Recently in urbanista diaries Category

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.