A full detailed Interactive Nokia N8 Unboxing-All Videos

Do you know what we Nokia fans do on twitter now days? Most of the timeline of mine goes on talking about Nokia N8 and why not.. where else we have something like a 12 megapixel mobile camera with Xenon, where else we have a gorgeous 3.5” screen with capacitive multi-touch, such a superb anodized aluminum body and where else many more things like this come at a price of under 25k INR? If you could hold yourself not talking about such a thing, then you must be brave for sure.

I guess one day back, I said that I wont be writing anything over Nokia N8 till I wont get the same in my hands as was really feeling jealous with my mate bloggers of the gang, who had their hands on this shiny new toy of town. Moreover, the whole blogger world is buzzing this much about Nokia N8 that it leaves really little for you to talk about Nokia N8, when you might have not seen it in real yet.

That was what I decided one day back, but here comes Nokia, here comes Womworld and 1000Heads, here comes the bonding they make with us in way like no one else does. You might have seen stories of many trial devices from Nokia to bloggers in past and some very exciting competitions .. but hold your breath, something most amazing happened today…

While I was already watching the interactive videos being uploaded by Nokia since Mondays and controlling my excitement about Nokia N8 somehow (I must say, no other smart phone from the past might have excited we Indians this much) , but it was till 1954 hrs of today …

After a stressing day at office, when I was really tired after reaching back to home crossing the terrible, rainy traffic and checked my mail box on my Nokia N82’s Nokia Messaging account, there was a mail from our very own Lydia and the WOMWorld/Nokia team …

Hey Nitish!
Hope all is well over on your side?

Thought we’d drop you a quick mail to let you know the guys over at Nokia put a little surprise together for you 🙂

Not only are you the first person to see this, but you’ve also got a personal introduction to it all!

Let us know what you think, and feel free to share.

The intro:
http://www.luxusonlinesg.com/unboxing/FinalVideo/blogging_100831/Brenda_nitish_mp4.mov.zip

The unboxing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VPxntuYwVA

Lydia and the WOMWorld/Nokia team

This all got me suddenly much excited and excitement crossed the boundaries once, I downloaded the video from the link given in mail. Promise you guys @1000Heads, if ever, I owned a company, then you will be my marketing team, only you .. no one else.. you are beyond magic… just awesome.

Wanna know, why I am this much excited about the video? Check out the video yourself ..

Whoaa!! She took my name… how come Nokia came to know that out of those three people, I liked her most. I am still like dreaming… should say.. awesome was just a word before today.. now its a real feeling. Thanks Guys thanks.. you got me.. you totally got me.

People talk about Apple’s marketing and say that Nokia should learn a thing or two from them, but today I really think that if Nokia really need such marketing?

You need marketing to sell something ridiculously higher priced device that come to change your habits and leaving you constrained about features without pouring extra bucks at each step. You can’t make a complain as people will ask that why you bought something in double price and you become fanboy.

Nokia never been into such marketing and that’s the reason, you even find many negative words over bad products from even we like bloggers, whom people many times call Nokia fanboys, but still we are family, yes!! family… a word that is too easy to be spoken and used, but making people part of your family is something that is beyond marketing. Nokia is part of lives of ours… isn’t it?

Let me introduce you all something that really don’t need any kind of marketing to sell it … Nokia N8 unboxing in most awesome way, you might have ever imagined.

The blue boxes, as I seen with Nokia Booklet 3G, but so many of them… it feel really itchy and we feel like even begging from Womworld for our share from it.

We got three amazingly hot unboxers here presenting three streams …

1. Brenda the elegance: Brenda, whom I liked most among the three even before receiving the mail, is here to unbox the Blue Nokia N8. A color, which I would like chose if someone says that Black is dangerous to my life (otherwise Black is my color). I wonder that how come Womworld guys there knew that I liked her most?

Brenda represents the sober and elegant class, who weighs any product just not by exteriors, but by its features, its elegance … in short in most sensible way of judging. Truly speaking, she is so sober that it was hard to decide that what to look.. her face or Nokia N8.. LOL

In first part, she talks about things inside the box, which we will see in next videos as well. She shows each and every component of the Nokia N8 box and the first thing that relieves us is … yes!! we do have a proper length USB cable here (Thanks God! Nokia got the point finally). She shows the special stylus for the capacitive screen with the note that its available in select regions only and we really pray that it will arrive in India too.

Let’s see other part of the unboxing videos by Brenda that could be navigated to from end of the last video.

Five Vibrant colors of Nokia N8

After the unboxing get over, she demonstrates the five different colors of Nokia N8 here. While at one side, people are still waiting after months for white colored version of something… here Nokia coming with five brilliant colors from the day one. Yup!! for many, it’s hard to decide, which one to go for.

Multiple Home screens to choose and customize in one Nokia N8

Multiple home screens provide one a much better and larger space to put their priorities in their own unique ways. I loved the fact that Nokia kept the implement up to three screens only as it didn’t make sense to have like some dozens screen. Think you could have hundreds of icons on your desktop, but is that a good idea?

720p HD Recording

I still remember the days, when we were hiring professionals to shoot our videos in functions and not many were able to afford Digicams to record their precious moments. Then came the era of mobile camera and life really changed. I really think that youtube wouldn’t been such a big site, if there were no mobile cameras around. May be exaggerated my statement look like, but man.. look at the resolution.. where are we… its not the resolution, but its the revolution.

Social Networking

It really surprises you that how social networking has became an integral part of our lives. Its not long that when internet was meant to be Yahoo messenger and mails only. But today twitter and facebook like sites became bigger than anything. Facebook and twitter has as many users as not even many country might be having citizens in total. Sure the credit is to smart phones and when someone like Nokia N8 comes with Integrated Social Networking then..

Seamless Multi-tasking

There is a big world of apps out there when we talk about other operating systems and it looks like they have apps for everything.. even making a call also an app for them, I guess and may be even Antenna … what’s profit of having apps for little things which we never thought that should be separate thing from OS itself? What’s part of installing hundreds of small apps in your memory and keep on moaning that we have millions of apps out there for bucks, when you can’t run and navigate through even 12 together. That’s where you say..

Nokia is Nokia and Symbian still rules when it comes to Multi-Tasking.

2. Ryan the Geek: Geek.. someone on twitter said that when it comes to Nokia, then every Tom and Harry become Geeky and expert on mobile technology. I guess that should be taken as a compliment that how natural and simplified the technical innovations of Nokia are. Ryan here presents a Geek’s perspective about Nokia N8.

He goes with same unboxing as Brenda gone through or might be with some geeky little details and then let’s zoom in, what more details, he wanted to share about Nokia N8…

Bright AMOLED Screen and tough body

Definitely that gonna be some divine experience, when such a live and talking AMOLED screen with play with our fingers and we thought that big screens are meant to better view only. The scratch resistant body really assures us that its same robust Nokia we lived with since decades.

Ultra-Sharp 12 mp Camera

When I talk about Camera of Nokia N86 some days back, then I mentioned that its not only about Megapixels, when someone make a camera and it really make us proud that no one knows it better than Nokia itself. Definitely Nokia N8 is beyond that whatever you might have expected from a successor of Nokia N82 and Nokia N86 likes. Your phone is much much more bigger and important thing now and you are very much ready for handling anything instantly.

Flash Support

“Flash website are just way cooler to look at” – it really made me smile that Nokia chosen to make an entire heading over it. We all know that whom are they referring to and we are all with them. Flash is here to stay and no one could keep on deciding that what way we choose to live with.

Flexible Keyboard

Definitely this is the most important part, I am looking for. I already said once that its gonna be hard for me to live with some only touch phone, so it become so much of important that how touch keyboard of Nokia N8 gonna feel in my hands. Though still not demonstrated anywhere, I would really like to see that how swype will perform over it and also a request from Nokia for coming with idea of transparent keyboard as well. Still proper support for Landscape and Portrait modes delights.

High Speed Symbian OS

May have faced much criticism with touch devices, Symbian been a real Gladiator when it comes to mobile phones and Symbian^3 really really have a lots of expectations from it. We really expecting that Nokia has removed all the annoyances, people might be complaining till now. Each video seems solid and smooth… itching to feel myself.

3. Suzy the sizzling hot: She alls herself sizzling hot and even we don’t deny the fact as while playing all the videos, our eyes kept slipping from Nokia N8 sometimes. When she talks about Nokia N8, then she really talk about entertainment, looks and compactness of things.

After her own way of un-boxing, she talks about going under skin of Nokia N8

12 Mega Pixel Camera

It might have a different meaning for a Geek like Ryan, while for fashion conscious people like Suzy, it opens up another vibrant world of colors.

HDMI Output

I really wonder, if Nokia N8 will push up the sales of HDMI monitors, which are really down in prices here in India up to an affordable level (I have seen 48” in 44k). My Nokia N82 been a personal digicam for me since years and I always challenged even professionals, really wonder that how the world will fall in front of me, once Nokia N8 arrives.

Two ways of charging up

Definitely its cool to have feature of USB charging if all of sudden your phone is low on battery and you have no 2mm chargers around (Though unlikely keeping Nokia’s popularity in mind).

Faster Micro USB Output

Nothing was frustrating you more, when your smart phone was taking too much time, when you wanted to get ready for some trip and wished to fill up your phone with Gbs of songs and movies at the last moment. Not only USB OTG has arrived to forget such worries forever, but the enhanced speed of Micro USB sure gonna blow your mind, when you will experience it.

Crisp Call Quality

When we talk about Call Quality and signal reception, then there were never other names and its always been the most pleasant part that while making design decisions like keeping the battery locked down, Nokia never even dreamed of making compromises like Antennagate.

Though still we will be wishing for a better front camera always. May be that will arrive when our network will be capable of providing better speeds (even 3G is not everywhere in India).

So, these were the details about the huge flood of videos from Nokia side in last two days and at the end, again I would like to thank Womworld Team to make me feel close to them, when I was wishing much lonely without any trial device like C6, E5 or without any plans of going to Nokia World.

Whatever I do.. I am with you guys.. always. People please join with my voice, if wanna say something.

By the way, whose unboxing you liked most? My heart goes on for Brenda… what about yours?

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

Symbian alternatives for Gravity – Snaptu, Socially, Tweets60, Trill and Dabr

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I hope you all loved the last review of Gravity from me, which some even mentioned as the biggest review over Gravity till date. Thanks for the love shown by you all, which encouraged me to come up with another post showcasing other alternatives twitter clients.

Its never like that only few twitter clients out there, but if someone had tried Gravity once, then it becomes harder to settle for anything else. Still there are many, who search for other clients as Gravity asks for a little price. So, here I am trying to sum up some of the free alternative twitter clients than almighty Gravity, let’s see how much worth everyone of them has.

Snaptu: This was probably the first ever twitter app that I installed in any of my Smart phone. A simple yet effective mobile app that could find its place in your phone even if not just for twitter.

Snaptu is not just another mobile app, but in fact its a widget platform in itself, which has very easy and open API to build widgets upon to bring number of services to your smart phone in easiest way possible, in form of widgets.

Most special thing about Snaptu, being widget based it works in same way from lower end S40 devices to higher end Nokia N97 Mini etc. Specially over S40 devices I found nothing as rich as Snaptu.

Installation is as easy as it could have been. One has to just navigate to http://m.snaptu.com and it will show up options accordingly.

Snaptu caters a variety of services\ apps like CricInfo, FaceBook, AccuWeather, Picasa, Dictionary, Sudoku, Dictionary, Google Calendar and of course twitter. Twitter appears as a widget in Snaptu and serves all the basic purposes in simplest possible way.

Though Facebook app here is also worth special mention as that one works better than the official facebook client app, but this post was intended for twitter service, so let’s move that way.

The login screen is simplest yet include the search twitter option and view public timeline option as we find on twitter official site. Quite handy to start with twitter, if you are new to it.

User name and password fields take you to Nokia native text input screen that might feel annoying to making, but its a thing that you have to live with as it will continue in rest all experience with Snaptu. Wherever there will be option to input some text, it will be the same native screen. Though that’s not exactly annoying as it include the familiar experience and also shows the counter on top.

But I should say that putting a checkbox like Follow Snaptu is un-necessary pushing, which they should have avoided. You should not ask people to follow you in this way.

Later it comes to the twitter experience,

I would like to see better fonts, geo-tagging and pics upload support essentially here, but still it presents all the basic functions, one might be looking from a twitter client. Not only you have options like reply-to-all, but you can check the profile and have the preview of pics as well (though I am not sure, how many services it supports, but being web based, it should support most of them).

Though I didn’t found any pics upload option, but I think as Snaptu handle Picasa very well, there are other pics upload widgets for sure and that could serve the purpose, but again a unified experience is what we don’t get here.

One thing that I would admire here, which we always wished to have in Gravity as well is picture zooming option like given below, sometimes we really need that only.

As you can see picture viewing screen also has Open in browser option. And yes like almost all of twitter clients, it also doesn’t make use of Flash Lite for showing previews of videos posted rather than showing the screen like the above when clicked. Is video playback that hard to implement?

With settings, Snaptu is as basic as it could be. I wish if they would have given options like theme etc here. Still it has enough to show off the twitter, see how updates appear with notifications. It got most of the basic things that you require from a twitter client and it supports touch phones as well.

Socially: Like Snaptu, Socially is also an app that could find its way in your smart phone, even if you didn’t wanted it for your twitter needs. Not only free, but it also brings some functions like even Gravity trying to reach now.

Socially facilitate not only integration with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook (though the same is having some problem now days) and Foursquare, but goes beyond that. These social services get integrated with your contacts in a very good way and facebook app is much richer than Gravity has. I mean browsing through profiles of friends, photos and options to have birthdays from Facebook or to sync profile pics with contacts pics just by one click.

The UI might not seem that cool after you might have seen Gravity itself, but still its cool and effective enough with a desktop alert (last 15 updates) kind of thing for even non-touch phones.

Initial steps to connect the services are kind of naive and the facebook one is facing some issues right now due to some changes from Facebook side, though you can easily connect the facebook via browsing through given URL on your PC and it will automatically connect your socially with your facebook account after you authorize the same from web.

Unlike the other apps, I will talk about in this post later on, this one has plenty of settings to fiddle with. Not only auto start, preferred Data Access Point, preferred WLAN Access point and even prompt for Foursquare Check-Ins since the latest version arrived. You say… WOW!!!

Though I am not able to find some way to upload photos through it, but if it was there, then was picture perfect as we already have features like browsing through pics.

Definitely, its likeable when some app brings your favourite business networking site directly into your phone. After all, its not only about twitter and social networking, when you talk about social. Though haven’t started using LinkedIn that much from cell till now, so can’t figure out the use cases, but I know many people, who could make out a good deal of it.

But yes! I would say Gravity reminds you at many places, like when you try to check in Foursquare. You think that it could have been easier like the way Gravity does, so simple, so natural, so tight.

The home screen displays photos of your contacts (twitter/Facebook etc), which got recent updates and the updates could be scrolled right to left below to it. Not only that whatever you say from the home screen in updates, goes across all the services means one door, one update to all Facebook, Twitter, Linked and Foursquare. I am specially happy about this app that it adds the geo-location options, which Snaptu misses badly.

Yes! there are no picture previews, pics upload options and no Reply-to-all in socially’s twitter experience as of now, but still no naive typing screen and option of geo-tagging makes socially is exactly the thing, which you wanted as alternative to Gravity, if didn’t wished to pay any price.

If you thought that’s enough about Socially, then you probably missed the fifth icon in top row of home screen. Yes! Socially has a very very surprise package for you, if you leave it running in background, then it also tells details about incoming calls like from where and from which provider someone is calling and also when the last call or SMS was made from that number, not only that but also a blacklist function for incoming calls. Definitely, there are many thing in Socially that even gravity could learn a thing or two from it.

Tweets60: Its only non-free product in my list and I have taken a lite product for review (free version), so there are many things I might miss about this. This app even gotten a mention over AAS, so you might check out a thing or two from there as well.

When you open the app, the first thing that strike your mind is, how much similar it looks like Gravity, but as you move further, you start finding differences. There is no full screen mode (or may be in lite version only), no control over font size like gravity, no themes, no image upload, no under the tweet options of reply, reply-to-all or conversation mode.

As much, you try to move in, the disappointment gets bigger. Again saying that its not because it has something lesser than the two mentioned before it, but its because it reminds you too much of Gravity and when you try to do things in Gravity way then you suddenly woke up from the dream.

This app has own way of handling basic twitter operations and though no geo-location support or reply-to-all option, but its good enough to live with sometimes.

There are common tabs like Home, Replies, Direct msg, Direct msg sent, favorites and updates. No options for conversation or like who replied to whom, I was not even able to find the way to view someone’s profile.

Nothing much to talk about more in it, I guess, but please remind me, if I would have missed something.

Trill: This client has recently joined the game and people loved the bird way of tweeting specially. After Gravity, only the interfaces of rounded buttons and inline options here touched me somehow.

Not only, you can view any profile in best way,but also the inline buttons to reply or anything been something one get addicted to, if would have used Gravity. Definitely, its a good design in comparison to rest all free product dealing with twitter.

There are again tabs like Home, Replies, Direct messages and Public timeline. One must not miss the bottom center icon as well, which shows possible navigation ways. simple yet Innovative.

Its design has taken many elements from Gravity and though misses things like picture preview, reply-to-all and geo-tags, but they could really built it upon this base.

Dabr: And here comes the only mobile site of the all names I mentioned above. If some mobile site get higher ratings than even the official mobile site of twitter, then it has to be something. Dabr.co.uk is probably the simplest way available on planet as you can find it running in same way even on lowest GPRS supporting phones and that too with much needed pics upload option.

At the first sight, you might find it a mess of links only, but once you start with it, then you find all the functions built in. ~~Though no reply-to-all option~~ ~~here, but~~ It also got reply-to-all option and you can even view if someone sent a geo-tagged tweet. There are previews available for pictures too.

Some of my friends told me that dabr has option to send geo-tagged tweet, but I am not able to find that yet. After making this post live, James from @1000Heads confirmed me that as per dabr’s own blog post, Geo-tagging available for iPhones, iPads, Android phones and the N900 too.

Why not Symbian, dabr? Why not?

It supports a number of themes to choose from and even choice of modes that which kind of phone, you are using dabr on. But what I liked most about it is its simplicity yet capability of doing most of things like picture upload.

So, that was my attempt to bring some info about free twitter clients for people, who couldn’t afford to buy a Gravity license, but still I will insist that one must see Gravity once before thinking that how much price its asking for.

Please add your comments, if you like the info and wanted to add something.

Update: On suggestion of one of the friend, I decided to add a poll here

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

Nokia Ovi Suit Update, v. 2.2.1.23, some questions and guesses

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I guess like most of the times, CJ was first to report this in morning as like most of casual bloggers, I remain in office in day time, but just checked and updating mine. Just wished to add a few words of mine about this update.

This was the first update after the last time I reported about 2.2.0.245, in late night a day before, we also have received a mysterious 17 mb update, which didn’t seem to be changing anything or mentioning anything about the improvement. I tweeted the following right then and even one of the tweeps replied that its same with him as well.

I tried to figure out that what that 17 mb update was and wasn’t able to find out anything, so finally given up and didn’t posted anything more about that, but when today finally we received this update with a little bit of details, then it reminded me of that update, which still making me think that what was that?

Now about this update,

As it says, it brings the following new features …

The stability of Nokia Ovi Suit has been improved
Map download is more reliable than before
Video Playback has been improved
Nokia Ovi Suit now supports Syncing contacts with Mozilla Thunderbird 3.1

And as you can see, if you have the last latest version 2.2.0.24, then the size would be around 67 mb, while the direct download from the official site would be around 98.1 mb (I am not sure that how CJ got the 117 mb figure, may be some other device, ~~though still~~ ~~I think that’s incorrect~~ @MickyFin updated that he also getting same 117 MB update, so CJ is right.. sorry).

Though I am not sure, the update is same 67 mb for those people, who didn’t updated their Ovi suits one day back by that mysterious 17 mb update.

Update: Last few twitter conversations with friends given some light over this size issue. The users on Windows XP are expected to receive 67 MB update (like me and @kreativtek), with Windows Vista, the update is expected to be of size 100 mb (as was the case of @brainimpact) and finally Windows 7 users are excepted to receive 117 mb update (as CJ reported and @MickyFin confirmed me)

Now some more things …

Did you knew that Ovi Suit now requires at least 1 GB free space in your drive?

No! it didn’t seem to be taking that much space in your drive, but it refuses if you provide lesser than this.

Why there is no support for Mac yet?

Some people keep on asking me that why Nokia can’t provide the Mac support for their Ovi Suit. There is a big reason behind that. Is there really that much demand for that? When you have a Mac then it means you have an iTune account, which makes more obvious that you would be going behind the apple devices rather than Ovi Suit.

Yeah! It looks straight forward and rude, but its true. No point in investing efforts in an area that is not going to add up in some relevant demands. You can see that Google is not updating Google Maps that frequently or not even tried to give support to Maemo (it was open source and they say that they love open, but still), just because that doesn’t support Java and Google didn’t wanted to put its non-java programmer behind that task.

And for the fact, Ovi Suit isn’t available for the Linux as well.

but yes, with Symbian^3 becoming open source, you can bet over the fact that Ovi Suit support for Maemo and Mac are just around the corner following the hints from their own blog. Should we expect this from the NW10?

Should we expect some drastic changes in Ovi Suit with symbian^3 arrival?

Unlikely!! they seem to be pushing smaller updates and Qt support from behind at every level and target is sure to streamline the process of developing apps, removing compatibility issues and making Ovi Suit a one place solution for all. May be even a service like DropBox.

By having an emulating layer on top of the operating system, iOS and Android enjoy a convenience that they could keep features more or less same throughout their devices and could bring OS updates for all of them (or as they choose) at once as the code and implementations would be not be firmware or device specific.

Moreover, by having an emulation layer on top of operating system, iOS and Android have an advantage in t terms of convenience of developers as well because development is easier as once app is made, it would be available for all kind of devices, while in case of Symbian, one is needed to match needs of all kind of firmware’s and so different codes all the time and even unavailability for some of the devices (pixelpipe not available for Nokia N82).

But the profit of being native to OS, was effortless multi-tasking and smooth functioning that others are not able to achieve even on having 1GHz processor and minimum 512 MB RAM on board.

Just a few thoughts, may be something new might happen in next few weeks.

Do you wish to add something?

Update: The official ovi blog posted some more exciting details of this update and I am really surprised that why we didn’t heard big shouts from people, when they say Nokia N900 is now supported by Ovi Suit. They should have highlighted the same fact in the release note displayed in update.

They also mentioned that they have updated operator support in this version that is a great news for people making use of their phones for connecting internet on PC. I use manual configuration for my Nokia device modem, but for a layman, Nokia’s connect to internet is GOD.

They also given the answer to my second point posted above. They are working hard to produce a properly working version for Mac OS. I could understand that its been a ground zero level work and they are excpected to deliver each and every functionality with same awesomeness which any Mac user expect, its not an easy task in any respect. I am happy that they are not giving up.

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

After Ovi Files, now its VOX going down by September 30, 2010

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What the hell is going on? First it was Ovi Files and now the image upload service VOX, available by default in most of Nokia Smartphones going to be down by September 30, 2010. Is it in reference of better integration with Flicker and Picasa etc in Symbian^3 and MeeGo or just bad coincidences?

The users of VOX, started receiving mail from Vox Team at 1156 Hrs GMT +0530 and like it was with Ovi Files, there is no explanation over the reason of closing down the service. May be not many users of the same service, but it was handy for me and other Nokia users for sure. We really wish to know that is something wrong going on or its just few shakeups before the better future?

Below is the content of the mail …

Important service announcement: Vox is closing September 30, 2010

Vox has been a fun place to explore, create and connect with your friends. But Vox is closing its doors on September 30, 2010.

This doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to your blog. We want you to make sure you can keep the great content you’ve shared on Vox, and continue to have a home for your blog. To help you make the transition off of Vox, we’ve added new export features that make it easy to move your blog to a free TypePad account, and your photos & videos to Flickr.

If you’re an active Vox member we encourage you to read the information below about what’s happening during the month of September, and learn more about how you can migrate your content. There is more information at closing.vox.com.

What you need to know

Vox is no longer accepting new user registrations. If you have an existing Vox account you can continue to sign in to manage your account and view posts from your neighborhood.
On Wednesday September 15th, you will no longer be able to create new posts on Vox or upload new photos or videos. You will still be able to sign in to view your blog and manage your account.
On Thursday September 30th, your blog will no longer be available at Vox.com, and you will no longer be able to sign in to Vox.

Moving your blog, photos and videos from Vox

To help you make the transition off of Vox, we’ve made it easy for you to move your blog to TypePad and your photos and your videos to Flickr.

You can move your blog to TypePad, for free. We’ve developed a simple process to help you move your blog to TypePad. If you don’t have a TypePad account, we’ll step you through the process of creating one, help you create a free TypePad blog, and automatically import your Vox posts and photos into your new blog. Learn how to move your Vox blog to TypePad at closing.vox.com.
You can export your photos and videos to Flickr. If you used Vox primarily for sharing photos and videos, you may want to export those to Yahoo’s popular photo sharing service Flickr. We’ve developed a simple process that will automatically move your photos and videos to Flickr, while maintaining your privacy settings on your photos. Learn how to export your Vox photos and videos to Flickr atclosing.vox.com.

Additionally, the WordPress.com and Posterous services provide tools to help you import your Vox blog. Learn more about the import tools from WordPress.com and Posterous at closing.vox.com.

Thank you for your love and support of Vox over the years.

– Team Vox

I know it wasn’t a Nokia service, I know Nokia has their own alternative, but it was available in most of their Smart phones, at least in my Nokia N82, so sure it feel sad, if it departs before any alternative arrives from Nokia. A sad news.

So, what you think? Were you using this service or don’t care if its going down? Please share your opinions and if something more you find about it. I am waiting.

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

Layman’s Take on Gravity – Big review of biggest twitter Client

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Do you know what is Gravity? If you are not part of the online social crowd of twitter that may know each other sometimes better than the family itself, then sure your answer might be something else, but if you know twitter then you know gravity more than the twitter itself. No matter, you are a Nokia user with Gravity installed or on some other platforms, who never got the taste of awesomeness of Gravity. That’s probably the height of brand name that stands higher than the service, higher than OS experience itself. That’s our Gravity- The best Twitter client of the planet.

The above is the preview poster that Janole, the creator of Gravity posted on his twitter profile for suggestions few days back. The poster displays the previews of interface in dark theme with brand new Image section and support for services like Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook, Google Reader, Status.Net. Obviously, the best way to present the latest version 1.32 6601 was to showcase it with Nokia N8 itself (the best a Symbian can get till date).

I must tell you, writing review over something you been familiar since long might be much much tougher to start with sometimes. I remember my Nokia N82 review that was so obvious thing always with me in last few years and still no words over it. Same with Gravity, each of us know about, use every minute, but its so simple, so obvious that what to write, what left to be told like simple questions becomes tougher than revealing secrets behind some prototype.

Gravity: First released on March 30, 2009, Gravity started with a simple interface covering all the basic things about Twitter and with continuous positive feedbacks, grown to improve the experience better and better in just few months. With October 21, 2009, it started becoming your one point social communication client by inclusion of service like Google Reader and all of the services were always sharable to twitter. Though we miss things like pictures or videos in Gravity’s Google reader section, but still it stands as perhaps the best RSS client for Symbian and smaller screens.

What makes an awesome UI? The Simplest Interface- Everything right there where you expected them to be and functioning much better than the expectation itself and The Performance- all of sudden, you stop blaming that your phone is under powered or cheap coz gravity does the same wonder, if you pick an old phone like Nokia N82 with me or a cheap Nokia C5 or faster non-touch like E72 or even touch screens like N97 or N8 (touch screen versions have kinetic scrolling as well).

What makes the performance special is the fact that it’s programmed in Symbian OS native code. In practice, this means that the developer can create a feature rich, slick and complicated UI and user interface, compared to a J2ME based application. More of it, it handles the internet connections pretty well though there are not options for controlling A-GPS settings that way, but hey!! you are talking about a twitter client here

Let’s try to introduce the awesomeness of Gravity with the readers, who don’t know about it yet (if really there are any)

Installation Mobile installation never been any headache like Windows or Linux ones, so the installation will go straight forward though you are required to allow all applications from the application settings by changing the default of signed only.

Usually the size of gravity been around 450-500 kbs, but with arrival of combined installer for all platforms, it has changed to a single 1.69 mb installer.

Yes! you are always recommended to use the latest version of software and here you have the best reason for that. @janole has introduced the all re-designed super awesome image section since version 1.31 6575, I guess. The latest 1.32 6601 is supposed to be most stable, efficient and Symbian^3 supported version of gravity.

Like most of the products, I don’t remember that gravity ever changed its icon, but the new version now greets you with much more behind the thumbnails of six images in image section as the limit of last few images only as was just one month back, has been removed now.

First look and services Interface and UI is what keep Gravity apart and ahead of any twitter client in the world and even all other Symbian apps, you might have ever seen. If you check twitter and blogs then you will find really many advocating that Nokia should give @janole the charge of UI design section with Nokia as its Gravity specially, that one misses if moves out from Symbian world. That’s why, when I say that can an app could be bigger than the OS itself in fame? then no one think of any other name than Gravity.

The very first screen greets you with five initial sections: Add Account, Go Online!, Twitter Search & Trends, Images and Info & Updates. As you can check in options->View, current screenshots shows Gravity running in Full screen mode, which really shows that how UI’s should be actually designed to take full potential of smaller 2.4” screens.

As you see, in Options->Tools, Gravity make full use of A-GPS for twitter geo-tagging and FourSquare and even you can utilized the Geo-Co-ordinates obtained from Gravity to send via SMS by copying on clipboard.

The version 1.32 is sure a big mark about Gravity as not only it brings support for upcoming Symbian^3 (N8, C7 etc), but the services like Google reader is out of beta stage now.

More of it, as Gravity supported the OAuth from the start, so its surely not among those ones, who gonna be affected by twitter’s recent announcement about OAuth. I am also looking for videos using Gravity with recently arrived Swype, would be awesome experience for touch users.

As @janole seems to have removed one of the services here, so now it remains with five services as shown in screenshot-Twitter, StatusNet, Facebook, Google Reader and Foursquare, but under the hood there are many more services as well.

Listing a few here ..

Is.gd as a URL Shortener for Google Reader links though I would like it if @janole brings options about this as well. What about adding options for bit.ly and goo.gl?
Flicker uploads are supported via image section, you can put your Flicker code in Image Section -> Settings. Same about Facebook posts, which are natively supported. Though you can’t choose the folder in which the image will go with any of them. I guess, we just missing Picasa here. Isn’t it?
The other image upload services are Yfrog, Img.ly, TwitPic, MobyPicture, Posterous and TwitGoo.
There is support for other link services ike Delicious, Instapaper, Read-it-Later and also Ping.fm support by simply sending “p message” or “p #group message”

Have I missed any other service?

Connection Handling The connectivity thing suddenly gets a new meaning, when we talk about any mobile client as it was simple with Desktop ones. I means it was enough to have a single internet connection in your PC to run any internet based app, but when you talk about mobiles, then WiFi, 3G, APN and Wap like many things start circling in your mind.

With the inbuilt Zlib compression option, though it may be the case, you wont mind running on lower connections, but at time, when you are going to open some heavy link, then sure you think if you would have started with the higher speed connection. Don’t worry, here you love the connection handling of Gravity with Open and Choose APN option

As you seen in screenshot, you can always choose Auto-Connect to any Access Point and Auto-Fallback to WLAN for the simplest of configuration.

Twitter Gravity might not be supporting the option to make a twitter account from the client itself like Ovi tools support, but rest everything seems to be under full control of gravity and that’s most efficient and beautiful way possible for Symbian Clients.

If you already have checked out many twitter clients, then you really know that why people choose to buy Gravity even if there are many other free apps available for twitter and even the mobile sites like dabr.co.uk, itweet.net or twitter’s own mobile site itself.

The first twitter screen go just in simplest way, lists your timeline, twitter handles of people, how much time back the tweet was and from which client they tweeted. in non-touch phones, for a few it might be confusing in start that where to type, but you just fall in love by the first sight when you just start typing and the type pad appears with GPS icon in left top and count being shown on right top. Once, you finished with your post, you just need to hit the update button.

With GPS icon, you need to press the up key while keeping the cursor at very first place and it tries to get the Geo-Location if haven’t already got. Green means it has locked the location and orange means it got the nearest tower but not the satellites.

Not only that if your tweet failed or if you pressed Close in place of update for some reasons, then it goes to Drafts section of gravity and yes!! it supports multiple drafts (didn’t check how many). Cool na??

As you can see, there are nine tabs, you can navigate in smoothest manner possible and covers almost all whatever you thought that a client could have done.

Not only that you can view yours and others profile in Gravity in the above manner, but you can also check for the profile picture, Lists and link if they would have given in their profile text. Just perfect…

You already seen that there is a section of Twitter Search and Trends, you can configure as many searches there and Gravity handles them in tabs.

Not only that, but you can see that how many options you get by pressing over any tweet depending on the nature of tweet and the text inside that.

We have Reply, RT, +/-FAV, Reply-To-All, FWD, DELETE, Map/ Nearby and >> symbol for following up the conversations in other tab. The same interface goes with gravity everywhere, either it be following from someone profile or Facebook or Foursquare. Its same everywhere, click on the status and get the options whatever might be possible as per the text.

Not only that but you also have option of forwarding tweets on SMS or even by Email. Did you knew that?

Facebook The facebook section of Gravity is kind of very limited now. You can check out updates on your wall, the news feeds and also could update, comment, like or forward the updates.

You can see that the options are pretty basic here, but still sufficient for status updates and catching up with your friends.

There are issues like you can’t watch the full pics that easily, you do on twitter or if you wanted to watch some video then it downloads that first. No list of friends or birthday updates, neither can you view the profiles of others or browse their photos.

Its a due over @janole since long and he has promised up to come up with a complete Facebook section very soon. We are very much looking for that @janole.

Google Reader Perhaps no one would have expected that such a small client could have handled a thing like RSS Reader that well without going through the browser way and this is exactly what we call as brilliance.

And that’s not the all, but there are other handy options like +/- FAV, Read, Keep Unread, Mark as Read, Share, Tweet and URL. You can set that which feeds should be loaded (default is Unread Items only) and can decide the fetch time. Tweet option uses the link shortener Is.gd by default and URL opens the link in the browser, if one wishes so.

Though I could very well understand the reason, but the only thing remains in this section is images/ video and options to create folders, subscribe or unsubscribe. But Gravity was targeted to be an efficient RSS reader not the complete handler, isn’t?

Foursquare Not much to say about as I am new to Foursquare, thanks to Gravity that I joined this service, otherwise would never have joined as there was no foursquare apps before for my N82 or may be I wasn’t trying that harder.

A nice view, plenty of options, controlled sharing with Facebook or Twitter, what else you want from a Foursquare client?

Images Section Here comes the recent and most noticeable addition to gravity with the latest version. A complete redesigned, beautiful and much more capable Image section.

The new image section not only supports much more number of pics from your smartphone memory, but there are plenty of options for sharing as well.

You can now upload a pics to some service (like Yfrog, Img.ly, TwitPic, MobyPicture, Posterous, TwitGoo or Flicker) without even tweeting the same activity and you could make use of generated URL in your tweet later on by copying it on clipboard.

You can choose the quality of pics to be uploaded like Medium, Low or Original.

And the recent version also have added the option to upload the pics to Facebook (though it shows on the wall as well, may be some option in facebook settings to hide that) and also option to update the twitter profile pics, like I recently did.

Purchase and Price Yes! Its not a free app, but comes for a price around Rs. 500/-, but hey!! isn’t this much amount you spend on any ordinary weekend?

Gravity is licensed per IMEI. When purchased from share*it! or fastspring, you do not need to enter the IMEI during the order process! You can conveniently register your IMEI after the purchase has been completed through our self-service portal.

If you experience any problems during or after the order process, please immediately contact us viainfo@mobileways.de and we will help resolving the issue as fast as possible. If you do not receive your software or your registration code, please immediately contact: info@mobileways.de!

And yes! you can have rebate on multiple copies as well. Please send Mobileways.de a request for a bulk rebate to info@mobileways.de if you are planning to order more than 3 copies.

While my review was based on non-touch Nokia N82, enjoy the following videos about Gravity on touch interface ..

Via FoneArena

Via TheNokiaBlog

Beautiful and cool, isn’t it?

What makes this app more worth is the creator @janole itself, who is probably most accessible developer celebrity on twitter. you drop something about Gravity on twitter and its almost 60% likely that he will respond (he is human after all, can’t make it 100%). Not only respond, but he keeps on working over Gravity again and again to sort out issues anyone reports to him.

Do you know that much of the image section was designed by him, when he was in hospital on bed? That’s call dedication and humbleness.

So, this is plenty much about the Gravity. A review in tribute to the best mobile Apps I would have came across. Please comment, if you wanted to add some more in it.

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

Nokia is discontinuing the Ovi Files service, effective October 1, 2010

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Yes! its true. Nokia is discontinuing the Ovi Files Service. Nokia started to build its own Internet services offering in 2007, but has ramped down several unsuccessful products lately and Ovi Files finally adds in the horror list.

We all users of Ovi Files received the mail in the same regard by India Time 0114 Hrs. Surprisingly there is no mention about the same on their official blog. You have one month from now on, to ensure you are not loosing anything. I am sure this comes as a reason of big disappointment to many as this service served very well in past.

Below is the content of the mail and also the message on official site ….

Dear Ovi Files user,

Nokia is discontinuing the Ovi Files service, effective October 1, 2010.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

Please make sure to uninstall the Ovi Files Connector installed on your personal computer. To do this, execute the standard Windows or Macintosh uninstall procedure that came with your computer. You will not lose any files as a result of this service discontinuation. Ovi Files simply creates an ‘online mirror’ of the files saved on your Windows PC or Mac, so your original files will remain intact. The files on your computer are always treated as the master version, even if some are selected as ‘Anytime Files.’

You will still be able to share content between your phone and PC using another Nokia product, Nokia Ovi Suite. With Nokia Ovi Suite installed on your PC, you can do the following: sync your contacts and messages; transfer videos, photos, and music; back up your Nokia and update your device software. Please note that this is not a direct substitute for Ovi Files as Nokia Ovi Suite requires a wired connection between your PC and mobile device. For more information visitwww.ovi.com/suite.

Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience and hope that you will continue to enjoy our most popular services:

Maps
Find your way with free navigation, downloadable maps and easy location sharing. » Go

Store
Browse a wide selection of mobile apps, games, ringtones and more. » Go

Music
Download albums and individual tracks, share playlists with friends, and much more. » Go

Nokia added Files to the suite of Ovi services in 2008 after it acquired digital locker startup Avevenu. In start, Nokia said it planned to make Files a premium service, but it was ultimately made free in 2009. Files was significant because it was the first service in Nokia’s Ovi suite that utilized the Nokia account ID.

I am trying to figure out that why this happened? Will keep you posted right here, when come to know something. Keep tuned in.

Nokia C1-00 and Nokia C2 in India-the twin story begins

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Try to remember that which local brand has released a non-dual SIM phone recently? Leave it, we don’t even know that when they ‘launch’ their phones as everyday there seems to be a new copy of E71, 5800 or Blackberry look-a-like on the roads in just 3-4k with big list of features and prominently one thing that they claim that you wont find in your long trusted brand, the dual SIM feature. We all know that what quality they offer in their other features and as about dual SIM, yes!! now we have an answer …. Nokia C1 and Nokia C2 have arrived in India by yesterday itself.

After continuous rants from the bloggers, the pressure finally seems to be mounted on Nokia about their India operations. Though Indian Launch of two cheapest phones by Nokia’s Executive Vice President Mary McDowell should not be exactly taken as some big sign about change in preferences as the visit might be more related with ongoing issue of push emails as well. But still we should be happy that some Nokia device is finally launched here in India within three months of announcement.

I was aware of arrival of her, when one of my tweeps told me in morning that she has arrived on Chennai Airport and it was clear from recent device orders arriving to India that its gonna be C1 and C2 for sure. but the announcement was made in New Delhi.

McDowell’s official world were ….

As per our deep consumer insights, entry level consumers need dual SIMs for various reasons including economizing time and costs, improving efficiency and for increased convenience. To address these consumer requirements, Nokia has launched these two devices that offer multiple SIM capabilities with a balanced feature set and ‘relevant innovations’ at affordable price points.

Let’s know more about Nokia C1-00 and Nokia C2 ….

Nokia C1-00: With the very first line, let me be clear, its not a dual SIM phone as many might be confused about. But its sure marks the first ever ‘Double SIM’ phone from Nokia.

Now what a dual SIM and what a double meant to be?

A dual SIM or dual standby as per wiki comes with many kind of adapter and first of entry category was the kind of adapter that allows only one SIM active at a time means even if your phone has two SIMs inside, you can’t receive calls on both of them. One would be main SIM and other will remain as standby (not active unless you make that active manually). So, in actual, if you are looking for receiving calls on both of your SIM, then skip it, its not your choice.

Next spoiler is, its C1-00 that is launched in India, not C1-01 or C1-02, both of which as series 40 devices with better capabilities (C1-02 even has basic camera).

Its a very basic model with a price tag of Rs. 1, 999/- and a color screen, probably its more of targeting the users, who loved Nokia 2600 or Nokia 1400. Some other regions has it in price around 1k-1.2k as well, so you could expect the prices to go down here as well very son.

Now, for people making complaints about the price tag, lets see what are the offering with a brand value, reliability and best of the service from biggest mobile brand of planet.

It might be looking like old phones, got no GPRS\ EDGE means no MMS, just GSM 900 / 1800, No Bluetooth, No Infrared, S30 Interface and no memory card support, but other than Double SIM, it got many more things.

Design, T9 and Flashlight With dimensions of 107.1 x 45 x 15 mm, 63 cc and weight as 72.9g, its not a bad design at all. No one would be expecting metal here, but T9 keypad is as good as it can be and left bottom key works as shortcut for SIM change as well. The power down key is not at top as many might be used to and located under the cancel key. The five way scroll can be used as shortcut for Flash light as well. Scroll up twice, Flash light on and scroll once, Flash light off.

It would be available in blue, red, light grey and green colors.

Dual SIM Yes! it has no capability to keep both the SIMs active at the same moment, but it has the capability to divert the calls means you can configure it in way that you wont be missing any call on the other number as well.

Display Interesting display of size 128 x 160 pixels, 1.8 inches this beast has. It got 16 bit colors means total of 65k colors like high end Nokia E5 is supposed to have.

FM Radio The cheap phone not only got a FM radio under the hood, but also got it with a 3.5mm jack means you could hook your phone’s FM with your PC’s speakers as well. Unfortunately there is no shortcut key for this radio though and you have to navigate through menu to find it.

Phone Book If I remember right, then older phones from Nokia at this price point never had more than 200 phonebook entries, but this one got 500 along with usual multiple fields\ numbers and image entries. Though call records are still 20 dialed, 20 received and 20 missed calls means very basic.

SMS I am not expecting S40 like smiley’s and icons here, but in place of usual 20 SMS space as we remember about our old phones, we have space for 250 SMS here, if you were discarding it at the first place.

Battery It seriously urges you that you buy this inexpensive one just for its battery. It uses the same Li-Ion 1020 mAh BL-5C batteries as were in its many leading models like Nokia 1100, but call it evolvement of technology, you received ever best battery life out of it.

Talk time for 13h straight and a standby like of Up to 1152h or around 7 weeks feels like some kind of dream. Think you will find your phone on after some summer trip, if you forgot that back home.

So, if you thought this is just a useless another double SIM phone, then think again.

Nokia C2-00: In a price tag of Rs. 2, 500/-, C2-00 actually stands as first ever real Dual SIM Nokia, not just that unique to Nokia, the second SIM is ‘hot-swappable’ means it could be changed/ removed while keeping the phone on. Note that its with only one SIM as the other one will be situated under the battery. So, obviously you got very good reason to spend some more than buying Nokia C1-00.

Let’s know what more it offers ..

Design and T9 Keypad Its plastic, but definitely much impressive looks wise than Nokia C1-00. Dimensions are a little slimmer with 108 x 45 x 14.65 mm and 67.9 cc, while the weight is slightly higher at 74 g. As you can see that keys are divided in four row with no separation in individual keys in a row. Must be a class experience to type on this grid key design.

Same way, the left bottom key serves as selection key for SIMs, while the right bottom one provide the convenience of mute button and shortcut to radio or Music player. The location of power key is again below the cancel key.

It will be available in grey, black, magenta, dark blue or white. I guess, white would be nice in hands.

Dual SIM As I already explained in first para, we got both the SIMs active here for calls, SMS, MMS or GPRS usages and very unique to Nokia, for the first time we got option of hot swappable SIM as well. I am really looking for knowing that how Nokia software will handle two SIMs together on a S40 interface as the Chinese ones and even Samsung ones freak me out sometimes.

Display The same display of size 128 x 160 pixels, 1.8 inches with 16 bit colors is included in the package, though I think a little higher resolution would have make better use of S40 interface, but anyway same 65k colors are here.

FM Radio Yes! it got Stereo FM RDS Radio with 3.5mm jack and nice to hear that it comes with Radio recording feature. You can say Hurray!!!

Multimedia You get a VGA Camera here with 4x digital zoom and ordinary 10fps video recording. Camera Image format would be JPEG, though the software will support viewing BMP, GIF87a, GIF89a, JPEG, OTA, PNG and WBMP. Impressive for the price range.

Video recording resolution will be 128 x 96 and format H.263, while the device will be capable of playing 3GPP formats (H.263), ASF, MPEG-4 and WMV.

Same time, you could think this as complete music package with support for almost all common music formats like AAC, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AWB, M4A, MIDI Tones (poly 24), Mobile XMF, MP3, SP-MIDI, WAV and WMA.

Memory It sure surprises you with the support of MicroSD card up to 32 Gb that too with hot swap feature. Maximum User Storage of 10 MB, SDRAM Memory 16 MB and NOR memory 64 MB must not be very less for such a device.

Connectivity It has not Wi-Fi or 3G, but it got GSM 900 / 1800 with GPRS\ EDGE support for both the SIMs. Bluetooth 2.1 is here for transferring your media files with ease, though I wonder if anyone will also think of connecting Bluetooth headset with it, but it supports.

Though USB charging is not here, but it has a microUSB as well.

Phonebook, SMS, MMS, Email, Chat and other features With the support of memory card, obviously the phonebook will be unlimited and SMS and MMS expected to do well with same ease as other S40 devices do. What real surprise here is inclusion of Nokia messaging Service v1.3 and Nokia Email Client means you can have Ovi Mail, Gmail etc and also chat options via Gtalk, MSN, Yahoo and Ovi Chat.

As a surprise, Ovi Contacts are not here, but this device supports FOTA Firmware over the Air, Nokia Life Tools, Nokia Money and Themes.

Battery Don’t know what to say, but this part is a real let down for this otherwise amazing device for its price. We got the same BL-5C 3.7V 1020mAh here, but its told to provide only 4 hours of talk time that is not a very bad one, but still considering the performance of C1-00, people must have expected more from it. Standby time is also not a very higher side with 16 days only.

I wont say a disappointment here, but will say that expectations were raised by C1-00, which C2-00 misses.

We have a 2mm charger here as MicroUSB wont charge the phone.

So, this is all about Nokia C1-00 and C2-00 that would be available in India in 2k and 2.5k. Please remind me, if I missed something you might wanna know and also tell, are you buying anyone of these?

Nitish Kumar

http://nitishkumar.net

http://scifireviews.wordpress.com

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