Category :: urbanista diaries
A year ago today, I was taking a plane from Chennai to Bangalore and then having a good walk around Bangalore with Mohan.
Over a year ago, I signed up for Nokia's Sports Tracker in preparation for the Urbanista Diaries trip. I created a public account that would feed into the Urbanista Diaries web interface at the nseries.com website and then I used the same account for the Nokia viNe project, as well as all kinds of photo walks & drives in between Urbanista and Nokia viNe. I also have a private Sports Tracker account, also started a year ago, for tracking my walks around my neighborhood that for privacy's sake I don't want public.
About a month ago or so, when I tried to log into Sports Tracker, I was prompted to either merge my Sports Tracker account with my Nokia account or to create a Nokia account. So, I did. I merged my public Sports Tracker account with my public Nokia account. I also created a new account on Nokia for my private Sports Tracker account.
Much to my chagrin, I can log in to both Nokia's Ovi and Sports Tracker with my private account and I can log into Ovi with my public account but I cannot log into Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe with my public account.
A week ago, I used the feedback form on Sports Tracker to explain the problem and ask for help. I have yet to hear back.
I am frustrated on several accounts:
1) Don't ask me to merge accounts and then not let me be able to log in.
2) No, I am not going to make a new public account, as then I lose a year's worth (a YEAR!) of data, photos, and video that I can't log into and access or edit or delete or add titles to or... Yes, it is still readable and viewable, but if I can't log in & edit the data, then it is being held hostage on the Nokia servers.
3) Tomorrow I have to send the Nokia viNe project Nokia N82 back to WOM World and I have ALL of January's journeys trapped on the N82 mobile because I can't upload them to Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe, which means that I have downloaded the photos to my computer via the cable, but I have not been able to upload the geo-tagged paths/journeys to the server. This frustrates me, as I can take my 4GB micro SD chip out of the Nokia N82 before I ship it back, but when I put it into my old school N95, I still won't be able to upload the journeys/paths to the server, as the server won't recognize my login. This means no Punk Rock Bowling or the rest of January 2009 photos & videos on Nokia viNe.
4) If I an early adopter and someone who has been using the service for over a year can't log in to my account and can't get anyone to reply to my help request, what happens to all the new customers who Nokia wants to have use the Nokia web services? Nokia, please put a consistent, across all your web services, community support in place to help customers troubleshoot their problems that neither a FAQ nor forum can help.
Has anyone else been frozen out of their Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe accounts after merging the account with their Nokia / Ovi account? If so, please comment and let me know how you solved the problem. Thanks a big bunch!
Photo of the Taj Hotel and the Gateway to India taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 on 02.19.08 from the Mumbai Harbor.
Thurs 11.27.08 - For 2.5 days in February 2008, I stayed in the Colaba district of Mumbai at the end of the Urbanista Diaries adventure in India. I stayed a little less that 2 blocks from the famed Taj Hotel. I ate a small supper the second night at the upstairs bar at Cafe Leopold. I enjoyed wandering around on foot the southern part of Mumbai.
Most of all, what I did experience of Mumbai made me love it the way I love Los Angeles and London. A big sprawling vibrant world class city. The kind of city, like LA or London, that you either love or hate. After being in Mumbai for 15 minutes, I was deep down happy. It was love on first sight.
Yesterday, my heart went out to Mumbai as the news of the terrorist attacks on the Taj Hotel, the Oberoi, Cafe Leopold, the Jewish Center, and the CS Railway Terminus.
I first heard of the attacks on Twitter when an Indian friend wrote a cryptic anguished tweet, I went to the BBC and saw no news, 10 minutes later there was. The news and crisis has continued to unfold over the course of the last 36 hours, getting worse. And made worse by having been at 3 of the 5 places that have been attacked. And worse for loving the city.
Oh, Mumbai, I am dreadfully sorry. Words are failing me to express the upset.
All photos taken by Ms. Jen in Mumbai, India, with a Nokia N82.
The above photos were taken in Mumbai (the city formerly known as Bombay), India, from Mon. Feb. 18, 2008 until late Wed. Feb. 20, 2008 while on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries. Mumbai was my last stop in India and my second to last stop before passing the 'baton' on to Ryan Gallagher.
What to say about Mumbai? Within 15 minutes of being away from the airport and driving the hour plus south to my hotel, I knew that I was going to love this city. Mumbai is great big beast just like my other two all time favorite cities: Los Angeles & London. Mumbai is the Indian sister city to a mash up of LA & Miami. Big, spread out, something going on all the time, lots of lovely art deco to modernist residential architecture from 1920s-1960s (like LA & Miami), lively, and more than a bit chaotic.
I stayed at a hotel that came recommended by Lonely Planet in the Colaba district of southern Mumbai, as I could walk to most of the stuff I wanted to do from there. In the 2.5 days that I was in Mumbai, I walked around as much as possible, took as many photos as possible, and took an afternoon ferry out to Elephanta Island in the Mumbai Harbor.
I would like to go back to Mumbai and spend more time exploring the city, as 2.5 days was not enough.
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, I have only the Austria photo essay to do to wrap up the all of my favorite photos from my leg of the Nokia Urbanista Diaries trip.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 in Goa, India.
[After a mad six week hiatus, I am back to posting my Best of Urbanista photo essays...]
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Panaji, Goa, India, from Fri. Feb. 15th, 2008 to Mon. Feb. 18, 2008. Why did I stay for 2.5 days in Panaji (Panjim) rather than go to one of the Goa beach resorts? Well, I both in Bangalore & Kerala I asked taxi drivers their recommendation for Goa, and they both said: Panaji. I wanted to go to the city (Urbanista, after all) in Goa that was the most Indian rather than the attack of the Euro-Aussie-Whatever-Party-Piglet-Beach. And I am glad I did.
Panaji was a great mix of old school Portuguese buildings, 1940s art deco architecture, 1960s concrete brutalisme, with a good dose of India. It was laid back with a strong tourist component. Most of the other tourists or holiday makers I met were down from Mumbai for the weekend.
Unfortunately, I did not get to Old Goa and the Bom Jesus Basilica, mostly due to a crooked cab driver who I would not let gouge me. Next time I will walk the 9 km rather than be shook down. I will go back eventually to see the Bom Jesus.
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, two more cities to come.
Hello New York Times... Uh... the Urbanista Diaries campaign started in mid-January and ended in early March and your article came out on April 7th. Why wait to run the article a full month after the "live" portion is over?
If you are reporting on how Nokia is marketing with a new strategy of "hiring" bloggers and/or the marketing brilliance of the Urbanista Diaries, the why did you not interview one of the four of us?
I was not hired to go on the Urbanista Diaries trip, I was given a really cool opportunity to travel to India with a great camera phone, the N82, and do what I do every day - take lots of mobile photos and moblog them to a website with geo-data.
On the hiring bit? We were not paid, nor were any of the four of us given a phone. In fact quite a few of the phones were 'lifted' by DHL employees or Her Majesty's Customs on the way back to the UK after the Urbanista trip was over*. WOM World (1000 Heads) bought the plane tickets and reimbursed our hotel, food, and local transport. Nokia reimbursed / paid 1000 Heads.
WOM World (1000 Heads) has a policy, that not only do the bloggers get to be honest, but we also return the phones after the trial period. That is a loan, not a hire or a buy.
Yes, Nokia is above the curve on internet marketing, more importantly they are including the mobile community, which in turn creates brand loyalty. Apple or LG or Sony-Ericsson have never offered me to trial a device nor have they asked my opinion on its use or software. Nokia has. This is good.
But, NYT, please do a wee bit more research. kthnxbai.
*****
* Yes, for the record, I am angry about this - crooked business makes me indignant. Given that the phones were to go back to the UK, I would have preferred them to arrived in Oxfordshire in one piece, not the box arriving but missing the phones out of the middle. If I ever meet up with the DHL dude who giggled upon receiving the last N82 for shipment... To the Moon! Fed Ex & USPS have my business from here on out.
The 4th Chennai Photowalk
Originally uploaded by Ms. Jen
Sun. Feb. 10, 2008 - I had the pleasure to join up with the Chennai Photowalk Flickr Group folk to participate in the 4th Chennai Photowalk up Mount Road (Anna Salai) . Good fun, great photographers & conversation.
Video captured by Ms. Jen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.
Uploaded by Ms. Jen on 26 Mar 08, 8.53PM PDT.
The WOM World folk let me keep one of the Urbanista Diaries N82's through SXSW for better photo taking, but today I had to reset it back to factory settings & wipe the extra memory chip in anticipation of shipping it back to the UK and returning to the daily use of my Nokia N95.
To get my Nokia N95 back into daily use, I updated it to the most recent N95 update and optimized the files. Per usual, the update wiped all my settings and programs, so I had to reinstall ShoZu and Joiku, as well as redo my blog settings in Lifeblog. Only problem is that the 20.0.0.something update for the N95 has made Lifeblog incompatible with this install of Movable Type Open Source 4.1, or if not incompatible at least it won't recognize the correct settings. The N95 12.0.0.something Lifeblog worked just fine with this MTOS 4.1 install, and so did the most recent update / OS version for the N82. I have run through the phone's Lifeblog settings 7 times and reset them each time and it still can't find this blog. Bah!
When I met up with Charlie in London a couple of weeks ago, he was surprised that Lifeblog was installed on the N82 and said that the N82 would most likely be the last phone that would have Lifeblog. Charlie unofficially confirmed what I had supposed for sometime now, that Nokia has left Lifeblog to die.
This will be a problem for me and my daily moblogging from my phone to this blog. I have tried for a few years now to convince various Movable Type perl developers to make a mobile blogging plugin that would work across a variety of mobile platforms to moblog photos and text to one's MT 3.x or 4.x install, but to no avail. David Jacobs told me that his company, Apperceptive, has made such a plugin for paying customers and will be releasing a version to the public, but it has not happened yet.
Charlie is currently working with David on a blog for Nokia and hinted that one of the side projects would be a mobile blogging plugin for Nokia phones.
Please, please, please...
Continue reading The Big Switch Over, or Back to My Nokia N95.
While I am *supposed* to take my anti-malaria pills, Mefloquine, for another 2 weeks, I am over it and done. I will not be taking my pill tomorrow due to 3 weeks of mild building up to medium bad reactions on a daily basis.
The first week or so, the only reaction I had to the medication was feeling like I was on 5 shots of expresso at any given time and not sleeping more than 5 hours a night. By the end of the second week on the drug, I was having occasional nightmares and feeling agitated. The last two weeks I have continued sleeping badly, having nightmares, feeling agitated and upset over small things, etc.
When I was in India, all of the non-US travellers I met were NOT taking any anti-malarial preventive medication and were very surprised that my doctor put me on it. Since I have returned, several British friends told me to throw the mefloquine away and only to take it when I actually get sick, as they had more reactions from the medicine than any other sickness they may have experienced in India.
When I was so tummy sick earlier this week, I had more folks email me or tell me in person here at SXSW that I should go off the mefloquine, as it may be contributing to my tummy illness.
So, this morning I called the Kaiser Permanente Advice Nurse to see what they thought about my reaction to the medication and if I could speak to a pharmacist, but as usual the Kaiser Advice Nurse was THOROUGHLY unhelpful. And wanted me to come into an LA doctor appointment, I told her that I was in Austin, and then she got exasperated with me and said that Kaiser could not help if I was not at home and why did I not call when I was in India (Uh... $1.50+ per minute phone charges to be put on hold for 20 mins. I think not).
She told me to go to the emergency center in Austin. I pointed out that they might not know much more than she did and would it not be better to leave a message for the doctor who prescribed the medication to me or the pharmacist at Kaiser? No, she said, I should go to urgent care here and not take any more of the medication until I can get into Kaiser next week. WTF?!?!? End of call.
When I get back I am changing health insurance. I hate Kaiser. In the meantime, as to not have more insomnia, nightmares, tummy and emotional agitation, I am not taking my pill in the morning. Larium, I am over you.
I still have three city photo essays to post for y'all: Goa, Mumbai, and Vienna; but unfortunately work has intruded. Darned work that I have to get done before I leave for SXSW on Thursday. In the meantime, while I was packing up The Box to send back to WOM World today, I wrote up my thoughts on the accessories that I took out on my leg of the Urbanista Diaries mobile adventure.
The Nokia Bluetooth Keyboard : Like it, but it takes a bit of practice to get the typing right. Even with practice, I will still making more typos than I would on a regular keyboard, of which part of that may be the bluetooth keyboard's size and part of it may be the small screen of which I could not always see what I was typing. I had been looking into getting a bluetooth keyboard before the trip and using it to type a whole blog post to a photo rather than just a headline was very convenient. I used the keyboard to compose several posts to this blog via Lifeblog on the N82 and was quite happy with the results. The only thing that was a bit of a pain is that the keyboard was not automatically found by the N82 but I had to download software for the phone to run the keyboard.
Nokia BH-602 bluetooth headset: I really didn't use this while in India, as I was not making a lot of calls. I did start to use it when I got home to try it out and other than the awkwardness of it being made for a bigger ear, I quite like it. It doesn't fully stay on my ear and wiggles around a bit, but I do like the lack of wires. The sound quality is a bit fuzzy with some crackles. If the price were under $60, I would buy it. But given that it is over $100, I won't be purchasing one.
The Proporta Charger: This would have been a very handy accessory to have for the trip to recharge the phone batteries while on the go, as the phone would lose battery power about half way through every day of photos plus GPS plus Sports Tracker running. Only one problem with the Proporta Charger, it never worked. I got a gimpy charger that even when it was fully charged, it would not charge another device. I tried a number of times, Jay tried when he was in Chennai, and the Proporta was declared defective on arrival. Good thing I had my own Power Monkey with me and the Power Monkey ended up being the best and most used accessory of the trip.
Generation X Cell Antenna: Ok, they are small, cheap, and sticky, but it works. I put the cell antenna extender in one phone and had another one that I did not have an extender on and then would test both in multiple situations. The cell antenna extender worked to boost at least one bar for phone calls and improved data connections. For all of my friends who are complaining about the dropped calls on their iPhones, too bad that they can't get into the battery compartment of the iPhone to add one of these little guys.
Nokia GPS Modules: I didn't use these. I had good GPS reception everywhere and had no problems with GPS to Sports Tracker, except for the lack of cell towers in the Mumbai Harbor (which was not a GPS problem but a Sports Tracker settings problem), so I never trotted this out. I carried one with me, but didn't need to use it. Part of the reason I may have not cared to use this GPS module was the lack of screen and/or LED read out made it boring to use. It is just a black plastic ovoid. Huh. Screen please with geo-coordinates. Nokia, make this thing fun to use.
Now all these accessories are back in the box awaiting their trip back to the UK tomorrow via the nice folks at DHL. I will be sad to see the bluetooth keyboard and headset go.
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Bangalore, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Fort Cochin & Surrounds, Kerala, India, from Wed. Feb. 13th to Fri. Feb. 15th, 2008. I really enjoyed how laid back Kerala was, it was a true treat from staying at the Delight Home Stay in Fort Cochin to the backwaters boat tour. I have previously blogged about it being "God's Own Communist Country."
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, three more cities to come.
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Bangalore, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, from Mon. Feb. 11th to Wed. Feb. 13th, 2008. Big thanks to Mohan Nadig for kindly shepherding me around Bangalore and all the great conversation. I truly enjoyed Bangalore and would like to go back and visit again. I do think that some of the call centers should offer tours and an opportunity to sit with someone who has answered your support or complaint call before.... ;o)
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, four more cities to come.
Tues 02.26.08 - I would like to give a BIG Thank You to all the lovely folk at WOM World for all their hard work to make the Nokia Nseries Urbanista Diaries mobile travel adventure successfully go off! Thanks y'all!
Photo taken in Oxford by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82. WOM World folk - left to right: Colin, Richard, Siobhan, Amy, and Donna (unfortunately Frank and Robbie were not at lunch).
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India, from Sat. Feb. 9th to Mon. Feb. 11th, 2008. Big thanks once again to the Chennai Photowalk flickr group for such a fun photowalk day on Sun. Feb. 10, 2008.
Enjoy the photos, five more cities to come.
Sat 02.23.08 - Stephansdom (aka St. Stephan's Cathedral), Vienna, Austria. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Sat 02.23.08 - Urbanista Ryan now takes the metaphorical baton and starts the fourth and final leg of the trip. Have fun, Ryan.
A wrap up post from me later and photo essays coming here over the next few days. Above photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 last night at the Schottentor U tram stop in Rooseveltplatz.
Fri 02.22.08 - Photo by Ms. Jen in Vienna with a Nokia N82.
Fri 02.22.08 - Photo of Antonio Canova's tomb for the Archduchess Maria Christina by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 in Vienna, Austria.
Thurs 02.21.08 - Black hoodie, check. Non-descript schleppy clothes, check. Wood deck with fashionably small wheels, check. Practicing badly on historic architecture, check. Skate rats, same the world over.
Vienna, call Etnies or Vans to have them help you set up a grommet approved skate park. Or empty a pool, make 'em sign a wavier, let 'em at it, make local dentists happy with increased business, and save your landmarks.
Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Thurs 02.21.08 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Wed 02.20.08 - Photo of the boarding area lounge at the Mumbai Intl Airport taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 just before midnight.
Wed 02.20.08 - The subway adjacent to the Mumbai central railway station (formerly Victoria Terminus). Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Sun 02.17.08 - Self-portrait taken with a Nokia N82.
Today is Day 8 of my leg of the Nokia Urbanista Diaries adventure. Goa is lovely, but I liked Kerala better.
Tomorrow I depart for Mumbai for my last 2.5 days in India before traveling on to Austria where I will meet up with Urbanista Ryan and pass the 'baton'off to him for his two weeks of mobile photo travel adventures.
Six more days to go. I hope you have enjoyed the photos.
I will fly into India late Friday night / early Saturday morning from London to officially start the Urbanista Diaries adventure. And the very next morning at 8am, I will be meeting up with the lovely folk from the Flickr "Chennai Photowalk" group to go on a Photowalk of Mount Road in Chennai (Madras)!
This will not just be hitting the ground running, but photo-ing! Ok, bad pun.
I am excited. I like to plan for my photo and mobile blogging adventures a bit beforehand and it is always better if one can meet up with like minded people.
I am looking forward to next Saturday's Photowalk in Chennai. Big thanks to Chandrachoodan for organizing it!
A year ago today, I was taking a plane from Chennai to Bangalore and then having a good walk around Bangalore with Mohan.
Over a year ago, I signed up for Nokia's Sports Tracker in preparation for the Urbanista Diaries trip. I created a public account that would feed into the Urbanista Diaries web interface at the nseries.com website and then I used the same account for the Nokia viNe project, as well as all kinds of photo walks & drives in between Urbanista and Nokia viNe. I also have a private Sports Tracker account, also started a year ago, for tracking my walks around my neighborhood that for privacy's sake I don't want public.
About a month ago or so, when I tried to log into Sports Tracker, I was prompted to either merge my Sports Tracker account with my Nokia account or to create a Nokia account. So, I did. I merged my public Sports Tracker account with my public Nokia account. I also created a new account on Nokia for my private Sports Tracker account.
Much to my chagrin, I can log in to both Nokia's Ovi and Sports Tracker with my private account and I can log into Ovi with my public account but I cannot log into Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe with my public account.
A week ago, I used the feedback form on Sports Tracker to explain the problem and ask for help. I have yet to hear back.
I am frustrated on several accounts:
1) Don't ask me to merge accounts and then not let me be able to log in.
2) No, I am not going to make a new public account, as then I lose a year's worth (a YEAR!) of data, photos, and video that I can't log into and access or edit or delete or add titles to or... Yes, it is still readable and viewable, but if I can't log in & edit the data, then it is being held hostage on the Nokia servers.
3) Tomorrow I have to send the Nokia viNe project Nokia N82 back to WOM World and I have ALL of January's journeys trapped on the N82 mobile because I can't upload them to Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe, which means that I have downloaded the photos to my computer via the cable, but I have not been able to upload the geo-tagged paths/journeys to the server. This frustrates me, as I can take my 4GB micro SD chip out of the Nokia N82 before I ship it back, but when I put it into my old school N95, I still won't be able to upload the journeys/paths to the server, as the server won't recognize my login. This means no Punk Rock Bowling or the rest of January 2009 photos & videos on Nokia viNe.
4) If I an early adopter and someone who has been using the service for over a year can't log in to my account and can't get anyone to reply to my help request, what happens to all the new customers who Nokia wants to have use the Nokia web services? Nokia, please put a consistent, across all your web services, community support in place to help customers troubleshoot their problems that neither a FAQ nor forum can help.
Has anyone else been frozen out of their Sports Tracker or Nokia viNe accounts after merging the account with their Nokia / Ovi account? If so, please comment and let me know how you solved the problem. Thanks a big bunch!
Photo of the Taj Hotel and the Gateway to India taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 on 02.19.08 from the Mumbai Harbor.
Thurs 11.27.08 - For 2.5 days in February 2008, I stayed in the Colaba district of Mumbai at the end of the Urbanista Diaries adventure in India. I stayed a little less that 2 blocks from the famed Taj Hotel. I ate a small supper the second night at the upstairs bar at Cafe Leopold. I enjoyed wandering around on foot the southern part of Mumbai.
Most of all, what I did experience of Mumbai made me love it the way I love Los Angeles and London. A big sprawling vibrant world class city. The kind of city, like LA or London, that you either love or hate. After being in Mumbai for 15 minutes, I was deep down happy. It was love on first sight.
Yesterday, my heart went out to Mumbai as the news of the terrorist attacks on the Taj Hotel, the Oberoi, Cafe Leopold, the Jewish Center, and the CS Railway Terminus.
I first heard of the attacks on Twitter when an Indian friend wrote a cryptic anguished tweet, I went to the BBC and saw no news, 10 minutes later there was. The news and crisis has continued to unfold over the course of the last 36 hours, getting worse. And made worse by having been at 3 of the 5 places that have been attacked. And worse for loving the city.
Oh, Mumbai, I am dreadfully sorry. Words are failing me to express the upset.
All photos taken by Ms. Jen in Mumbai, India, with a Nokia N82.
The above photos were taken in Mumbai (the city formerly known as Bombay), India, from Mon. Feb. 18, 2008 until late Wed. Feb. 20, 2008 while on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries. Mumbai was my last stop in India and my second to last stop before passing the 'baton' on to Ryan Gallagher.
What to say about Mumbai? Within 15 minutes of being away from the airport and driving the hour plus south to my hotel, I knew that I was going to love this city. Mumbai is great big beast just like my other two all time favorite cities: Los Angeles & London. Mumbai is the Indian sister city to a mash up of LA & Miami. Big, spread out, something going on all the time, lots of lovely art deco to modernist residential architecture from 1920s-1960s (like LA & Miami), lively, and more than a bit chaotic.
I stayed at a hotel that came recommended by Lonely Planet in the Colaba district of southern Mumbai, as I could walk to most of the stuff I wanted to do from there. In the 2.5 days that I was in Mumbai, I walked around as much as possible, took as many photos as possible, and took an afternoon ferry out to Elephanta Island in the Mumbai Harbor.
I would like to go back to Mumbai and spend more time exploring the city, as 2.5 days was not enough.
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, I have only the Austria photo essay to do to wrap up the all of my favorite photos from my leg of the Nokia Urbanista Diaries trip.
Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 in Goa, India.
[After a mad six week hiatus, I am back to posting my Best of Urbanista photo essays...]
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Panaji, Goa, India, from Fri. Feb. 15th, 2008 to Mon. Feb. 18, 2008. Why did I stay for 2.5 days in Panaji (Panjim) rather than go to one of the Goa beach resorts? Well, I both in Bangalore & Kerala I asked taxi drivers their recommendation for Goa, and they both said: Panaji. I wanted to go to the city (Urbanista, after all) in Goa that was the most Indian rather than the attack of the Euro-Aussie-Whatever-Party-Piglet-Beach. And I am glad I did.
Panaji was a great mix of old school Portuguese buildings, 1940s art deco architecture, 1960s concrete brutalisme, with a good dose of India. It was laid back with a strong tourist component. Most of the other tourists or holiday makers I met were down from Mumbai for the weekend.
Unfortunately, I did not get to Old Goa and the Bom Jesus Basilica, mostly due to a crooked cab driver who I would not let gouge me. Next time I will walk the 9 km rather than be shook down. I will go back eventually to see the Bom Jesus.
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, two more cities to come.
Hello New York Times... Uh... the Urbanista Diaries campaign started in mid-January and ended in early March and your article came out on April 7th. Why wait to run the article a full month after the "live" portion is over?
If you are reporting on how Nokia is marketing with a new strategy of "hiring" bloggers and/or the marketing brilliance of the Urbanista Diaries, the why did you not interview one of the four of us?
I was not hired to go on the Urbanista Diaries trip, I was given a really cool opportunity to travel to India with a great camera phone, the N82, and do what I do every day - take lots of mobile photos and moblog them to a website with geo-data.
On the hiring bit? We were not paid, nor were any of the four of us given a phone. In fact quite a few of the phones were 'lifted' by DHL employees or Her Majesty's Customs on the way back to the UK after the Urbanista trip was over*. WOM World (1000 Heads) bought the plane tickets and reimbursed our hotel, food, and local transport. Nokia reimbursed / paid 1000 Heads.
WOM World (1000 Heads) has a policy, that not only do the bloggers get to be honest, but we also return the phones after the trial period. That is a loan, not a hire or a buy.
Yes, Nokia is above the curve on internet marketing, more importantly they are including the mobile community, which in turn creates brand loyalty. Apple or LG or Sony-Ericsson have never offered me to trial a device nor have they asked my opinion on its use or software. Nokia has. This is good.
But, NYT, please do a wee bit more research. kthnxbai.
*****
* Yes, for the record, I am angry about this - crooked business makes me indignant. Given that the phones were to go back to the UK, I would have preferred them to arrived in Oxfordshire in one piece, not the box arriving but missing the phones out of the middle. If I ever meet up with the DHL dude who giggled upon receiving the last N82 for shipment... To the Moon! Fed Ex & USPS have my business from here on out.
The 4th Chennai Photowalk
Originally uploaded by Ms. Jen
Sun. Feb. 10, 2008 - I had the pleasure to join up with the Chennai Photowalk Flickr Group folk to participate in the 4th Chennai Photowalk up Mount Road (Anna Salai) . Good fun, great photographers & conversation.
Video captured by Ms. Jen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.
Uploaded by Ms. Jen on 26 Mar 08, 8.53PM PDT.
The WOM World folk let me keep one of the Urbanista Diaries N82's through SXSW for better photo taking, but today I had to reset it back to factory settings & wipe the extra memory chip in anticipation of shipping it back to the UK and returning to the daily use of my Nokia N95.
To get my Nokia N95 back into daily use, I updated it to the most recent N95 update and optimized the files. Per usual, the update wiped all my settings and programs, so I had to reinstall ShoZu and Joiku, as well as redo my blog settings in Lifeblog. Only problem is that the 20.0.0.something update for the N95 has made Lifeblog incompatible with this install of Movable Type Open Source 4.1, or if not incompatible at least it won't recognize the correct settings. The N95 12.0.0.something Lifeblog worked just fine with this MTOS 4.1 install, and so did the most recent update / OS version for the N82. I have run through the phone's Lifeblog settings 7 times and reset them each time and it still can't find this blog. Bah!
When I met up with Charlie in London a couple of weeks ago, he was surprised that Lifeblog was installed on the N82 and said that the N82 would most likely be the last phone that would have Lifeblog. Charlie unofficially confirmed what I had supposed for sometime now, that Nokia has left Lifeblog to die.
This will be a problem for me and my daily moblogging from my phone to this blog. I have tried for a few years now to convince various Movable Type perl developers to make a mobile blogging plugin that would work across a variety of mobile platforms to moblog photos and text to one's MT 3.x or 4.x install, but to no avail. David Jacobs told me that his company, Apperceptive, has made such a plugin for paying customers and will be releasing a version to the public, but it has not happened yet.
Charlie is currently working with David on a blog for Nokia and hinted that one of the side projects would be a mobile blogging plugin for Nokia phones.
Please, please, please...
While I am *supposed* to take my anti-malaria pills, Mefloquine, for another 2 weeks, I am over it and done. I will not be taking my pill tomorrow due to 3 weeks of mild building up to medium bad reactions on a daily basis.
The first week or so, the only reaction I had to the medication was feeling like I was on 5 shots of expresso at any given time and not sleeping more than 5 hours a night. By the end of the second week on the drug, I was having occasional nightmares and feeling agitated. The last two weeks I have continued sleeping badly, having nightmares, feeling agitated and upset over small things, etc.
When I was in India, all of the non-US travellers I met were NOT taking any anti-malarial preventive medication and were very surprised that my doctor put me on it. Since I have returned, several British friends told me to throw the mefloquine away and only to take it when I actually get sick, as they had more reactions from the medicine than any other sickness they may have experienced in India.
When I was so tummy sick earlier this week, I had more folks email me or tell me in person here at SXSW that I should go off the mefloquine, as it may be contributing to my tummy illness.
So, this morning I called the Kaiser Permanente Advice Nurse to see what they thought about my reaction to the medication and if I could speak to a pharmacist, but as usual the Kaiser Advice Nurse was THOROUGHLY unhelpful. And wanted me to come into an LA doctor appointment, I told her that I was in Austin, and then she got exasperated with me and said that Kaiser could not help if I was not at home and why did I not call when I was in India (Uh... $1.50+ per minute phone charges to be put on hold for 20 mins. I think not).
She told me to go to the emergency center in Austin. I pointed out that they might not know much more than she did and would it not be better to leave a message for the doctor who prescribed the medication to me or the pharmacist at Kaiser? No, she said, I should go to urgent care here and not take any more of the medication until I can get into Kaiser next week. WTF?!?!? End of call.
When I get back I am changing health insurance. I hate Kaiser. In the meantime, as to not have more insomnia, nightmares, tummy and emotional agitation, I am not taking my pill in the morning. Larium, I am over you.
I still have three city photo essays to post for y'all: Goa, Mumbai, and Vienna; but unfortunately work has intruded. Darned work that I have to get done before I leave for SXSW on Thursday. In the meantime, while I was packing up The Box to send back to WOM World today, I wrote up my thoughts on the accessories that I took out on my leg of the Urbanista Diaries mobile adventure.
The Nokia Bluetooth Keyboard : Like it, but it takes a bit of practice to get the typing right. Even with practice, I will still making more typos than I would on a regular keyboard, of which part of that may be the bluetooth keyboard's size and part of it may be the small screen of which I could not always see what I was typing. I had been looking into getting a bluetooth keyboard before the trip and using it to type a whole blog post to a photo rather than just a headline was very convenient. I used the keyboard to compose several posts to this blog via Lifeblog on the N82 and was quite happy with the results. The only thing that was a bit of a pain is that the keyboard was not automatically found by the N82 but I had to download software for the phone to run the keyboard.
Nokia BH-602 bluetooth headset: I really didn't use this while in India, as I was not making a lot of calls. I did start to use it when I got home to try it out and other than the awkwardness of it being made for a bigger ear, I quite like it. It doesn't fully stay on my ear and wiggles around a bit, but I do like the lack of wires. The sound quality is a bit fuzzy with some crackles. If the price were under $60, I would buy it. But given that it is over $100, I won't be purchasing one.
The Proporta Charger: This would have been a very handy accessory to have for the trip to recharge the phone batteries while on the go, as the phone would lose battery power about half way through every day of photos plus GPS plus Sports Tracker running. Only one problem with the Proporta Charger, it never worked. I got a gimpy charger that even when it was fully charged, it would not charge another device. I tried a number of times, Jay tried when he was in Chennai, and the Proporta was declared defective on arrival. Good thing I had my own Power Monkey with me and the Power Monkey ended up being the best and most used accessory of the trip.
Generation X Cell Antenna: Ok, they are small, cheap, and sticky, but it works. I put the cell antenna extender in one phone and had another one that I did not have an extender on and then would test both in multiple situations. The cell antenna extender worked to boost at least one bar for phone calls and improved data connections. For all of my friends who are complaining about the dropped calls on their iPhones, too bad that they can't get into the battery compartment of the iPhone to add one of these little guys.
Nokia GPS Modules: I didn't use these. I had good GPS reception everywhere and had no problems with GPS to Sports Tracker, except for the lack of cell towers in the Mumbai Harbor (which was not a GPS problem but a Sports Tracker settings problem), so I never trotted this out. I carried one with me, but didn't need to use it. Part of the reason I may have not cared to use this GPS module was the lack of screen and/or LED read out made it boring to use. It is just a black plastic ovoid. Huh. Screen please with geo-coordinates. Nokia, make this thing fun to use.
Now all these accessories are back in the box awaiting their trip back to the UK tomorrow via the nice folks at DHL. I will be sad to see the bluetooth keyboard and headset go.
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Bangalore, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Fort Cochin & Surrounds, Kerala, India, from Wed. Feb. 13th to Fri. Feb. 15th, 2008. I really enjoyed how laid back Kerala was, it was a true treat from staying at the Delight Home Stay in Fort Cochin to the backwaters boat tour. I have previously blogged about it being "God's Own Communist Country."
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, three more cities to come.
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Bangalore, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, from Mon. Feb. 11th to Wed. Feb. 13th, 2008. Big thanks to Mohan Nadig for kindly shepherding me around Bangalore and all the great conversation. I truly enjoyed Bangalore and would like to go back and visit again. I do think that some of the call centers should offer tours and an opportunity to sit with someone who has answered your support or complaint call before.... ;o)
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, four more cities to come.
Tues 02.26.08 - I would like to give a BIG Thank You to all the lovely folk at WOM World for all their hard work to make the Nokia Nseries Urbanista Diaries mobile travel adventure successfully go off! Thanks y'all!
Photo taken in Oxford by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82. WOM World folk - left to right: Colin, Richard, Siobhan, Amy, and Donna (unfortunately Frank and Robbie were not at lunch).
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India, from Sat. Feb. 9th to Mon. Feb. 11th, 2008. Big thanks once again to the Chennai Photowalk flickr group for such a fun photowalk day on Sun. Feb. 10, 2008.
Enjoy the photos, five more cities to come.
Sat 02.23.08 - Stephansdom (aka St. Stephan's Cathedral), Vienna, Austria. Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Sat 02.23.08 - Urbanista Ryan now takes the metaphorical baton and starts the fourth and final leg of the trip. Have fun, Ryan.
A wrap up post from me later and photo essays coming here over the next few days. Above photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 last night at the Schottentor U tram stop in Rooseveltplatz.
Fri 02.22.08 - Photo by Ms. Jen in Vienna with a Nokia N82.
Fri 02.22.08 - Photo of Antonio Canova's tomb for the Archduchess Maria Christina by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 in Vienna, Austria.
Thurs 02.21.08 - Black hoodie, check. Non-descript schleppy clothes, check. Wood deck with fashionably small wheels, check. Practicing badly on historic architecture, check. Skate rats, same the world over.
Vienna, call Etnies or Vans to have them help you set up a grommet approved skate park. Or empty a pool, make 'em sign a wavier, let 'em at it, make local dentists happy with increased business, and save your landmarks.
Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Thurs 02.21.08 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Wed 02.20.08 - Photo of the boarding area lounge at the Mumbai Intl Airport taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 just before midnight.
Wed 02.20.08 - The subway adjacent to the Mumbai central railway station (formerly Victoria Terminus). Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82.
Sun 02.17.08 - Self-portrait taken with a Nokia N82.
Today is Day 8 of my leg of the Nokia Urbanista Diaries adventure. Goa is lovely, but I liked Kerala better.
Tomorrow I depart for Mumbai for my last 2.5 days in India before traveling on to Austria where I will meet up with Urbanista Ryan and pass the 'baton'off to him for his two weeks of mobile photo travel adventures.
Six more days to go. I hope you have enjoyed the photos.
I will fly into India late Friday night / early Saturday morning from London to officially start the Urbanista Diaries adventure. And the very next morning at 8am, I will be meeting up with the lovely folk from the Flickr "Chennai Photowalk" group to go on a Photowalk of Mount Road in Chennai (Madras)!
This will not just be hitting the ground running, but photo-ing! Ok, bad pun.
I am excited. I like to plan for my photo and mobile blogging adventures a bit beforehand and it is always better if one can meet up with like minded people.
I am looking forward to next Saturday's Photowalk in Chennai. Big thanks to Chandrachoodan for organizing it!
