gasp, started on my first.. <play-dark-music> Windows Phone app!

Yep. Sure did.

ParkkiTalo for Asha

Made a quick app for Nokia Asha (and also older S40 devices) users out there. Not very interesting unless you happen to live in Oulu, Finland and need to park your car.

Submitted to QA, so in a week or so it should be available for download. It uses the opendata provided City of Oulu.

ParkkiTalo - Oulu Asha version.

If more cities start to open this kinda of data they will be of course added to the application. I'll post download links when QA has done its thing.

Asha article winner aka Sports Tracker HRM, part 3

Nokia developer runs various competitions from time to time, this time a wiki article competition on how to use features of the Asha platforms for health issues.

First I was like, eh, that is a hard topic to write something about, what ever could that be?

Then my tiny brain made the Bluetooth connection, I've been playing with the ST HRM belt, and this motivated me to concentrate on it a bit more. So I submitted an article on how to use the HRM belt from a Java ME application. And well, result below:

Goodie bag :) Asha 501, headphones and USB emergyncy charger

Asha 501

My first ever J2ME app, Radio X3M, submitted to Nokia Store QA!

Yep, I did it. My first real J2ME app. And it even works. Now hoping QA does its thing to get it out there.

Oh, you are wondering what it is ? A it's dedicated YLE Radio X3M application for listening to the radio streams offered by the Finnish broadcast company of their Swedish speaking youth radio channel, including display of currently playing song, the program for today and also their news feed. As a added bonus it displays the currently playing artists image. For now it's only for the full touch Asha phones.

Test version screenshot, final is a bit different

YLE already offers apps for the Top-3, Android, WP and iPhone, but they don't seem to care for other devices, so I decided to do something about that.

Trying something new, Skydiving !

It was awesome! And horrible! But great! And scary! :D This was definitely something new.

Here we go!

More pictures and videos coming soon.

More Lumia 900 testing, phone.. but first, a microSIM

The Lumia 900 requires a microSIM and the only microSIM I have is in my main phone, the N9. Not that I get why it couldn't use a good-old miniSIM, the phone is Huge :)

When I had the Nokia 603 for testing it never occoured to me that I could have gotten a pre-paid service so I could have tested the phone features properly. You might wonder why, but I've never used pre-paid service, I've been using the same service provider since 1996 (my first mobile was a Nokia 2110) and usage of pre-paid is not that common here in Finland, afaik.

So, today I got a pre-paid service from Saunalahti, only 6,60€, a good choice if you ever need pre-paid service here in Finland and it even includes data service with a special price of only 0.66€/day on microSIM phones.

The Lumia 900 arrived

DHL came with a Nokia Lumia 900 for me test and play with for the next two weeks, thanks to Nokia Connects. I will also use it to document the thingy on Saturday.

Bubblewrapped

A blue box

That contains another blue box

This box with some nice pictures and the Lumia 900 label

Inside the box we find the Nokia Lumia 900, USB cables and headphones, plus some quick guide papers. Oh, and a tool for opening the SIM cover. Must say that is a strange, design. I would definitely loose it quite fast with all the other junk I have at home.

Inside we find a good looking white Lumia 900

Protected inside plastic

Under the phone there is a SIM cover tool

The contents of the box

USB cable

A funny looking charger (I know it's the UK power plug style, still it looks funny to me :)

Basic in-ear headphones

A Quick guide and some more papers, who reads these anyway :)

Setting aside the fact that it's a WP phone, I have to admit that it does looks gorgeous! The N9 polycarbonate shell design is just perfect. You most likely know all the specs and stuff already but I'll repeat the basics just in case anyway.

• 1.4 Ghz single-core Snapdragon ARM CPU
• 512 MB RAM
• 16 GB internal flash
• 4.3" AMOLED ClearBlack display
• Carl Zeiss optics, 8 megapixel main camera, 1 megapixel front camera
• Single block polycarbonate body
• Windows Phone 7.5
• All the connection you could possibly need, 3G, 4G, Bluetooth, WiFI, USB
• 720p 30 fps video recording
• Read the full specs here

Nokia Lumia 900

Side by side comparison with the N9 and N950. The Lumia 900 is much larger than the N9. Even a bit too big for my taste, but I haven't really tried handling it that much yet. I usually have N950 and N9 in my pant pocket and they are just small enough to not feel uncomfortable. But lets see how it goes.

N9 looks tiny beside the Lumia 900

Lumia 900 much larger

It is also a tiny bit larger than the N950

Lumia 900 and Nokia N950.

Lumia 900 is a tiny bit wider than the N950, about the same height.

I'm at work right now, but I'll post some more when I get home and can play with the phone properly.

NokiaTSN prize and Lumia 900 for testing

Nokia Try Something New competition

I took part in the NokiaTSN competition, trying out a Nokia 603 and Luna headset. I won!

NokiaTSN winner, Panorama from Klein Matterhorn

The prize was up to me to figure out, in the theme of Try Something New. It took a while to find something. but I finally found something very exciting to do (and I can bring a friend!). It's going to happen this Saturday (9th Jun 2012) at around 11:00.
I won't tell you yet what it is yet, as it's going to be a surprise for friends and family :)

All I can say that I and my friend are both scared shitless :)

Lumia 900 for two week testing

As an extra bonus Nokia Connects has sent a Nokia Lumia 900 for a two week test. It's on its way already, DHL tracking says to courier here in Turku already has it, so I'm waiting for it to be brought to me as we speak.

Trying to get mod-support for N9 into Nokia Store

Well, big f*ing surprise... failed QA because I dare install a tracker extractor module into the correct location where tracker can actually find and use it.

Mailed publishing support, I hope they get their shit together. I'm already pretty pissed of with the stupid package rules that you can't depend on any external packages, as I need to stitch together the deb from various pre-built binaries from multiple other (proper) packages.

My first Ovi store app has been published

TapMeBPM

TapMeBPM, a BPM counter and metronome ticker with audiovisual feedback. Yes, I know, a pretty useless app. But it was more a testing and training myself in QML and the Ovi store publishing process. Source are available in git.



Upcoming apps/tools will be a simple game and a module playback support package.

Getting a Nokia 603 for testing

I was quick enough to get a picture of myself uploaded to Nokia Connects Try Something New thingy. They will send me a Nokia 603 and Luna headset for 2 weeks testing. I just hope I will get it before my skiing vacation, it would be a perfect time (and place!) to make some nice pictures and videos.

It is going to be interesting to try a modern Symbian phone, I haven't used one since I switched to the N900 from a N73 in 2009.

The Nokia Lumia 800, Part 2: Contacts, workaround

By pure luck, we had a E55 collecting dust at work that I could borrow (Well, I already used it for some QR code testing, anyway..) and it supports PBAP! So I could use that phone as a source. Transferring everything (contacts, sms, calendar) was smooth and painless, no problems whatsoever. Now the E55 containes all my gf stuff.

And now Contacts transfer did it's thing, no problems encountered. But I was expecting too much from it, unfortunately it is Contacts transfer ONLY nothing else get transfered over.
You can imagine my gf: But where are my calendar entries? Where are my messages ???? I want my messages!

I have no idea how to get those transfered over, any ideas?

The Nokia Lumia 800, Part 1: Contacts

So I got a shiny Nokia Lumia 800 as a gift. I gave it to my girlfriend, to replace her old Nokia E51. So the first thing, transfer all data from the E51 to the Lumia, that shouldn't be too hard right ? AFAIK all new and somewhat new Symbian based phones have this syncing/data transfering thing so this shouldn't be too hard, the Lumia is Nokia device so it should have the same capabilities as an older phone, right ?

Contacts transfer, ok, that looks promising! And over bluetooth even, very nice. I start it up, do the bluetooth connection hurdle and.. nothing. Again? Nothing. Just an error message that it failed. After some messages on twitter and googling around I found that the source phone for Contacts transfer must support PBAP. And the old E51 does not do that. Now what?

A Nokia Lumia 800

This arrived just before Christmas. Thanks Santa :).

Nokia Lumia 800

As I already have a N950 I'll let me gf use the Lumia 800 (replacing a Nokia E51), she promised to write a review for this blog. Might get a more objective one from her (as I'm a Windows hater). She was already "ooh, it's fast" and "nice big screen, now I can watch youtube".

Something about a date and the N9

I was lucky to see a calendar with something written about the Nokia N9. Let's see if it is correct :)
And don't ask, I ain't telling.

Something nice in the mail

I was on holiday in Greece when the N9 and N950 was announced so I missed the opportunity to get a developer device, as I didn't spend much time on-line. Fortunately I was able to get on the next 50 devices and a couple of weeks ago something nice came in the mail.
Thank you Nokia.

Spare parts for 770, N800, N810 and N900

Someone was asking for where to get spare parts for the older tablets in Europe. Quick google did not find anything, but after digging I found one place. I am posting it here just in case anyone needs spare parts, and as a note to myself. So here.

Updated: 21.10.2011
Looks like the link when I posted this is broken, but the site has still spare parts available for all older tablets (770, N800, N810), and the N900 too.

Maemo Summit 2009

I was lucky enough (sponsored, yay) to be able to attend Maemo Summit this year. The event was really nice and had many interesting talks and presentations. You can find a lot on the maemo wiki, pictures on flickr, tweets and blogposts. Just google and you will find.

The absolutely biggest surprise at the event was that everyone (well, 300 was given away) attending got a N900 for 6 months to play with. I didn't switch my SIM card directly so I first used it just like any of the older tablets. Now that I'm home again I switched over and using the N900 as my primary phone. One of the nicest phone related things are that Skype is now fully integrated with the rest of the telepathy stack and works just like, well, a normal cell phone. I tried it already at the summit (didn't work that well, the WiFi network was pretty overloaded I think). On the way back I tried is from the Helsinki airport and called my girlfriend, it was just perfect. Very nice indeed.

Anyway, I there are some bugs/strange/missing things that I will blog about later (and report to the maemo bugzilla).

I was also a good OpenStreetMapper and did some mapping at the summit venue (mentioned there too). Relating to OSM, Till Harbaum presented OSM2go and the OSM project in general, with some nice examples of why OSM rocks :) Look here (at about 10:45)

N73 software update done

A short follow up to the earlier N73 update post. I was able to find a copy of XP and installed it on a old Athlon XP machine. First the updater just froze and I was already sure that I now have a nice black brick, but fortunately the phone booted with the old firmware still intact. Ok, second try: This time the update was uploaded properly and my phone was running the latest firmware. Oh joy! :D
But wait.. all didn't go well at first.. Nokia data restored ok, but after restarting the phone a got message like this "Phone startup failure." and it froze there. Fortunately a quick google found a "4 finger salute" reset operation that fixed the bootup. And skipping restoration of my previous settings made the phone finally work OK.

Nokia N73 software update hurdle

I don't know what to now, bang my head on the wall or what. I've been trying to get my N73 phone firmware updated for quite a while now as there have been a update available for ages already. Problem is I have this SIM locked phone (with Sonera) and well, the operator lags a bit with letting people update their phones and I refuse to pay for something I can and should be able to do for free.

So, being prepared for another no-updates-for-your-product-code situation I checked the software update. And lo and behold! Version 4.0812.4.2.1 is now available for me (my old software 3.something so old as hell).

Anyway, I'm mostly Linux only, I have a W2k computer mainly just for playing Eve (as the cedega crap won't run on 64-bit only x86), fortunately the Nokia updater has run fine before... but oh nononono... just so they can fuck with me a bit more the updated requires XP or Vista now. ARGH.