The Final Challenge and some more updates

Where have I been?!

Well, I can tell you. To make a long story short, a returning customer of mine from Circuit City decided he would rather hire me for his business rather than try to distribute my resume and help me out. I’ve been working a steady 9-5 with him for the past month, including a weeklong business trip to Chicago and tons of different types of work I’ve never had an opportunity to do before. I’m very excited and grateful for this opportunity and I can’t wait to see what else develops from it. Thanks again to all of the people who supported me and showed their concern during my difficult time. I hope everyone had a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and an excellent time observing any other holiday I missed. 🙂

Several weeks ago I received my final challenge on this piece of parchment. Although I would have liked more time, I have been notified that the N96 will have to go back overseas after this weekend. Read ahead for the final challenge and the details on how to become one of the 5 people to trial the device if I win!

Challenge 3: “Fill it with fireworks”…?

My third challenge arrived in another DHL tube the other day, and after I first read it, I was left pretty confused. Here’s what it looks like.

Alright, I get it, show off the TV-out feature…but with fireworks? What?

Somehow I was able to cook up an idea on the same car ride to work for how I could pull this off. The following video is the result, recorded on my girlfriend’s red N95-3 at my store (note all of the 20% off tags on nearly everything).

The video playing directly through the phone was using maximum volume on the N96. I think everyone can agree that the speakers are very, very loud, if not too loud.

Some distressing news and a new challenge…

Many of you have probably already heard the news, but for those of you that haven’t, Circuit City publicly announced on Monday that they would be closing 155 of their retail stores nationwide in a fatal attempt to save the company. My store in Snellville, Georgia was one of those 155 stores, along with nearly every other store in the state as well. This will effectively put me out of a job within the coming weeks, depending on how long it takes to liquidate everything in the building. There are plenty of reasons why this happened and given the company’s recent exceptionally poor performance, I can’t say I’m surprised. Notwithstanding, it makes for some significantly difficult times ahead for everyone affected. The following picture is from my store after the signage went up today.

Depending on what happens to my career situation in the next few months, I may be putting Thoughts On S60 on haitus until I can donate the time necessary to give it the attention I would like. If you thought my posts were few and far between before, just you wait!

The one good thing I’ve seen come out of this is just how incredible people can be in times of need. I have had several close customers stop by to not only express their concern (not just looking for the good deals), but have also offered to get my resume into their network to get me back on my feet. There’s no way I can possibly express in written text how unbelievably greatful I am to those who have extended themselves. If you happen to be reading, thank you. You have no idea how much it truly means to me.

That said, I still plan to finish the Face the Task Challenges and I just so happen to have my second challenge sitting on my desk now.

I’ve been giving it some serious thought, and I have an excellent idea on how to complete this challenge. I’ll give everyone a hint: there’s a reason I posted this and the news about my store closing in the same post.

And so begins the challenge-Face the Task

I had to spend all day at work yesterday knowing that a huge package with a ninja outfit and a N96 would be delivered to my door. I spent so much time fiddling last night that I didn’t get a chance to start my first challenge.

My first task is to upload a geo-tagged photo with Nokia viNe while in the provided (though a bit snug) ninja costume. I took a few photos last night, but I have a much better idea for what I’m going to do today, so stay tuned.

I’m competing against 7 other challengers to win 5 trials of the N96 for 5 of my readers. Seeing as how I have very little traffic on a day-to-day basis, I think I’m going to expand the competition into HoFo as well. I’d like for readers and members of HoFo to send me ideas (email, PM, comment, SMS, whatever) for pictures to take with the N96 in my ninja costume. They don’t have to be related to the challenges, necessarily, but I’ll be selecting the best ideas out of all that I receive and those who submitted those ideas will be the ones who get to trial the N96 (if I win, of course).

Here’s a list of my challengers and what they’re doing for the competition (compiled by Micky! on HoFo)

Micky Aldridge (N95Users) http://mickyfin.vox.com/

Norman John (Symbian World) http://symbianworld.org/1009-face-t…allange-begins/

NokiaAddict http://nokiaaddict.blogspot.com/200…-challenge.html

Erazer007 (Cellular) http://erazer007.wordpress.com/2008…p-mobile-phone/

Mark Guim (Nokia blog) http://thenokiablog.com/2008/10/22/…s-to-5-readers/

Rita (Dotsisx – Symbian guru)http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome…challenges.html

XJ911 (HOFO) http://www.howardforums.com

As for the device itself, I’m coming away a bit unimpressed. Here’s a quick list.

Pro’s

• The size and overall look and feel of the device is incredible, to me at least. The slider is also decent.
• FP2 is packed with more features than I had originally thought (automatic access points, more helpful menu options, download unrecognized files, POWER SAVING MODE!, etc.,)
• USB 2.0 speeds makes transfers with the USB cable actually usable and reliable.
• OTA firmware updates are much easier and less stressful than using Nokia Software Updater, which would not work on my computer.

Con’s

• The phone is SLOW and I mean SLOW. Menus are very slow in navigation and my texting speed has taken a hit because buttons aren’t rendering.
• Nokia Software Updater does not like Vista x64. Opening NSU with the phone plugged in via PC Suite mode caused a whole bunch of error messages to come up, the firmware failed to update, and eventually it stopped seeing my phone altogether. Didn’t brick the phone, luckily.
• Unable to install unsigned applications of kind.
• Dual-LED doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference as I heard it would, especially with the N82 sitting right next to it.

Rest assured, I’ll be commenting on the battery the more I use it. From my brief experience though, it isn’t too bad.

Clicking the picture above will take you to my Face the Task channel on Ovi that I’ll be updating with all of my pictures from this challenge and any pictures I take in regards to the N96 in general. Thanks to everyone who sends me ideas and good luck!