Tag Archives: mobile

Synology DSVideo and mobile devices

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This week I’ve made a few experiments with the video streaming capabilities of my DS411Slim NAS with two mobile platforms: a Nexus 7 (Android) and the Lumia 800 (WP 7.5).
In order to proceed I had to install the beta version on the NAS as a first step, then I was able to connect with the app downloaded from the stores of the two devices.

I only had a handful of old AVI movies to test and it turned out that the native player of both the Lumia and the Nexus 7 were unable to play the format.

On the Nexus 7 it was possible to install VLC and then play the video.
The same possibility is not available on the Lumia making it an unsuitable platform for further experiments.

The app on the Nexus is not able to resume the play from the point where the tablet was suspended and apparently doesn’t support the manual seek.
I’ve downloaded locally the file and VLC seek worked without any issue.

Overall the experience was fairly negative: DSVideo is not yet a mature solution.

New Nokia Lumia 800 at home: low satisfaction with WP

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Recently my Nokia E7 died and I was left without a smartphone.

Given the nice feeling that I’ve had with the Nokia N9 I’ve picked up the Lumia 800 handset as the phone construction is very similar and the N9 was not longer available at a good price.

After one week of usage I’ve to say that I’m very unhappy with the phone because of the Windows Phone 7.5 operating system.

Microsoft made something major with WP that makes this OS worthless for me (and for people traveling a lot):
There it is no way I could find to download automatically (or by explicit command) all the email attachments for all the emails in my inbox.
I travel in foreign countries 50% of my time and I’m not always in free wifi coverage: having all the data in the phone up to the last synchronization time is key to make it a good work companion.
The position of MS is that the behavior is selected to avoid risks of infections and to help save bandwidth: I’d agree with the choice if it was just the default configuration but it’s not changeable at all.

BTW there it is people who is complaining about Android downloading attachments they’re never going to read 🙂

I’ll either hand the phone over to my wife or send it back hoping that I’ll get the E7 back from service soon as the physical keyboard is a big deal too for me.