Very cool clouds

Strips of clouds like this sometimes occur around this area when we have the sorts of rainy weather we've been having lately.

They get to look the most interesting when they're a bit further west and you can see the sun setting under them while they're pouring rain onto you (and its totally clear skies to the west)

gotta love nature

Nokia Messaging issues

as a Nokia user I find its difficult to get much information  out there on how to get around problems which Nokia seem to introduce into their phones and their services. Some help can be had in the Nokia Support Groups (as in that link) but often there are no answers of any technical significance.

To allow others who have issues with Nokia Messaging to post here and perhaps provide others with answers (or just confirmation they are not alone).

I set up Nokia Messaging on my E72 phone recently using their website. It was quick and effective and pushed up the mail settings onto my phone. That part was good.

This gave me with 4 email accounts being checked on my phone:

• gmail
• my corporate mail (as it happens handled via google)
• one ISP account as a POP account
• one ISP account as an IMAP account (different to above)

I noticed some things which it would seem remain unresolved for Nokia (at least on their forums).

reply to email from my corporate mail using Nokia Messaging created 2 entries in my sent items and makes reading messaging threads on the web browser messy because each of my replies appears duplicated.

the Nokia Messaging system allows you to specify times for your mail collection. This is nice but has a few issues:

• when you set connection times they are global, so your times set for your work mail will now override what you initially set for your personal mails being collected by Nokia Messaging. Meaning you can not choose Monday-Friday 9am to 5pm for work emails and 7 days 8am-10pm for private ones.
• you can not choose to check mail "asynchronously"; meaning I can't just 'check when I feel like it adhoc' I can only follow the schedule.

I consider these noteworthy limitations and to the best of my knowledge remain issues with all the Nokia Messaging based phones.

So hopefully somone in at Nokia will pull their heads out of their arse, stop being negative about the negative feedback and start grasping that complaints are from people who want to keep using the products but just want issues fixed.

Sincerest form of flattery

I happen to really like the music of Queen.

About a year ago we found out about a local band who goes around doing copies of Queen music live at small clubs and pubs. The audience is usually small (like under 200 or 500 on a good day)

They're pretty darn good actually and its fun to go to their gigs.

Last New Year I dragged my sorry arse (and man it was sorry) along with some friends to see them at a Brisbane venue. They played for some hours past the slated time to end and kept on playing just covers and stuff (not queen) till way past 1am.

So they have a good attitude about it too.

Today I noticed they are playing locally again and see that they are doing a charity gig, donating their door take to a local charity called Paradise Kids.

Thats just got to be a worthy cause.

So my respect for this band has just gone up a lot. Not only are they fun and energetic on stage but they have a great social conscious too.

Fantastic

we're not the customers anymore

In a recent conversation with a fellow on a forum it was pointed out to me that the reason companies like Nokia take no notice of what people want is because of the obvious:

we're not the customer anymore, the Telco's are

Seems strange, but the more I think about it its clear. People don't go to shop for phones, they go to a telco to see what they have on what plans and sign up.

The telco then tells Nokia or HTC what it is they want to be offering to their customers.

Now that I see it this way, its clear that since people are no longer looking to purchase a phone. So no matter what experts or advanced users or even small businesses want to roll out to their sales people, the phone companies don't make what people want; they make what phone companies want.

I think that iPhone is the only exception to this ... which is perhaps why the Telcos often charge more for those on a plan.