On the evening, I had plan to have dinner with my girl. That should be a nice dinner. But, it turned into bad situation when I realized that I didn’t have my Nokia E72 with me. That was the time when all food were on the table. I haven’t touched anything — well, not really ‘anything’, but only some peanuts. Last time I remembered was that when I was in a taxi. I called the taxi operator and worked with the guy on the phone. I even called the taxi driver and asked him to pick us again. No luck. In short: I lost my phone. Now, I only have 5800XM with me.

It was the first time I lost my phone. And, I think I just started to love my E72. Since I don’t have it with me anymore, I canceled some plans I made with the phone like making some video episodes using it for my videoblog, exploring camera features, and more. But, I also feel lucky to get chances to work with it — I only had it with me for about 3 months, anyway. And, what made it worse is that I was not easy to find at that time. I visited more than 6 phone shops and ended at Depok with little bit higher price. And, there was only one item in stock. BlackBerry came to my plan at that time, but after comparing some features, I think I made a right decision.

I was waiting for few weeks to share my experience with this toy, but since I don’t have it with me anymore I will share how I use it. You can call it a review if you want.

Note: This is NOT a sponsored review. I wrote this based on my personal experience and observation.

The first thing I did was to make Ovi Map work. When I fired up the phone, I it took few seconds to recognize my location using built-in GPS. Great. Since I also have my 5800 XM synchronized with Ovi Maps, I just synchronized the data into my E72. Easy, without any issue. It took some moments to experience its full QWERTY keyboard — yes, it’s my first phone with full QWERTY keyboard.

Camera

Nokia E72 equipped with 5 MP camera. I forgot which picture I took for the first time. This is an example of the photo taken using the camera. When I took this object, the weather was a little bit cloudy. But, I like the final result.

Compared to my Nokia 5800 XM, I like E72 camera results. And, I took more pictures with it. I used in in some occasions like when I made Jakarta Carnival 2010 and Festival Jajanan Bango videos. The videos were not taken using camera phone. I use the camera to take photos as additional information for those episodes.

You can go directly to Jakarta Carnival 2010 and Festival Jajanan Bango photosets to see more sample photos. All photos were taken from my camera phone, without editing process.

What about videos? I couldn’t find any single video in my laptop right now to show you the video quality output. But, I just realized that I did a video streaming few times. You can go to my Qik Channel to see some sample videos. Please not that the real results should be much better. For my video streaming settings, I use the lower quality to reduce the delay.

Other notes

I decided to buy this phone because of my work too. I can check email, managed some Twitter accounts, checking Facebook (sometime), and also messaging. In short, this phone can increase my productivity. Or, I will say that it helps me to be connected with the internet and doing some online activities almost without any big issues.

But anyway, I don’t have it with me anymore. I can accept this. Yeah, it was my bad and unlucky day. I hope whoever who has my phone now can get a great experience like what I had. So, for my phone’s new owner: enjoy! I just upgraded the phone software on the day I lost it, and I have installed some Ovi applications there. If you like World Cup, I still have Vuvuzela app there too.

Still remember VOX? Or, maybe you haven’t heard VOX before. It’s another blogging service by Six Apart (the company behind Typepad and also Movable Type). This service was launched back in October 2006. And, I was lucky to be one of its early users. When this service was introduced for public, I got an invitation to try. And yes, it was in 2006. Some people wanted to try it.

I didn’t update my VOX-powered blog regularly, and my last post was in 2007. Ouch! That was three years ago. Few days ago, Six Apart announced that the service will be closed on September 30, 2010. Six Apart has some notes regarding the update:

• Vox is no longer accepting new user registrations.  If you have an existing Vox account you can continue to sign in to manage your account and view posts from your neighborhood.
• On Wednesday September 15th, you will no longer be able to create new posts on Vox or upload new photos or videos. You will still be able to sign in to view your blog and manage your account.
• On Thursday September 30th, your blog will no longer be available at Vox.com, and you will no longer be able to sign in to Vox.

Blogging service battle is getting more interesting these days. The competition among the players is interesting to follow. I think more new services provide easier and more fun ways to blog. Also, the tumblelog-style blogging is getting more popular. Just look at Posterous or Tumblr as an example. Maybe Six Apart will focus on its main products (Typepad and Movable Type) in the future. Or, will Six Apart come with another new service?

If you have a VOX account, you can migrate your contents to other services. Six Apart recommends Typepad, of course and also Flickr for media files. More details about the migration can be found at closing.vox.com. But, you have other option like moving your contents to Posterous or WordPress.com. I haven’t decided whether I will secure my contents there or not. Good bye VOX.

I don’t use Google Maps on daily basis. Now, it offers a short URL for map location link (reference). Now, compare this:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Jakarta+Capital+Region,+Indonesia&sll=-6.21185,106.845174&sspn=0.019454,0.038581&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Jakarta+Capital+Region,+Indonesia&z=11

With this: http://goo.gl/maps/vDOY. For me, shorter is better. This feature is still available under Google Maps Labs. So, the first thing you need to do is to enable “Short URL” feature from Google Maps Labs page.

This method works on my blog, but I don’t guarantee that you will have the exact process depending your own installation:

• First, enable WordPress 3.0 Multi-Site feature
• You should have access to modify domain DNS record. If your webhosting provider provide “Add-on domain” feature, it should work.
• Create a new site under First Blog, you can use any address first.
• Export contents from blog you want to move using WordPress export feature.
• Import the export file you have to Second Blog.
• Copy all media files from Second Blog to firstblog.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/files/X/ (Note: “X” is the Site ID).
• Check all settings, escpecially the image locations in your posts. Later, the uploaded media files will use this path: seconddomain.com/files/path/to/image.jpg (the path might be different). If you have broken image path, check the settings and paths again.
• Install WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin. Follow the instruction. It’s easy.
• Modify Second Blog DNS settings. Basically, you need to create an A record. Point your Second Blog domain to an IP address used by First Blog.
• Check all plugins, blog settings, and permalink.
• Enjoy!

I don’t know whether it’s an easy process or not, but here I want to show you that WordPress 3.0 Multi-Site feature can be useful. If you’re still comfortable to manage multiple blog installations, you don’t need to use this method.

It’s not a problem-free solution, of course. And it might be tricky sometimes. For example, about the plugin activation. Which plugins should be installed ‘globally’ or ‘locally’. Some plugins might work without any modifications. Here, I still have a plugin that does not work on my Second Blog. It works well on my primary blog, but not on the secondary. So far, I’m happy with the result.

Currently, this blog is already using Multi-Site feature. The setup was easy, but I want to share few things I had during the ‘migration’. By default, this feature is disabled. So, you will see no settings/option under your WordPress Dashboard menus. If you’re ready to enable this feature, the first thing you need to do is to modify WordPress configuration file (wp-config.php). Add this line of code into wp-config.php:

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Before you continue to the next step, here are few things/extra steps you might find/do:

• You need to disable all active plugins. Just make sure that your theme are compatible with no plugins-installed scenario. After you enable the Multi-Site feature, you will find extra plugin activation schema: “local plugin” or “global plugin”. You can have certain plugins only in specific blog or for all blogs in your ‘network’.
• Your WordPress URL and blog URL should be using a same address. Previously,  I have a little bit different settings. My WordPress URL (WordPress files) under a different folder, not in root folder. (Reference: Giving WordPress Its Own Directory)

After that, you should see an additional menu under “Tools” menu called “Network”. Yes, the Multi-Site feature is also called “Network”. So, here… you will create a network site under your WordPress installation. Just follow the instruction there. If everything works, you will find an additional menu box in your dashboard called “Super Admin”.

Additional actions

Since I modified my WordPress URL, all uploaded media files will have new URL paths. This is not good! You can leave a copy of your uploaded media files by having the folder unchanged, or you can replace all media paths in your entries. I chose the second options. To do it, you can use Search and Replace plugin. I replaced http://mydomain.com/old-dashboard/wp-content/uploads/ with http://mydomain.com/wp-content/uploads/. It took less than a minute, anyway.

Now, what’s next?

I haven’t used the Multi-Site feature right now. But, at least I already have it. Later, I will split my entries into one or two additional sites. For example, my podcast entries will be under “Podcast site”, and my photoblog can have it’s own installation. By this, I hope I can have my entries more organized. We’ll see.

Using only one phone is already disturbing, but… what about two? Haha! Errrrrrrggggggghhhhh! I think I did it. My friends at the office felt disturbed. :D I had plan to install this apps to their Nokia phones. But, I believe they won’t allow me. :D

So, what is Nokia Video Cuts? From the project detail page:

Finding the key scenes from a video or movie with Nokia Video Cuts is as easy as jumping to a favorite scene from a DVD. Use the Nokia Video Cuts gallery to scroll through the thumbnails of videos on your device and preview any of the videos’ key frames at the bottom of the screen. Then select your favorite video, jump to a key frame, and enjoy.

Here are some installation process screenshots.

For more details, you can watch the video introduction.

If all process were completed, you should be happy. Otherwise, you will need to do some extra works. WordPress will display this kind of error message: “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance.” You will be locked out from your admin area. Your website will be inaccessible. Solution? Easy. You need to go to login to your webhosting server, and remove .maintenance file. You can find it in your blog folder — the same location with your wp-config.php.

When I firstly got the news that I was the lucky person who got the skateboard, I thought it would be shipped from Finland. But, I was wrong. Niini Kokkonen, Ovi Blog’s editor, said to me that it would be shipped from the US office. On the next day, she emailed me telling that the skateboard had been shipped using UPS service. And I waited. OK, I’ll be honest: I checked the delivery status everyday. :D

At around 4 PM, I got a phone call from UPS and they told me that I got a package. They asked about my office location. I gave the direction to the guy behind the phone. He said that the package should arrive in about two hours. So I opened the box, and found that shiny skateboard deck with a letter inside it.

It was only the deck. If I want to use it, I think I need to get some accessories like the trucks, wheels and also bearings. Not sure where to find those items in Jakarta. I’ll get them later. I am not sure whether I can stand on it or not. Yes, I played skateboard, but it was like 15 years ago! LOL. But of course, it’s still a wonderful gift.

So, is it only about the skateboard? No. Personally, it’s more about the whole processes. It’s about how I got it, and the stories behind it. I learn few things here.

First: Nokia (Ovi Blog) uses its blog (and also its Twitter account) as a great medium to interact with its audience in general, especially with its customers (Nokia users). The whole story I mentioned above was started by a blog post. It was about Ovi Blog asking for feedbacks from its readers. And, they listened. Of course, there were lots of great feedbacks. I was one of the lucky readers.

Second: they’re reachable. If you read Ovi Blog, you’ll get the idea of what I’m talking about. The people behind the blog actively involved in the discussion. When I got the email for the first time, it was written in a friendly tone. All emails I sent were replied in one or two days. This is good. I will not post the email here, but it was fun to communicate with them. Well, I only communicated with the editor. :)

Thank you Ovi!

[Update: June 10, 2010] Ovi Blog has another post related to this entry.