Last Saturday I and my girlfriend had a fight and we came to a conclusion that we will not talk to each other for times undecided. Well this was how it was to be. Our friends tried to beat the heat but things were the same. Well, it was partly my fault but being a bit egoistic at that moment I stood affirm on no talking terms instead of saying sorry. And I knew sooner or later I would have to say it someway or the other.

After a couple of days we started talking through a middle man. My friend Amu used to convey messages to and fro between us. This is when it clicked me why not have a fight and that too in style. So I told Amu to tell her to sign up for widest pets application on facebook, to which I had sent her an invite. Now Amu came up back after a few minutes ans asked that he and my girlfriend both wanted to know what widest pets application was about. So I told Amu that I am an S60 Ambassador, where I came to know about the widest pets application. All you have to do is to make a mini pet of yourself and send it for adoption to your friends to take care of you. It is so easy to use with a set of different functions you can play around with which go on increasing as you use them. From Hi five to spank to love to pillow fights its all fun. I told him that all you need is a facebook account and widsets application and you are done. You can also download all your pets to your phone and use them on the go. And that too ANY phone.

After a few hours I had a mail in my account for pet adoption and request for my pet adoption. I approved and me and my girlfriend started off with our fight and spanked each other. And slowly n slowly I expressed my feelings for her and told her that im sorry and she agreed and hugged me with a kiss. It was so amazing. Thanks widest pets, I said what I wanted to and that to in a fun way.

As for Amu, he started feeling left out when he came to know that me any my girlfriend were back together again. Poor him.

Thanks crazysehaj! Kristina will be in contact with details about our N82 loaner program.

• Widgets are little Web applications, and come in many shapes and sizes


• WidSets is a service that distributes widgets.


• With some widgets, you need some sort of widget program (like the WidSets client) to see them.


• If you have an S60 phone, you can use fancier widgets that can do more stuff and can be launched directly from the application menu.

-Oren

And cool first photo of slick and cobblestoned Helsinki streets!

Fast forward about 13 months. The Wireless Audio Gateway still sat on top of my stereo, fresh and clean, and in its packaging. I hadn't even tried to set it up. Why? For one thing, I still have all my CDs in a 400 disc changer, and I didn't really need to play songs from my phone on my stereo. But if I'm honest with myself, there was another, deeper-- and far darker -- reason: I was afraid the setup would be cumbersome, the manual would s*ck, and I would ulitimately would become frustrated and disillusioned.

So...last Friday I was out playing poker with some friends, and one of the guys in the group had a certain fruity smartphone device. He'd just bought a new app for it that allowed him to play songs over this stereo. I was interested in the technology and asked to try it. Seemed to work well enough. What floored me, though, was the reaction to the device from everyone around the table. You'd have thought this was the newest, greatest, cleanest, most cutting-edge technology to come around since the invention of the toaster. My friends simply could not get enough of this gadget. How cool! How slick! How does it work! Eventually they turned to me and asked "Does *Nokia* have a a phone that can do this?". The tone was smug. They were sure Nokia could never have anything that could control your stereo from your phone. This was the USA, after all. Most of them probably wouldn't even know Nokia made smartphones if they didn't know me. I have to admit, the question irked me. Of COURSE WE HAVE A PHONE THAT DOES THIS! We've been able to do this for years! I felt like I was on tilt. I had to remind myself to calm down and play the hand that was dealt me. Not to overplay it, but to just take it easy and let the game unfold. I ended up losing for the night.

Needless to say, the next morning I finally opened up the packaging on my Nokia Wireless Audio Gateway. And I have to admit, I was initially dismayed to find that the manual really was hard to follow. So I took matters into my own hands and pressed a couple buttons on the top of the WAG. That was relatively easy, cuz there are only two of them. Within minutes -- literally -- the device was paired with my N95 8GB and I was playing music. It really was that easy. So, if and when I host those jerks (my friends) for poker, I'll be ready to show them how my Nokia device controls my stereo.

Meanwhile...back at the office....
I came into the office today and noticed 5 more Gateways in the boxes behind my desk. Kristina reminded me that there are to be used as rewards for the most engaged "Widset Pet" Ambassadors. Well, I'm now eager to give these away. And then hear from the Ambys: How long will it take the average Ambassador to set this thing up?

Perhaps they should say that about S60 devices too.

I was just recently reading one of the S60 related blogs from our friends in India, called, (drum roll please) The S60 Blog. They were suggesting that there should be an S60 version of the Nokia 8800. Their intention was to say that although the Nokia 8800 has a wonderful combination of beauty, elegance, style, etc., but was lacking the power, functionality, and user experience delivered through the S60 platform. I think they really liked the form factor as well.

Just for a bit of background here, for anyone who may not have been reading this blog over the past week, you need to know that I was separated from my S60 multimedia enhanced (Nokia N95) most unceremoniously last weekend.

Yes, thieves broke into my car and stole it. ;-(

Since then, I have been granted the use of a Nokia E66, a business focused device. (I know, you can't buy them yet, and I'm truly sorry for that, because, well, you know...)

So imagine my surprise when I unwrapped the E66 and held it in my hand, then opened and shut the slide a few times...and I was reminded of some of the very good things found in the fashion conscious Nokia 8800.

Wait a minute...did he say...?

Yes, I did.

Allow me to explain. Before I set anyone off, let me just say upfront that this is not a "fashion" phone. It is certainly not an "all beauty - no brains" package. This is, first and foremost, an enterprise optimized device with GPS, Wi-Fi, S60 browser, basically the whole s60 package plus email options galore, security features,etc. But, it reminds me of the Nokia 8800.

Uh, in what way...?

First, look at the physical dimensions.

Nokia 8800
Size: 107 x 45 x 17.2 mm
Weight: 139 g

Nokia E66
Size: 107.5 x 49.5 x 13.6 mm
Weight: 121 g

Height/length, almost exactly the same.
Width - the E66 is a bit wider, but that allows for a significantly larger screen.
Thickness, the E66 at only 13.6 mm is actually 3.6 mm thinner than the Nokia 8800!
Weight, the E66 weighs 18 grams less, but still feels incredibly solid.

But beyond just the dimensions, it was the solid construction, the precision of the slide, the satisfying feel of the spring loaded slide mechanism and the sophistication of the finishes that kept bringing me back to the Nokia 8800 comparison. Wait until you see it in person - then you'll understand!

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be a commercial for the Nokia E66, but my point is, i wasn't looking for this kind of experience from a phone designed for the business segment. Maybe I should be.

And maybe our friends at The S60 Blog in India should be as well.

To think: If Nikhil had just been fed one more steak, he would have forced an overtime round! The agony of defeat....
As winner, AuntieWiv survives to fight another day. This week's challenger is baddog79. AuntieWiv says "A champ is not a champ until he has defended his belt". Well, we hope he said that. Or maybe thought it at some point. At any rate, he is now defending his Widset Pet Title Belt. Let the fight begin, and may the best pet win. Here is the challenger. An underdog if ever there was one:

and his "live feed":

Start your engines, get your bowls ready, water your daisies, do whatever needs to be done. This week's battle should be a good one.

While our team tests these features and has fixed a few bugs most of the recent improvement is due to work by other committers on the CDT project. Markus Schorn at Wind River has lead the great improvement in the CDT indexer over the past couple releases and Andrew Ferguson at Symbian has addressed a lot of issues that effect Carbide.c++ users in particular.

The CDT C++ indexer code isn’t easy to just pick up and play around with so there aren’t a lot of people with the skills and experience to work on improvements. So we’re very happy Andrew’s work on CDT has continued: he’s fixed over a dozen bugs in CDT 5.0.x that we’ll be using in the upcoming Carbide 2.0 release. You can see the details by searching the Eclipse bugzilla. Thanks Andrew.

This version can be installed directly on top of MWS, after which you can develop mobile sites using PHP and MySQL. And be able to install pretty much any PHP/MySQL based CMS, Wiki or other package alongside the default MWS site. But there are still rough edges, so it's better if you are not afraid of the bleeding-edge:)

As usual, you can download PAMP from SourceForge and installation instructions are provided in our wiki.

In case of any problems or questions, please use the Forum Nokia discussion board.

Have fun!

Johan

Here's Gomcoite's submission:

Going Back In Time

This one is a special one and it goes like this. Do you know we had 25,000 weddings in one day in Delhi last week, well if not, now you know it now. I'm sure it's a world record. It was my Boss's daughter's wedding. Well, we had our part of participation in setting up the event, sending invites, checking upon food etc. after all it was our Boss's only daughter the preparations of which had been going on since god knows when. Some ritual were well organized and at the same time some went a bit off track but in all it was awesome. We had our share of fun and enjoyed every moment. My friend clicked a few shots with his N91. This is when I caught him and asked if he could share it with me online using Ovi. After a pause he asked what is Ovi, well I told him that it's a way to share your media online with your friends with your s60 device on the go. I told him to Bluetooth me the pictures and I'll show how it works. It was pretty cool as I explained him about channels, public and private & the best straight access from our phone. He wanted get his own channel and thanked me. I told him that he could also get up front with cool tricks by visiting s60.com and can join the ambassadors program like me. Anyways the wedding went on and we danced, ate and drank and had a lot of fun.

After a couple of days I went to visit my boss and found that he was out but aunty was in and invited me for a cup of tea. I stepped inside and as you know it we started to chat about the wedding. After a few minutes she said how her daughter was just a kid and now she's married. It almost seems as if yesterday. The house seems so empty now. I knew what she meant but to keep her on the brighter sides of the things I introduced her to the Widset Pets application. I told her that I am an S60 Ambassador and came to know about the Widset Pets there. She was receptive on what I was saying but I still feel she was lost. So I took out my N82 and showed her how things worked. I started from scratch and told her that you first set up a Facebook account an online social network and then you add the Wisdet Pet application. Next you make you Mini Pet and send it for adoption to your friends and adopt their Mini Pets. Then you download the application to your mobile and then you go around taking care. I showed her how Mini Gomcoite was doing. Its like going back to the old days when you were small and were being taken care off.

She was amazed and said that she would love to try. Besides this I also introduced her to Ovi where she could share pictures, video, audio etc. with her daughter online and straight from her mobile. Well now she can be a part of the coming events in her daughter?s life and vice versa. I also showed her the wedding pictures I had online on ovi. During this the Boss made an entry and I greeted him. He asked if everything was ok back in the hospital and sat down in the dining. Aunty told him that how I used Ovi and the Widset Pets and we sat down for a long conversation.

Ciao

PS
You can get a glance of the wedding by clicking on the following link
http://share.ovi.com/search/owner%3agomcoite+tag%3awedding
these are two shots that I have on my public channel.

Thanks Gomcoite, and Kristina will be in touch with loaner details :-)

To submit your Widset Pet report just enter the Ambassador section of S60.com, click on reports and then select "Widset Pets" from the drop down and start typing away!

-Oren

We'll be giving these away to the Top 10 "Widset Pet" Ambassadors at the end of the current campaign (still 6 weeks away). To be eligible for the headset you have to sign up for the Widset Pet campaign. See your ranking by presssing the "Ranking" button on the left hand side of the Ambassador main page (who knew, right?)

Once you start submitting reports you'll see your ranking move up!

Happy WoMing!!

I felt I deserved better.

How did I know it was an amateur? He stole the faceplate from my car stereo, and then attacked the dashboard and the rest of the car stereo with a screwdriver - just digging and gouging in an attempt to dislodge the radio/cd/mp3 player. He never got the radio out, but took the useless faceplate anyway.

Sheesh! He destroyed the radio and jacked the dash enough to look pretty bad.

Then, he went into the center console. ;-(

This is where the story gets really ugly. (Those with small children may want to stop reading here. )

HE STOLE MY N95!!!!

You might ask, why did I leave it in the car? I've already beat myself up enough over that one, ok? Let's just say I did, and leave it at that. (it had to do with having no pockets in my running shorts and a bunch of other lame-o excuses no one really wants to hear...) But the bottom line is...

HE STOLE MY N95!!!!

It was the beginning of a holiday weekend here, and I couldn't get my SIM replaced or a new handset until Monday. ughhh.

So, I had another SIM and put it into a NON-S60 phone. I synced up my calendar and contacts, so I was at least able to make calls and remember commitments, but there was sooooo much I couldn't do. No Wi-Fi, no GPS, no S60 browser, a weak music player, minimal video options, and a VGA camera, for pete's sake!

All my great stuff I set up to post on Vox and Share on Ovi...gone. My Slingplayer...gone. My Facebook...gone. My Plazes...gone. More than one thing running at a time so I can switch back and forth...gone.

You know, you can start to take for granted all the functionality that is packed into S60 devices while you have one, but try giving it up for 4 days. It's truly a drag.

Auntiewiv

Nikhilchawla:

Good luck, and may the best pet win!

Today I checked again and of course Rita had closed the gap. We are in a dead heat. But....the International Widset Pet Commission (IWPC) has met and given the title of "Widset Pet of the Week" to Rita. Why? The IWPC says: "Rita got extra points for offering to adopt Dan's pet halfway through the contest." A classy move. Or possibly wily. You be the judge. Maybe we'll never know for sure. At any rate the entire Widset Pet community has been rocked by this ruling. So score one for Lebanon. Here's the final standings:

Thanks Rita for partipating :-)

What does that mean? That means with this accessory you can now take your N73 and watch you favorite TV programs on it! If you already own an N73 and you live in a region where DVB-H is available this new accessory is definitely worth checking out.

The N73 is currently the only Multimedia Computer that has support for the SU-33W, but I hope to see more devices getting support in the future. To find out if your region has DVB-H coverage check the official DVB-H services website.

Check out our modern-day Casanova in action:

Guess this has to do with the increase in fuel prices, but I decided to join a carpool. Today was my first day. The concept is different. I pay a fixed monthly amount as a deposit/maintenance charge and then based on usage pay the car owner some fixed amount of money every time I use the ride. Then there are 3 different slots (say in evening cars leaving at 6 pm, 7 pm, and 7.30pm) and you can choose anyone you will use in the evening. You need to decide by 2 pm and inform the co. about your choice for the evening. On my way back, I got a ride with 4 ladies (don?t get excited, they were elderly ladies) and since I was the youngest, got chatty with me. Within a few minutes they knew all events in my life and with nothing more to share, I pulled out my N82 to pass time. I had recently installed Widsets and wanted to set it up. The fancy setup of widsets caught my neighbours attention and asked whether I was watching a cartoon on my mobile. I told her that I have created a pet and am trying to take care of it. For a moment, she gave me a look as if I have dropped from a different planet or something. I explained to her that it was a program where in one creates and maintains a pet. Then I showed her the application and told that just today I have installed this on my phone, since I am fairly new to this phone. Then I asked her if she knew about facebook and she had heard about it. I told her, this was an application created for facebook and the developer had also created a mobile version which all java based phones could use. I explained a bit more technical stuff about java/non java/S60,S40 cellphones, which they surely weren?t interested in. Then the usual remark came out ?you young fellow know so much about technology!? when I told them that I was a part of the S60 ambassador program which made me aware of technology. I quickly explained about the S60 ambassador program, lest not to bore them to death. I got off 2nd and I know what the ladies must be thinking about me ;-)

Thanks Ritesh! (We'll send a loaner N95 your way for submitting such an engaging report).

You can find this and other videos at: http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Carbide_Training_Videos

Got ideas for screencasts you'd like to see? Leave us some feedback here and we'll get on it!

How To Get A Beating From Your Girlfriend And Entertain Her Little Sisters

It had to happen eventually. You get all these different applications and widgets that eventually you forget about some. Take Widsets Pets for example. I'd gotten my girlfriend to create herself on it for me to torture, um I mean play with and love when we're apart. Unfortunately I haven't really been looking in on her this past month and she's gotten thin and her clothes are all but rags as she stands alone in the desert with a broken heart. I didn't mean to do it, honest.

Anyway this all came as quite a shock to me and I swore when I saw her like that, eliciting high pitched giggles from her two little sisters who were visiting that day. As I explained what had happened they all started to look at me like I was insane, so I passed my phone over to the girls and explained how to use it. They spent the next hour bathing, brushing and feeding their big sister as if she was a doll, and loving every minute of it. Their mum and her boyfriend had never seen them so engrossed apparently, so I explained how they could get it on their own phones for the girls to play with. After wrestling my phone back (early teen girls stick to mobile phones - must be a genetic mutation of the species) I demoed a bit more of the Widsets service to let Dawn see how it'd benefit her as well as her girls and they left with the web address to download it for themselves, instructions on how to create their own pets, as well as a tip to get 3 UK sim cards as they have a cheap monthly data deal. Personally I refuse to let the lil monsters adopt my pet. They'd torture him soooo much.

Oh, you want to know about the beating in the title? Well, it wasn't so much that my real girlfriend was angry that I'd neglected her virtual self for so long, more that the last action I'd performed (that was still visible on the reaction screen) was to whip her. We made up though... eventually. =o(

EDIT - Everyone I know knows that I'm a phone guru and I explained about this WOM advertising thing and got permission to use their names in online reports about conversations we have about relevant features.

Thanks Furie. Contact Kristina to get yourself an N82 loaner to show off to your friends and your friends' little sisters...meantime, pls stay out of trouble ;-)

Congrats to Kukalubo, you get bragging rights for the week. What's up with Kristina's social score btw...despite all of our efforts we couldn't even get it up above 40%...I guess that says something about people that work for Nokia?

Any other Widset Ambassadors looking to volunteer for a head to head battle? Let us know and we'll put you up on Consumed for a smackdown tomorrow...

Friends, this blog has been archived. At least for now.

It has been a truly great ride here at S60 blogs. Oh, why? Well, as they say, the best part of blogging is who you get to meet. Thanks to blogging, I have met loads of brilliant people around the planet (face to face and virtually) and even got invited to a lunch with OPK himself. And even more, I think I got my latest job as the manager of Nokia Beta Labs largely thanks to it. But lately, I just haven't had time to update this particular blog properly. Moreover, in the new role, I don't find myself thinking specifically about S60 too much anymore. Instead, the ideas I get excited about nowadays tend to be something completely different... I find myself ranting and raving in Nokia intranet about web stuff, and especially about some particular social aspects of it: co-creation, harnessing collective intelligence, community-building, etc. Therefore, I decided to call it a day.

Anyway, let's keep in touch!! Oh, and don't forget to subscribe to http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog (shameless plug).

Ps. free tip for all you kids out there: when you are selecting an URL for your web presence, choose something you can keep. Trust me. You know, this blog is still in top-3 in all search engines for keywords S60 applications, S60 apps, and, strangely, top-1 match for Google Image search for network. It takes a while - and a lot of work - to get there. But that guarantees you thousands of visitors a month without doing anything, not to mention the RSS subscriber base. Oh well...