada yet!

We also want to know why Google decided to go with that spectrum selection? Either T-Mobile had a say, Google is in no rush to ship millions of devices to the mass market, or… price? Qualcomm pushback? (Other Android devices do have a different choice of frequencies.) Please share your thoughts below!

More info at Wikipedia. However, this info is surprisingly mysterious. Ok, maybe no one really cares about it? Prove us wrong!

NorthGeek is very excited about Google’s Navigation

This is something that just makes you think, “well, duh” -- it had to happen, and finally, it has. Now shipping with all Android 2.0 phones (‘all’ being the Moto Droid for now, at least) is the new Google Maps Navigation which is an internet-enabled, voice prompting GPS navigation app that takes full advantage of all of Google Maps and Google Local’s network features, from business contact info to street view. Have a look:

I’m quite excited for more Android 2.0 phones to come out, especially a GSM one. My only question now: what to do with my Blackberry Bold?

Rolltop – laptop of the future?

Obviously, this is a computer rendering, but wow, I want one! This could very well be the future of portability -- a fully collapsable (and ‘rollable’) notebook computer/display. Sign me up -- and have a look:

How to tether on your Fido iPhone OS3.1

Has your iPhone stopped being able to tether (ie. connect your laptop to your iPhone data network) on Fido since you upgraded to OS3.1? Are you pissed about that? Please enter your comments on this below or at Fido customer complaints (like we did)! We’ll keep you up to date what we hear. This is an outrage!

Dear Fido,

I am an owner of a Fido iPhone 3G. When I purchased the iPhone and signed a 3 year contract, the best data option was 500MB as the 6GB promo was not available at that time. Up until updating my iPhone operating system to 3.1, tethering with my iPhone was an important feature for me. However, now with OS3.1, I am unable to tether, unless I change my data plan to one greater than 1GB. I am perfectly happy with paying for my 500MB plan for both iPhone browsing and tethering. I am not interested in changing the plan I chose under a 3 year agreement for a later added feature which excludes a 500MB plan for absolutely no apparent reason. 500MB is sufficient for my usage, and when I signed my contract, I was not told there would be any difference with a larger or smaller data plan other than data usage.

Please consider allowing people with a 500MB or any data plan to use tethering, until at least December 31, 2009, at which point you have announced changes may take place.

We have paid for the usage, we have signed contracts to do so, and should not suffer for choosing an appropriate plan before tethering option was defined later.

Thank you,
Noah Bloom
Fido customer since 2001
(This letter and replies may be documented at NorthGeek.com)

Win $100 in A/V cables and accessories!

To all NorthGeeks and home theater enthusiasts, our good friends over at Optimization-World.com have informed us of an exciting contest they’re running, where you can win a $100 gift card to their site, just for submitting a photo of your messy cabling set-up!

Whether it’s your computer cable maze or your home theater cable jungle, snap a photo of it and either send it directly to us, or visit their contest page, at http://www.optimization-world.com/contest.html to submit your entry. The contest page has all the rules, too.

With $100 there, you can do some serious damage!

So go get messy, and good luck!!

NorthGeek Product Review: 6' HDMI 1.3b cable from Optimized Cable Co.

Sorry for the delay, folks – but here it is!! Our first review of a product from http://www.optimization-world.com – here is the product page for the HDMI cable they sent me – a 6′ gold-plated HDMI cable, for just $12.99! And they ship to Canada!

Please don’t mind the lack of editing – I had to use iMovie and I haven’t used it in a while… Am waiting for the new FCP to come out!

Move over, overpriced cables! Optimized Cable has a solution for you!

We at NorthGeek pride ourselves on finding excellent product, always for the best price around. Dan R is shopping for a new car, and boy, he’s shopping! Noah spent months looking around for frame, groupo, wheels, etc for his latest road bike. I am still looking for the right cable set up for my latest additions to my home theater. And no, I’m not talking about this home theater…

Well, today, we were contacted by Optimized Cable Company (http://www.optimization-world.com/), who wants to work with us to help promote low-cost and high-quality cables, from video (HDMI/DVI) to audio (optical/digital), to networking (ethernet/USB) and more. They also have accessories that will help you complete that pet project of yours, be it a home office or home theater!

NorthGeek has some product on the way, so stay tuned for some video reviews! Thanks, Optimized!!

Attention all bad parkers: YOU NEED THIS!

This is pretty cool stuff! I wonder if it’s available in Canada? Styling-wise, it looks like a car from the future…