One of the differences that's been highlighted between the two latest heavyweight mobile devices, Apple's iPhone and the Nokia N95, is the fact that the iPhone doesn't handle MMS messages. If you've noticed that your phone does them but you've never used them, now's the time to get yourself introduced!

MMS is multimedia messaging service. Which, never mind that—it means you can send pics and video and STUFF in what is more than just an oversized text message. It's a feature that's been a part of S60 for a long long time, but there are plenty of people who never use it. For shame! It's one of the more entertaining things a phone actually does.

To use it, just open messaging and create a new multimedia message. Key in your text, add a picture or sound or video, or even more than one, and then hit send. Alternatively, if you're viewing a picture, you can hit Options, select Send, and Via Multimedia Message. You'll notice this popping up in context menus whenever you're viewing or listening to something that can be sent by MMS.

So, here are the quick hits for Why You Oughta Use MMS If You Don't Already:

- A picture really is worth a thousand words. And if you're the type that wants to write a thousand words on your phone, I don't know what else to say to you.

- Show someone something you're shopping for, map directions, the spot in the park where you're waiting for them to show up with a picnic basket, a diagram you need them to see, a picture of the gang you're with in the pub as incentive to join the party (or deterrent, depening on how long you've been in the pub) or your facial reaction to their last SMS. If you need to show them something instead of describing it, MMS really works.

- It's instantaneous. You don't wait for a person to get to their email or to see them in person to show them on your phone. Just snap a pic and it's off.

- News and radio channels often have MMS numbers (or email addresses). If you happen to snap the right shot of an event, why not send it to your local news?

- Send to another phone or to an email address. Just key in an email address instead of a phone number. Even if you don't need to send any multimedia, this can come in handy if you haven't gotten around to setting up email on yoru phone but need to send a message to someone's email address.

- Many S60 devices come with a little application called "Muvee" in it. I'll be posting on that one later and I'll let you explore that one on your own for now, but it's been one of my favourites for sending something to really brighten up a person's mood. Simple, big on the personal touch, and extremely silly.

- Nothing says "I love you" like sending someone a new ring tone. It's possible with MMS.

- MMS is another simple way of uploading photos to a photo community like flickr or to a blog. Many of these places allow you to upload photos via email. Well, MMS can send to an email address, so it works just fine!

Not working?
First off, if your MMS messages aren't sending, it may be because you don't have the proper settings in your phone. If your phone didn't come with the settings already installed, try out Nokia.com support (quick links to settings if you live in the US or in Europe... otherwise just go to your region's support pages on Nokia.com and look for Settings). Another factor, which seems obvious but isn't to everyone, is that the person on the other end has to be able to receive MMS messages. If their phone doesn't handle them, your network provider will often use another solution, such as forwarding a link by SMS to the message.

What have I left out? I know that a large percentage of mobile-savvy people still never bother with MMS, but the criticism (too difficult or inconvenient) is really unfounded IMHO. It's all in good fun, and occasionally really useful.

"Good memory, but short" is something they say here in Helsinki, and I have a feeling it applies mostly to Great People You Met At A Party Last Weekend & You'll Never Ever Remember Their Names, Ever. This sort of thing happens to me a lot, it seems—I have a theory about my meeting a lot of people and my brain basically doing social memory triage and deleting tonnes of names and faces really shortly after hearing and seeing them in order to maximize the chances that I'll remember where I locked my bike, or what my own name is, etc.

But anyway there's something in S60 that really comes in handy when you meet a lot of people: assigning pictures to your contacts. What you do is snap a shot of the person, and when you get their name and number, set that picture to be their thumbnail. When they call you (or when you call them, or just look at their entry in the contacts) you'll see a little avatar-sized photo of them. This works great when about a week ago you were at a party where there were a lot of new people, or a conference where you met a bunch of new potential business contacts.

There are two ways to do it: when editing the contact details, choose "Add thumbnail" and you'll open the phone's gallery, where you can select the photo to use. Or, if you're browsing your pictures, you can select a photo, choose Use image > Assign to contacts.