An Open Letter To Nokia : Buy An Atlas!

It has been building up inside for months now, but today, I simply can't hold it any longer. Nokia, you need to open up your Atlas or your World Map and start looking more closely at it. Head to the east shore of the Mediterranean sea, right below Turkey and right on top of Israel, there, you will find a small area, called Lebanon.

This is where 4 million people live, and this is a country you have been neglecting or forgetting or not noticing for years now. No we are not Europe, we are not the States, we don't fatten your pockets every year with billions of dollars. But if there was a study of your marketshare here, if you could find one, then you would be astonished by the numbers. We have been loyal, very loyal to you, Finnish company, we swear by your built quality, we ravish over your designs, we have thousands of phone shops that have one of your devices in their logo or on their displays, we carry your devices religiously, we always ask about Nokias, and it's not unless there's a bigger motive that we buy another brand. Yet, you don't seem to notice that we exist.

Let's start from the beginning, Nokia. If I buy a new device, when I first fire it up, it asks me to input my country. My country, as far as I can tell, is Lebanon. I type L, and there I have it: Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania and Sri Lanka. No Lebanon. No Lebanon! Are you kidding me? In order to have my time set right, I have to choose Egypt as a country. I have nothing against Egypt, but I am Lebanese!

Second problem. I recently got to try your Download! application. I admit, it's not the brightest thing I have seen, but it has some good potential. I guess I was too optimistic thinking I might just find half of the content that other countries have, with the same device. Oh how wrong I was. Just a couple of links, nothing special. I look at screenshots for other countries, and then look at my N95 and think "if only they filled one screen"(ie 12 icons). No they don't.

Edit: Another problem I have been facing is with Nokia Maps. When I first got the N95 8GB to trial, I searched the Maps website and saw that Lebanon wasn't amongst the countries supported for voice navigation. No problem I said, I don't need it, I just want to see the roads. Well, what do you think I found? Ah, one road. ONE freaking road in ALL of Lebanon! Would I ever be able to tell my friends that my device has GPS? NO! Because they would want to see it in action, and to tell you the truth, I don't think we can take a lot of action out of ONE road!

Third problem is the one that pushed me off the edge today. You know Share on Ovi, the new sharing service that Nokia just launched as a part of their Ovi bundle. The day it was launched, I clicked through the website, I got a "This service is not yet available in this region" message. I thought it still wasn't launched worldwide and held my breath. As the days passed, I kept checking to find the same message every single time. I filed an email to the Ovi product manager, and received a reply that there were social limitations that were preventing the launch of Ovi in the region. I thought "crap, here we go again, the Arab sticker is once more on our forehead!". A couple of days later, I clicked by mistake on some link that led me to Share on Ovi, and this time, the page loaded. I was ecstatic and created my own account, without uploading any picture. Two days later, I opened my account to get some picture uploading and there it was, the white screen of death, staring me in the eyes, again: "This service is not yet available in this region".
From then on, it was a one-day on, several-days off catch up game with the service. I only got to upload 4 or 5 pictures, just to see how it works. That's until a couple of weeks ago, when the service just went unavailable for the longest time. I gave up, I honestly did.
Then came my trip to Jordan. After coming back, I thought that Flickr would be a nice idea for uploading, but I needed a backup plan. So I tried Share on Ovi and yesterday, I was in heaven. I uploaded about a 100 pictures (from Day1 and Day2) using Shozu to both my Flickr and my Share on Ovi accounts. I was using both of them for the first time, and to tell you the truth, I found Share on Ovi to be a MUCH better solution. It gave me the choice to upload via email to a specific channel, it kept the picture in its original size, it gave me an organizing possibility right from my images pages, it allowed me to upload endless file types, it had a very very visible embedding link (with options to embed one image or a whole channel)... well it was Apple'esque. Yeah, you read that right, it had the simplicity of an Apple product. And for once, I was totally totally in love with a product from Nokia. I couldn't find anything wrong with it, from tutorials, to usability, to learning curve, everything was well thought. I had a glimpse at the future of Ovi, and I knew great times were ahead.

Being this pleased with the service, and being that I have enrolled in the S60 Ambassador program (with Share on Ovi being the first mission), I thought I would share the pictures I took with my friends from the trip. I sent them all links to my channels on Share on Ovi (and not Flickr). It was almost midnight, and I think none of them managed to catch it by then, since we were all still worn out from the trip.
I woke up today, and launched Share on Ovi again, to create my "Jordan Trip - Day 3" channel and start uploading, to get spanked in the face by the "This service is not yet available in this region" message, again! And a couple of hours later, the SMS's started arriving "we can't see the pictures on the link you sent us, what's the problem?".

What do you expect me to answer, Nokia? Huh, what do you want me to say? That you simply don't give a damn about us? That you are teasing us Lebanese with a one day service every now and then? How do you expect me to explain to people the philosophy behind Share on Ovi for the Ambassador program? How do you expect me to endorse that T-Shirt you are sending to everyone, if I know that if someone memorizes the site and visits it from my country, there's a 95% chance he/she will find himself/herself with a "not available" screen? And you know I love you, you know I will always support you, you know I have already been your Ambassador in Lebanon, I don't need a T-Shirt or a keyring to prove that. You know I will keep on typing www.twango.com every single day, and I will sigh every day I get the terrible message, and make good use of the day when I find my home page open. I will, I swear I will. But I don't guarantee other people will. They are loyal, but they are not stupid. They know when they are being laughed at!

Nokia, look at us, and don't forget us like the rest of the world has. Don't forget there's a small country called Lebanon, with 4 million people who have been faithful to you, for years. Don't forget that we are here: we don't have a president, our country is on the verge of disappearance, so it would make us a little bit glad if for once, someone, just someone noticed that we, as a country, exist.

N81 - The Perfect Storm Companion

Today was the stormiest day I have seen in years (or in my entire life) here in Beirut. My hospital training was done at noon, and my 2:30 pm course was delayed to 4:30, so I had pretty much 4 hours to kill. Freakin Excitin! Being that my laptop wasn't with me, I went to the hospital library, the only place where you can get some free computers and a decent WiFi connection. I fired YouTube (that's what health specialists do in the hospital libraries :p). That's when I noticed something was wrong, the page didn't load fully and I got some sort of javascript and flash missing message (very hip computers).

That was it for me. 4 hours of emptiness I thought. Not really. I had the N81, the good loyal companion. Took it out of my pocket, took the Bose headphones out of my bag, connected and pressed play. There I was. Better. Much better. Then I fired OfficeSuite and used it to write down a post to be posted later on. That was one hour. 3 more to go.

With music still on, I fired up the gallery and saw the pictures I had taken of my patient's file for one of the case study reports I am due to finish this Friday. Using the N81's screen, it took me a while to zoom/browse through every picture, but it was still doable and I was able to skim through the patient's admission reason, his lab results, medications, medical history,... and the likes. While reading the case (ie browsing through the pictures), I had to check some medical facts, so I launched mobireader and used the Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine (a 9Mb ebook equivalent of a 2-3kg weighing book) as well as the A2Z drug facts and Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, to get my information. Notice, I was in a hospital's library, full of medical books, yet the N81 did it for me: I stayed lazily on my chair and enjoyed the power in my hand.

Now that got me through another 80-90 minutes, so I had still an hour and a half to kill. Thinking what else I could do (with Europe - The Final Countdown playing on the Bose). I remembered there was WiFi around and decided to check my email, catch on some RSS and do some testing with emTube and MobiTubia. Being done with the first 2 in less than 20 minutes, I opened emTube and started looking for Jeff Dunham, he never fails to make me laugh. I stumbled upon Achmed's Jingle Bombss video, and that was a 10 minutes or replay, replay, replay, till I almost dropped on the floor from laughter. I decided to save the video, to later show it to my friend, another huge fan of Achmed.

That's when I noticed the 4 hours were done, and I hadn't felt bored for one second! Amazing! I packed my stuff and headed outside to see it was SNOWING! In Beirut! Snowing! And I didn't have an umbrella! Too bad the N81 didn't serve as an emergency umbrella... that's when you notice your do-it-all gadget still lacks some functionality... A friend of mine was nice enough to share hers with me, and dropped me next to my car.

You'd think it ended here? Well no! It was snowing in Beirut, and I had to take some pictures and videos. N81 to the rescue! Here are some quick snaps and a video I took while driving, 30 minutes after the storm stopped. You can still see some snow on the sides of the streets.

Click To Play

I wish I had a call recorder on my phone!

Today I received an unexpected phone call. I was driving back to my house and shouting whole-heartedly at the lebanese drivers / traffic / policemen when I felt something vibrating near my foot. I looked down and saw a light coming out of my handbag (yes I put it on the floor beneath the seat, near my foot, so if anyone tries to steal something from the car, he doesn't find it). It was my phone. Took it out and looked at the screen, didn't recognize the number, answered. It was a woman, speaking in french. She told me she was part of the Rami Azzam Prize community.

Now why did that name sound familiar?!?! Oh yes, it was a writing contest I participated in a few months ago... in may, yes, in may of this year. Oh yes, it was one crazy month, may. Had my usual pharmacy courses, was taking my masters courses too at the same time, was organizing by myself the student board's orientation and recruitment forum, was keeping Dotsisx alive and was writing the novel for the Rami Azzam Prize. The prize theme was "L'homme, ce damné de l'espérance" or for all of you non-frenchies: "Man, this damned of hope" or something like it. I remember when I first read the topic a lamp lit in my head: I had been wanting to write a story about the Alzheimer disease, from a human point of view, and the theme was just perfect. I had to do it. Crazy May! Ah I remember I was waking up at 6am each day, going for my usual 1 hour walk - the only free time I could find to exercise and I wanted to participate in that contest so badly I wrote 90% of the story on my mobile phone. Yes the 3250! Since my schedule was so hectic, I could only write the novel while doing my morning walks, I used to take the 3250 with me and I did the writing with QuickOffice. Then after a couple of days, I would send the file to my pc, re-read it, correct what had to be corrected, add some sentences, change some or delete some.

So the woman says they are handing out the prizes on Thursday the 6th of december, that's the day after tomorrow. She says they'll be having a small round table and then distribute the 1st and 2nd prizes. Now whether I wasn't one of the winners but they were inviting everyone to participate, or whether they still haven't announced the winners, I don't think she told me. Because I was in the middle of a crazy traffic with horns going out at the frequency of light, I almost missed half of the conversation. Back at home, thinking it over, I believe she didn't specifically tell me who won. But I will never know or will I, well at least not before thursday night. Now I just wish I had a call recorder installed on my mobile to replay that conversation and try to hear what she said. In any case, I will be attending the event on thursday for one main reason: Rami Azzam was a young active lebanese journalist, passionate about poetry and writing, who died in 2003 at the age of 24 from a sudden heart attack. His first and last wish was to help lebanese youth open up and try to build this country on a healthier basis.

Although I am almost sure my mobile-written story won't win a thing, I am quite overwhelmed that I wrote it, especially for this contest. It was the first time I tackle a topic as sensitive as this one and I was surprised by the result. If any french-speaking person reads this blog, you can download it from MOSH: Demain, ca ira mieux. It's 12-13 pages long so don't worry about it taking years to be read.

(WiMAX + Lebanon) x 2008 = Heart Attack!

Back in June, I wrote a WiMax + Middle East = Dancing on the roof post, where I stated that there seemed to be talks about implementing WiMax in the Middle East, but I was skeptical as to which countries that would involve, suspecting essentially the Gulf countries (KSA, UAE, Kuwait, etc). Well, my prayers seem to have worked efficiently enough and just now I cam across this AMAZING news from IntoMobile. At first I just didn't get it, I was like "wwwwwwhat? am I reading right?". Seems like we're gonna get out WiMAX in mid-2008! Are you kidding me? Just when I'm supposed to leave to France for my Masters?! Anyway, I will paste the whole article here, just so I can read it everytime I open my blog in the following days, enjoy the idea and frustrate at the fact that I might not even be here to try it at first!

While the US’s WiMAX future is still being hashed out by the likes of Sprint and Clearwire, our friends in Lebanon have already nailed-down their plans for getting a WiMAX network deployed in 2008. Redline Communications has announced that its RedMAX WiMAX solution has been tapped by Lebanon’s Comium Data Lebanon to be used in its country-wide WiMAX infrastructure deployment.
Comium’s current wireless broadband solution is limited to line-of-sight technologies, but with Redline Communications’ RedMAX solutions, Comium will be able to complete their WiMAX network build-out by mid-2008.
“Redline’s WiMAX technology enables us to deliver high-bandwidth services to a higher number of subscribers than with other solutions we considered, with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week fault-proof availability,” says Khaldoun Farhat, VP, Comium Data Lebanon. The RedMAX network will comprise of Redline base stations that will bring users in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Tripoli, Keserwan and Nabatiye online at distances of 17km and at speeds of 2Mbps per connection.
Hey, if Lebanon can do it, so can the US. Right? Well, at least we hope the US can do it. As far as getting it done by 2008 - we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, and there’s going to be some finger-crossing involved. Hey Sprint. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Get your WiMAX plans in order! We’re all ready to pay you for it.

Mainly, by saying that it will cover 17km away from Beirut, Mount Lebanon (I live somewhere between these 2 regions), Keserwan (that's where I spend my summers), Tripoli (that's the North) and Nabatiye (that's the South), they will have basically covered more than 70% of the lebanese territory (lebanon is an extremely small country, with just 10452 sq km area) and even more than 90% of the lebanese population (muy personal percentage assumptions). THAT'S FRIGGIN INCREDIBLE! Just think that in terms of wireless mobile connectivity, Lebanon is going from WAP to WiMAX, no transition (no EDGE, no 3G). Haha, hilarious!

Tomorrow - A Day In History

For those of you who live more than a couple of kilometers away from Lebanon, the title of this post may seem strange since tomorrow is a day like any other. But for people like me, living and breathing in the 10452 square meters that is the land of Lebanon, tomorrow is a major day in history. I've always wondered what it would feel like to live during those flashy dates in world history, like for eg when Colombus hit South America or the day World War II ended. I guess with all the action going on in Lebanon, I now have my answer, because I can almost read it in 2050's history studybooks "in september 25th, 2007, the lebanese parliament failed to elect a president..."

Usually, I am not a politics fanatic. I barely have time to hold on with my numerous occupations and hobbies already. So I usually watch the news once every 2/3 yrs, but with the "firey" situation here, it's pretty much plausible I end up hearing the news "on the street", ie from neighbors, classrooms, friends, and, well, while walking down the street. So if you watch the CNN just once a month, you'd probably know about the lebanese situation more than me.

But for those of you who never watched CNN, here's a recap
- 14th february 2004 primer minister rafic hariri assassination
- syria accused, syria leaves lebanon after several (don't know the exact nb, but more than 10yrs that's sure) years of silently accepted occupation
- many assassinations ever since, for major politicians (1 minister, 2 deputees, 1 journalist, 1 politician), all by bombs, with civilians falling on the way
- syria accused of assassinations, although not profiting
- lebanese president always accused of being in-the-know
- lebanese scene divided between 2 clans: 14th of february/march (prime minister Siniora & Geagea & Jumblat, accused to be aided by USA) and opposition (Hezbollah & general Michel Aoun, accused to be aided by Syria/Iran). Both claim to constitute the majority. Both are holding to their positions. Both hate (seriously depsise) each other.

So what is tomorrow all about?
Tomorrow is the supposed day for the new lebanese president election. The constitution states that 2/3 of the parliament be present and the president elected by 50%+1 .
But since the parliament is divided and the opposition don't want a president elected by the 14th of march clan, they won't come to the hearing. So the 2/3s won't be there, which would make the elections, if an election is held, illegal and unconstitutional. They will only come to the hearing if there's a consentment on a common unity president.
So where does that put tomorrow? Well, some place between civil war, total void of reigning power (the government is already unconstitutional), 2 unconstitutional presidents each elected by a clan and postponning of the hearing (for more assassinations and instability) until some day in november. Basically, that makes tomorrow THE day in lebanese life that would make history.

Final word
In the hopes that nothing lethal would happen, tomorrow, I leave you with a smile and the wish that one day, my country would achieve what it once was and was meant to stay: a small powerful independent water-rich country, where more than 15 religious sects live in peace and harmony, where you can go from swimming on the coast to enjoying the mountain breeze in less than an hour, and where wandering on the streets on 11pm or 1 am is of no danger.

iPhone for sale, unlocked by end october?

I stopped by the Apple Shop (or is it Apple Store *thinkin*) in ABC Mall yesterday, which happens to be one shop away from the new Nokia FCC-Middle East shop. I asked the guys one question: when will the iPhone arrive? The salesman told me "end october". I know for one that I've already asked them quite a few times about iPod accessories or iPod new models arrival dates and they were never wrong, or at most it took a week more than they said. But they always were right. So I asked him if the iPhone will be unlocked to be used with any provider, which is the case in Lebanon (there are no provider-specific devices at all), and he answered "of course, you can use it with your MTC or Alfa SIM card" (MTC and Alfa being the 2 services providers in Lebanon)...

Now that leaves me puzzled, if what he said is true, than the iPhone will be finally available unlocked by end october. Of course it will cost 20% more than in the USA, that's a mere fact with Apple products in Lebanon, but that doesn't annul the truth that it WILL be unlocked. What astonishes me is that, if you browsed the whole internet, you wouldn't *i think* find a rumor about Apple releasing unlocked iPhones, let alone this soon, especially that if a certain device is to be released in Lebanon, it usually is a couple of weeks/months after other countries.

Of course I won't be buying an iPhone, I think its idea is amazing but it's definitely not for me. Maybe the 3rd or 4th generation iPhone would make it to my standards, but right now, it's a no-go. But it's still nice to see that it's coming to Lebanon.

I don't take any responsabilities for the salesman's word, i'm just reporting my conversation with him. And if this post makes it to the Apple fanboys, if you're looking for Lebanon on a near-by atlas, it's in Asia, in the Middle East, the little dot above Israel ;)

Nokia FCC Store in Lebanon!

I don't know whether it's an official Nokia store or some guy just decided to open a mobile phones store about Nokias and call it this way. Truth is, everything is possible in Lebanon. But the fact is here: there is a "Nokia FCC Middle East" called store in ABC mall, Ashrafieh. When did it really open I don't know. A month or two ago, it was still under construction. I will be headed to ABC mall next week, so I will make sure to stop by the shop and ask the guys over there a couple of questions about the store and some devices. I will also snap a picture of the store. I was feeling too haughty to stand and snap a pic at a store when I spotted it yesterday ;)

Weekend at Kleiat (pics)

If you haven't noticed it, I have been away for the weekend. I spent it relaxing and enjoying the view at the summer house in the Kesrwan region in Lebanon, Kleiat town. Here are a couple of pics from the weekend, showing the garden or the view, taken with my 3250. With good light conditions, you can see how this phone's cam performs really well (pics were resized to 25%).

Being away from everything internet and mobile, I had time to cool down and enjoy silence and nature. Makes you think how little things like waking up to birds singing can change your vision towards everything. It's little things like that that make life worth living.

WiMax + Middle East = Dancing on the roof

Well, the title says it all. As reported by Stefan of intomobile, the Nokia may be offering WiMax in the Middle East in 2 years. That's HUGE.
According to the source file on ITP, the Nokia Siemens Networks have started trialling WiMax in selected regions ofthe Middle East area. Dubai seems like the only one cited there, are there any others? Will it be exclusive to the KSA, UAE, Kuwait, (Gulf countries) or will it also be available here in Lebanon? I don't know. But it sure sounds great: anything faster than wap is an enormous mobile technology in Lebanon. I guess we're still in the post-war phase, right? We have been in there for 15 years now, oh no wait, there was the 2006 summer war between Israel and Hizbollah, Oh that gives us 15 more post-war years... But there's a good side to the story: we won't complain about the lack of 3G on the iPhone, because we don't know what 3G is anyway!

I guess I have been off-topic here, but the Lebanese mobile phone market is growing and glowing, even maids have cell phones! So I hope that would be a motive for Nokia to invest it's new technology in Lebanon.
Now excuse me, I'll go continue my roof dancing... mobile internet, sweet!