Let it all continue

Allow me my exuberance:

The year was magic, it was good, it was exciting, it was all about positives, and there was ne'er a dull moment. Honest - for me, '06 rocked indeed.

Even as it feels the same for ev'ry year - how fast they pass us by - '06 was a year when I felt every day zip by. And almost each one had an impact on me personally. Every day was lived. It's all a blur? Not.

I don't recall any part of 2006 that wasn't fun filled, fulfilling, or exciting.

A zillion miles travelled worldwide, an amazing road trip back east (NY/MA/PA/NH) during the summer, finally going to So Cal on holiday (not on work), catching up with old friends everywhere, a new career opportunity, all kinds of visitors (incl grandma) at home - it's been all good. =)

C'est bon maintenant. Faites de beaux rêves. (no nonsense show-off gibberish, someone did tell me this years ago at New Year's. Go figure it out.)

Nokia's Ovi Store and software - helping keep Android and Apple in the lead

I don't think any Ovi users (any left?) were surprised by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's 'burning platform' memo to Nokia staff this week. From the beginning this store and associated software have been, and continue to be, a disaster.

Ovi is simply unusable. It is a piece of trash. It is an Android and Apple App Store driver. It is, well, unusable. Seven attempts in all. Despite several communications to Nokia at different levels, including an Ovi PM known to me, nothing has changed.

As a 'high-end' Nokia phone owner, I was initially excited about Ovi. I planned to load my device with applications, get music, everything. 19 months later, I still have nothing.

I. For example - Ovi Music: We won't let you buy

Overall, navigation on Ovi Music and beyond is abominable. Same as it's been for over a year.

1. Now I tried clicking on Unlimited Music downloads
2. Went to a page where it said 'enter PIN', or request a PIN

3. Request PIN went to a general help page

4. Where a link to Unlimited Music how to went to a 'Sorry can't find that' page

This was after I logged in three times and it still said I had to login again.
Then it said I needed to create another account to access unlimited downloads, when I clicked on the Unlimited banner
Absolutely (gave up) no way to buy plain music, never mind unlimited downloads. Where to pay to download - no clues given.

I have stayed away from Nokia accounts online and the Ovi store for this reason. The whole online experience is very confusing, just goes around in circles. And I'm not your average mobile/net novice.

II. For example - Ovi setup/use on Nokia PC Suite: A'maze'ingly useless 
PC Suite is the super-useless software that syncs a Nokia smartphone and a laptop.

1. Anytime you try to upload music using the god-awful Ovi interface in PC Suite, it will say there's a software update.
2. The Ovi software will rarely find the phone, and the PC Suite anyway will keep switching back to 'USB mode' from 'media transfer' mode. This is despite picking the media mode every time.
3. Near impossible to upload and organize music. Each file will somehow disappear inside a folder, and show up with completely different music, even if the music's from the same album.

 Just treat the phone as a pen drive and drop files in the music folder. It works. What Ovi?

III. Note on Nokia PC Suite basic usage: Finlandia Ostrich Special

Nokia PC Suite and it's various version updates are no less spectacularly incompetent. There's no way to save incoming call numbers to the contacts list for instance.

Oh, and you can't just pick images and videos to move to your laptop. It has to be all or nothing. And the bumbling program will store them in folders inside folders automatically in the laptop making it difficult to find anything later.

Calls from users and communities to Nokia since antiquity go unheeded. They don't want to know. The result - look up the content of Elop's note to staff.

Ovi and software like the above mentioned PC Suite are definitely part of Nokia's downward spiral - key contributors. Like I said before, they need to be left behind on that burning platform when Nokia jumps.

Hotmail - Is anyone listening?

Why does Hotmail continue to be such a usability disaster? Has Microsoft given up on making this product easy to use?

The difficulties begin right at login. You need to type in an entire email address. Ok, there's ' save email address' option, but what if you have more than one ID? All the other web mail offerings let you sign in with just a user name at any time.

After signing in, there's a meaningless screen that tells you what email is new, from my contacts, and what is junk. More often than not, I find legitimate email in the junk folder.

The inbox screen is completely non intuitive. Composing an email requires looking for some button that says 'new'.

There are too many intermediate 'confirmed' screens to wade through to get anything done. Sure, Yahoo mail has similar stuff, but somehow it seems cleaner and quicker.

I like Gmail's no nonsense approach the best, and I don't care about the text ads. They do not bother me. It has everything that users need - easy to find anything, everything is saved, it's fast, and is thus a complete usability delight.

Once upon a time - Hotmail ruled the net. I think it now ranks a distant third or fourth in favorable ratings.