Dear Antony,

Thank you for contacting Sony Ericsson Online Support.
After doing a bit of research on this end, I was unable to locate any repair centers in Canada that would be capable of repairing your phone.

However, depending on the location where you purchased the phone, you may have another option. If you purchased the phone from United States dealer (Online, or at the store) and you have a mailing address in the US we can return the phone to, then it may be possible to get the phone repaired in the US.

If this is what you would like to do, please contact us at the number listed below so we can validate your warranty and have the phone serviced.

As part of Sony Ericsson’s commitment to excellent customer service, we offer a wide variety of mobile products to suit your lifestyle. If you require more information, or have any other questions, please visit our website at http://www.sonyericsson.com or call us at 1-866-766-9374.

Best regards,
John

I don’t want to send my phone to the US. I may have to wait for a couple of weeks before I get my phone back. So, I was asking around my friends and colleagues. Someone suggested me to bring the phone to a store that sells phone accessories, such as headset, phone cover, etc.

Since there is no other choice, I went to that store. It is owned by a Chinese immigrant. The store is small and “hidden” at the corner of a small shopping mall.

• Owner: “What can I do for you, sir?“
• Me: “I have a Sony Ericsson P990i. It is now dead. Last week I tried to update the firmware via Sony Ericsson Update Service; but the update process failed. Now the phone cannot even reboot.”
• Owner: “Let me see.“

He tried to switch on the phone.

• Owner: “I’ll try to re-flash the phone. Do you want to wait or leave the phone here?“
• Me: “The sooner the better. Just do it now.“

He went inside his “secret room”; and 15 minutes later, he went out with a smile on his face.

• Owner: “Your phone is working again now.“

Wow… isn’t it amazing? None of the official Sony Ericsson Service Centers all across Canada can repair the phone; but this small store did the job.

My only question is how they get the software for the phone. Is it from the “official” channel, meaning Sony Ericsson?

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

That’s all for now. I have to prepare many things for my trip.

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

I haven’t had time yet to dig forum discussions and blog postings to find out more information about this. Does anyone have the same experience?

Oh yes, forgot to mention. I have Windows XP SP2 with the latest patches. The previous version of Nokia Software Updater works fine for me (around 3 weeks ago). Only after I updated to the latest one, it stops working.

Update (13-Jun-07): Finally, I solved the problem by reformatting my hard drive.

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

This posting is not related to mobile phones industry. It is just for refreshment for those who don’t know that the world is currently voting for the New 7 Wonders of the world. Honestly, I know this voting when I visited one of the candidates in Germany, i.e. Neuschwanstein castle.

If you haven’t voted for the new 7 wonders of the world yet, I encourage you to do so. There are 21 finalists right now and only 34 days left to vote. You can vote them online!

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

My posting will be very sporadic in the next 2 weeks. After that, you can expect no posting at all.

See you in June…

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

On February 13, at 3GSM in Barcelona, Forum Nokia will launch Forum Nokia Champion, a recognition and reward program that honors a select group of mobile developers from around the world. We are pleased to inform you that as one of the outstanding talents in our community, you have been named a founding member of Forum Nokia Champion.

For you who don’t know about Forum Nokia Champion initiative, here is a brief description from Forum Nokia web site:

Because Forum Nokia wants forum.nokia.com community members to know how very much their hard work and involvement is appreciated, we have launched Forum Nokia Champion, a recognition and reward program for top mobile developers from around the world. Forum Nokia Champions are outstanding individuals who are selected on the basis of their outstanding skills and devotion to the Forum Nokia community.

If I remember correctly, there are around 50 developers around the world who were selected as the founding member of Forum Nokia Champion.

The reward was a very big surprise to me. I couldn’t believe that I was selected. Honestly, I felt that I hadn’t contributed too much to the developer’s community.

On the other side, being selected as Forum Nokia Champions has some implications to us. We have to share our knowledge to other Forum Nokia members. Our insight, vision and active involvement should inspire others.

The membership of Forum Nokia Champion is valid for one year only. My membership is supposed to be expired today. Fortunately… I have been re-selected as one of the new Forum Nokia Champions 2007.

Thank you to all Forum Nokia Champion team. Congratulations to the founding members who have been re-selected…

Update (January 27, 2007): Thanks to all bloggers who congratulate me:

• Symbian Guru: Congratulations to Antony Pranata, 2-time Forum Nokia Champion
• Darla Mack: Congratulations Antony!
• Ring Nokia: Congratulations to Antony Pranata for becoming a Forum Nokia Champion

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

Anyway, here is the list of five things that you might or might not know about me.

1. I am originally from Indonesia. My home town is Magelang, a very small town in the center of Java island. I don’t think anybody here has ever heard of Magelang before… The picture below shows a field near my parent’s house.
   
   
   
   
2. I decided to move out from Indonesia because of big riots in 1998. Although the riots didn’t happen in my home town, it was targeting ethnic Chinese. That’s why many Chinese-Indonesians left the country after the riots. Btw, I am a Chinese Indonesian….
   Interestingly, my grandfather is originally from Fujian province in China. He moved from China to Indonesia because of economic crisis in the 1930s.
3. The first programming language that I learnt was BASIC back in 1990. My uncle, William Suryawijaya, taught me how to program in GW-BASIC. His first assignment was displaying a simple mathematic table like the screenshot below.
   
   
4. I speak a little bit German. Ja genau… ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch… .
5. My first mobile phone was… surprise… Siemens C25. I bought it in August 1999 and sold it one year later. After that, I have been using Nokia phones until today. Here is the list of Nokia phones that I have used so far: Nokia 3330, Nokia 7650, Nokia 6600, Nokia 7710, Nokia N-Gage QD, Nokia 6680, Nokia N80, Nokia N91 and Nokia N73.

Now, the most interesting part. I would like to tag the following bloggers to continue this “Five Things” effect.

• Phil Schwarzmann from S60 blogs
• Darla Mack – the mobile diva
• Jo Stichbury – the author of “Symbian OS Explained” and “Accredited Symbian OS Developer Primer”
• Martin Sauter
• agwe23 from Techmundo 2.0.

Actually, I would like to tag some other bloggers, e.g. Tommi Vilkamo, Steve Lichtfield and Stefan Constantinescu. Unfortunately, they have been tagged by other bloggers.

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site

Now I have my life in Canada back to normal. My wedding is over. Everything ran smoothly.
I am feeling very lucky too because 2 weeks right after my wedding, a big earth quake hit Yogyakarta killing almost 6,000 people there.

So from now on, I should be able to blogging regularly again. Stay tune…

Advertisement: AntonyPranata.com My personal web site