Interview with Tech Savvy Rita El Khoury

Today I present you Rita El Khoury one of  my favorite Symbian writers. Why do I like her ? because she is raw and blogs from the heart, she’s real and shares tons of accumulated knowledge. She not only is a great blogger but also happens to be pharmacist, can you believe that, yes in the medical field. I remember reading a post which really struck a chord in me, its called “Diary of a True Mobile Powerhouse” which I highly recommend to anyone but especially newcomers to Symbian. Rita is well known throughout the Symbian community and as you may know she writes for the Symbian-Guru.com alongside Ricky Cadden and also at Fonearena.com and of course she has her own personal blog over at The Dotsisx Blog.com so as you can see, Rita is all over the blogosphere but she does not spread herself thin she is a top notch Mobile Journalist and for those that don’t know she was even interviewed by the Wall Street Journal . Without further ado, I present Rita El Khoury. Enjoy

Tell us a little bit about your background and what lead you to start blogging?

It goes back to January 2007. I had been using my Nokia 3250 for half a year and was following the blogosphere closely, which at the time consisted of Engadget, Ring Nokia, Symbian-Guru, Darla Mack, Symbian in Motion and a few others. Darla posted a tip about selecting multiple items using the pen key (oh goodness, this whole thing feels like a page from a history book now) and all I could think was "I knew this trick since the first day I got my 3250, maybe I should start my own blog". That’s how Dotsisx was born as a separate blog, until December 2007 when out of the blue I joined Symbian-Guru and got my first trial handset, a Nokia N95 8GB. Everything has been a rollercoaster ride since then.

My main motivation to keep on blogging has changed a lot over the 2.5 years that I’ve been doing it. Now I mostly look for handsets, services and applications that fit into my everyday life as a medical researcher and a connected blogger and I blog from that perspective frequently.

What are your favorite Symbian applications? Can you list your top 5 and why you like them, feel free to expand the list if you want? Any favorite practices?

My list of favorite applications has been turned head over heels so much over the years, but this is the current state of it:

What’s your favorite Twitter client for your smartphone and desktop and why?

Most of my Twitter activity is carried through the mobile, and not the desktop. I use Gravity, as stated above for any handset that I happen to have in my hands. It’s elegant, intuitive, simple, yet packs a ton of features, and I’ve been using it since the early alpha days where it only had tweets, replies and direct messages. It’s amazing how many improvements Jan Ole Suhr, the developer behind it, has been able to pump out in the past months. If I was honest, I would say that Gravity made me an active Twitterer. It’s a joy to use.

On the desktop, I have TweetDeck and Seemsic installed but I seldom use them. I basically like the simplicity of the Firefox add-on: TwitterFox, and I also use the basic web interface.

What advice can you give to new bloggers?

Easy come, easy go. Nowadays it’s incredibly easy to buy a domain, write a few posts, get some link love, and build a reputation. But I have been around long enough to see how bloggers who have it handed to them on a silver plate don’t stick too long. That’s why I carry a huge amount of respect to Ricky Cadden, Stefan Constantinescu and Zach Epstein. They’re the only ones I can remember from the early days who are still around, writing relevant articles and aiming to make a difference. I enjoy reading all their material because I know where they came from, and what they went through to become who they are.

My advice to new bloggers would be not to despair if your blog doesn’t get a ton of links, subscribers and readers in the first months, or even year. If you find it in yourself to push your site forward despite that, you would know for sure that you’re cut for this. If not, you’re going to stop one day, wonder about the purpose of it all, and eventually end it. I know that this is harsh to say, but it’s the truth nonetheless.

Which Nokia phones have you used in the past? 

My first Nokia device was the 6610, an S40 handset that I owned for 3 years. After that, I got the Nokia 3250XM, the first released S60 3rd edition device which I kept for 2 years, then I got the original N95 which I hated until I won the N82 Black and the E71. I also bought the 5800XM a couple of months ago. Apart from these, I have trialled the N95 8GB, N93i, N810, E90, E61i, N81 8GB, N96, 6210 Navigator, E75, E66, N85, and finally N86 8MP and N97.

What are your two favorite Nokia smartphone of all time and which Nokia smartphone are looking forward to use.

Without any doubt, the Nokia E71 and the Nokia N82 black. They are both packed to the bones with features, but the E71 remains the best handset for productivity and efficiency, and the N82 carries the best camera I have ever used, even putting my 12MP digital camera and the N86 8MP to shame on some shots.

Since I’ve already trialled the N97, the only smartphone I’m looking forward to is the E72. I believe it could be a great replacement for my E71.

What is your favorite color, movie, music band, and sport? 

Color: green. Movie: has to be a tie between Troy, Lord of The Rings and Notting Hill (strange 3rd choice, I know). Music Band: The Rasmus, with an honourable mention to Kyo (french rock band). Sport: I played Basketball back in highschool, I also love swimming, but I enjoy watching all kinds of sports on TV: Tennis, Football, Basketball, Rugby, Formula1, WaterPolo, Handball, PingPong, Athletics, Winter sports, summer sports,…

Tell us Profimail or Nokia Messaging and why?

A month ago, I would’ve said Profimail without a second of doubt, since I had trouble getting Nokia Messaging to even work on any of my handsets. I don’t know what has changed recently, but it now works. It’s a very close run between both apps with each one having a slight advantage in different aspects.

Tell us what are your thoughts on the Symbian foundation and the future that awaits Nokia especially in the Touch market ?

That question by itself would take a full interview and more to answer I believe the Symbian Foundation is the best thing that has ever happened to Nokia, Symbian and S60 since the iPhone. I’ve been keeping up with a lot of behind-the-scenes work in the SF, and I’m very pleased with the amount of excitement and innovation going on there. But we’re still in "concept" time, and we have yet to see the fruits. Even if the first releases are scheduled for the end of this year, I believe it won’t be until early 2011 that we see the real difference, which I’m afraid will be a bit late.

As far as touch handsets are concerned, it’s not Apple that are posing a threat to Nokia, imo, despite the humongous amount of buzz they’re generating. Apple is known to improve its products in baby steps and to withhold basic functionality that other manufacturers bring. On the other hand, Android and WebOS (Palm) are looking fresh, innovative, user-oriented and simple to use, in comparison with S60 5th. Nokia is basically a late bloomer in the Touch market, and as such, they’ll continue to have struggles in this segment, until the SF settles down and releases its new platform.

What’s your favorite Bluetooth headset?

The Jabra BT3030. I bought this one some 9 months ago, and it has integrated my daily life very easily. I love its design, the dedicated multimedia keys, the sound quality, the provided earphones, and the fact that I can replace them with any pair I own through the 3.5mm jack. It’s definitely my most used phone accessory.

What do you think of the android OS and mobile linux in general? 

I still haven’t had time to play with Android, I hope I do so pretty soon, but I’ve read a lot about it. Given how many Google services I use on a daily basis, I’m pretty sure that I would enjoy the simple setup-and-get-going. I also don’t know a lot about developing, but it seems as though doing so for Android is way easier than Symbian.

People often say that the type of mobile OS is not a major concern to consumers. Do you agree and do you think it will become more or less important in the future?

This might have been the case in the past. Users wanted a device that would answer their needs, no matter if its Windows Mobile, PalmOS, S60, UIQ, or any form of Linux. I think that the new generation of consumers is much more aware, knows how to research its products before buying, and looks for reviews on the internet. As we move forward, this percentage of "aware" users will only get higher. At the same time, OS developers will try to differentiate themselves and to market their OS brand more and more.

What is more exciting to you – a symbian 4 device or a maemo device? 

Maemo is looking more and more enticing, but my previous experience with the Nokia N810 left me a bit on the fences. Maemo is a very user friendly platform, but it’s a platform made for the Linux elite and not the average user. The average user can get a bit out of it, but I found the developer community lacking considerably behind S60 (of course that was in February 2008). I wasn’t able to get a decent ebook reader, office document reader or editor, or image editor. I hope the new version takes Maemo to the user on the street.

On the other hand, given how many resources are being placed to push Symbian, the amount of work behind the scenes, and the refreshing ideas being tossed around, I would say that a Symbianˆ 4 device is more exciting to me than a Maemo unit.

What do you think of the Nokia n97 in terms of software and UI/UX? 

I have a lot of thoughts about the N97 that I’ve been trying to get out in this very long series: Demystifying the Nokia N97. I could talk about it here, but it would make this interview even longer than it is

Do you think Nokia needs to focus more on UI/UX? 

One word: YES. The reason why a lot of reviewers, especially in the USA are bashing the N97 is the UI/UX. They need to focus on it, not by improving it but changing it inside out.

Which Nokia service do you think will have a bigger impact: point-and-find or indoor positioning?

Indoor positioning requires certain equipment inside malls in order to work. I will improve the user experience, but on a very limited scale: only inside malls, probably only in developed countries. It’s not something that will change the way we interact with the world around us.

Point And Find, on the contrary, has the potential to do it. It doesn’t require special equipment, it’s user generated content, and it definitely looks like a winner in my opinion, making it easy to find movies, products, places,…

Rita is also on Twitter and you can follow her at @khouryrt

Thanks for joining the club Rita