Today, we’re continuing with Matt Miller, the author of the Mobile Gadgeteer column at ZDNet.

Matt, what’s on your home screen?

Matt Miller:

I’ve been using and loving Nokia devices since 2001 and when I heard about the move to Windows Phone, I was ecstatic because I also thoroughly enjoy the sleek Windows Phone user interface. I couldn’t resist picking up a Nokia Lumia 900 in Stormtrooper white when it was available on AT&T. The first thing I do with Windows Phone is setup all my accounts and then customize my home screen, especially with a focus on the first two screens (main one of eight tiles and one swipe up).

Just like Windows Mobile in the past, Microsoft includes LOTS of functionality and capability in the OS itself. Nokia also includes most of the functions you need, so there are many apps and utilities you can grab just from the OS and pin to the Start screen. I have a mixture of these integrated utilities and third party apps on the Lumia 900.

First Start screen

Starting in the top left and then working to the right and down I have the following on the Lumia 900:

Phone: Yes, I still use my device for calls and in a quick two taps I am calling my most recent people on the Lumia 900.

Family group: Windows Phone 7.5 added the ability to create groups and this function itself is a MAJOR selling point for the OS to me. I have my immediate and close family members all in this group where I can quickly send them all an email or text, view what is new on their Facebook page, and see what new photos they have shared. Once you set these up, I think you will find them essential as well.

Messaging: Another awesome integrated functionality of Windows Phone is the ability to have both text messaging and Facebook Chat integrated into the Messaging app so you can keep the conversation going in a method that you choose.

Linked Inbox: Here I go again with another integrated functionality. I have an Exchange account for work and a Gmail account for personal and 2nd job communications so prefer to have an inbox that brings this all together in one tile that shows me how many emails have arrived since I last read them.

Music & Videos tile: I am a longtime Zune Pass subscriber and have quick access to offline and streaming content via this tile. I also enjoy the way the Live tile gets updated with the album art from the artist I last listened to as it changes the look of my Lumia 900 display dynamically.

Rowi: I enjoy communicating with friends and fans via Twitter (I am on there as “palmsolo“) and found Rowi to be my favorite Twitter application on Windows Phone.

YouVersion Bible: As a Christian, I find it very helpful to have quick direct access to my daily Bible reading plan and YouVersion Bible provides this capability to pin from within the application.

AlphaJax: Yes, I do play games from time to time and AlphaJax is my favorite word game on Windows Phone. Feel free to challenge, and likely beat me, in the game where my userID is again “palmsolo”.

Second Start screen, one swipe up

Here are my next eight tiles on the Nokia Lumia 900:

Calendar (two tiles wide): I like to know what is coming next and get quick access to creating new appointments.

Wonder Reader: My favorite RSS reader that provides Google Reader support.

Internet Explorer: Web browsing is an essential function I perform.

Slacker Radio: I know I have Zune to stream too, but I like the way Slacker Radio lets me just choose a channel and listen to a plethora of song titles.

ESPN ScoreCenter soccer tile: Nokia has an exclusive that lets you pin specific sports to the Start screen and as a soccer (aka football) fan I have this one pinned so I can follow my favorite team.

Xbox Live gaming tile: There are some great games for Windows Phone and they play very well on the brilliant Lumia 900 display.

USAA: My bank was the first to launch on mobile devices and has a fantastic mobile client on Windows Phone.

I have two more swipes up full of Live Tiles and personally try to get everything on the Start screen that I use every single day or two and rarely have the need to jump to the right. I also recommend you put quick connection tiles to wireless radios somewhere on your Start screen (I use the free Connection Tiles app) so you can toggle WiFi and Bluetooth on and off to save a bit of your battery life.

The first of these will take place in Helsinki on September 5-6. (A while ago we announced that it would be held on September 25-26, but the date has now been advanced by a couple of weeks.) This invitation-only event will cater primarily to our operator and retail partners.

With these more intimate events we want to provide the most enjoyable and rewarding experience tailored for each audience.

Other Nokia activities will be announced in the weeks and months ahead. Stay tuned!

Add the Windows Phone family into the mix and there are plenty of unique of apps and services to show off. Here are some of our favorites, some from the Windows Marketplace and others directly from the innovators at Nokia Beta Labs that you can try today before they meet the rest of the world.

Be sure to keep your eyes peeled to the Nokia Collection on the Windows Phone Marketplace app for all the latest Lumia-optimized goodness.

Let’s start with the newest addition to the exclusive Lumia club. Nokia City Lens is a location-based Augmented Reality app, which provides you with key information about your immediate vicinity. Point your camera lens up the street to see nearby restaurants, the direction in which to find them and, most importantly, whether it’s the best pizza you’ll ever eat. It’s also good for shops, museums and other points of interest.

ESPN Hub
As huge sports nuts, we adore this app. Bringing video highlights, live scores, breaking news and more, the Lumia-exclusive app debuted alongside the Lumia 900 in January. Key updates are incoming though, with glance-and-go Live Scores set to hit Live Tiles and a new Lumia-specific Fantasy Football app, to ensure you’re always prepared to beat your rivals to that last-minute trade.

Microsoft Office
Windows Phone and Symbian remain the only platforms to bring official access to the world’s favorite productivity suite. Nowhere else can you access Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote on a smartphone and with all of your documents syncing effortlessly back to SkyDrive on the Lumia 900, you’ll never be caught without them.

Nokia Transport

This essential public transport guide can be the difference between making it home for dinner and standing in the rain for an hour. Simply input your desired destination and the app will search out a multitude of means (bus, train, tram and good old-fashioned walking) from official public transport agencies in several cities and urban areas worldwide.

You are also welcome to test the next version of Nokia Transport, now available on Nokia Beta Labs.

Xbox Companion
The Xbox 360 is more of a media on-demand platform than a games console these days. Hence, the old faithful control pad isn’t always the best way to navigate through the UI. Using this Windows Phone-exclusive app, it’s easy to discover for new content and send it directly to the Xbox. You can also pull up information from the web on the music or movie you’re currently enjoying without interruption.

Nokia Drive

Nokia Drive While the Toy Story fan in us hates to think of that old satnav unit gathering dust and developing a wheezy cough, we sure do appreciate Nokia Drive. You can download street maps from over 100 countries around the world and turn-by-turn voices in over 50 languages, so you don’t incur in high data costs and you can rely on Nokia Drive also in areas with poor coverage. Personalized speed limit warnings also help you drive more safely.

Nokia Maps

With Nokia Maps you always know what’s around you so that you can feel like a local anywhere. Top nearby places are just a tap away, you can then save them among your favourites, pin them to start or share them with friends. You also get drive, walk or public transport directions to get there.

Nokia Creative Studio
This photo-friendly suite combines the services of many standalone offerings into one. Want to create landscape panoramas? Check. Want to add retro-style filters? Check. Want to edit and share on the go? Check. Want to morph your own face into a Hall of Mirrors-like horror show? Erm… Check! It’s free too. Give it a spin.

Nokia Play To
Did you know your Nokia Lumia 900 was capable of playing nice with your DNLA-enabled television? Nokia Play To (originally a Symbian app) lets you send your favorite photos, videos, TV shows and movies directly to your TV, laptop or Blu-ray player instantly if they’re on the same Wi-Fi connection. As this app develops, it’ll also allow you to farm music out to your favorite speakers and link up with your Xbox 360 or PS3. Try it now.

Follow us on Twitter at @NokiaUS and on Facebook at Facebook.com/NokiaUS

Can such success be replicated on a mobile platform?  The answer, now that TIME Mobile has launched in the Marketplace for your Nokia Lumia, is largely yes.   

The TIME Mobile app seems to make better use of layout on Windows Phone than on other platforms. Stories look easier to find, and are nicely laid out, with smooth transitions. The app also makes use of the Live Tile for the latest image.   

But what about the content?  

There’s all the news you’d expect, plus a lot of comment and opinion that benefits hugely from TIME’s website. Content has a distinctly American orientation, as you might expect.

Two articles, one a blogger’s insight into China’s problems with executive compensation, and another story about why there hasn’t been an ‘Arab spring’ in Algeria, were just about perfect length and packed with new information. Another story about Kim Kardashian’s product endorsements (green melon liqueur, and $25 lollipops) told me things I possibly didn’t need to know, but enjoyed reading about anyway.      

Of course one of the main attractions of TIME is its unparalleled photo collection. Historic galleries on D-Day in colour, Marilyn Monroe, and 1950s China were fantastic – current offerings on Michelle Obama maybe a bit less so.  On the whole TIME could think about loading times, and even better presentation of what has to be one of its major assets.  Similarly, video and podcasts could do with a step up to reach the same standard.

Overall TIME Mobile is the kind of app that may make you seriously question whether you need to go anywhere else for news and opinion. 

Here in the US, perhaps the most trusted publication in the country when it comes to choosing what to buy is Consumer Reports.

It has a great reputation for unbiased, thorough testing, partially achieved through the fact that it does not carry advertising – so there’s no suggestion that the magazine’s finances influence the verdicts of their tests in any way.

What’s more, the staff does not accept free product samples from manufacturers and instead buy the tested goods themselves from retail. (The magazine has an annual testing budget of $21 million, reputedly).

So what did they make of the crowded smartphone market in a round-up of top electronic gifts for dads and grads? There was only one option.

The Nokia Lumia 900, which runs on AT&T’s high-speed 4G LTE network as well as its HSPA+ 4G network, is the best Windows phone we’ve tried so far. It also has some stunning features: a 4.3-inch AMOLED display and an 8-megapixel camera with a wide-angle (28mm), large-aperture (F2.2) Carl Zeiss optics, for starters. It’s $100 with a two-year contract.

This is great recognition for our leading smartphone. We knew it was the best, but it’s always a lot better when someone else says it for you.

Follow us on Twitter at @NokiaUS and on Facebook at Facebook.com/NokiaUS

He runs an African telecoms company that he admits is a bigger, and more trusted, brand than the church in his country. 

“How does that make me feel?” he asks, laughing and rolling his eyes, “It makes me feel a bit like a crusty old man actually”. 

Collymore took over the reins as CEO of Kenya’s Safaricom in November 2010 when he was 52. Not really so old, but he does have more than 30 years industry experience under his belt:

“I can honestly say that this is the most exciting time for our business, and it has changed beyond recognition.

“When I started working with BT our main concern was how we could help people make landline calls, and how we could secure telephone boxes. Now we’re looking at how telecoms is transforming health, education, business and agriculture – and I’m working in Kenya which is the heart of the new ‘Silicon Savannah”.

Before joining Safaricom, Collymore worked in South Africa for Vodacom (and before that around the world in the UK, Japan and Europe). Scrolling through the photos on his tablet he shows me a picture taken with Nelson Mandela at a Sunday lunch.

“When you’re working in countries like South Africa you do feel like you’re walking in the shadows of these heroic men and women – these great ‘statesmen’ like Madiba and Desmond Tutu.” 

But you don’t have to be President, or a politician, to transform Africa, he says.  The next photo is of a woman with a group of children outside a neat one-storey building. “That’s Tanzi, she asked me to help her build a school for orphans in Kwa-Zulu Natal in South Africa. Now that school has doubled in size.”

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For his 50^th birthday Collymore banned his mother from throwing him a surprise party, and took 84 orphans to the zoo for the day instead. More widely though he sees his role as a builder, rather than a patron, working to grow a community that can do things for themselves.

In particular, Collymore is focused on the role of women and girls, making a presentation to the UN General Assembly last year on the UN Every Woman Every Child Initiative:

“I don’t know if its because I come from a family of strong women,” he says, “but I believe woman are absolutely the future of Africa, and all the UN statistics about the positive effects of girls’ education, reducing maternal mortality and so on, bear that out.

“Talk about heroes – Tanzi with her school in Kwa-Zulu Natal is one of my heroes. All those women doing that kind of service, contributing what they can are my heroes. ”

No woman should die in childbirth, he says, but in Kenya as many as 21 a day still do. No girl should go uneducated, but for many staying in school is a challenge. All women and girls should have access to safe contraception, protecting them not only from pregnancy but also HIV – yet this remains a huge issue. 

Collymore is committed to transforming Kenyan communities by empowering women through mobile technology:

“Traditionally money has been in the hands of men in Kenya, but we know that things work better when women control and have access to money. One of the ways that we’ve been able to do this is through M-Pesa.” 

Money transfer service M-Pesa has become one of Safaricom’s big success stories, with more than 14 million subscribers and 40,000 agents.  Being a trusted brand, with a large market share, accounts for the huge take-up, according to Collymore.

Much of the day-to-day family and business transactions of Kenyan life can now be conducted through M-Pesa and, as we speak, Collymore gets an email about whether M-Pesa can be used to claim court fines.

Some question whether the idea of a ‘mobile magic remedy’ for Africa has been overplayed. Collymore thinks not.  Yes, the issues can be complex, he agrees – but then points to health and education as two other areas where mobile technology can have a crucial role.

Collymore recently met Stephen Elop in Nairobi to discuss working with Nokia on health services, and he enthuses over SMS messaging for health campaigns on illnesses like Malaria, and a dial a doctor service where Kenyans can get medical advice.

“Of course it would be better to see a doctor in person,” he says, impatient of critics of the scheme, “but in Kenya doctors and medical clinics can be many miles, and hours of travelling, away.

“We have one doctor for every 10,000 patients, and only 450 hospitals. But we also we have more than 25 million mobile phones. This is giving medical advice to millions of people who wouldn’t have access to it otherwise.”

A recent visit to a UK branch of McDonalds with his son, only emphasized the yawning opportunities-gap between Africa and other parts of the world.

“When I went into McDonald’s I saw all these kids tapping away on wifi, for free. They could get any information they wanted – and the answers to all their questions. In Kenya I still see our kids heading off to school with all their knowledge held in a backpack. Kenyans are innovative, educated, people – and when we can get tablets and mobile technology in schools so that our children can have access to that same world of education, then we’ll see a bloom in our economy, a true middle-class, and a real ‘Silicon Savannah.” 

Watching him shuttle between UN task forces (Collymore serves on the United Nations Global Compact Board, as well as a Commissioner on a UN Commission on Life-Saving Commodities for Women and Children) and hearing him focus on national transformation, it’s almost easy for observers to forget that Collymore has a business to run.   

In that regard, he says he’s pleased with the company’s “prudent” performance that means this year Safaricom have paid Kenya’s biggest ever share-holder dividend.

“There are always going to be tensions,” Collymore says. “There are tensions between what makes commercial sense for shareholders, and what makes sense for customers. We have a Safaricom 2.0 strategy to take us forward over these next years, and we’ve identified how we want to develop. We want to be less arrogant, and we want to be more respectful to all our stakeholders.” 

Maintaining trust, and improving reliability, are key – and to that end Safaricom are now laying their own fibre optic cable to provide better data after they found current cables, owned by other companies “stretched over trees” rather than buried underground.    

Collymore stresses:

“It’s about having a constructive edge, not just a competitive edge. We engaged in a price war for a short while, and then we quickly stepped away from that. Yes, it’s about price, yes it’s about voice – but it’s about what value add through constructively contributing.” And that is what gets him up in the morning.

 Photographs by Ian Dewsbury

With a rating score of 4.5 (out of five), Thumba Cam seems to have all the right features in all the right places. But don’t just take our word for it, here’s a few reviews from some of its users.

Grant190492:

“Excellent app for photo editing on the go ”

Mr Peps:

“Better than the instagram filters on other OS in my opinion.”

Player804946213:

“Nice UI and well integrated into Windows Phone. Everything you’re likely to need for editing/sharing photos on the move.”

What is it that people are enjoying so much? Well, I for one am a big fan of using my cameraphone to capture my world. Whether it be a (beautiful) weed growing out from a crack in an urban landscape, a sunset over the fast-flowing River Thames or my son with food all over his face. Thumba Cam is there to help me add a little Je ne sais quoi to that perfect moment.

Editing a photo is easy, you can either select an image from your gallery from within the Thumba Cam app, or directly from the Pictures Hub using the integrated apps function. Alternatively, there’s the option to take a new photo from within the app, too.

However you’ve selected the photo to polish up, it’s the next bit that performs the magic. By selecting from the huge selection of effects – almost 60 – or from the 45 films, you can make your photo look vintage, grainy, or glamourous.

Once you’ve added a filter of some sort, you can crop the image that best suits your needs. Or, just leave it as it is, it’s really up to you.

As is common with all photo-editing apps, you’ll probably want to share the finished product with all your friends, family or followers online. Pressing the Share on Facebook, Twitter or Flickr button to perform the task. There’s also a save photo option, if you’d rather keep it to yourself – not everything needs to be shared.

With the amount of effects and films available, you’ll not likely be left feeling like you want more choice. There’s probably a filter for every occasion.

Thumba Cam is available for all Nokia Lumia smartphones, which include: the Nokia Lumia 610; Nokia Lumia 710; Nokia Lumia 800; and the Nokia Lumia 900.

Have you given it a try yet? Let us know what you think of it and also feel free to share some of the photos you create with this app, using the comments section below.

The delightful hardware is complemented beautifully by a host of shooting and post-production options provided by Nokia and those talented folks at Windows Phone. But even with these compact camera-esque specifications at your disposal, it doesn’t mean you can just point your Lumia 900 at anything and expect Annie Liebowitz-like results.

We spoke with photography author and creator of the Triggertrap Mobile app, as well as our own Nokia N8 camera school series Haje Jan Kamps, for some tips on getting the most from your smartphone camera.

1. Move your body real close, until we…
Some pictures we see posted to social networks are so poorly framed, you’d think there’d be something worth seeing in the background rather than acres of wallpaper. Don’t be scared to get up close and personal with your peeps. “To avoid having to zoom in or crop your shots later, ensure that your subject fills your viewfinder,” says Haje.

2. Clean and protect your lens
Have you ever thought about how gross it would be to live in your jeans pocket all day? Hanging out with snotty handkerchiefs, rolling around with filthy coinage and old candy bar wrappers? Our expert says: “Fingerprints, grease, or pocket fluff are the #1 reason for rubbish smart-phone photos, so check it, and clean it before shooting!”

3. Steady as she goes
Perfect aperture settings and professionally assigned white balance are great options to have, but if you’re as shaky as LeBron James in the fourth quarter, those smartphone pictures will never grace the family album. “If you can, lean your elbows on a sturdy surface, or place the phone against a lamppost or similar for extra crispness,” says Haje.

4. Autofix
Windows Phone 7.5 gives the Lumia 900’s camera more options than David Beckham at a cheerleading convention. However, for those occasions when you’re unable to spend vital seconds perfecting your snap, Autofix is your friend; adjusting exposure and white balance to give darker photos a little more pep.

5. Let it shine
The f2.2 aperture setting on the Lumia 900 is designed to ensure better photos in low light, but if there’s natural light available to you, use it. The result will be better photos. “Newer handsets often come with impressive settings that allow you to shoot in low-light, but that doesn’t mean you should. Low light equals more noise. Use a lamp, turn up the main lights or, go outside.”

6. Finding a balance
“Your phone has a white balance setting. Use it. Make sure you experiment and examine how the different settings impact on your photographs,” says Mr. Kamps. The Lumia 900 has auto and manual white balance. For the best results, hold up a sheet of white paper, or focus on a white object so your camera can base the rest of its color saturation on what it sees as white.

7. Zoom, but only if you have to
If you’re up in the nosebleeds at a rock concert, or want to use your phone as binoculars, the zoom setting can come in handy. However, resist the temptation to max-out the magnification: “Keep it zoomed all the way out, and crop the images later instead,” or risk pixelated, messy photos, our expert advises.

8. You say you want a resolution
While bragging about the Lumia 900’s ‘resolutionary’ capabilities would just sound silly, the 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss optics on the Lumia 900 does allow for clearer and crisper shots. With seven gigs of free SkyDrive storage, don’t worry about memory sapping file-sizes and take full advantage. We may give Mr. Kamps the Captain Obvious prize for this observation, but the man has a point: “As a general rule, the higher the resolution of your mobile camera, the clearer your photographs will be.”

9. A helping hand from the Creative Studio
“Even though your phone may have built-in editing features, consider editing them with a separate app instead,” says Haje. The Lumia 900 boasts plenty of settings to make sure you get it right first time and Autofix often comes to the rescue if you don’t. Beyond that, give the Nokia-built Creative Studio a try. It’s loaded with effects, filters and adjustments. There’s also plenty of third party options in Windows Marketplace. We especially like Apict and CleverPhoto. 

10. Lumia 900’s built-in advantage
Of course, there’s little point in having perfectly composed photos, a steady hand, perfect sunlight and a clean lens if you miss the photo op. The difference between the best smartphone picture you’ll ever take and a blurry mess could be fractions of a second. So, equip yourself quickly. The Lumia 900 has a dedicated camera button that allows you access to the app and indeed your saved favored settings, from the home screen, even if the phone is locked.

Haje Jan Kamps is a contributing editor to Pixiq photography website, author of several photography books and creator of the Triggertrap mobile app and camera trigger, which he hopes to bring to Windows Phone in the near future.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Need another reminder of the phone’s still-image capability? A new set has been posted to the official flickr account for your viewing pleasure.

The whole film was shot using the phone, so if you want to see exactly what it’s capable of, settle back and enjoy the show. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Nokia has had a relationship with the Sesame Workshop dating back around four years, according to my conversation with Tico Ballagas and Mirjana Spasojevic, both of whom work on the Nokia end of the partnership with Sesame.

I spoke with Ballagas and Spasojevic to find out more about the educational aspects of the Lumia-based reading apps “Abby in Wonderland,” “Big Block Party” and “Color Carnival”.

The Nokia/Sesame partnership

Nokia and Sesame began working together 4 years ago. The two companies piloted a research program called Family Communications that was centered around how families connect. The project observed families in the Bay Area and documented how they communicated with family members overseas, separated by distance and time zone.

They came to the conclusion that family members under the age of seven were left out of rich communication because no applications or technologies were aimed at them. Meanwhile, Sesame wanted to publish and distribute digital content and they were the ideal partner for Nokia. Ballagas told us:

“Our two groups shared a common interest around connecting and educating children, even at a young age.”

First products

In 2009, the first product to come out the partnership was the Family Story Play, a physical book product that enabled grandchildren to read with their grandparents over the Internet. Nokia Conversations profiled Story Play in January, 2010.

After a few more iterations, it was decided to work to put the idea of reading together onto the mobile phone. While using a Nokia phone, parents could read with their child in a personal setting and ask questions back and forth regarding each page.

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Dialogic reading

When I asked Ballgas more about the theory behind the reading applications, he discussed dialogic reading. The intent behind Sesame and Nokia’s work together is centered around dialogic reading, which addresses the primary problem of making sure children are prepared to learn when they enter school.

According to research, over a third of students lack the vocabulary, sentence structure and other basic skills that are required to do well in school. By utilizing picture books and encouraging dialogue between caretakers and young children, the students develop vocabulary and an interest in reading at an increased rate.

When a parent reads with their child in a dialogic fashion, they engage in short interactions that prompt the child to say something about the book, evaluate the child’s response, expands on the response by adding to it, and repeats the prompt back to the child.

Dialogic reading shows results: in fact, children who have been read to dialogically test well ahead around skills of language development.

The reading experience, in a mobile app

Building off the theory of dialogic reading, the three reading applications for Nokia Lumia are intended to design an experience that takes advantage of the features of the mobile phone and centers around the book itself. Ballagas said:

“We used interactivity to drive attention back to the book. In many apps today, interactivity takes a way from the reading experience, we wanted to avoid that.”

Elmo reads along with your child as he or she uses the app, exhibiting ongoing interest in the book. In essence, Elmo models dialogic behavior as he asks questions about the reading materials himself. The apps are structured in a way to encourage dialogue between parent and child.

“Sesame was a perfect partner because they pioneered the concept of co-viewing”, Ballagas said. With Sesame shows, they are structured in a way that stories are relevant to both parents and children so they’ll watch ant talk about the show together. This concept, also called joint media engagement, carries through to the reading apps.

Have you checked out the new offerings from Nokia and the Sesame Workshop? Do your kids enjoy them?