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Nokia Initiates Charger Exchange Program

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:26:00 +0000

Nokia today initiated a charger exchange program, in which consumers owning certain Nokia-branded chargers manufactured by a third-party supplier are recommended to exchange these chargers for free replacements.

During a routine quality control process, Nokia identified a potential product quality issue with certain chargers manufactured by one of its third-party suppliers. The plastic covers of the affected chargers could come loose and separate, exposing the charger's internal components and potentially posing an electrical shock hazard if certain internal components are touched while the charger is plugged into a live socket. Nokia is not aware of any incidents or injuries related to these chargers.

Only a limited number of chargers of certain model types manufactured by a single third-party supplier during a specific time period are within the scope of the exchange program. They are the AC-3E and AC-3U models, manufactured between June 15, 2009 and August 9, 2009; and the AC-4U model, manufactured between April 13, 2009 and October 25, 2009.

For more information, including how consumers can check to see if their chargers are part of this exchange program, Nokia has established a website. Consumers are asked to visit http://chargerexchange.nokia.com or their local Nokia website.

Nokia recommends consumers with chargers within the scope of this exchange program to stop using the charger and exchange it for a free replacement.

The Way We Live Next 3.0 Helsinki bound

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:12:37 +0000

I’m currently travelling by train to Helsinki whilst writing this, and I have to say, the train service here in Finland is a whole new experience for me, this being my first experience of train travel in Finland, its a positive one at that. Train was actually early arriving at Kuopio!

Well its now 9:06am and we have just stopped at Pieksamaki, just one of the many stops en route to Helsinki. There is still some snow on the ground here, but I expect that to change the further south we travel.

The Way We Live Next 3.0 is the event, and the reason for me heading to Helsinki, its being held at Nokia House, Espoo, somewhere I have always wanted to visit since owning my first Nokia smartphone. I will of course get as many photos as I can to share with you all.

The Way We Live Next 3.0 is all about Nokia’s future for all Nokia Users, be it smartphone users, users of many of the Nokia, and Ovi services there are in place, and how their technologies can be implemented better in peoples lives to make their lives easier, and more manageable.

Firmware V31.002 Available for the Nokia N79

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:34:43 +0000

The Nokia N79 to me, is a dark horse of the Nokia family, and a very under-estimated device. With its solid Candy-bar form-factor, to its good looks, and functionality, the N79 does pretty much everything you would expect from a flagship device, however, its not a flagship, but certainly a black sheep of device for sure.

Talking of which, the N79 has just had a new minor firmware released for it, version 31.002, which should be available both OTA and via NSU. Previous firmware was v30.019. The N79 even comes with UPD (User Data Preservation), meaning you don't really need to back up your data prior to updating, but of course, its advisable to do so, just in case something may go wrong.

As per usual, there is no Official Change log available at this time, but as and when one becomes available, I will add it here.

Nokia Conversations Meet Jimmy Wales.!

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:36:45 +0000

As mentioned earlier today when I published the announcement that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder, winning A Nokia Foundation Award, here is the Nokia Conversations Interview with Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia. Its a great read, and insight to Jimmy's creation, which many of us are very familiar with on the Internet.

Less than a week after delivering a keynote address at The Symbian Exchange & Exposition in London, the founder of Wikipedia and internet visionary Jimmy Wales landed in Helsinki Finland to receive the 2009 Nokia Foundation Award – and it couldn’t have been given to a nicer person.

The online legend, who’s no stranger to journalists and cameras, was electrified and appreciative when we sat down together for a few minutes in Nokia’s Vision Vault near downtown Helsinki.

Breaking the typical mold of a Nokia Foundation award winner, Jimmy Wales is only the third non-Finn to ever pick up the gong. Joining the prestigious ranks of previous winners such as Linux pioneer, Linus Torvalds, and former MySQL CEO, Mårten Mickos, Jimmy says he is “humbled” by the honor but considers himself “a carpenter and not architect”. The Nokia Foundation award joins others including accolades from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Forbes, The Economist, and the World Economic Forum.

Rihanna set to launch new album, Rated R, Through Ground-Breaking Global listening event with Nokia

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:06:37 +0000

International superstar Rihanna will showcase new material from her highly-anticipated forthcoming album Rated R exclusively to a Nokia audience via a globally streamed live performance on November 16th 2009. This ground-breaking event in partnership with Nokia will preview tracks from Rated R - set for a November 23nd release worldwide - performed live from a secret London location.

From her breakthrough multi-platinum album A Girl Like Me to her ubiquitous global smash Good Girl Gone Bad, in just a few short years, Rihanna has helped redefine the path of popular music for a new generation. She continues that musical and stylistic journey on one of the most hotly anticipated new albums in recent history, her fourth original studio album, Rated R. Rated R features the sultry, provocative first single "Russian Roulette," which is rocketing up the charts at radio stations across the globe.

Brand New Windows Messenger S60 Client with Contacts Integration

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:16:25 +0000

Its been a while since I have used MSN, the Chat service from Microsoft, Windows Messenger, or MSN as many of you will know it by. Google Talk, Twitter, and Ovi Contacts had started to make their way into more, and more mobile devices, and this was probably down to Microsoft announcing that MSN will no longer be free to use, and it would become a paid service.

Well, I have no idea what happened about this paid service for MSN, as I have just installed this brand new client on my N97, and 5800, and there was no mention of paying for this service, however, in the Terms of Service, there is mention of paid for parts of the service, which you will be requested to fill in billing information for.

Anyhow, back to this free MSN client, its pretty darn good actually, and is by far the best MSN client I have used on a mobile device. It does exactly what Ovi Contacts does too, that being deep Integration of your contacts on your device, adding an extra tab at the top of your contacts screen(see screenshots). I have only tested this client with S60 5th Edition, so please let usknow if it also works well on your S60 3rd Edition.

The download file is just under 3MB in size, but the good news is, it gives you the option of where to install the fail on your N97. On my 5800, it didn't, but if you setup your Ovi Store installation preferences to install to Memory Card, you should be fine. Be patient whilst installing, as it does take quite some time to finish installation, and configuration into your handsets OS, so do not, cancel installtion once started, as this may cause you some problems.

You can checkout this MSN client for S60 here on Ovi Store. Many Screenshots can be found after the break.

Nokia Foundation awards the founder of Wikipedia - Jimmy Wales

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:55:15 +0000

The Nokia Foundation has granted its 2009 award to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the free, multilingual encyclopedia. Wales was awarded for his contributions to the evolution of the World Wide Web as a participatory and truly democratic platform. Phil Schwarzman of Nokia Conversations was lucky enough to interview Jimmy yesterday. This interview will appear on Nokiausers later today.

The EUR 10,000 award was presented at the Nokia Foundation scholarship awards ceremony on 4 November, 2009.

"It's a great honor to present this award on behalf of the Board of the Nokia Foundation to an individual who we believe has made a unique contribution to accelerating online collaboration and interaction for millions of people around the world, and effectively democratizing information sharing," said Henry Tirri, head of Nokia Research Center and Chairman of the Board of the Nokia Foundation.

"The theme for this year's award is Open Innovation, a way of working which is very important for our activities at Nokia Research Center, and a value which we believe is embodied in the participatory and inclusive approach of Wikipedia," he continued.

Five New Affordable Nokia Mobile Phones & Nokia Life Tools Launches in Indonesia

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:54:58 +0000

Its great to see Nokia Life Tools reaching new countries. I have previously posted about Nokia Life Tools being used in India, helping farmers get a fair price for their produce, and also helping fight desease. Nokia Life Tools, the service which gives consumers in small towns and rural areas the ability to get a range of livelihood and life-improvement services on their mobile phones, will launch in Indonesia in early December 2009. Nokia also announced five new affordable and easy-to-use phones which will support Nokia Life Tools, and these phones will also be available globally.

"Following the successful launch of Nokia Life Tools in India, where people are getting the benefits of vital information sent directly to their mobile phones, we are pleased to bring this service to consumers in Indonesia," said Dieter May, Vice President, Emerging Markets, Nokia. "Inform, Involve, Empower - the vision of Nokia Life Tools - applies no matter where it's implemented. With the number of devices that Nokia Life Tools supports, including the five new phones we are announcing today, we are giving people the solution that suits them the most."

Beta Release of Opera Mobile 10 Now Available, RAM not included

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:39:18 +0000

While its great to see Opera releasing another new public Beta of its Opera Mobile S60 client, its at a cost. No, not money, its completely free, when I say cost, I mean installing Opera Mobile 10 on your device, you will be saying goodbye to 20MB+ of your valuable RAM, and we all know what that means if you own a RAM sticken Nokia N97.

Already there are reports across the Internet stating that peoples devices are prompting "Out of Memory" warnings, and the closure of any other open application on their device once launched Opera Mobile 10.

Negative things aside, is there anything worthwhile in this release? Well, yes, its very fast, smooth, and renders pages very well indeed, and being a Beta, it does come with a few bugs, one of these is the onscreen keyboard is still present on devices with an actual hardware keyboard, so its clearly not identifying the device its installed on, and another, not being able to input Capital letters on some devices. Oh, they were negative things, oh well.

If you are feeling brave enough, and have enough RAM free on your device, then you can grab Opera Mobile 10 Beta from the following link... http://www.opera.com/mobile/next/

FAO: Nokia - An Open Letter from your Experienced Endusers

Micky.Aldridge@gmail.com (Micky) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:04:53 +0000

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last year or so, you will have noticed an ever-changing world in the Mobile World, a world where Nokia have sustained a position at the top, and although still there, at the top, the gap between the competition is getting smaller, and smaller.

There are already many negative articles around the web claiming Nokia is currently on a self-destruct path, and whilst a lot of readers would agree, I find this an unfair statement. Yes, Nokia appear to be going through a rough patch, and yes there is an increasing amount of experienced, loyal Nokia owners/fans/geeks, and enthusiasts starting to either think twice about their continued future with Nokia products and services, while others are already moving to other Brands.

Ok, I know that us, the geeks, enthusiasts, powerusers, and loyalists makeup around 0.01% of Nokia's total customer base, but someone has to stand up and be counted, someone has to try and get Nokia to listen, and act upon what their passionate, loyal fans are shouting from their rooftops about. Many are fed up of hitting their heads against a familiar brick wall, or having their voice fall on deaf ears.

I'm reading more, and more posts like the one quoted below, from Nokia endusers, Nokia long-term loyalists, and Nokia enthusiasts on a daily basis, and its becoming a worrying trend.

This tied in with adware now starting to appear in the Ovi Store is exactly what's annoying them, I mean, even this guys review was removed from the Ovi Store's reviewing system, all he was doing was letting other people know there is adware in the application advertised in Ovi Store, and that it was difficult to use on the N97. he even got an email from Ovi Store stating his review violated Ovi Store content guidelines.!

Anyway, back onto the quote from just one of our forum members on his thoughts..(Click read More)