Ron Liechty's Forum Nokia Blog

Brief Forum Nokia Maintenance

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:26:17 +0300

Forum Nokia web services will be down for a brief period Thursday morning from Midnight to 1:00 AM GMT (3:00 AM to 4:00 AM eastern Europe daylight savings time). During this time the entire web services will be affected. Forum Nokia thanks you for your patience during this brief maintenance break.

Ron

My Daily App

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:49:13 +0300

Are you reading My Daily App? This site sponsored by Forum Nokia has been reviewing applications available from Ovi Store and blogging about them at MyDailyApp.com. As a person selling applications, it is good that this independent group is reviewing and bringing to notice these applications. These applications are something you may never have heard about but are cool to have.

I invite you to take a look; the reviews are cool and unbiased. As a developer you should know they are not limited to big developer houses but highlight the small independent distributor. If the Widget or app is cool and in the Ovi store, they will promote it.

Ron

Removal of Verification for Responding to bBog

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:23:58 +0300

Last year we tried to open the Forum Nokia blogs up for non-members. However, in order to prevent spam we instigated a verification scheme which was faulty. Basically if you made one mistake or didn't put a title in the response it would be eternally fouled up as the verification would be cached incorrectly.

I apologize that it took so long to just abandon the verification process. We felt it could be fixed, it is a well established and used system but it just never worked correctly. The intent was to attract comments from outside of Forum Nokia but that never came about so there was no reason to continue with this frustrating verification system.

Ron

Innovation on YouTube

Mon, 11 May 2009 23:35:10 +0300

You can find all of the Forum Nokia Innovation Series Videos on Forum Nokia's Innovation Series YouTube channel.

You can learn more about top applications from the Forum Nokia Community, as told and demonstrated by the developers themselves. So go ahead, and check them out, leave some feedback, and subscribe to our channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/nokiadevforum

Ron

Designs on the Community

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:10:40 +0200

I don't know about you, but for me I started programming because my computer did not do something I wanted it to do or I thought I could do it better. Well, to be more accurate, it was something my computer did but did not do effectively so I wrote a batch program. Wow that was fun, then a bit of Gee Whiz Basic and I was hooked. This same desire to change or modify a machine still exists and one of the first ways to personalize a mobile device is to set up the background picture on your device.

It used to be when you thought of graphics and mobile devices your only thought was the ads that they appeared in. Recently wallpaper and themes have entered into the developer (and some hobbyist) mentality but generally we developers consider this low tech areas. Well guess again, the technologies for creating graphics is quite advanced and what you can do with them is very exciting. A new wave of developers is arriving and they are improving or personalizing their devices using graphics

To help those people and you also I have created a new Wiki Portal for Design and a new Discussion Forum for Themes and Design. Stop by and chat with people and have a bit of fun. Download the Carbide.ui Theme Edition and see what it will do for your S40 or S60 device.

You don't need to be an artist to do graphics anymore.

Ron

I'll be in Budapest, will you?

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:20:10 +0200

Hi All,

I'll be in Budapest, I hope to see some of my online friends while I'm there.

Forum Nokia Goes to Budapest: Developer Day and Code Camps

19-20th November, Budapest, Hungary

A 2-day event, with updates on the latest technologies and mobile market trends in Europe. From business perspectives and market & operator landscape to hands-on coding in Web Runtime Widgets and S60 5th Edition Touch UI, all the information you need from development to deployment of your applications will be available there.

Say hi if you are there, just look for the fat pirate. For detailed agenda, venues and registration, please visit: http://mktools.forum.nokia.com/invitation/fngoesbudapest

Ron

Launching S60 5th Edition mobile platform for smart phones

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:42:11 +0300

Today we reached a milestone at Nokia and Forum Nokia by launching S60 5th Edition mobile platform for smart phones and the Forum Nokia online communities is joining in on the fun!!

There is a contest in the Wiki for contributions on articles for developing applications, utilities, using and any other thing you can think of about the S60 5th Edition. Our Discussion board will soon have a forum dedicated to the new UI features and all the news will be covered fully in blogs and announcements.

S60 5th Edition is the next generation of the S60 platform. A new touch screen capability with tactile feedback, sensor framework, and support for QHD screens brings an unprecedented level of expression and usability to S60 devices. These new features enable application developers to build more features into their UIs using the extra screen real estate, and leverage touch, tactile feedback, and sensors to provide users with innovative ways of interacting with applications. Web and Flash Lite developers are now able to fully participate in the creation of mobile-aware applications and services, since S60 5th Edition gives them access to device data and information such as location. For content developers, QHD screen support opens the way for richer, more engaging content.

The S60 platform has already spawned many innovative applications. S60 5th Edition offers new opportunities for developers to innovate further with a range of new APIs:

C++ developers get new UI controls and touch feedback APIs; a sensor framework to support accelerometers, magnetometers, and tap sensors; and improved features for Web services and XML processing.
Standard C/C++ developers get access to Open C++ (STL, IOStreams, and Boost libraries) as standard platform features.
Java developers get an updated version of the Advanced Multimedia Supplements (JSR-234).
WRT and Flash Lite developers gain access to S60 Platform Services, allowing them to access the application manager; S60 application data (Calendar, Contacts, Logs, Messaging [SMS and MMS]); device location and landmarks; system information; and sensors.
Media developers gain support for Windows Media (WM) DRM 10, WM Audio 9, and WM Video 9 (in selected devices).

Find all the 5th Edition info, SDK and other resources you need for your developers on Forum.Nokia.com: http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/resources/technologies/technology_in_the_spotlight.html

Recorded webcast and general press releases of today's announcement: Http://www.nokia.com/A41196476

Jorge Santiago and Ron

Get your product featured on MOSH with Spotlight Content

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:00:03 +0300

There is an interesting development at MOSH with the launch of the new Spotlight Content where developers can pay to have their applications highlighted on MOSH. MOSH wants to get the word out to the small developers first. MOSH believes that once the word gets out that the bigger development houses will take all the ads. So if you are a small firm right now is a good time to promote your product on MOSH.

Spotlight helps elevate your brand and mobile content through sponsoredplacement on Mosh. Through Spotlight, your mobile content will gain increased visibility, access to a global audience, a multi-channel distribution platform and access to today's most tech savvy audience who are actively looking for ways to improve their mobile experience.

Your content will appear in a highlighted area as users browse and search the site. If your content item matches a user's browsing pattern or search, your item will appear in the Spotlight section.

MOSH is Nokia’s vehicle for connecting, empowering and discovering the individuals who are actively shaping the future of the mobile Web.
MOSH connects content creators with a global community of consumers that are looking for free ‘stuff’for their phones

For more information contact: moshbusinessprograms@nokia.com

A Chance to Sound Off, Let Us Hear You

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:08:04 +0300

While I was in the service, we always had to follow the chain of command. There was never any chance to just sound off to the person above you and tell them what you thought. In work we have an open door policy and I can always go and tell my boss what I think...(although on some subjects discretion is wise).

Now you have a chance to sound off to the senior executives in Forum Nokia starting with the big man himself Thomas Libretto the Vice President of Forum Nokia. Also various directors from all over the world have made their self available and listed contact addresses of others in the organiztion.

This unique opportunity is on trial for one month, I encourage you to take this time to ask questions and send your comments to people that can help you do your job.

Check them out in the Discussion Boards Interviews and Ask the Experts forum

Ron

Recent Discussion Board Changes

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:34:43 +0300

I imagine that almost everyone has noticed the new changes in the Forum Nokia community discussion boards. The most striking change is the removal of descriptions for many forums. The reason for this is to clarify what is forum in itself and what is a group of forums with sub forums. Removing these generally redundant descriptions will allow us in the future to shrink some icons and make more forums viewable without scrolling down. For those that do like the descriptions we plan to add them back in as context sensitive pop-ups later this year.

I personally felt that the idea of having a forum like Location Based Services have a description of "Use this forum for discussion of Location Based Services" as foolish and almost insulting to our members.

All of the Parent forums with child forums now have a listing of the sub forums until we have context sensitive pop-ups. The forums that are stand alone have no description.

The other step that has happened is many sub-forums have been promoted to a higher level. The most recent was the Widget/Widset forum was promoted up from a sub forum of Web Technologies. Other notable changes are some of the feedback channels were merged into others and the parent folder was removed. At no time are messages lost they are simply put into another category.

We have other plans to merge forums I think Games will merge into the General category both on Symbian C++ and Mobile Java forums. They simply do not have enough traffic to keep them separate.

Please feel free to let me know how you like or dislike these changes and other changes you'd like to see.

Ron