Recently in moleskine to mobile Category
Tues. 04.29.08 - Jason, Bryan, Arnold, and Donna at the Sky Room Bar in Long Beach.
This photo was taken with my Nokia N95 and then posted to this blog via the N95's Lifeblog as a demo on mobile blogging during the Nokia Open to Anything event.
Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 on Feb. 25, 2008, in London.
Good news, folks! I wrote about it briefly back in March but it is now official and the Nokia Conversations will be launching within a few hours!
When I met up with Charlie Schick in late February at Paddington Station in London when we were both in transit, Charlie told me that he had left the Ovi group to start the official Nokia blog. I was and am darned excited about it.
Charlie and his team will be writing on Nokia, the Mobile / social space, and the like. Most importantly, they will be the continuing to make Nokia more open and transparent to the public. This can only be a good thing.
Charlie alludes to it in this post on his blog. Darla Mack blogs about Nokia invites us to the neighborhood. So does Mobile Jones...
Amy Gahran of Contentious.com's N95 bricked during an update recently and there is no recourse. Nokia needs Authorized Repair Centers that will take Nokia devices from all over the world & repair them, be it under warranty or for charge. Dell & Apple do it, Nokia needs to join the party.
From my first comment on Amy's post:
What do I think, well, Nokia needs to do the following:A) If they are unable to have retail stores with repair centers in every major city in North America, then they should have authorized repair folks that one can take one's phone to be repaired on the spot or within a few days either under warranty or for charge. Before Apple opened the Apple Stores, they had Authorized Retailers and service centers all over the US and Canada. Nokia needs to do the same.
B) Nokia needs to increase the scope of their customer service to be like Apple or Dell, in that all of there devices can be repaired in any country that they sell their devices in. Don't tell me that the US customer service can't help a device bought in Europe or Asia. If that is the case, then sell the US devices at the same time you sell the European or Asian devices rather than 1.5 years later.
C) Nokia needs fully functioning "Suite" for updating & backup & multimedia for Mac & Linux folk. While the worldwide market for mac is only 4%, it is much higher in North America (17%?). Demographically & psychographically, the folks who buy Apple/Mac computers in North America are most likely going to be the market for Nokia Nseries (prefer design & high end function over cheapness). Folks buying $299 PCs at TigerDirect are unlikely to purchase a $649 Nokia N95.
Many blessings upon the folks who approved a purple phone! Purple! Yay!
Do I need to say any more about a purple Nokia 6220? Like the Nokia N82 it has a 5 megapixel camera? Should I mention the Xenon Flash? Or the GPS? ... HSPDA? Huh...
But hey! The Nokia 6220 is Purple! Did I mention it comes in Purple?
Now when will AT&T roll out their HSPDA network that will be compatible with a purple 6220?
;D
Mon 03.24.08 - Now sending a 'small' image from the N95's Share Online to my blog, I wonder what size it will arrive at...
Update: The "small" setting on the Nokia Share Online 3.0 resizes the N95 photos to 640x480, which is my preferred size.
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The March Madness 2008 Moblogging Saga (i.e. Lifeblog vs. Nokia Share Online):
1. The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95
2. 03/22/2008
3. Dear Nokia, Time for some real UX testing...
4. How to Post to a Movable Type 4 Blog from Nokia Share Online 3.0
5. Scruffy's Clover Crown
6. Belle Running>
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Sun 03.23.08 - Happy Easter!
Update: Here is the "medium" size in Nokia's Share Online 3.0 application. At 1024 x 768, it is still too big, not just for screens but also for the variety of folk who may visit one's site from broadband that really isn't that broad or from a mobile device or on dial up.
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The March Madness 2008 Moblogging Saga (i.e. Lifeblog vs. Nokia Share Online):
1. The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95
2. 03/22/2008
3. Dear Nokia, Time for some real UX testing...
4. How to Post to a Movable Type 4 Blog from Nokia Share Online 3.0
5. Scruffy's Clover Crown
6. Belle Running>
******
Since Charlie asked, I will reply...
Here is the how to steps that I took to be able to post / moblog (mobile blog) from my Nokia N-Series phone (in this case an N95) with Nokia Share Online 3.0 to this Movable Type 4.1 blog (MTOS 4.1):
1) First off, you will need to have your login user name and the associated Atom / Web Services password for that user name*. How to find this? When you are logged into your MT blog, look up in the top right corner for Hi "username", click on this link, it will take you to your "Edit Profile" screen. Scroll to the bottom under "Preferences", look for the last form box entitled "Web Services Password", click on Reveal. Copy this password.
2) Second off, you will need to know the URL to your MT install's atom script, it usually will be: http://www.yourdomainname.com/pathtomt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/
Example: http://www.happyexampleweblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/
3) Have your Nseries Nokia phone/mobile in hand, now is time to configure the Nokia Share Online on the phone. Click on the Main Menu button. Go to Applications folder and click on "Share Online". Click on Options. Click on "Add New Provider".
4) Provider Name: (whatever is best for you to remember) - I used "bpc" for blackphoebe.com
Protocol: Atom (if using MT or Word Press or Blogger, then Atom is your protocol)
Web Address: This is where you put in the URL for your Atom script.
http://www.yourdomainname.com/pathtomt/mt-atom.cgi/weblog/
Once all of this is filled in, click on "back", and it will take you to the next screen. If it doesn't, then click on new account & choose the provider you just set up.
4) Here is the fun bit, start filling in the details:
Service Provider: Click on the name of the Provider you just set up. Then click on OK, it will take you to the next screen:
Account Name: I used the same name as as the Service Provider I just set up or you can say MT
User Name: your MT username from step #1
Password: your MT Web Services Password / Atom Password Reveal from step #1
Image Posting Size: The fun really begins here... If you pick Original size it will be the size that your NSeries phone takes the photos at, if 5 megapixel then YIKES~. Pick small or medium if your blog readers are coming at screen resolutions of less than 2600 x 1800 (which is about 99.99% of the internet). Think of your readers' experience, not everyone has a big screen nor do they have really fast broadband. Also, if you are not on an unlimited data plan then you will most likely want to choose medium (1024x768 in the N95's case, still too big) or small (640x480 in the N95's case, just the right size for this blog), unless you like really expensive mobile bills. I used the Edit function in the onboard Gallery app to resize my images to 640x480 for posting the most recent photo.
5) Save the above. Nokia Share Online will most likely try to activate. If you are me, it will not activate and get cranky. If it doesn't and activates right away, then you rock. If not, log out, turn off the phone/mobile. Reboot/turn it back on. Go back to the Main Menu, click on Applications, click on "Share Online", move the select over the MT account you just set up, and click on "Options", in Options click on "Update from Server". At this point or maybe if you are me, then within 18 hours, Nokia Share Online will decide to make friends with your Movable Type blog and post photos & text to it. If it can't activate or update server, check back tomorrow and it should have pulled its little head out of its crevices and will be working.
6) Now post away... If you try to moblog a photo from the "Share Online" world icon in the camera app of your Nokia Nseries phone/mobile, you will find that you can't edit the Title or add a description and only the photo with the date set will be posted to your blog. But if you take the photo and then go to the Main Menu -> Applications folder -> Share Online -> click on the service provider you want to post to (in my case "BPC", my MT blog) and then click on Options -> click on "New Post", then you will be able to add your own Title, Description, and then insert whatever Audio, Image, or Video you wish to post. After finishing all the bits, click on -> Options -> Post to Web.
Now time to experiment. Have fun.
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Notes:
* I have two username accounts for my blogging, "Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen" is me posting from the web browser interface / admin of my Movable Type install and "Ms. Jen Moblogs" is only posts that I send from my Nokia camera phone to this blog directly. I do this to indicate to the reader what is a regular blog post and what is a moblogged post (posted from my mobile).
** If you are not a Movable Type peep, but prefer Word Press or Blogger or... and still want to moblog with Lifeblog*** or Nokia Share Online, this wikipedia article gives all of the atom URLs for various blogging services so you can configure your phone to moblog. If the Lifeblog on your Nokia Nseries phone is still working, then the above Atom username & web services password & atom script URL will work to set up to post from your phone's Lifeblog to your blog.
*** Michele Neylon has a great tutorial on how to post from your Nokia Nseries mobile's Lifeblog to your Movable Type 4 blog.
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The March Madness 2008 Moblogging Saga (i.e. Lifeblog vs. Nokia Share Online):
1. The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95
2. 03/22/2008
3. Dear Nokia, Time for some real UX testing...
4. How to Post to a Movable Type 4 Blog from Nokia Share Online 3.0
5. Scruffy's Clover Crown
6. Belle Running>
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Two problems with Nokia's Share Online 3.0, one can't edit the title nor can one add a description before posting the photo to the web service / blog.
I was able to edit, resize, and rename the full sized photo of my great aunt Babe's bougainvillea bush from the Gallery on my Nokia N95, but once I opened Share Online it just sent the photo with the date that I sent it as the title, not the renamed photo name as the title. And then there is no description...
Ok, Nokia, no offense, but what the F*(k were you thinking to discontinue and disable Lifeblog when it was a fairly full featured mobile blogging app and replace it with a badly featured and thought out "share" app? Hello, maybe you should have put both out there and asked your customers which they preferred to use...
Hello... Helloo.... heeellllloooooo.... Are y'all awake up there in Espoo? Did you do any User Experience research with actual customers and power users rather than in house testers? Did you contact any real live mobile bloggers during the testing phase to see how we need an mobile blogging app to work with our photo / blogging flow? Heeeeeeeelllllllllooooooo.....
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p.s. I added the text and renamed the title of this post from the web browser interface, not from the phone.
p.p.s. Listening to Motley Crue while I write cranky blog posts.
p.p.s.s. I plan on cracking open the box that I packed the N82 back up in to see if I can get the N82's working Lifeblog mobile app off of it and transfer the working Lifeblog sis to my N95 before shipping the N82 back to WOM World.
p.p.p.s.s. Next time I talk about updating one of my Nseries phones, stop me. Remind me that the Nokia Updater bricked my N80 and now has made my beloved Lifeblog inoperable. Huh... not trusting the transmissions from the mothership... huh...
******
The March Madness 2008 Moblogging Saga (i.e. Lifeblog vs. Nokia Share Online):
1. The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95
2. 03/22/2008
3. Dear Nokia, Time for some real UX testing...
4. How to Post to a Movable Type 4 Blog from Nokia Share Online 3.0
5. Scruffy's Clover Crown
6. Belle Running>
******
Sat 03.22.08 - File under WTF!?!?!?!?!?!
After spending over 3 hours last night cursing the demise of Lifeblog the mobile app and attempting to get the new Nokia Share Online 3.0 to recognize the Atom script on this blog to no avail, today for no known reason whatsoever, Share Online decided to post this FULL SIZED photo of the Irvine Tollway Bridge over the 91 Freeway on is own volition. Thanks Share Online for not posting when I spent 3 hours trying to get you to participate and then posting out of nowhere on the freeway today. WTF?!?!?!?!?!
Despite its capricious ways, the good news is that Share Online 3.0 will post to Movable Type 4.1 blogs with no extra hacks. Yeah!
Now just to refine the process....
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Update from Sun 03.23.08 : Since Charlie asked, I have created a how to / tutorial on getting Nokia Share Online 3.0 to work with one's Movable Type blog.
******
The March Madness 2008 Moblogging Saga (i.e. Lifeblog vs. Nokia Share Online):
1. The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95
2. 03/22/2008
3. Dear Nokia, Time for some real UX testing...
4. How to Post to a Movable Type 4 Blog from Nokia Share Online 3.0
5. Scruffy's Clover Crown
6. Belle Running>
******