My Forum Nokia Champion 2011/2012 Diploma

See I am now a Forum Nokia Champion again. Not kidding.. ;-) *brag mode on* hehehee :-)

I am now a Qt Ambassador :-)

"Congratulations! You have been accepted into the Qt Ambassador Program."

The mail just came in this morning. Thank you Nokia... :-)

Sincerely,
Hendy Irawan
Qt Ambassador ;-)

P.S. More information about Nokia's Qt Ambassador program :

The Qt Ambassador Program is a membership-only program that honors Qt development projects. All developers around the world who create products and projects with Qt are eligible to apply. Membership to the Qt Ambassador Program is free and based on your  outstanding and innovative Qt project. 

Note: In order to apply to the program, you must have a live Qt project, which you are able to post on the Qt Ambassador Showcase.

The Qt Ambassador is a recognition program that complements our Nokia Certified Qt Developer program.  We encourage all Nokia Certified Qt Developers to apply to be Qt Ambassadors and further extend their distinction in the Qt and overall developer community.

Nokia E5 Is an AWESOME Phone, But...

I love my Nokia E5. It's reasonably priced, the keyboard is excellent, the feel and form factor is just great. BUT...

I'll try not to make this sound like bashing Nokia E5..although it probably is. It's definitely more about Nokia E5's software/OS that is Symbian S60 3rd Edition FP2... than it is about Nokia's hardware.

I have 3 "major" problems with Nokia E5 : (as you can see, they aren't destructive, but simply annoying)

1. SMS Alert Tone Sound Failure. After I reach about 1800 messages in SMS Inbox, my Nokia E5 won't alert me with sound. Practically the only way I can see if there are new text messages is by looking at the blinking keypad white light.
2. Screen dims under bright sunlight. I don't know if this is by (mal-)design or there is a setting that I mistakenly set, but it's very annoying that when I use my Nokia E5 under bright sunlight, the screen goes completely dark and I can't see anything. The phone UI itself is still working (invisibly) and when I press keys, it actually makes actions. Now it gets annoying and dangerous (e.g. I could mistakenly delete a message).
3. Exchange ActiveSync / Google Contacts regularly wipes my phonebook. This is probably more to do with Exchange ActiveSync than with Nokia E5 or Symbian, but I need this functionality to work well, because it's convenient for me to sync my Gmail address book with Nokia E5's phonebook (and I've been doing this since my BlackBerry days). However at times the sync will fail and it will wipe my Nokia E5 phonebook and for some time I'm left with completely empty phonebook before the next resync is successful. It's not dangerous, because all the data in Google Contacts is intact, but it's annoying because I have to re-specify default phone numbers and add members to groups all over again.

There are also slight annoyances :

1. Push mail / Nokia Messaging is not actively updating (i.e. "always on"). I'm not sure why it doesn't work now, but it did work a few months ago. I tried to set it to update a few hours, but it never updates unless I Synchronize ("Z") manually from Email. I also tried setting to "Always On", but it's never on... I'm using WiFi and most of the time I'm within WiFi area.
2. Email application in Nokia Messaging is slow. It's about an order of magnitude slower than my old BlackBerry Curve 8520's. From displaying a picture to composing it in an email takes about 5-10 seconds. After composing the email, sending it takes about another 5 seconds until it goes back to the previous screen. Email application is probably the slowest messaging application in Nokia E5, Contacts and Text Messages is sometimes slow (but usually just OK), and I have about 600 contacts and ~2000 text messages which I don't consider "huge" for today's smartphone standards (like Nokia E5).

Despite these shortcomings, Nokia E5 is still a great phone. Seriously. :-)

Being a Forum Nokia Champion again until 2012! :-)

I got a really pleasant news from Forum Nokia tonight:

We are pleased to announce that due to your active participation in the field of mobile development and service to the Forum Nokia community in the past year, you have been re-selected to the Forum Nokia Champion program. Congratulations!

I'm currently the only Forum Nokia Champion from Indonesia, which is both sad (where's everybody?) and great (I'm special :-)

Here's my profile at Forum Nokia and my blog at Forum Nokia.

SMS Message Alert Tone not playing on Nokia E5

I got the same problem again: SMS message alert tone is not playing on my Nokia E5. No sound at all, just the blinking light.

My previous suggestion, changing the home screen to another and then back, is not foolproof.

So I tried deleting messages fromSMS inbox and now it's working again. Right now I have 1825 messages and SMS alert notification sound is working. It seems the threshold is about 2000 messages and it starts to "silence" itself.

After deleting messages to about 1800 or under, if you still can't get SMS alert tone playing, restart the phone and then switch the home screen theme. It should work.

Qt Developer Workshop by Nokia - Bandung, Indonesia

Forum Nokia invites mobile developers all around Bandung, Indonesia to attend Nokia-sponsored Qt Developer Workshop, held in Aston Primera Hotel, Pasteur, Bandung, Indonesia.

This session is presented by Eileen Khoo, Snr. Technology Expert at Nokia.

I met a few familiar faces, particularly smart people from ITB and iComm Bandung. Of course, ALL faces are familiar in some way in any developer event. ;-) (hint: it's not a Salsa dance course!)

How to Fix Nokia E5 Problem: Text/SMS Message Tone Not Working

For the last few days (or weeks?) my Nokia E5 has an annoying problem: the text/SMS message tone is not played when receiving SMS. It won't vibrate either.

After searching through the Internet, seems like this has happened with other Nokia phones, especially Symbian S60 ones, like X6, E75, E72. I tried changing the message tone to Nokia default, but didn't work. I also tried deleting all text messages in my Inbox, but also didn't work.

I have restarted my phone numerous times.
I was about to reset my phone settings (by using *#7780#) but I remember something...

I once had a similar problem with email message tone. The solution was to change my home screen theme to 'Active'. My home screen was already 'Active', so I switched it to another home screen theme and tada! My Nokia E5 text message tone works again!

So, the solution is:
1. Go to Control Panel > Settings > General > Personalisation > Standby mode > Home screen theme.
2. Choose another theme. You can go back to your favorite theme after making sure the message tone works again.

Good luck!

Note: this bug dates back to around 2003 or probably earlier. Ironic that it still occurs with a modern 2010 device.