Is Nokia "Tube" my next phone?

Ok, so the rumors are out: Nokia is about to release its first touch screen phone (in years) with an upgraded, modern S60 user interface. October the 2nd is around the corner so let's wait and see what it holds for us. I still have my SonyEricsson K610i as my main phone and I am looking to upgrade it. But none of the phones have really impressed me so far. I have had my opportunities to play with other Nokia phones, mostly S60 3.1 and 3.2 but I hate the old version of the S60 UI. If Nokia has managed to pull of a decent modern touch based UI, I think Tube has what it takes to replace my SonyEricsson.

Tube's specifications (again, according to rumors) are really impressive; 3.2" touch screen with 640 x 320 pixels, HSDPA connectivity, 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, A-GPS, Wifi and, most importantly for me, a 3.5mm headphone jack. It should also be shipped with a 8 GB memory card and this makes the phone my perfect MP3 player as well. See, I am also looking to replace my current 1GB iPod Nano (1st gen) with something else and I really want to be able to use my phone as an MP3 player as well. But I don't want just an ok MP3 player in my phone - I want an MP3 player in my phone to replace my current one!

Looking at the specs, I really can't understand what the fansboys are whining about that this would "only" be a mid-range phone. Come on! What do you expect from a phone? How is some N96 or N85 any better than Tube, based on the rumors floating on the Internet? Nothing in the specs point to anything mediocre in this phone. True, it looks a bit plastic, but if the build quality overall is good I wont complain.

Overall, Tube is looking quite good, but I am really worried about the UI. I say again; S60 3.2 UI SUCKS big time. Nokia really has to pull this one off and I am sure Nokia feels the burdain. Tube is automatically compared to the iPhone and its slick UI. I really hope the UI in Tube is polished and works well, fast and logically. Then I think Tube will be my next phone.

Whenever it is available in Finland that it. Let's wait and see. Fingers crossed.

Pictures from Maemo Summit 2008 in Berlin

I took a few (could have taken a lot more...) pictures from the Maemo Summit 2008 held in Berlin 19.9.-20.9.2008. You can see them on my Flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/kypeli/sets/72157607472568981/

Thanks again Maemo and Nokia for giving us a great summit!

Re: Engadget "A few more details confirmed on Nokia's next-gen Internet Tablet"

Engadget calls the photo of "leaked specs" of the upcoming Maemo 5 device from the Maemo Summit as a "spy shot". I can only think that Engadget had to add this make it seem more mysterious.

Engadget, That picture is not a spy shot! I attended the Maemo Summit in Berlin and the summit was open to anyone willing to walk in, without any NDA requirements. I have a photo of the same slide on my camera. Do you want that too? There is nothing in the powerpoint slide that you didn't hear from other sources during the summit or otherwise was already known from OSiM World.

Engadget, check your sources.

My Master's Thesis

Master's Thesis
Originally uploaded by Kypeli

One final time. This time with covers and all :)

P.S. get it here: http://www.johanpaul.com/thesis_johanpaul.pdf

Thesis: Quantitative Approach for Lightweight Agile Process Assessment

Yes, I have finally finished my Master's Thesis. And I must stress, finally. Some spell checking might still occur and I will print it next week. But I am quite pleased with what I current have. I am more than happy to receive any feedback and comments on my theses!

My thesis is about about our experiences at Plenware Oy on how to assess the agility of a process in a lightweight fashion, but still to be accurate and to support the Software Process Improvement (SPI) initiative. We came up with the idea that the assessment could be a set of predefined questions that could be easily answered by taking process metrics from a project management tool. The answers would be compared against reference answers and points would be given based on the assessment. Finally, a weighted sum gives the agility of the process.

The same approach could be implemented for other assessments, but our goal was to assess the agility of the process. The processes were in a transition phase to go towards agility and it was important to be able to measure the agility in a lightweight fashion.

I express my deepest sense of gratitude to my supervisor PhD Luka Milovanov at Plenware Oy for assisting in writing of this thesis.

Here's the abstract:

One focus in software development is to achieve high quality without loss of agility in the development process. In software engineering an agile development process is able to react to frequently changing customer requirements and also able to develop the software in small well tested increments. This is not an easy thing to do and will not emerge on its own, but requires well optimized and continuously improved software development processes. The quality of a process can be assessed by some external audits but they usually are heavyweight and costly processes. To measure the quality and follow the improvements in a process a lightweight assessment method is desired.

In this thesis I will look at Software Process Improvement (SPI) paradigm from the perspective of both Reference Process Models and the Experience Factory (EF) infrastructure. Then, I will present a quantitative lightweight process assessment method for agile projects. This method allows the assessment of a process in less than two hours. The method yields numeric results of the agility of a process in a lightweight fashion. I will conclude by stating that the work done in this thesis is only indicative of this kind of assessment for agile processes there is a need for further research. The results presented here result from the current need in Plenware Oy related to SPI evolvement.

Here's the PDF: Quantitative Approach for Lightweight Agile Process Assessment