Ovi guest blogger : Stephen from UK

Hi guys, after featuring Fender77 on Ovi Blog a few days back, we now have his friend from Nokia Support Discussions (or NSD ), Stephen to guest blog for us. I enjoyed reading his stories about his first phones, and I am sure you will too! Also, the photos on ...

Hi guys, after featuring Fender77 on Ovi Blog a few days back, we now have his friend from Nokia Support Discussions (or NSD ), Stephen to guest blog for us. I enjoyed reading his stories about his first phones, and I am sure you will too! Also, the photos on this post are taken by him throughout the years with his various Nokia phones, starting with 6230i.

-Surya

 

Me !

My name is Stephen Quin, in my early 50′s; divorced with two grown up children. I’m a Car Sales Executive and have worked in the motor trade for over 30 yrs, as a Motor Dealer, Car Salesman and Business Manager at various dealerships, currently working for Vauxhall. I live near Leeds in West Yorkshire and work 6 days a week, which doesn’t leave a lot of leisure time.  My days off are usually devoted to domestic chores and sorting things out I can’t do when at work.

I like walking when I get the chance, I live very close to the Yorkshire Dales (God’s Country) and enjoy going to my local pub for a pint, watching TV, traveling (I’ve visited most of Europe, excluding Scandinavia, and Visited the US a few times) and tech. I spend far too much time on my computer and mobile phone and can reasonably be classified as a geek, a term most of my friends and workmates do use on a regular basis, although not when they have a problem with their phone for some reason ?

I have a miniscule presence on the web, which would actually be zero if I didn’t use Nokia phones. I tweet and am an active member of Nokia Support Discussions and a casual user of a few other sites., But don’t follow me on twitter, follow the people whom I follow as they are far more interesting and informed ! I greatly admire a number of bloggers and wish I had the skill and ability to emulate them, but as I don’t I simply try and help people if I can at the discussions forum. I do visit other forums as well, but tend not to get as involved.

I started with mobile phones in the mid 1980′s out of necessity. As a motor trader I was losing out to guys who had the new ‘bricks’. Instead of meeting the customer face to face, they could stand in a yard describing a car to someone and sell it before they even saw it ! As a result I invested £800+ on a mobile  phone (a lot of money in 1984/85), can’t remember the model, but it did cost 35 pence a minute to use for both incoming and outgoing calls and lasted about 4 hours on a charge and you needed to carry a spare battery everywhere with you, reception was dire and my kids thought a mobile phone was called a ‘Vodafone’ as there were only two services available then Vodafone and Cellnet. I used it for about ten years until I started working for someone else  where I was given a ‘company mobile’ and that’s when my long term relationship with Nokia began, and still continues to the present day, with my E7.

The 6230i was what I considered my first ‘smartphone’, basic by modern standards, but was the thing that got me hooked, internet, camera, bluetooth, games, messging it had the lot. I wanted something bigger and better and replaced it with the much maligned N91: a beautifully crafted chunk of metal, with a fantastic music player and speakers, great colour screen and camera and a 4gig in built ‘hard drive’ -I just loved that phone.

My best phone ever was the original smart phone the N95 8 Gb. I was in geek heaven, it truly was a pocket computer and I used it for nearly two years without a minute’s trouble and still have it as a backup and alarm clock

Tinkering and customizing my N95 got me more interested in what was going on in the mobile industry.I started checking out sites like AAS, Daily Mobile, Nokia Users and watching the Phones Show with Steve Litchfield. Every time I read of a new app or update I’d try it. I discovered Opera Mini browser and Snaptu and always install them on my handset, and also on anyone else’s that I know.

I learned how to convert video to watch on my phone and to label music and embed album art for my music player and I was a very happy geeky bunny.  However, it was a problem with  my N97 that made me find NSD. I have made  many online and forum friends and I enjoy the ‘Nokia Community’ very much. I found a massive amount of help from forum members on various topics and the more I visited and the more I learned, the more I found I could help other users. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time on the discussions forum over the last couple of years and thoroughly enjoyed it.There is a great community spirit and some really nice and knowlegable members  (as well as a few moaners) and it’s the first site I visit after booting my laptop up on after a day’s work.  I would recommend that any Nokia owner visit the site just for tips and tricks, you don’t have to have a problem to visit.

The greatest thing to happen to me through the forum was to win a Nokia E7 via a vote of other users, there were 10 phones up for grabs, and I was both overjoyed and honoured to win the E7, it’s an absolutely fantastic piece and I’m really impressed with Symbian^3 so far and hope it gets continued support and improvement right up to the Windows replacement (maybe even longer with a bit of luck) I just cannot thank either the forum members or Nokia enough.

As for Ovi Store and services, I have had a few issues with downloads and I would love to see some more apps in the future. That said, there are far more positives than negatives, the interface has improved greatly, the number of apps available has increased, and some of the stuff is really great. Ovi maps is fantastic and it’s rare that I go a week without using it. I try and use most of the apps and services from Nokia Beta Labs. Apps like the Panorama app, Photo Browser, Swype, Moodagent and Mobile Documents are all great. I use Pixelpipe, and as already mentioned I love Opera and Snaptu and of course Gravity -  anyone who uses Twitter should at least try the trial version. Also, despite not being a big Gamer, I do have the Obligatory Angry Birds on my phone, plus a couple of racing games.

Finally, why do I use Nokia/Ovi products ? Well I like them ! I’ve always found build quality to be excellent and I actually like Symbian and the amount of freedom it gives you compared to some OSes. Ovi it’s a great way to integrate your services. I use Ovi Suite and my Ovi account to backup and sync my phones, and the Ovi Store is the simplest way for ‘non-geeks’ to get new and interesting stuff on there phones

If I could give a tip to people it would be to sync your contacts at least once a week, backup your phone at least once a month and check for Software update regularly, and don’t eat yellow snow

Finally, I’d like to thank Ovi Blog and   Juha-Matti /Vandelay for suggesting I do this guest post. Also other members of Nokia Discussions who I consider friends and educators like Steve, Godwin and Håvard.

 

 

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2011/03/24/ovi-guest-blogger-s...