Over at the WordPress Developers for Nokia blog, the guys have recently posted a couple of examples of themes for their WordPress for Symbian Client. Gray, and Blue, but which do you prefer? I voted Blue, but the Gray theme appears to be getting the majority of the voting so far.
Head across to the WordPress Developer site today, and cast your vote. Its been really interesting, and great fun to be apart of the build of the Official WordPress for Symbian Client, and the team sent me some goodies recently thanking me for my continued support, which was nice. I got a Moleskin notebook, and a superb Cycle water bottle, made of Lexan polycarbonate material, its quite impressive.
And my Moleskin WordPress Branded Notebook
Massive Kudos to Anssi Makela of the Nokia Dev team for these, it makes working on theOfficial WordPress Client for Symbian so much more. I will certainly be putting my Moleskin to good use thats for sure.!
Yesterday I received a package from the good folks from ZAGG, who are more known for their Invisible Shield protection for various mobile devices, but in the package was their latest offering, a whooping 6000mAh Battery Back Up and Charger that they want me want me to review.
This post is an Overview of the ZAGGsparq 2.0 6000mAh Battery Back Up & Charger, which comes in a simple package, with no frills, no leads, or connectors, simply a two pin adapter for European recharging.
The ZAGGsparq features not one, but two USB Charging Ports, and these are labelled, “Optimized”, and “General”. It’s so so much more than just an extended battery charger.!
Optimized: This is the top USB Charging Port, which is optimized for most Smart Phones, and other devices that are capable of taking an optimized charge, including Apple’s iPhone, and iPod family of products. It must be noted that some devices will not charge through the optimized charging port, but I will be putting this to the test later today now that I have fully charged the ZAGGsparq. (Nine hours charge is required before first use).
General: The secondary USB Charge port uses the standard USB Specification, and will charge devices that do not utilize the optimized USB charging Specification.
The ZAGGspaq can indeed charge two devices simultaneously, however, when charging a large, power hungry device such as say, the Apple iPad, you may not be able to use both USB ports at the same time. If you connect a second device to the ZAGGsparq whilst charging say an iPad, the ZAGGsparq may discontinue charging both devices, but if this occurs, you simply have to remove of of the devices. Again, i will be putting this port through its paces also, so keep your eyes peeled right here on NokiaDNA.com.
The ZAGGsparq advertised that once fully charged, it will allow four full charges, guaranteed. This is quoted for the iPhone, but in my usage, I will be testing various Nokia devices with various battery capacities, from 950mAh, to 1500mAh.
Portable power: More than a simple extended battery, ZAGGsparq 2.0 carries multiple charges for any personal electronic device with you – including four full recharges for a power-hungry Apple iPhone™
On-the-go convenience: ZAGGsparq 2.0 fits easily in a pocket or bag, the perfect size for travelers and business people
Very compatible: ZAGGsparq 2.0 works with most USB charged device, including cell phones, handheld gaming systems, and digital cameras (adapters for mini-USB to USB sold separately)**
Charge multiple devices: ZAGGsparq 2.0 provides twoUSB charging ports: Optimized and General
Optimized: The top USB charging port is optimized for smartphones and other devices that are capable of taking an optimized charge, including Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod family of products.
General: The bottom port uses the standard USB specification and will charge devices that do not utilize the optimized USB charging specification.
Superior Engineering: ZAGGsparq 2.0 has been specifically engineered to charge Apple’s iPad. It adds an additional 5 to 6 hours of video playback to the iPad.
As you can see, there is much more to the ZAGGsparq that most conventional extended battery chargers, and with 6000mAh to boot, this thing has some serious backup power too. Stay tuned for my ongoing testings, and review right here at NokiaDNA.com.
Nokia today announced that the new long awaited PR1.2 firmware is finally available for the N900 Maemo owners in the UK, with the Global release being rolled out from tomorrow. However, this news is somewhat a bittersweet announcement, with Nokia Officially stating with this news, that MeeGo will not be Officially available for the testbed N900 Maemo5 device, although MeeGo is in fact currently being tested by developers on N900 devices.
N900 owners don’t have to worry though, as Im sure there will eventually be a Dev version of MeeGo they can have a play with until their hearts content.
It’s an interesting partnership for sure, those earlier rumors did indeed come true today with the Official Press Release from both Nokia, and Yahoo! hitting the headlines earlier today.
But what exactly is Nokia’s motive for this partnership, and how will it benefit us, the enduser?
To me personally, I have watched Yahoo! die a slow and painless decline over the years, with the only prominent service tied to Yahoo! being flickr.
Yahoo! Chat is riddled with spammers, and the same can be said with Yahoo! Mail too, which lead myself to quit using the email service a long time ago, and setting up another ymail email address solely for use with my flickr account.
How do you feel about this Nokia & Yahoo! partnership, and who do you believe will benefit the most from it?
Most of you know Nokia is pushing hard in undeveloped countries, and dominates the lower end dumbphone market, could this partnership solely serve for these markets?
I understand that Nokia will be enabling cross platform logging into accounts functionality across selected Ovi, and Yahoo! accounts. How do you feel about this, considering Nokia are still rolling out their already cumbersome Nokia Account for all Ovi Services.?
Ovi Mail will now be managed by Yahoo! but the Ovi name will remain. What will this bring to the likes of you, and me who already use the service.?
I personally believe todays news is simply to enable Nokia to reach even further into developing countries, and nothing more.
Discuss, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts from around the world.
This post is based on my own feelings on Nokia, but feelings that I’m sure are shared amongst many of you who have supported Nokia over the years, and know that Nokia has been experiencing a turbulent time for a while now. I have been bottling a lot of thoughts for quite a while now, but feel that I need to express, and share them with you all.
I’m sure I’m not alone in observing the latest trends online with it comes to Nokia, and their following, hell, you may of noticed a complete lack of blog posts from myself too. This is mainly down to the complete lack of innovation from Nokia of late, and what they have showed us all appears to be too little too late.
Whilst browsing the www, and twitter over the last several months or so, I have witnessed many loyal Nokia fans and enthusiasts jumping ship, moving onto different brands of mobile phones. I won’t mention any other names here, as this is not the purpose of my post, my point is, people who have stuck with the Nokia brand for year upon year have finally tired of Nokia lack of innovation when it comes to new devices, and services.
This has also become apparent within Nokia, and Symbian forums, and popular bloggers too. The first noticeable change in the Nokia blogging world was when Gerry Moth from NokiAAddict.com decided he had had enough of waiting around for Nokia, so set up a new blog GerryMoth.co.uk, aiming to still cover mobile, but also to feature all brands, and all things personal to him, and his online friends etc.
WorldofNokia.co.uk was next, although its still running, Dan Carter who ran this blog told me he decided that it was time to change, and his decision was also based on Nokia’s lack of innovation.
Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian posted an interesting and promising update to twitter yesterday, stating that he was on his way to Helsinki to attend ‘Open to Ideas’ – to learn about Nokia’s approach to innovation + visit to Demola in Tampere. I sent him a message, but as of yet waiting on a reply. I’m interested to see who he is with there, and if he’s attending this event was in part, was his own personal decision, or Nokia’s.
Demola is an open innovation environment for the creators of the next generation of digital products and services. They facilitate dozens of multidisciplinary innovation project teams annually.
Demola enables the creative talent and the globally connected industry to collaborate systematically in concrete innovation projects. They are focused on ICT-intensive and digital media services with local impact and global market potential. NFC (Near Field Communications) is something they have an ongoing project currently running too.
It looks like Nokia are trying to get their act together, and hopefully by holding this event, which more details about it can be found here http://research.nokia.com/innovation_experience_tampere they listen and take onboard what people have to say, suggest, and inform them of the changes they need to do to stay competitive in todays crowded market.
Just recently, a The Phones Show viewer responded to Steven Litchfield’s show, with a very detailed post, highlighting from his personal experience in a similar field what Nokia and Symbian need to change, and do to stay ahead of the competition. The most obvious one for many of us, including myself, is of course, the UI in the new Symbian OS, because lets face it, what we have see thus far does not exactly push the boat out.
You can read the above mentioned article, titled “Where Nokia & Symbian Need to Improve” here.
I really hope Nokia can shake all this negativity off, and move on from this, taking on board the vitally important, free advice many of their followers, and fans have been telling them for the last year or so. Its true, I am a Nokia enthusiast, and have a lot of passion for the Nokia Brand, but just like you, i’m only human, and can only take so much of the tiresome same old merry go round, old tech, penny pinching, corner cutting saga’s for so long. Its time to wake up Nokia, and smell the coffee.!!
Whilst the WordPress Client for Symbian keeps getting better, and this time, its the UI which has been worked on by Pekka over on the WordPress Development blog where he has posted up a few screenshot samples, which I have added below, as many of you will know, I have been testing out WordPress on my N97 for quite sometime now, but its not been easy.
As most N97 owners will tell you, memory on the Nokia Flagship device is in serious short supply, and I’m not talking about the massive 32GB of Mass memory, I’m referring to the tiny amount of phone memory that is needed for critical applications to be installed on, for example, Python, Accelerometer based applications, most Nokia’s own Applications, and of course, Qt, which WordPress for Symbian is based. Just check over on the Nokia Discussions forums for a sample of N97 owners frustrations.
Many N97 owners have asked the WordPress Development team if they could somehow enable, and allow the installation of Qt onto Mass Memory instead of the N97′s phone memory, as the complete installation package is upto 20mb in size. Sadly, this is not possible, as stated here, and whilst I am frustrated with this, I also understand where the developers are coming from, and at the end of the day, its not the WordPress Developers job to rectify the N97′s shortcomings, its Nokia who made a grave error in giving their flagship device inadequate and insufficient memory, and internal specifications.
I’m personally just about ready to throw in the towel with my White, second gen N97, having gone down the route of resetting, and formatting the mass memory more times than I care to remember, I have given the device more than enough chances during freezes, oddities with backlight, and powersaver, but at the end of the day, the N97 is a flawed device.
I even get emails, and messages daily from other frustrated N97 owners who are all struggling to optimize their N97 memory, and sadly, even though myself, and Steve Litchfield of All About Symbian have attempted to assist N97 owners with their phone memory, many powerusers will eventually hit the same brick wall time, and time again.
Even Ewan Spence, also over on All About Symbian shared his frustrations with the lack of phone memory in the N97 when he tried out the WordPress Client out. I would imagine, Nokia want to forget about this flawed flagship device real quick, but at the same time, this is going to be very difficult with the sheer amount of N97′s sold worldwide, and something Nokia boasted about in a recent interview. Whilst happy with the number of N97′s shipped, and the amount of money that came in from sales, Nokia admitted the N97 was a huge disappointment in terms of user experience. No kidding!
So where does this leave me, and my mobile needs, well, I’m sure I’m not the only one to have noticed many Nokia owners jumping ship in recent months, and this is something I won’t be doing, but I just hope that Nokia can make up for all their mistakes with the upcoming N8, and unannounced N9, which the latter I hope to be the device the N97 should of been, however, I have read the spec of the N8, and the user memory is 145MB which is worrying, someone correct me if I’m wrong here please.
Ok, this may not be related to tech, or Nokia, but seeing as I’m a massive Steve Seagal fan, and knowing that many of you are too, then I thought you would like to see Seagal’s latest Commercial. Its funny. Check it out below.
Following on from my recent initial findings on the Nokia BH-905 headset from Nokia, here I will share my experiences with this great headset in detail with you all, from listening to music, film soundtracks, voice, hands free, and of course, that all important ANC (Active Noise Canceling).
I may well be late bringing my review to the table, seeing as the Nokia BH-905 headset was released several months ago now, but with many people asking me for my own personal experiences on this headset over at Nokiausers, and twitter, here goes, with particular areas covered in detail as requested. However, I will not be covering what most, if not all reviews of the BH-905 have already covered, as these can easily be found available from many sources, including Nokia’s own website, which details the BH-905 technical specifications, including Nokia’s partnership with Wolfson Microelectronics to add its 10-microphone “feed-forward” active noise-cancellation technology to the headset, that’s 8 mics for capturing background noise, 2 for your voice (see image below), and of course, the bundled accessories with this particular headset.
The first question I was asked by one of my twitter followers was “How Much did you pay for your BH-905 headset, and where did I buy them from?“
Well, as many of you will know, my first hands on with the BH-905 headset was back in September of 2009 whilst at Nokia World when the headset had just hit the market place the month before, and had a Retail price of €285 Euros before tax and subsidies.
In answer to the above question, I paid just £129.99 GBP plus £7 shipping, but this great price was due to my actual pair of BH-905′s coming from an ex-display deal. You too can pick up some great deals around the Internet, with places such as Play.com €194.99 Euro with free delivery, and Mobilefun.co.uk £159.95 plus £3.50 shipping. Then of course, there is good ole eBay, but buyer beware, always do your homework before purchasing from eBay, common sense is vital in checking out sellers history, feedback, and delivery costs before committing to any transaction.
The most popular question I get asked about the Nokia BH-905 headset is “How is the sound quality, is the bass good?“
Now this would seem like an easy question to answer, but its not considering the various types of music, quality of music recordings, and sources, however, I have tested various sources of music, including full sized MP3 files, and all other formats, and can report the sound quality at low to medium volume is very good, clear, crisp, and quite comfortable listening. With the volume up full, depending on the recording, and source, the quality starts to drop in many cases with the BH-905 struggling to perform, and this in turn is the same experience with bass sadly.
My other Nokia Bluetooth headset, the BH-604′s handle the bass, and sound much better, although the level of volume is not as loud. The BH-604 peak volume appears to be set a little lower than the BH-905′s, thus producing mush better high end sound quality, including that all important bass line, with you actually feeling your ear drums vibrate with quality bass. Sadly the BH-905′s do not reward you with this pleasure, and although they do produce good bass up to medium volume, they just seem to struggle as you crank up the volume. Maybe its due to the size of the actual headset speakers, or as mentioned earlier, the output peak being too high. Remember, the BH-604′s are much bigger too, and of course are the type which go over your ear, whereas the BH-905 sit on your ear face.
Whilst talking about sound quality, another question that I was asked was relating to this was, “What is the sound quality like with the BH-905 using wired connection, and is there a noticeable difference from listening to music over Bluetooth?“
Listening to music via wired connection removes any control via the BH-905 headset itself, thus being, you can only control the music playback volume via mobile device, or laptop they are connected to, and not the buttons on the headset. With the BH-905 headset switched on, as soon as you plug in your wired connectivity lead, they force the headset to power down, however, the ANC (Active Noise Canceling) is still powered solely for use whilst wired. You cannot use any other buttons, or handset functionality either wired. As for sound quality, I actually didn’t notice any different between the two connectivity options, and that includes no noticeable fuss either whilst using Bluetooth.
Correction on above statement. BH-905 music controls work via wired cable when plugged into a nokia handset (without adaptor connected). Thanks Leod_UK (Random Thoughts of a Techie)
As a side note relating to the wired connection, I found that connecting the BH-905 headset to my MacBook that I was only receiving partial sound quality of any music, very tinny, including voice / lyrics missing from playback. After a quick mention about this finding on twitter, a few of my followers who had already reviewed this particular headset mentioned a problem with the connector rings on the jack plug, and that it is cured by attaching the 3.5mm AD-63 adapter to the existing 3.5mm jack plug on the one end of the wired lead. Looking closely(see image above) at these jack plugs reveals there being two connecting rings on the AD-63 Adapter, whereas on the lead plugs themselves there are three connecting rings. This may in actual fact not be a problem, but something related to play back functionality of 5.1 stereo or THX sound.
“How comfortable are the BH-905 headset to wear?” is another question asked a few times.
If you wear glasses like myself, you may find the BH-905′s uncomfortable with prolonged usage / wearing, especially if using the headset to watch a two hour movie for example. As the BH-905 sit on the surface of your ear, they do tend to gently clamp themselves to your ears too, kind of like gripping feeling, which aids securing them to your head. Hope I explained this ok, as its kind of difficult to put into words.
Clamp is possibly the best way of explaining how they stay in place once fitted, with the padded head band merely acting as a bridge between the two parts. I have a skin head haircut, (see images below, also showing wear angle) so this fitment may well differ from hairstyle to hairstyle, including the comfort of the fit also. If you don’t wear glasses, then I would imagine, these will be very comfortable, although I would not recommend you use them to go jogging. Walking outdoors yes, but running may dislodge them from their position due to weight distribution, and of course, Gravity;).
Just for comparison, here’s my ugly mug wearing my BH-604′s
ANC (Active Noise Canceling), “How good is ANC, and does it stop wind-noise?” This is yet another question that many people asked me via twitter, and the Nokiausers forums.
The actual functionality of ANC is, in my experience just right, and does exactly as advertised. I have been experimenting with various background noises, and sounds whilst ANC is switched off, and then again with the same background noises, and sounds at the same volume with ANC switched on, and the result are quite pleasantly surprising. Example 1 – I can be sat in front of the TV with the news channel on, sitting at a distance of 12 feet from TV, and the TV volume set at 48%, with the BH-905′s being worn, but ANC switched off, no music playback mind, the TV volume is reduced a little due to the muffler, padding of the ear pieces themselves. Then when switching on ANC, and watching the TV, and observing the news readers lips, you get quite a surreal feeling as the ANC kicks in around 2 seconds after activating, and you can no longer hear the newscaster.
Turning the TV volume up, it wasn’t until I reached 72% in volume, when I started to hear the newscasters voice. Remember, I’m not playing any music through the BH-905′s at this point, just simply wearing them to check the ANC. With the TV volume still set at 72%, starting to playback my music via BT from my N97 at medium volume, I can no longer hear what the news reader is saying on the TV. Adjusting the TV’s volume upwards, whilst still listening to my music, I was able to get to 90% volume on the TV, sitting 12 feet away when I started to hear the news readers voice in the background of my music playback.
ANC does also handle, and successfully blocks any background music as well as voices too, and carrying out the previous tests, replacing the news channel with the music channel, MTV, my results were similar, although not quite as good, but for sitting just 12 feet from the TV, ANC works very well indeed, in fact, you will probably find yourself at some point, getting in trouble with the wife when she’s talking to you when your wearing these, and she thinks your ignoring her. I’m taking from experience here Wind noise is greatly reduced, and only having tested this whilst walking, and on a pushbike, its fair to say, ANC works as intended in this respect.
“What’s the Build quality, size and durability of the BH-905′s.?“
The headband padding is, whilst looking great, is minimal, with the hard metal inner band being felt quite easily. This area when compared to the BH-604′s appears improvised, with the leather outer only covering the exterior area, with a cheap feeling nylon inner, the part that makes contact with your head / hair.
Design wise, and construction is very similar to the BH-604′s, sharing that unique angled poised arm from headband to ear pieces, both sharing the same hinged mechanism too. Again, this area on the BH-905′s feels inferior to the hard solid feel of the same area on the BH-604s has, thus reflecting maybe a possible cost compromise from Nokia in this area.
Where the actual ear pieces connect to the hinged plastic parts, these areas, although feeling firm, I can see this being the BH-905′s weak points, especially if you accidentally park your backside down on them.
Moving away from the plastic, cheap feel of the BH-905′s, and onto the ear pieces outer sides. These are beautiful looking, with lush brushed aluminum framed with chromed outer rings. the right hand ear piece boasts the usual controls, Stop, playback/pause, fast forward, and rewind, then, in addition to these, and found on the lower black plastic circumference you will find the volume rocker switch, wired female 3.5mm jack, and small status led indicator.
ANC is located over on the left hand ear piece, with a dedicated on off switch. (Note, switching off the BH-905′s by pressing, and holding the “stop/hangup” button does not switch off ANC (if on), this has to be switched off separately, and has this characteristic solely for wired usage (Thanks CJ)). I have already accidentally left ANC switched on for several hours without noticing, so you have been warned, also ANC does not work as well with a low battery.:)
So that’s about it, I have answered the many questions friends, and potential buyers have asked me about the Nokia BH-905′s, and hope that you too have found these helpful.
Micky’s Star Rating (out of 10), I give the Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth ANC Headset an 8/10.
Just when we thought twitter spam dust had settled with the amount of spam diminishing, the twitter service gets hit with a bug.
Although this latest bug is not a security threat, or one which reveals your privately send DM’s, it does however, remove all of your followers, and followed members, and friends, but having said that, its currently only a visual bug, as for myself, @NokiaDNA, @Nokiausers, and my personal twitter account @Mickyfin are all still receiving twitter updates from my followed twitter people.
I have been meaning to write about this whole saga for a little while now, but have been waiting patiently for the dust to settle, and await some facts from both sides of the story, the Nokia N8 Prototype in particular.
When the missing iPhone Prototype went missing, being left in a bar, then amazingly picked up by one of the most popular tech blogs, the Editor of Gizmodo actually being contacted about it, and then given the iPhone prototype, its all a bit too much of a coincidence, and convenient if you ask me.
This amazing story has reached more tech, and mobile blogs than ever, with the whole story being somewhat of a soap-opera, so much so, there were many blog posts based on every step of the whole saga, from the bar incident, to the iPhone prototype being disabled, and blocked, to Apple asking for it back, to eventually Apple getting the Police involved, and having the Editor of Gizmodo’s PC confiscated.
Was all of this just some crazy Public Relations stunt? What are your thoughts on how all of this was handled? I would be interested to hear what you think to it all, especially when you compare how the whole Nokia N8 Prototype Saga was handled in contrast to the iPhone.
Now onto The Nokia N8 Prototype that went missing, checkout Nokia Conversations (The Official Nokia Blog) for details, but in this case, the missing Nokia Prototype, was not left in a bar, but this time, somehow managed to land in the one persons hands who has/had quite an influence on the whole Nokia, and Symbian online communities, Eldar Murtazin of Russia’s Mobile Review.
Ok, not everyone worships the ground Eldar walks on, myself included, and following what Eldar did the day before the Official Announcement of the Nokia N8 was sheer unprofessional. Although Eldar says he didn’t post a review of the device, but merely shared his negative experiences of it, this caused a wave of negative, Nokia bashing, and doomed blog posts taking Eldar’s experiences of the N8 as gospel, little did most of these writers know the state of the N8 Prototype, and its early stage firmware.
Eldar has since been interviewed about this whole leak of the N8 to the public by Steve O’Hear of Last100, where he goes into detail about his side of the story, although not exactly telling us anything new. He talks about leaks, and I quote –
“We have a very strict rule and Nokia know about that rule. If a picture or information about a product already leaked, we could publish a more extensive review, preview or information about that product. We do not have an NDA agreement with Nokia”.
This to me don’t sound right at all, as one could easily pose as an early leak source, and then later leak additional information on said leaked property. It’s not exactly rocket science.
I have wrote a few times now about my feelings on Leaks of Nokia devices, which can be found here, and a response blog post from Munkimatt here.
Let me know your thoughts on how the Nokia N8 Prototype effected you personally, be it putting you off Nokia products, or angering you. Do you follow Eldar, and value his opinions on Nokia products? Look forward to your thoughts.
Over at the WordPress Developers for Nokia blog, the guys have recently posted a couple of examples of themes for their WordPress for Symbian Client. Gray, and Blue, but which do you prefer? I voted Blue, but the Gray theme appears to be getting the majority of the voting so far.
Head across to the WordPress Developer site today, and cast your vote. Its been really interesting, and great fun to be apart of the build of the Official WordPress for Symbian Client, and the team sent me some goodies recently thanking me for my continued support, which was nice. I got a Moleskin notebook, and a superb Cycle water bottle, made of Lexan polycarbonate material, its quite impressive.
And my Moleskin WordPress Branded Notebook 
Massive Kudos to Anssi Makela of the Nokia Dev team for these, it makes working on theOfficial WordPress Client for Symbian so much more. I will certainly be putting my Moleskin to good use thats for sure.!
I’m personally just about ready to throw in the towel with my White, second gen N97, having gone down the route of resetting, and formatting the mass memory more times than I care to remember, I have given the device more than enough chances during freezes, oddities with backlight, and powersaver, but at the end of the day, the N97 is a flawed device.
Wind noise is greatly reduced, and only having tested this whilst walking, and on a pushbike, its fair to say, ANC works as intended in this respect.
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