I was invited to the event, Nokia Sharing Experience held yesterday at MILK Studio located at 11C Mount Sophia, #02-16. In the RSVP image that was sent to my email, it only states that Nokia is introducing their latest devices as well as Share on Ovi. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the words “latest devices” is N78 and N96.

The place was a little difficult to find if you have not been to Mount Sophia before (like me). I need to climb up a long flight of stairs before reaching Mount Sophia. Being the usual me, I was there early. My name was always in the early bird draw for almost every Nokia event, but unfortunately I always didn’t win!

Caught up with a couple of Text100 personnel like Felicia, Liyi and Carolyn, finally I can put the face to the name whom I contact with via email. I realized most PR personnel are all girls (except for Dinesh from Nokia and Aaron from Text100). I also talked to several people from Nokia like Angela, Annette (who used to stay 2 levels above me), Keith, Sueanne and a few others whom I did not get their name cards. I am bad with remembering names, better not type it here if I am unsure of it.

The event started off with the press release of Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 Classic and Share on Ovi by the GM of Nokia Singapore, Grant McBeath. Tips on how to use your mobile phone camera to take great pictures by Olivier Henry who is a French Photographer was up next and lastly Keith who is the head of games in Nokia talked about Ovi and Nokia latest devices.

After the talk, there was a mini competition where each and everyone of the invited guests can get to choose either a N78 or 6220 Classic to capture 2 creative images using the device and submit it to Share on Ovi. Being the Nseries fan myself, of course I choose the N78. I took a picture of an Exit sign for the object/people category and a Road Arrow for the landscape category. The winner of each category will get either a N78 or a 6220 Classic, and again unfortunately, I didn’t win.

I must say that whenever there is food in a Nokia event, the food is always good or rather personally I like it! This one is no exception.

I left there at about 7pm as I need to rush off to my Dad’s birthday dinner at Outback Steak House.

Nokia N78
The Nokia N78 will be available in Singapore next week and the RRP for the phone is SGD$808 without any operator plan. I just love the geo tagging feature for this phone. As you all may know this phone came equipped with a GPS so that the location of your photo shot can get tag by the GPS coordinates. In the event of the lost or no GPS signal, the mobile phone cellular signal will kick in and your photo will still get tagged. I was really amazed by this feature. In Singapore where it is a small country, there is base stations almost everywhere and hence the cellular signal tagging can be as accurate as the GPS tagging.

I did asked whether the cellular signal tagging will come to existing Nseries devices in future firmware upgrades and unfortunately the answer is no as the support for the cellular signal tagging is more of a hardware issue rather than a software issue.

I played around with this phone and somehow all the animations in FP2 looks nice but there is a 1 to 2 seconds delay because of the animation. Of course the animation can be turned off easily.

The keypad of the Nokia N78 needs a little getting used to as the Menu button and the Clear button is on the side rather than at the top.

Nokia 6220 Classic
Didn’t get a chance to play with the Nokia 6220 Classic. But it will be available in Singapore in June 2008 with a RRP of SGD$728 without any operator plan. According to Keith, it will be the cheapest 5 megapixel camera phone with Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics out there in the market. Imagine this phone as a N82 but running FP2.

Share on Ovi
With unlimited number of media in any channel, Share on Ovi beats Flickr hands down. Flickr only allows 200 photos for the “free” membership. Share on Ovi also beats Facebook as Facebook only allows 60 photos in an album.

You can upload photos, videos and even powerpoint slides to Share on Ovi and share it with your friends. It supports up to 100+ file extensions.

In order to seamlessly upload photos or videos from your Nokia mobile phones to Share on Ovi , you need to download Share Online 3 which is under your Download Folder in your menu.

And best of all, it is free! I almost wanted to pay for the “pro” membership in Flickr but now I think I shall stick to Share on Ovi.

Here is the widget that I embedded from Share on Ovi:

You can check out my Share on Ovi Profile too.

Nokia Music Store opens in Singapore with millions of songs
Music lovers gain easy access to music they love including locally relevant content

Singapore – Nokia announced today that the Nokia Music Store in Singapore is now “live”at www.music.nokia.com.sg. With millions of tracks from major international artists, independent labels and Asian content, the Nokia Music Store brings true freedom to music lovers letting people buy and enjoy music directly from their Nokia device or personal computer 24/7.

“Consumers now have instant access to millions of songs from a very wide gamut of genres ranging from pop to dance to Asian like Mandarin, Malay and Indian music. At the same time, users can enjoy the great usability that the Nokia brand is renowned for,” said Grant McBeath, General Manager, Nokia Singapore. By using the integrated mobile and PC download service, music lovers here can build a music collection that is truly mobile through the Nokia Music Store.”

“With the rising demand for digital music in Singapore, Nokia Music Store increases the options for consumers by leaps and bounds, as well as brings the artists closer to their audience through their mobile device, an intimate platform that is always with them,” said Gary See, Managing Director, Universal Music Singapore.

Music from Asian Artists
Besides making available the digital music from international labels at the Nokia Music Store, prominent independent labels in Asia including Ocean Butterflies Music and Rock Records Singapore have partnered with Nokia to distribute their content too. Additionally, RS Digital, an independent label from Thailand is offering Thai music via the Singapore site. The combined Asian music content by the international and Asian labels gives consumers a very comprehensive array of Chinese, Malay and Thai soundtracks in addition to local music.

“As a leading independent music powerhouse in Asia, Ocean Butterflies is proud to work with Nokia to offer a unique proposition to music lovers, particularly fans of Chinese pop. This is not only a milestone for Nokia, who has a long history of connecting people to each other, and to the music they love. It is also a key development for the music industry,” said Billy Koh, Ocean Butterflies Music founder and director.

Single Account Sign-on and Intuitive Interface
With a single account, music lovers can access the Nokia Music Store via their desktop computer or directly from optimized Nokia devices such as the Nokia N81, Nokia N82 and Nokia N95 8GB. In addition, users can sync easily from a PC with a wide range of Nokia models including the Xpress Music handsets, Nokia 5610 and Nokia 5310.

Browse for new music, get recommendations or stream favourite songs or albums all at the fingertips. The Store’s intuitive user interface allows users to easily add any song to a wishlist to buy later or purchase it immediately for download to your device, without having to download the same song again on your computer. Users can synchronise their music collection between their PC to compatible Nokia devices using Windows Media Player 11.

Pricing
Individual tracks cost S$2.00 per track and albums are from S$16.00 for most albums. The Nokia Music Store also offers unlimited PC streaming at S$16.00 per month. All music on the Nokia Music Store can be purchased through a variety of payment options, including credit cards, AXS machines and vouchers.

Consumers can also look forward to free tracks given out regularly, as well as the exclusive distribution of new albums or new tracks at the Nokia Music Store.

About Nokia Music Store
Nokia Music Store is a service where you can browse and buy music in order to download on your PC and compatible Nokia mobile device. Music downloaded from Nokia Music Store can be conveniently moved between your PC and compatible Nokia device, as well as copied to CD and moved on to compatible digital music players. Nokia Music Store also offers a monthly subscription service that allows you to stream unlimited music from the Store catalogue direct to your internet-connected PC. The Nokia Music Store is available in the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, France, and Singapore and will expand to more countries throughout the year. www.nokia.com/music

About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet services, as well as our enterprise solutions and software, is a key area of focus. We also provide equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

Source: Sent to me via email

As you may or may not know, “Tube” is the codename for the next S60 touch screen aka iPhone killer from Nokia. The OS behind it is the 5th generation of the S60.

Of course, it has a pretty respectable list of features, starting with a great high resolution (16:9) touch screen, larger than 3" but still smaller than 3,5". Yes it has a camera, a decent auto focus one that is way better than the one that we can find on an iPhone but still not as good as on the latest Nseries devices!

It is a quad band phone that also has a wide range of connectivity options: Bluetooth, uPnP , GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA and WLAN. Furthermore it has built in GPS and will support geottaging. All of this is even more impressive considering that all of these features are packed into relatively small and compact body with size of “_ _ _ _”. I’ll only say that it is similar in size to the Nokia N73 but it is maybe a little bit wider. One more thing, NO, there is no multi touch and YES there is tactility feedback!

Check out the source for the video and more information.

Source: Symbian Freak: latest update on the hotly anticipated Nokia Tube
Source: Symbian Freak: “Tube” is the code name of upcoming Nokia’s iPhone killer

The N-Gage platform is now live. So far there is 5 devices (N81, N81 8GB, N82, N95, N95 8GB) supported according to the download page.

I think I am going to get my copy of Block Breaker Deluxe. Just love that game.

We are live! The games, the devices, and the community are all here for you to finally get your teeth into. The Forums are back up and the new N-Gage application is here.

There will be an official announcement on Monday, but for you, the N-Gage faithful we wanted to let you know were up and running! So come join our moderators in the Forums for our launch party, and start enjoying the next generation of mobile gaming.

Source: N-Gage’s Blog

First things first, your Nokia Phone must be 802.11 enabled, be it a Nseries or an Eseries phone. I am using S60 3rd edition Symbian OS 9.2 as an example. But in theory it should work with other editions of S60 Symbian OS as well.

We will be using NUS WLAN SSID “NUS” instead of “NUSOPEN”, as “NUS” is protected by PEAP.

Lets begin:
Part 1 – Defining NUS SSID

1. Go to Menu > Tools > Settings > Connection > Access points
2. Click on Options, then New access point
3. Under Connection name, key in NUS
4. Under Data bearer, select Wireless LAN
5. Under WLAN netw. name, key in NUS
6. Under Network status, leave it as Public
7. Under WLAN netw. mode, leave it as Infrastructure
8. Under WLAN security mode, select 802.1x
9. Click on WLAN security settings, and you will get into a new page
10. Under The WPA/WPA2 , leave it as EAP
11. Click on EAP plugin-settings, and you will get into a new page
12. Ensure ONLY EAP-PEAP is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-PEAP). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
13. Click on EAP-PEAP, and you will get into a new page

Part 2 – Configuring EAP-PEAP

14. Under Personal certificate, leave it as Not defined
15. Under Authority certificate, select Thawte Premium Server
16. Under User name in use, select User defined
17. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain (NUSSTU, NUSSTF or GUEST) portion)
18. Under Realm in use, select User defined
19. Under Realm, leave it as BLANK
20. Under Allow PEAPv0, select Yes
21. Under Allow PEAPv1, select No
22. Under Allow PEAPv2, select No
23. Move to EAPs tab, by pressing your right arrow key

Part 3 – Configuring EAP-MSCHAPv2

24. Ensure ONLY EAP-MSCHAPv2 is ENABLED (check mark will only appear beside EAP-MSCHAPv2). You can disable the remaining EAP types by going to Options > Disable
25. Click on EAP-MSCHAPv2, and you will get into a new page
26. Under User name, key in your NUSNET UserID (EXCLUDING the domain portion)
27. Under Prompt password, select No
28. Under Password, key in your NUSNET Password
29. Click Back about 10 times or enough times to reach the standby screen

Part 4 – Scanning For NUS SSID

30. Turn On your WLAN scanning and you should be able to detect and connect to NUS wireless network

No screenshots are included as I think it is pretty straightforward.

FULL CREDITS goes to Zit Seng‘s Configuring N95 WLAN for NUS Wireless