It appears that the decline of Yaletown as foretold in a previous blog post (HERE) is slowly starting to take shape. Pretty soon the neighbourhood may resemble that of Columbia Station in New Westminster.

You know, where the drug dealers and prositutes hang out.

Why, you ask? Well, Yaletown has been on a decline for some time – it’s gone from being an elite entertainment and food district to something mediocre. Poor service is pervasive amongst a number of the establishments and now, the OPUS Hotel has lost in its bid to establish a rooftop patio.

The ‘coalition of residents’ whined loud enough to be heard yet again by council. Do you remember the last time this happened? When we lost the Molson Indy? You can read more about it on the Condo Hype blog, HERE.

Apparently someone at Nokia had the brilliance to decide that the partnership between Blackberry and Nokia was not worthwhile.

According to Mobile Industry Review, Nokia’s UK MD, Simon Ainslie, said:

RIM are a competitor and have done a reasonable job in a space that is traditionally ours, so it’s no great surprise that we see this as an opportunity to give consumers a proper choice on what email solution they want.

‘Our approach is to make email a mass-market proposition for everybody, not just for the corporate boardroom group of individuals where BlackBerry has established itself.’

I’ve got a perfectly good E61i connected to a Blackberry Enterprise on Exchange server via Blackberry Connect – I can see subfolders and take advantage of the features and functionality of BES which is pretty extensive. It runs smoothly and outside of not being able to send PIN messages to others or being able to use BB Messenger, it’s pretty robust. In short, it’s a pretty good push email solution for a hardcore roadwarrior (like me). With the features of the E61i, I can have a couple of Exchange accounts, a BlackBerry BES account, WIFI connectivity, VOIP telephony and even Push to Talk.

With my shiny new E71, I can have almost every feature listed above but I can’t download Blackberry Connect. It won’t install and as per the above, there’s no planned support. The current prescribed alternatives to BlackBerry Connect (without throwing the baby out with the bathwater) include Mail for Exchange 2.7 and RoadSync 4. Neither appear to let me file messages the way I would want to and both are licensed ActiveSync (inferior) clients. ActiveSync ain’t bad except for the fact that Microsoft appears to have kept the good stuff to themselves which is evidenced by how Microsoft Smartphones and Nokia Smartphones (with either MFE or RoadSync) perform differently. The Nokia solution is simply OK for the job. Meanwhile, I’m either better off owning Windows Mobile or getting a BlackBerry Handheld.

Oh.. and then there’s Nokia Mail – it’s supposed to be some form of BlackBerry BIS alternative. I’ve got the latest and greatest from Nokia – the E71 yet the mail application runs like shit. It’s slow, it sometimes doesn’t work (usually due to an outage on the Nokia network) and it’s basically a glorified Nokia Intellisync client. Speaking of Intellisync, Nokia likely wants you to throw out your BES and install the Intellisync server to get ‘BlackBerry like’ functionality.

So, if EVERYBODY is able to throw out current infrastructure, perhaps Nokia will be able to ‘make email a mass-market proposition for everybody’. While you’re at it, murder your family too since the prescribed Nokia solution will replace them. It’s the Nokia way. Yay Nokia.

When the Nokia E71 Smartphone came out, I had to have it. I’ve been a fan of the E-Series and the Nokia S60 devices since I got my hands on an E61, courtesy Papa Guj from a2zwireless.com. The phones are an absolute dream to use and allow me to run my business remote. At the time of release, only the E71-1 or the Asian/European version of the E71 existed, so I purchased it, making due with lower speed but tolerable EDGE Internet access.

Recently, I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the North American E71-2 which can take advantage of high-speed 3G internet here in Canada. I was impressed but I also noticed some interesting differences between the first phone I got and the second one. Apparently, the E71-2 I received has an additional feature – quickdial. On the standby screen, you can start typing your intended victim’s name and voila – the E71-2 will try to discern who you’re trying to reach and wil pop up a list of potential callees. No such luck with the E71-1. This, of course, is pre-firmware upgrade. I’ll report once I actually get to that.

For reference, my E71-1 bears a product ID of RM-346. The E71-2 bears a product ID of RM-357. Other than that, they’re both firmware 100.07.76 dated 08-06-2008.

BTW – I also discovered a new shortcut for the phone. If you want to toggle between predictive text and standard entry, hit ALT then press CTRL then hit SPACE. If you’re looking for other shortcuts, check out the E71fanatics page on the topic, HERE.

After a short hiatus, INFAMOUS Magazine is back. The monthly was originally published out of The Now! in Surrey but has since been moved to the Vancouver Courier which means better downtown distribution, plus we get to piggyback on a great publication.

My role in writing somewhere between 2500 and 3000 words a month for the monthly social events feature on page 5 and 7 has been changed since Fred Lee already does this for the Courier. Instead, my photos will be featured throughout the publication on a regular basis – more my style anyways and I won’t be stressing out anymore over a publication deadline – *whew*

In this month’s issue, my photo of Noot Seear taken at this year’s Quente event was featured for a mini-blurb about Noot Seear posing in Playboy France on page 5. Renown photog Luis Sanchis gets the credit for the nude photography of Noot (aka Renata) Seear – you can check out the action HERE. Oh.. did I mention that it was about Noot Seear? Just checking…

The rest of my work can be spotted on page 15 in the 30 days of style section featuring Rick Campanelli, Cindy Busby and Michell Morgan on the red carpet at the Edgwater Casino, Erin Cebula, Tommy Gilmartin, Jason Matlo, Benhamin Arthur, Mark Rurknecht, Andy Chu and Sara Lynn at the Centre for Performing Arts and Catharine Ann and Marc Joncas at Players Chophouse.

My favourite? It’s a toss up between the Matlo-Gilmartin union and the Ann-Joncas one. Either way, I always smile when I see em.

If you truly can’t get enough of me (stalker), feel free to tune into the radio on Thursday mornings. I sit in with Jenn and Joe on TALK 1410AM between 9:15am and 9:30am HERE. Working with Joe Leary, Jennifer Thomson and producer Renee Lukacs is terrific. Also check out the Urban Mixer blog (every couple days) as it’s updated as quickly as we have content HERE.