At the end of the year it is traditional to wish everyone a happy holiday as it seems almost every culture has a celebration at this time of year.  I have been very blessed to have been manager of one of the most enthusiastic group of developer one can imagine.  Forum Experts and Forum Champions contribute their expertise for no reward other than the satisfaction of helping others.  I wish to take this time to thank everyone that has taken part of the Nokia developer’s community by either by asking or answering a question. I feel close to each and everyone, and would feel no less a community if we were all in the same complex and sharing a cafeteria.  I give a heartfelt thank you and happy holidays to each and everyone.

A couple notes of interest.

We have not been neglecting the discussion board as the Blogs and Wiki have grown in the past year, but being mature they have taken a back stage to the rest of the community.  In the upcoming year we will be adding new features and tweaking what works well now to make the discussion boards even more compelling.

The Forum Nokia Discussion Board’s forum experts are an unsung group of volunteers who take their own time to help others.  Almost all of them are Nokia engineers or employees who care deeply about the quality of applications for Nokia.  Since each and everyone started with no knowledge they can understand the novice and since almost everyone has developed his skills to the expert level they can also help the seasoned professional developers.  So perhaps the next time one responds to you, you might want to thank him or her for their taking the time to help.

Ron

Touching the Future -- NFC Forum Global Competition

Showcase Your NFC Application!

The NFC Forum is kicking off Touching the Future: NFC Forum Global Competition. Enter the competition, and have the chance to showcase your NFC application, win an award, and network with other NFC developers and professionals! The goal of the NFC Forum Global Competition is to promote innovation and excellence in NFC implementations, both present and future.

The Competition has two tracks: Commercial and Research. Entry fees are $150 for the Commercial track and $50 for the Research track. Entry is open to all interested parties.

The competition’s Organizing Committee is now accepting submissions;
all final proposals must be received by February 15, 2008.
The Competition Awards Ceremony will take place in Monaco on April 29, 2008.

Further details about the competition can be found at www.nfc-forum.org/competition.

We have added several improvements to the Forum Nokia Wiki I hope you enjoy them.  First we have added a way to rate the articles based on how well it is written by stars and what you feel the target audience is by the circles.  Of course you can’t rate this home page,  I don’t want my feeling hurt.  Just click on the rating you want to vote for the levels.

We have also added improved Editor to the Wiki, it is now a lot easier to create or edit the Wiki pages.  This is a great plug-in for the MediaWiki software that we use. Speaking of MediaWiki we also upgraded to the latest version and patches.

Another new feature is adding links to similar topics from the discussion boards.  If you find an article and want to discuss it you can jump to one of these or create your own with the same title as the article and it will be a link for everyone.

We aren’t done yet so if you see any new features on other Wiki’s that you feel we should add here; let me know.

Ron

This has been quite a successful year for the Forum Nokia Wiki.  We started with nothing and launched in April. Already we have over three thousand five hundred contributions by our members to make our Wiki one the best developer’s Wiki in the world and hands down best Mobile developer’s Wiki ever.  We have added the Forum Nokia Knowledge Base to our Wiki to allow for faster updates and comments to Nokia by our users.

I am not alone in the Wiki team ten volunteer administrators that help me to find problems and determine contest winners and suggest paths for the Wiki to move to.  These moderators are extremely generous with their time and without them the Wiki would not have grown so quickly and had such well written articles.

Rest assured we won’t be sitting still for the next year.  We have plenty of revisions and a few major updates to bring to you.  We will not be idle but an ever changing and ever adapting Wiki with many ideas yet to implement.

From all of the Forum Nokia administrators and my self; we wish you a Happy Holiday and many more to follow.

Ron

To register go to http://connectpro26249165.acrobat.com/ma/event/registration.html

Other Webinars that are coming up are

Exploring Flash Lite Video Capabilities for Mobile Tuesday, December 18, 2007

and

FlashLite and Flex for mTourism Wednesday on January 23, 2008

Congratulations to Carbider -- Contributor of the Month

Forum Nokia honors one member every month for their outstanding contribution to our community’s Wiki. The winner for the Month of November is Carbider who was rewarded with an Nokia N95 Multimedia Device for his contributions of several high quality articles this month and in previous months Carbider not only contributes in English but also translates his articles into Russian as well. The Wiki moderators and I extend a warm thanks to Carbider for contributing to the developer community.

 Ron

The winners of the November Contribution contest are SergioEstevao,| Kavitaobhan and Arunjyothiskp.

The Wiki administrators and myself want to thank all that contributed to the Wiki in November and feel everyone is a winner by helping others by sharing your knowledge. Remember you can still win a new Nokia S60 multimedia device as the contributor of the month so please keep the contributions coming.

Ron

1. Mobile Multimedia Experience: specifically driven by audio reproduction, camera and display technologies for exiting and professional performance.
2. Future Device Architecture: as enabler of enhanced device capabilities, faster processing and lower energy consumption for increased customer usability possibilities.
3. User Interface interest areas are very much in simplicity and human intuitiveness together with naturally required haptics.
4. Future Touch and Feel is seeking after novel look & feel, form factor, durability and movement solutions which provide unique design possibilities and may even enable the capability for individual personalization with no compromises on the usability.