fringsters listen up

This is your opportunity to shine and show us just how much you love football, your mobile phone and fring. In exchange we will give 3 fringsters shiny new Nokia N97 mini handsets courtesy of our freinds over at Nokia and Ovi Store. *

To this affect we have just lauched the fring football contest on our facebook. We now invite you to upload your fring-a-fied football pictures to our wall and get your friends to “like” them. The picture with the most “likes” wins.

We have made it easier for those who are not at the soccer to enter using cut and paste graphics as per the sample below. However we encourage those of you lucky enough to be at the football to us your imagination, creativity and send us some way cool fring-a-fied football images.

As they say in the movies, may the best fring-a-fied picture win

1. Download this image

2. Using some nifty computer software paste the hardhat above over your other image. As per the sample below. If you havn’t got such software get your friends to help you.

3. Upload your fring-a-fied picture to this facebook wall.

4. Get your friends, family and co-workers to upload their own pics and “like” your pictures.

5. To get extra coverage and more brownie points link to them from your facebook, twitter and other social spaces.

6. Thats it. Now sit back and watch as the “likes” roll in and you may just be the next winner.

To see what others are uploading click here. We look forward to seeing all your fring-a-fied images soon.

*Terms

Back in May, Nokia announced the release of its much- anticipated application store- the Ovi Store. Ovi provides tens of millions of Nokia users worldwide with easy access to a whole lot of downloadable goodies from the Ovi website and WAP site as well as Nokia N97 users, on which Ovi is already pre-installed.

fring’s updated version has just been launched on the Ovi and we are looking forward to test out this new service ourselves. As you recall, the N97 is also already supported by fring’s latest 3.40 version so the lucky one’s who already managed to get your hands on the N97 can start enjoying the very social fring 3.4 and a whole lot of other apps from Ovi right away.

Nokia last night introduced the shiny new Nokia 5530 Xpress Music handset to the South African market at an exclusive event hosted in the Holiday Inn, Sandton. After the event everyone in attendance was issued with a review handset to use for a period of 12 months. Wow thanx Nokia

The shiny new Nokia 5530 Xpress Music is a low cost device and supports the same applications as the Nokia 5800 and N97. Most applications can be easily downloaded via the Nokia Ovi Store. I thought it may be good to do a post showing the applications I have personally found to be the most useful on my review handset, the sexy new Nokia 5530 Xpress music.

Please note that my list of top 10 must have apps for the 5530 includes both free and premium services.

1. fring – Lets you talk, chat and interact freely between: Skype, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Twitter, Facebook, GoogleTalk, AIM, SIP, Gmail Notifier, LastFM, Orkut and Yandex
2. JoikuSpot – Turns your mobile handset into a secure WLAN (Wi-Fi) HotSpot.
3. Gmail – Google’s free email service – this is the best email service on earth.
4. Google Maps – Possibly the best free mobile mapping software available.
5. Shazam - Amazingly powerful music search application
6. BrightLight - Turns your handset into a handy torch.
7. Accuweather – The best weather application on the 5530. It’s also in the download menu on handset.
8. Best Screensnap – A cool application for taking screenshots. In the download menu on handset.
9. Qik - A cool live video streaming service.
10. Digia Web Browser – The best touch screen web browser available.

This is my current Top 10 and when more applications become available the list will change

We have just been introduced to the super sexy Nokia N97 handset. Which btw is now officially available in South Africa.

“The Nokia N97 is a S60 5th Edition mobile computer with a large 3,5“ TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback. The device provides excellent user experience for internet and entertainment by combining qwerty keyboard with touch UI and Home screen functionality. Use the N97 to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps. Additional features include game titles with N-Gage, a 5 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash and automatic geotagging of images and videos.”

The handset is easy to use and after playing with it for a few miutes can tell you that its a dream machine.

It’s all good news for fringsters today as we already fully support the Nokia N97 so if you are one of the lucky few who already own this device or if you are planning to purchase it in the coming weeks, don’t forget to take your friends mobile by getting downloading fring here.

That right folks, your local fring Blogger has been invited to attend the much anticipated Nokia underground fusion extravaganza, to be held in Johannesburg on the 16th of July. The event, press conference and cocktail party will celebrate the launch of 3 great new Nokia products: The Nokia N97, N86 8MP and Ovi Store.

Attendance is by invitation only which means only a few privileged individuals will get in the door. The good news for fringsters though is that I will be live blogging and tweeting from the event to give you the full benefit, feel free to follow me on twitter for live updates. That said if any of the other invited attendees want to meet up with me at or after the event feel free to drop me a line [simon <AT> fring <DOT> com]

See you guys in Johannesburg.