Recently, I got a question from a friend on Facebook about how to disable the saving of location information on photos taken on a Windows Phone.  After some quick tapping through my Lumia, as I remember turning off the settings previously, I found the setting and am documenting it here.

• Launch the Settings application, you know that gear shaped tile, on your phone
• Swipe to the right to the applications menu

Easy configuration of the camera… I would have expected to be able to access this configuration from the “photo settings” application bar button in the camera application, but this is a good second choice location for the settings.

This is the first in a series of posts about my transition from an iPhone 4s to a Nokia Lumia 928 running Windows Phone 8.  For the last 3 years, I have carried an iPhone 4 on AT&T, and then an iPhone 4s on Verizon Wireless.  I’m very accustomed to the Apple iPhone way of using things… and I’ve tried a Windows Phone from time to time.  I’ve always enjoyed Windows Phone, and had an opportunity in the middle of June 2013 to get the latest Nokia Lumia on Verizon Wireless.  I took that opportunity, and have had a number of challenges since.

I really like that I don’t need to tote around those silly white charging cables with the proprietary connector for this phone.  I have plenty of micro-usb connector cables, and knew I could use them effectively with this phone.  When I first unboxed the phone and plugged it in with a cable I had been using to charge my Bluetooth headset, the phone charged quickly and I was ready to go with a full charge in an hour or two.

I took my Lumia to my Honda Fit, which has an auxiliary USB connection for the radio, and attempted to plug in my phone.  I was expecting the phone’s music collection and audio apps to start playing through the radio and the phone to start charging.  Nope… Nada..  I completely struck out:  the phone would not charge, and the car radio blinked a “device not supported” error message.  This is a significant negative for me, as I prefer to have the phone’s GPS audio and charging through my car radio so that I don’t need a headset or need to listen for the phone’s speaker.  The phone did charge when I connected a micro-usb cable from the phone to a car-power adapter (cigarette lighter for us older folks)

Out of curiosity, I took the phone to my wife’s Ford C-Max, which runs the latest version of Microsoft Sync.  I thought this would be a lock, as it was a Microsoft device connected to a Microsoft device.  I didn’t completely strike out here, as the phone did charge when plugged into the car’s USB outlet, but was not detected by the entertainment system.  I did get the Sync system to connect to my phone when I activated a Bluetooth connection between the devices.

This past week, my family and I took a road-trip for vacation, driving to the New Jersey Shore.  I attempted to use the much-talked about Nokia driving directions in the Nokia Here app.  The app was very easy to use, as I was able to dictate my destination and the app found and configured driving directions quickly.  I was impressed, and set off on my projected two hour drive.  After using the Waze app on my trusty iPhone, I knew that GPS can be a serious drain on phone battery resources, so I plugged in my Lumia.

Here is where things get a little tricky…  After 45 minutes of driving, my phone shut off.  Confused, I attempted to turn the phone back on, and was unable to get any response from the device.  I had a pretty good idea where I was going,  stayed on the main roads, and reached my destination with little trouble.  I started recharging my phone as soon as I could, and found my hunch to be correct:  the phone completely discharged while using the Nokia GPS apps AND charging in the car.  This blew my mind… I expected the phone to charge a little, certainly not as much as it normally charges when connected to a regular AC adapter… but this was silly. 

The following day my family was going to drive to a local zoo, we decided to use my wife’s iPhone for driving directions.  I loaded up the Battery app on my Lumia, and connected it to the car charger.  I turned off location services, WiFi, and Bluetooth connections to the phone.  As we drove, the phone reported that it was charging 18.9% per hour.. a decent charge rate.  However, after 45 minutes of driving to the zoo, my phone discharged 45% of its charge from when I started driving.  This is crazy…  the phone was NOT in use, it was only connected to the cellular network, and the screen was turned off for the duration of the trip.  How is the phone discharging THIS FAST??

I mentioned these issues on Twitter, and the @NokiaHelps account told me that I should be using the Nokia certified cables, not some other connector from another vendor.  I still need to get my hands on a Nokia car charger.. but I do have a Mophie battery backup to connect to the phone.

I tried using the Mophie with the phone.  This is where things get REALLY interesting.  Previously with my old iPhone, I was able to connect the iPhone and restore to 100% in about 60 minutes, using half of the charge on the Mophie.  It’s a pretty handy little device.  I tried using the Mophie with the Lumia and after connected for two hours with no network services running except for cellular, I gained 20% of battery and drained the entire battery backup.

I have now attempted a hard-reset of the phone, and am waiting for it to finish wiping and restarting.  After waiting a few a minutes, I was greeted with a spinning gears screen.  I waited FIVE HOURS for that screen to clear, with no luck.  @LanceWMcCarthy recommended that I reset the device a few times to jump-start the process of getting back to the start screen.  After five resets in the next 20 minutes, I was back up and running.

I installed an ran all of my old apps and configured my home screen the way I had it before.  Wouldn’t you know, my charge rates are significantly higher, and the phone is not discharging anywhere near as fast as it had before. 

This past weekend was the litmus test:  I used the Nokia Here driving directions to get to my aunt’s place for a family get-together.  The drive covered 90+ minutes, and I REALLY needed my GPS as I haven’t driven to their house in years.  I am happy to note that not only did the GPS run the entire duration of the journey, but I actually gained charge on my phone’s battery.  I was thrilled at the turn-around in battery performance.

Summary

I really like the features of the Nokia Lumia 928, and the battery had its issues when I first brought it home.  In the future, I intend to wipe all phones that I get in order to ensure that I start with a “clean” phone operating system before I get started.  Many thanks to Verizon Wireless, Nokia, and Lance McCarthy for helping me clear up the problems I had with this phone.  This device is a keeper for me… at least until the next really cool Nokia phone comes to Verizon Wireless.

I have been a bit delayed at writing this, but at long last, I have an update regarding my visit to TechEd 2013’s Speaker Idol competition.  For the uninitiated, Speaker Idol is a technical speaker competition in “American Idol” format in an attempt to identify future speakers for Microsoft’s TechEd conference.  The winner of the competition gets a guaranteed spot in the following year’s conference. Carl Franklin has graciously posted a video of the competition’s final round of speaking on YouTube for all to see:

I speak at the 24:20 mark.. and (spoiler alert) I finished as the runner-up.

This was a great experience for me, and helped me realize just how far I have come since my first appearance at Speaker Idol in 2012.  If you are interested in testing your mettle, and think you can be a TechEd speaker, I highly recommend you contact the event organizers and attempt to enter the competition next year in Houston at TechEd 2014. 

As for me, next year I will not be entering the competition.  I have submitted two finalist qualifying talks to Speaker Idol 2012 and 2013, earned a Microsoft MVP award, and have a number of larger conferences on the schedule over the next 6 months… I should have plenty of qualifications to be a TechEd speaker in 2014.  We’ll see how that process goes.

What did you think of the video?  What can I improve in the way I presented my talk?  Sound off in the comments area below, I’d like to hear your thoughts. 

In 2005, I attended my first series of Microsoft community events in my local area.  At the time, they were typically hosted at movie theaters, and I enjoyed every second of them.  I started going to my local Philly.Net user group in the months that followed, soaking up every lesson that I could attend.  In 2008, I gave my first presentation at the user group.  It was a 15 minute ‘lightning-talk’ demonstrating a simple ASP.Net state server that I had written.  From then on, I was hooked.  I wanted to be more involved in the community.

Each year since 2008, I have presented at both Philly.Net code camps. I have travelled on my own expenses (and recently with some help from INETA and my employer) to regional user groups and conferences to speak.  This blog and my Telerik blog have seen more and more content.  Finally, all of that hard work has finally paid off.

Today I was named a Microsoft MVP in the area of ASP.Net and Internet Information Server.  I am humbled to be recognized as a leader in the ASP.Net community by the team at Microsoft.  For those of you who know me, you know that I have a deep commitment to this platform.  I am a huge fan of ASP.Net, and look for all sorts of ways to implement neat and unusual web applications with it.

I have always been excited by the web.  I’ve been building web applications for decades now and as my career has changed to that of an evangelist,  this award means even more to me that it would have when I was a developer.  I’m going to add the MVP badge appropriately to my various profiles, speaker bios, and get back to writing interesting content for you dear reader.

This won’t change the type of content that you see from me.  I won’t hold back on telling you what’s cool and what’s lame in web development.  You’ll just see more of it even more frequently from me.

That’s enough blogging about myself for now.  I’m going to go grab a gluten-free donut to celebrate. 

It has been a whirlwind week here at Fritz headquarters, and I have not one but TWO announcements for you.

First, it should be no secret to those of you that know me that I really enjoy the medium of radio.  I love working a microphone, and the opportunities I have had to be on various podcasts have been nothing but pure joy for me.  For the past year, I have been assembling a number of training screencasts.  You probably saw one here and a few over on CodeProject.TV 

At long last, I can announce that I have been accepted as a Pluralsight author and will be producing videos covering Microsoft ASP.Net web technology.  The first topic that I am working on is a course on Facebook app development with ASP.Net MVC.  I am very excited about this opportunity, and will be putting in some time to ensure that I deliver a great course for you. 

For the second announcement, I’ll direct your attention to my Events page.  I have started listing events on this site for the last six months, and even added a map with pins to show where I have been speaking and where I will be speaking.  Coordinating lectures is a labor of love, and requires a lots of patience and negotiation skills.  I have been applying to speak at various venues, and found some small successes up to this point.  I can proudly announce that this streak has been broken, and I will be speaking at the AngleBrackets conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in October.  I’m looking forward to this conference and feel privileged to be included with this group.

 Three of my lectures have been chosen to be presented at the conference.  I am really looking forward to this conference and hanging with the great group of speakers that have been selected.

I will have one more announcement later this week before I leave for Tech Ed in New Orleans.  June is shaping up to be a GREAT month for me.