The below list is a far cry from the originally intended small group we had planned for this meet up prior to Nokia World 2010 in London next month, we did plan on getting a small group of 9 Nokia bloggers, so we could call ourselves the N9 team, but the sheer popularity of many of the names attending this meet has gathered quite a lot of interest.

1. Micky Aldridge @Mickyfin NokiaUsers & NokiaDNA
2. Richard Dorman @Sheridan01 OnlyFools&Mobiles
3. Dan Carter @Worldofnokia worldofnokia.co.uk
4. Michael Hell @Michaelxhell thoughtsfromhell & fonearena
5. Nirave Gondhia @Nirave (Mobile Users)
6. James Whatley @Whatleydude
7. Reserved
8. Ian Wallace @the_accidental http://doitdifferent.wordpress.com/
9. Julien Fourgeaud @jfourgeaud
10. Rafe Blandford @AAS
11. Paul Grayburn @MrGrayburn www.nokiausers.net & www.Dailymobile.se
12. Robert Hall @RobertHall www.nokiausers.net
13. Steven Smith @Stevensmith1990
14. James Burland @JamesBurland
15. Carl Silvers @carlsilvers
16. Craig Richards @GeekComputers
17. Abul Hussain @adonisdemon
18. David Gilson @davidgilson
19. Stephen Wing @Stephenwing
20. Ilicco Elia @ilicco
21. Ryan @Mechanical_Mind
22. Lee Deeble @leedeeble
23. Amir B @Benjezzy
24. Jon Choo @jonchoo
25. Gareth @Politicspenguin
26. Sergejs Cuhrajs @_Nexus http://phonespot.wordpress.com/
27. Reserved
28. Staska @UVStaska
29. Gerry Moth @gerrymoth
30. Helen Keegan @technokitten
31. George NU Member 93tid
32. Matt @NokiaPush
33. Vikki Chowney @vikkichowney
34. Chris Davis from SlashGear @Slashgear
35. Felipe Andrade @felipeandrade (from Brazil)
36. Brett Butterfield (CEO Pixelpipe)
37. Ben Smith @bensmithuk (The Really Mobile Project)
38. Jay Montano @jaymontano
39. Philip Berne @philipberne (From Dallas TX)
40. Jouni Miettunen @jomtwi (Finland)
41. MOHAMED SHAZLY @Mack005 (Sri Lanka)
42. Devin Balentina (Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, nr Mexico) @Blue13x
43. Albert @Nokia_Fan mobilelivingroom.de (Germany)
44. Ibrahim Jogee @TheNokiaReview
45. Clinton Jeff @clintonjeff ZOMGitsCj | Mobile News, Reviews and More
46. Vaibhav Sharma @v4ibhav The Handheld Blog
47. Mark Guim @markguim The unofficial Nokia Blog
48. Jan Ole Suhr @janole mobileways.de – (Creator & Sole Developer of Gravity)
49. Roman @S60inside www.s60inside.at.tf (Austria)
50. Sapiens Bryan @sapiensbryan Latest Hi Tech News
51. Aditya Singhvi @adityasinghvi World of Phones (pending Visa)
52. Dani Alleinad @dailymobile.se @dani2xll +friend
53. Mike Macias @mikemacias (USA) Nokia E71 Blog For Fanatics + others
54. Simon @simonLR
55. Pat Phelan @patphelan Pat Phelan: Bits, bytes and telecoms
56. Stefanos Kofopoulos @titanas pestaola.gr
57. Reserved
58. Ernie Hartley @ernmander http://www.ernmander.com/
59. Jim Hughes @jimh http://feetup.org/blog
60. Heather Taylor @heatherAtaylor http://www.heathertaylor.co.uk/
61. Nii-Teiko @IamNii-Teiko
62. Dvir Reznik @DvirReznik www.dvirreznik.com

Just a reminder, the meet up will be held at 1000Heads HQ on the 13th of September, between 3pm & 7pm.

1000heads

44 Great Windmill Street

London

WC1 7NB

Both @MichaelxHell, and @Clintonjeff has put together a couple of useful resources for everyone to follow this years Nokia World 2010 event, and of course the meetup which is being held the day before Nokia World in London.

Not only can you follow all updates on twitter by searching for the hashtag #NokiaMeet, and #NW10, but now you can follow all the latest videos, and photos that are uploaded live from London in the new Flickr Group below

Nokia World 2010 flickr Group

You can also follow the twitter list of all attendees here..

Nokia World 2010 Twitter List

So there you have it, you have no excuse not to be up to daete with all of this years Nokia World coverage. Rafe at All About Symbian will also be pooling many of the #NW10 attendees in an easy to follow iframe pane.

Well, as many of you may of noticed, NokiaDNA had experienced a few serious glitches recently, resulting in the loss of posts, photos, comments, and whatnot, but thankfully, a backup saved the day, not to mention a new host, and server is now being used for NokiaDNA.

A massive thanks goes out to both StevenSmith1990 for previously providing an online space for NokiaDNA, it was really appreciated Ste, and sorry I needed to shift hosting.

@politicspenguin I would also like to thank, without this guy, NokiaDNA would not be back online so soon. Gareth has been working hard behind the scenes getting everything back in order here on NokiaDNA. Thank you mate!

Right folks, about this meet up I’m currently organising, to be held on the 13th of September, at 1000Heads HQ between 3pm and 7pm.

What started out as an idea between myself, and fellow bloggers, @Sheridan01, @MichaelxHell, and @WorldofNokia, we planned to sort out a meet, and was hoping for around nine people so we could call the meet up group, the N9 team, however, things kind of snowballed, and now we have almost 60 attendees, and James Whatley is trying to decide whether or not he may need to move his desk at 1000Heads HQ to make room lol. He too is working behind the scenes right now, ensuring we doo indeed have enough room, and refreshments for everyone.

For all those on the Interim meet up list here…

http://www.nokiausers.net/forum/lounge/36911-planning-meeting-up-outside-nokia-world-3.html#post281335

The new hashtag for twitter for the meet up is #NokiaMeet, so make sure you have this search set up in your twitter client for easy access of informaiton relating to this meet up, be it helping someone get to the venue at 1000Heads, or to ask directions etc on how to find 100Heads.

44 Great Windmill Street, London, WC1 7NB is the venue address, add it to your Ovi Maps here.. http://maps.ovi.com

See you there.!

I thought it high time to check out WordPress on my N86. And to be honest, its far from an easy experience sadly. Being a T9 handset, the options for predictive, capitals, or numbers although are available, there is no visible reference to which setting you are using within the app, making it very difficult to use, having to either guess, or trial and error input, obviously resulting in an frustrated user experience. You cannot even select a category.  This will be the last time I use WordPress on my N86  Looking forward to my next QWERTY device from Nokia, but before then, the N8, and iPhone 4 will suffice.

Right, you may want to put the kettle on, grab a cuppa, and settle down to read this, as this post of mine is a little bit of a ramble, but at the same time, some points of interest Im sure many of you will enjoy reading. It’s main focus is about the online space, networking, social media, and how today’s technologies over the last couple of decades.

Disconnection from the Online Space.

It’s the 24th of August 2010, and today I awoke to find that our Internet was dead, nothing, no connection, thus resulting in myself being disconnected from the online world I have become accustomed to. No idea what the issue is, but Im looking into it. 3G is also unavailable, I’m guessing recent storms has caused some kind of damage to the network here. I live out in the sticks in Finland, but this is the first time I have experienced network problems here.

Being disconnected from the Internet is somewhat of a oddity to me, as for the last few years, day in, day out I have always worked online, freelance, writing, and contributing to a few online sites, including Nokiausers, and of course, my own blog, NokiaDNA, oh, and of course, connecting with my friends on twitter, and friends, and family on Facebook, not to mention checking emails, and catching up with all the daily news in my RSS Reader, and various online News resources.

A good friend of mine, and fellow blogger, Gerry Moth, owner of the recently closed NokiAAddict decided to go offline for a full month for Lent not that long ago. How he managed this is beyond me, as I know for sure I could not manage an whole month being disconnected. Online is where my friends, and colleagues are, the solutions and ideas to any issues, problems, or answers to curious thinking I have.

Connectivity with the Online Space important to you?

Being offline is probably fine for most people, but for how long could you cope, and manage whilst disconnected from the online world? One day, a week, a month maybe? Let me know in the comments below, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. We all have different reasons for our online presence, be it work, hobby, interests, gaming, research, music, writing, video, and obviously, cost, the list goes on and on.

Get a Life.!

Ok, some people may say, I need to get a life! Well, in answer to that potential insult, my life, other than my family life is indeed Online, and has obviously become the way of life for me since leaving the UK back in 2007 till the present day.

The Old days.

So what did we all do before the Internet? Well for me, my previous career in Telecommunications, an RF and Microwave Transmission Engineer involved planning, and building new mobile phone networks around the world, which kept me offline most of the time, with my only online time being in an hard to find internet cafe to check emails once in a while, usually in the middle of nowhere.

Working out in the field, spending many an hour either on some high rooftop in the midsts of Italy, to surveying high up on some Radio mast in Eastern Turkey was the norm for me. It was a great job, and I got to travel around the world, seeing things no tourist would ever see.

Computers were used whilst I was out in the field back then, but not to their full potential, there were simply no infrastructure in place back then to accomplish what is possible today. For example, I would work in the field, with my laptop, GPS, Maps, PMR (Private Mobile Radio), Climbing gear, high powered lamp, binoculars, transport, a second-man (ground safety), and an interpreter amongst many other things needed.

Notes, and photos(non digital) were gathered during the day, usually site photos, 360 degrees panoramic photos from a set hight. If a greenfield site, we used cherry-pickers to gain a planned mast height, and carry out the survey from said height to see if there was LOS (Line Of Sign) between the two waypoints, site A and site B, (Usually set apart from 3km to 45km). In most cases a second surveyor/engineer would be at site B, carrying out pretty much the same as me, but obviously with reversed coordinates etc.

Once a working day was complete, and LOS (Line Of Sight) report notes were finished for the days given ‘connectivity links’, I would head back to the temporary based town, drop off my rolls of film to be developed in a local camera shop, then once those were developed, head back to my hotel, and then pretty much re-write up my reports from my earlier taken notes, and print them all out via my old trusty Canon portable printer. Once printed out, I would then stick my 35mm photos in the allotted areas in my report, then once satisfied everything was in order, I would make a phone call to head office, and arrange courier collection of my reports. I only frequented any head office in any country a few times whilst working around a country. Germany, for example, head office was in Frankfurt, and I would work in the field in each, and every town of Germany until my job was done, usually unto two years.

This all sounds so so old fashioned now, and in fact it was I guess, but not only that, the costs for the likes of Nokia, and other big companies I worked freelance for was bloody huge.! All of the above now could simply be carried out all digitally, reducing not just the cost, but timescale too, and timescale is all that more important in todays world where people want things now, quickly, like yesterday.! The internet speeds back then were quite frankly, crap, oh so very slow, and unreliable too, you simply could not send any large sized file as you can do now in 2010, and even now we run into similar issues as file sizes get bigger, and bigger, with still no ideal solution on getting a 1GB file from one person to another without the use of private torrents, which is a grey area.

Whereas previously needing to find stationary and office supplies in each and every town in a said country to buy A4 paper, printer cartridges (Black & Colour), stickers, binders, highlighter pens, paperclips, and more in the field, 35mm film (Lots of), hotels, transport, fuel, interpreters, film developing, Cherry-picker drivers/operators, couriers, not to mention flights here there, and everywhere, today, the online world removes all of this. You have probably guessed why my previous career in Telecommunications came to an end.? Long story short, it was a mixture of both technology advancement, budget cuts, and changes in the way technology was starting to replace the man on the ground in the field.

My Point in All This?

You see, my final point here is, being online today, has become such a way of life for many people, myself included, its just that, a way of life, a life that technology, networking, and connecting people has become the norm in todays society. These technology advancements in place today simply do away with all of the above mentioned requirements in my previous career, and thousands of other Engineers in the same area of business, saving big companies millions of pounds/dollars each, and every year globally. However, having said that, all this money saved in the process is now having to be reinvested back into the very mobile phone networks I, and many other engineers originally planned, and built. You see, these hubs, nodes, and networks were not equipped to cater for todays mobile usage demands. Proof that todays lifestyle is more, anymore focused on the connected online space.

My Final Conclusion…?

Being disconnected today prompted me to write this post you are reading now, offline, simple as that really my friends, and its something I certainly plan on doing much much more from now on. Being connected online in many ways can be a matter of information overload, with so much information at your fingertips, it can be overwhelming, and off-putting in writing, reporting the right story, or actually digesting the available information correctly, and accurately. Yes, twitter as a prime example has in fact, reduced blog posting patterns around the world, so too has the interconnectivity with online social networks, but lets not all fall into this void, lets be old fashioned once in a while, in fact, why not a few days a week disconnect, and put pen to paper?

Another good friend of mine, I’m sure many of you will either know him, or at least of hard of him, James Whatley, he is always scribbling away in his Moleskine, jotting down notes, idea’s, thoughts, and questions he may have on certain things, usually which arise with his live environment, and all of which he will certainly be made use of later, be it online, or when bouncing ideas and alike amongst friends in a meeting, or over dinner. Now what I love about James, and his good habits of taking notes in his Moleskine are how he interacts with these, online, combining both the digital world with the non-digital world/space, bringing his idea’s, subjects, and thought processes alive in the online space, be it on fickr, twitter, facebook, 1000heads, WOMWorld, or Whatleydude.com, its very clear, anyone who knows Mr Whatley, knows James is a very connected individual in both his personal, and professional life, he has become a popular Brand in fact!

So what I’m trying to get across to you, my readers, is simple, try and set aside some time each week, or each month, and disconnect from the online space, and let your creative thoughts, ideas, and passions blossom, but don’t be afraid of being old-fashioned, as James proves, you can have the best of both worlds!. Thanks for reading, and if you have anything to say, be it related to my previous career, being disconnected or connected to the online space, lets hear from you.!

Damn is so quite these days is it not?, albeit for the ringing in my ears that is anyway, I have Tinnitus, and going in hospital on the 25th of this month, so fingers crossed they can prescribe something for me to keep it under control, because sadly, there is no known cure for Tinnitus. 

Anyhow, Still no sign of the Nokia N8, or White iPhone 4 for that matter.  Which will come first, you decide lol.  I have to admit, its all getting a little long in the tooth all this waiting, but one would hope that this waiting for the N8 is needed to get the Symbian^3 12MP shooter handset perfect and bug free before it lands in people hands.

The last thing Nokia need right now is to get this wrong, and have another N97 farce on their hands. Lets hope they rise above all the negative press of late, and come out smelling of roses once again.

Fancy Meeting Up? Even if your not going to Nokia World this year.

Nokia World 2010 in London is nearing, and just to let you all know, I started gathering a few peoples names who were not attending Nokia 2010, but were interested in meeting up in person outside NW10. Kind of a Nokiausers meet up, tied in with a twitter meet up, tweet up as you will. Well, the numbers of people interested in meeting up with my good self Micky Aldridge from Nokiausers, also (Mickyfin NokiaDNA & Nokiausers), and other friends such as Richard Dorman (OnlyFoolsMobiles), Michael hell (ThoughtsfromHell), Dan Carter (WorldOfNokia) to name just a few, started growing out of control really, but I kept on top of things, and before I knew it, we were nearing 50 people.

I then had a lovely email from 1000heads who asked if I had a venue or not for this meet up, and if not, would I be interested in using their HQ as a venue, which I replied to accept their offer, with a massive thanks too!

Drinks, and snacks will be laid on by 1000heads, which is very good of them, and very accommodating.  The meet up will be between 3pm and 7pm on the 13th of September at 1000heads HQ.  If you are interested in coming along, please drop me a message via twitter, or drop me an email to micky at Nokiausers dot net

Not only will there be the meet up, drinks, and snacks, but I will also be holding a toast to a lost friend, fellow Nokia enthusiast, and colleague by raising a glass of Champaign with all attendees. 

Sp00k was his name, and he was not only a good friend of mine, but also a valued member of Nokiausers where he was a Moderator of the Nokiausers forums for a few years or more. 

Sp00k was always there for people/members, offering a helping hand, and giving his opinion on all things Nokia.  Sp00k had even published many a guide on Nokiausers, helping members get the best out of their Nokia devices, from DIY repairs, to modifications to internal hardware.

To be perfectly honest with you, Sp00k was the one who kept us other Moderators in line whenever we were undecided on what to do, or how to deal with a certain matters within the forums, he was always there with his wise words of wisdom, and always calming, caring, and defusing situations where needed. 

Sp00k is already missed dearly, but he will live on within the Nokiausers forums, (a link to all his posts can be found in my Blog Roll, titled “In Memory of Sp00k”), and in many peoples hearts.

I hope you will join me at the meet up on the 13th of September between 3pm and 7pm, and raise a glass with me in memory of Sp00k. I will also be playing a song in memory of him, a song which has so much relevance to Sp00k and his ways, I thought it would make a perfect accompaniment to the Toast. 

Venue Address: 1000Heads Between 3pm & 7pm

44 Great Windmill Street,
London,
W1D 7NB

See you there.!

As the title suggests folk’s this is a simple test, please accept this apology in advance. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

This is pretty much a simple test post due to me setting my Windows laptop up ready for Nokia World 2010 in London.  I have just installed the latest Windows Live Writer Beta, which appears to be somewhat more easier to use that its normal release, but the proof is in the pudding if it delivers.

Yesterday working on my old Acer Aspire laptop with Windows Vista business installed made me realise how much i have come to love my MacBook Pro, they really are worlds apart, both in build quality, and software.  This Acer feels like a Toby Toy, honestly.!

Anyway, as mentioned, this post is merely a test, and just finalising things ready for NW10.As to the Apple Store being down, one would assume something is certainly incoming, and the downtime of the Store is not simply a maintenance break as Apple usually do that kind of work on the Store on Sundays.

Whilst many of us (myself included) wish the White iPhone 4 will be released, I pretty much doubt this down time is because of that, but more over probably a new 27” LED, and iTV maybe? Time will tell.

Ok, back to my testing, lets see if a photo is added below…

So far so good, in my preview of the Beta release of Windows Live Writer, the all new image adding process is very simple to use, and integrates some nice smooth scrolling, and animation too which surprised me somewhat.

My good friend Dan Carter has just posted a new video he has put together from Nokia World 2009 snippets on WorldofNokia.co.uk, and if you look carefully, you will spot yours truly in a couple of shots, one with the designer behind the Booklet 3G, John Hwang. Enjoy!

Brief – For the last week or so, I and many other Nokia Users have been reporting an issue with Ovi Maps, in particular, the Share Location to facebook counterpart. In most cases this when attempted to be used would fail, or report that the email, or password were incorrect, even though all credentials were fine.

Just tested this again this morning, and its working perfectly now, so Im guessing the problem was with the facebook API. Let me know if yours is now working where you are in the world. Hopefully it should work again now as intended.

Edit – Its been pointed out to me that although the share to facebook is working, the actual name is fine, but the link when clicked simply loads up a map of Europe, and does not show actual location on map as intended.  Privacy issue maybe?  Seems odd as you can clearly read the location, but not see it.