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Dealing with conference calls is a daily fact of working life for many people. Indeed, they are also increasingly being used so that groups of friends can chat together on the same phone call.

Your Nokia Lumia smartphone is the ideal device for setting up conference calls – with just a few taps on your screen you’ll be chatting away to two or more of your friends.

There are also several useful apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace that can help you manage your work conference calls, for example automatic dialling of PIN codes and syncing with your calendar.

Before we look at some of these apps, here’s a quick recap of how to make conference calls on your Lumia. Also, check with your operator if they allow conference calls on your line. 

Making conference calls

To start you need to need to make a call to one person as normal. Either dial in their number or select them from your People hub.

Once you have them on the line, you then need to press ‘Add Call’ to then start dialling up another person – again you can either manually dial their number or find them via your People hub.

At this stage you are only making two separate phone calls – to create the conference call so that all parties can hear and talk to one another you need to press ‘Merge calls.’ The word ‘Conference’ will then appear at the top of your screen.

You can add more than once person to the conference call although be advised that the maximum number varies by mobile operator.

A further nice feature of making conference calls on your Nokia Lumia is that you can still have a private conversation with someone on the call if necessary.

To do this, select ‘Private’ and a ‘choose call’ screen will appear with the names and numbers of everyone on the conference call. Select the person that you wish to speak to privately – no one else on the call will be able to hear your conversation.

To return back to the full conference call just select ‘Merge calls’ again. Once you’re finished then just press ‘End’ as normal.

Conference call apps

So actually making conference calls on your Nokia Lumia is pretty simple and straightforward. However, when making conference calls for work it can often involve entering conference IDs, PIN codes and the like.

Here are several apps in the Windows Marketplace that can help you with your work conference calls.

Conference Caller (free) 

This clever app is able to identify conference calls that you have scheduled in your calendar and then with a single click call the conference line and also enter any associated IDs or PIN numbers.

You can also manually add conference details if they haven’t already been put in your calendar. If you have recurring conference calls, then they can also be pinned to your start screen for quick access. Nice.

Other free variations of this app and that are worth considering include Meetingo and InstantMeeting. 

FreeConference (free) 

If you use or have an account at FreeConference.com then this app is essential for you.

As well as letting you take part in conference calls, you can also use the app to quickly set calls up and then share the dialling in details to your friends or colleagues via email, text or using social networks.

 You can also listen to conference recordings and record a personalised greeting!

Panaton (free) 

If you don’t have a freeconference.com account then you may want to consider using Panaton instead, which offers many of the same features as a comprehensive conference call organiser and client.

In addition, Panaton has support for Skype, shares address books with Plaxo and LinkedIn and can even record your conferences as a downloadable MP3 file.

Have you used any of these apps to make or set up conference calls? Let us know in the comments below.

Are your school days really the best times of your life? If you’re still at school right now then you probably think I’m crazy for even suggesting such a thing!

Isn’t school about being with your mates, laughing at adults and not having a care in the world? OK, there’s also homework and exams to contend with but that’s good for you in the long run anyway. 

Besides with wonderful phones, like the Nokia Asha 311, they can make learning and doing your schoolwork a lot more fun than it was in my days.

Of course, the best thing you can learn at school is that you must never stop learning. It’s cheesy, but true. So even if you left school a long, long time ago, here are some Education apps in the Nokia Store that are well worth having on your Nokia Asha.

Dictionary & Translator Pro (free)

One of the first and most crucial tools that any student needs is a good dictionary.

This is not just a dictionary but it can also a translate words into several different languages such as Hindi, Arabic, French, German and Spanish. 

This is an online web app, which is both good and bad news. It means that it will be always updated, but of course you will have to be on WiFi or incur data charges.

For a good offline option try English Dictionary Free. It has no translator feature but it does have a thesaurus. 

Elements (free)

This is a simple but effective app that shows the periodic table of chemical elements. Click on any of the elements to reveal further information about it. 

Staying in science class, there is also Chem Calc (free) to help you with your chemistry calculations, such as working out gas molar concept, volumetric analysis and gas laws.

I don’t know what any of those things are, so I am bound to be rubbish at General Science Quiz (£4.), which claims to have over 1000 questions to test you.

Wiki Encyclopedia (free)

For general knowledge it is difficult to beat Wikipedia and this app is the perfect way of looking up entries on your Asha.

As you would expect it is very simple to use: You just type your subject in the search box and click on the link that is most irrelevant or that you are most interested in.

One area of general knowledge in which it is always useful to be clued up on is the ability to identify different national flags. Thanks goodness then for World Flags (free).

Scientific Calculator (£3)

Your Nokia Asha comes with a calculator pre-installed but to work out more complex equations then you may find that it’s worth investing in a scientific calculator. 

I actually did pretty well in my maths exams (honestly!) but just seeing those buttons SIN, COS and TAN brings a shudder down my spine!

Something that I do know how to use though is a ruler. Measure objects to your heart’s content with Pocket Ruler (free).

Pocket Classroom (free) 

Pocket Classroom is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I mentioned at the top of this article how new technology can make education much more fun and accessible. 

You pick your subject, and even a specific strand of your subject, say quadratic equations in maths, and then you follow a link, which opens up a video that gives you a practical lesson.

Pocket Classroom claims to have over 2,600 videos on a variety of common school subjects and, they’re all free. You can even download the videos to your phone for offline viewing. We didn’t have this sort of thing in my day.

Do you use your Nokia Asha at school? Let us know in the comments below.

Image credit: <cleverCl@i®ê>

As the temperatures drop across the Northern Hemisphere (readers south of the Equator should bookmark this post and come back in June) thoughts turn to winter sports and activities that make the toes tingle. So we need to know what to do, and where’s best to do it.

World of RedBull

Cost: Free in the Nokia Collection on your Lumia
Availability: Everywhere
In a nutshell: Explore the world of RedBull near you and around the world

The World of RedBull is a crazy one, we all know that – from jumping out of a balloon in space to throwing yourself off a pier to hurtling down a course made from ice – and now you can keep a track of it all in one place. Bringing you nearby events based on your location, profiles of all the RedBull athletes, videos, insights and much more as far as winter sports goes, this one’s got you covered (also, handily, the World of RedBull doesn’t stop when the sun comes out, so it’s a year-round awesome app to have).

Yes! Make me want to wrap up warm and go throw myself down a mountain! In a good way.

Snowfinder

Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Everywhere
In a nutshell: Search out that snow!

The guys at Appsolutely Fabulous reckon this app is the

‘leading supplier of snow and weather conditions’ [translated]

and features excellent information about the Austrian, Swiss, Italian, French and German ski resorts (other areas of the world are covered, of course – it gave me live info for Whistler Mountain extremely quickly). Pick your favourite resorts and find where the best snow is. Perfect for the ski bunnies out there.

Snow Report

Cost: Free in the Marketplace
Availability: Everywhere
In a nutshell: Find the best powder. For skiing, snowboarding and cross country..skiing.

Izzi took a look at the app, and from the video below, it seems to be a little more comprehensive in its coverage than Snowfinder:

I’ll let you be the judge: download both apps and let me know which you prefer. Let’s call it the Nokia Snow App Challenge. Leave me a comment with your favourite and why you chose it.

Even if you don’t ski, snowboard or even like the snow, the World of RedBull at the very least is worth checking out (they do car racing too) – you can watch what others get up to in thedeep white powder or the flat, hard unforgiving ice. Can you tell I’m not very winter sporty? Let me know what you think below or on Twitter, or if you’ve found another winter sports app I should try.

Smartphone users are some of the heaviest consumers of music, with 42% claiming to have a collection of between 2000 and 5000 songs. There was a time, not so long ago, when only the most hardcore music aficionados would have such a staggering collection. But digital music has changed all that. And that’s not all it’s changed.

1. Freed music from physical objects.

In 1987, Karlheinz Brandenburg chose Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” as the first song to fine tune his MP3 compression algorithm. The human voice being the hardest sound to compress, Vega’s a capella version of the song provided the perfect challenge for Brandenburg to test bitrates and further refine his codec. Little did he know then that eleven years later, with the advent of the first portable MP3 devices, his invention would liberate us and music. No longer was it bound to records, tapes or discs. For the first time in human history, music was freed from physical objects.

2. More music for the masses

If it wasn’t for the fact that music fans learnt to rip a CD into MP3s, we could still be waiting to buy music online. Why? Because record companies had a very profitable and cozy arrangement selling music via retailers. The large scale copying of MP3s meant record companies had no choice but to share the digital music love. Now, you can listen to a breathtaking array of music from services as diverse as Spotify, Last FM and Nokia Music.

3. Choice, choice, choice

The MP3 has made it easier than ever to be a music junkie. Long gone are the times when to know about the latest bands you had to scour the music press or go to gigs in seedy basements. Albums that might have before taken months to track down can now be found and listened to with a quick online search. What’s more, with apps like Shazam, even if you forget a band’s name, you can find out who they are in seconds. Plus record companies no longer get to dictate what we listen to.

4. Helped launch Web 2.0

Until everyone started downloading MP3s from places like Napster, people found it tough to justify spending the extra cash on broadband. Faster Internet was nice, but was it really worth the extra investment? Suddenly being able to download tons of MP3s through file sharing meant it was. And once people upgraded to broadband, web designers could create more amazing web pages. Web 2.0 would undoubtedly have happened eventually anyway, but without the incentive of MP3s it would have taken a lot longer.

5. Gave new bands a break

Which brings us to the last amazing way, and certainly for some people the most important. There are now loads of great websites for checking out new bands, places like thesixtyone, Ourstage and PureVolume, which cater specifically to upcoming bands, letting them upload their music for our listening pleasure. Before the advent of digital music, these potential superstars would never have had the chance to get their songs listened to by millions. Now we can decide if they’re any good. Not some record company executive.

Think of any other great ways MP3s have rocked our world? Drop us a note in the comments below.

Image credit: Eurok +Birgerking

Few people could have been as excited to get their hands on a Nokia Lumia 920 as Marc Wielaert, the founder of the PureViewClub website.

Marc, from the Netherlands, has been testing and reviewing camera phones for more than 10 years and three weeks ago he made a trip to Germany, on the day the device was released there, to buy himself a red Lumia 920.

Obviously, for Marc and the readers of his website, the Lumia 920 is not just any phone. As well as being Nokia’s flagship Windows Phone 8 device, it also packs the latest evolution of PureView imaging technology.

In an interview with Conversations, Marc told us how he has been getting along with the Lumia 920, using Windows Phones 8 and his verdict on the camera.

What were your initial impressions as you held the phone for the first time?

Getting a new smartphone out of the box is always a small party. Everyone will recognise that feeling when you get a new phone and start taking it out of the box, removing the plastic; you weigh it and caress it in your hand, start it up, see it come to life, login, syncing – I just love it.

As for my very first impression: many people have been complaining that it’s too heavy. I do not agree at all. I love the way it feels: sturdy and very strong, yet the design is so subtle and beautiful. I love the feel of it, to watch the screen. It’s a great experience, really. 

Have you enjoyed using Windows Phone 8?

I immediately had the feeling that it was much better than Windows Phone 7. It’s much more versatile and you can personalise it in a much easier way.

For instance, you now have three different sizes for the tiles on your start screen and Windows Phone 8 uses the full screen, and that’s even better because you’ve got a much higher resolution. 

Also, the new social functions on Windows Phone 8 are very practical I think. Like in “Rooms” you can keep in touch with any group of family, friends or colleagues you choose. It’s very fluid, it’s fast, it’s dynamic, and I’m really very enthusiastic about it.

Have you been impressed with the camera?

Absolutely. The camera is always a very personal thing. It has its own character; you have to get to know it first. That’s not any different if you are working with Nokia 808 PureView or a compact camera – you have to learn which settings will give you the results that you’re aiming for.

After you know what you’re doing, it’s much easier to avoid shots that are too bright for instance. Some of my first shots were too bright, but soon I realised that I had been playing around with the settings. It’s not very complicated; you just have to experience what happens when you change the default settings.

Because the Lumia 920 has PureView technology, people will compare it to the 808 PureView. That device is still the king of camera phones, no doubt. But on a daily basis what you can achieve with the Lumia 920 is very impressive and much better than what you’ll see in many other smartphones, especially in low light conditions.

Much has been said about the camera’s performance in low light conditions. How have you found that?

I took some stunning shots, I must say. I was extremely surprised the first time. Near the Central Station in Amsterdam I was having dinner with a friend of mine, actually my Webmaster Peter Buijsman who takes care of everything that keeps the PureViewClub live. 

After dinner I said, ‘come on, let’s take this 920 outside and see how it does for night shots’. It was my first time to try it out and it was really dark. There was a nice old ship in the harbour, which was very difficult to see in the pitch-black water.

I then took this shot and suddenly we could see so much more detail than in real life. It was amazing for both of us!

You’ve also done some filming to test the Lumia 920’s optical image stabilisation, haven’t you?

If you watch that video itself on the Lumia 920’s screen then it’s almost like you have been using a Steadicam.

This video was taken with one hand on my bike going through the mud and leaves in a forest. It was far from a smooth ride but it looks like you are slowly floating over the road. That was quite impressive, I must say. It works very well.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

How is the PureViewClub website going?

It’s growing fast and going from strength to strength. There appears to be much more interest for the PureViewClub as a community, especially after Nokia announced the Lumia 920 with this second version of PureView.

Also, I was very honoured that Nokia’s former head of imaging, Damian Dinning gave me that exclusive about his plans for the future. That certainly made a big impression. 

I still remember people asking me, ‘why are you starting a website about one phone?’ It’s amazing how much there is to share about PureView imaging technology and there are now even two devices offering it. Plus, the Lumia 920 offers a different kind of imaging experience, so there’s more to write about and more to share too! 

Read his full Lumia 920 review and keep an eye on Conversations in the coming days for a showcase of some of the photos that Marc has taken with his Lumia 920.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Today we’re pleased to introduce the Nokia Lumia 620, our third and most affordable Windows Phone 8 smartphone.

Alongside the flagship Nokia Lumia 920 and midrange Nokia Lumia 820, the Nokia Lumia 620 adds more youthful appeal to our Windows Phone 8 range. Compact and fun, it takes advantage of a new ‘dual-shot’ technique to create a variety of interesting new colours and textures.

Dual Shot involves casting two layers of polycarbonate, a single base layer and a second colour, in a transparent or translucent layer, to produce depth effects and secondary colour blends.  For example, yellow and cyan are combined to produce an exciting new lime green, our own favourite. What’s more, since the Nokia Lumia 620 uses exchangeable shells, you can change the colour as often as you change your mood with seven shells to choose from.

While this may be the most affordable of our three new Windows Phone 8 smartphones, it packs a punch. The 3.8-inch display has the same sunlight readability enhancements as the Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820, so you should be able to see what’s on the screen however sunny your surroundings (not a problem for those of us in Finland right now).

It also takes advantage of the same Nokia exclusive camera lenses, like Cinemagraph and Smart Shoot, transforming the creative power of the 5-megapixel camera and front-facing VGA camera. Of course it also has the world’s best mapping and location experience, based on the HERE platform, with Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia City Lens all available.

Of course, with the emphasis on a younger audience, it also has Nokia Music, providing free streaming of ad-free tracks with no subscription or registration required and the ability to download playlists to listen offline. With NFC connectivity, you can easily pair the Nokia Lumia 620 with one of the great speakers from JBL, such as the JBL PlayUp Portable for Nokia, to set your music free. Or if you want to avoid upsetting everyone on the bus, try the Nokia Purity Pro Stereo Headset by Monster for professional audio sounds on the move.

Finally, this is Windows Phone 8, so the Nokia Lumia 620 comes with Live Tiles for updates direct to the Start Screen, PeopleHub for all your address books in one place and a Me Tile to make it easy to post and track notifications across social networks. With Xbox Live, Microsoft Office, 7GB of SkyDrive storage and faster, safer surfing with Internet Explorer 10, it’s hard to know what to do first. You might want to start with Angry Birds Star Wars or Words with Friends – just a suggestion.

Excluding any local taxes or operator subsidies, the Nokia Lumia 620 will cost around $249 USD and will be available from Q1 2013.

The Nokia Lumia 920T arrived in the world’s biggest smartphone market at a ceremony in Guangzhou today with China Mobile, the nation’s largest mobile network.

The Lumia 920T’s arrival marks an important milestone for both Nokia and the industry. It’s the first TD-SCDMA Windows Phone – and the first Windows Phone 8 device in China. (TD is China’s 3G telecoms standard).

Announcing the launch, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said:

“We are delighted to partner with China Mobile, the largest operator in the world, to introduce our first Lumia on Windows Phone 8 device in this key market for Nokia. We are excited for Chinese consumers to experience the most innovative smartphone with the best photography and navigation capabilities.”

Lie Yue, CEO of China Mobile Communications Corporation, said that Nokia’s “strong commitment to the Chinese market, great performance with Lumia, and continued innovation” were key factors in selecting Nokia to supply China Mobile’s first Windows Phone.

A global phone with a local tone

Lumia 920T users can enjoy a range of exclusive apps and services just for China:

• The best Internet experience, thanks to cooperation with leading local providers Sina, Sohu, Tencent, Baidu and Renren
• 50,000 apps in the Chinese Marketplace, covering all the top local services
• Great deals from popular location-based service Jiepang, by simply tapping the device using NFC in multiple outlets across Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou
• Nokia and Air China announce a strategic partnership which lets passengers enjoy wireless chargers in Beijing Airport VIP lounges
• Access to Mobile Market, China Mobile’s app store, offering a large range of applications and services tailored for Chinese people, and an easy shopping experience.

The Lumia 920T will be available for order by the end of the year. It will come in four colours: black, white, yellow and red.

image credit: Jorge Dalmau y Pablo Dalmau Photo

Are your school days really the best times of your life? If you’re still at school right now then you probably think I’m crazy for even suggesting such a thing!

Isn’t school about being with your mates, laughing at adults and not having a care in the world? OK, there’s also homework and exams to contend with but that’s good for you in the long run anyway. 

Besides with wonderful phones, like the Nokia Asha 311, they can make learning and doing your schoolwork a lot more fun than it was in my days.

Of course, the best thing you can learn at school is that you must never stop learning. It’s cheesy, but true. So even if you left school a long, long time ago, here are some Education apps in the Nokia Store that are well worth having on your Nokia Asha.

Dictionary & Translator Pro (free)

One of the first and most crucial tools that any student needs is a good dictionary.

This is not just a dictionary but it can also a translate words into several different languages such as Hindi, Arabic, French, German and Spanish. 

This is an online web app, which is both good and bad news. It means that it will be always updated, but of course you will have to be on WiFi or incur data charges.

For a good offline option try English Dictionary Free. It has no translator feature but it does have a thesaurus. 

Elements (free)

This is a simple but effective app that shows the periodic table of chemical elements. Click on any of the elements to reveal further information about it. 

Staying in science class, there is also Chem Calc (free) to help you with your chemistry calculations, such as working out gas molar concept, volumetric analysis and gas laws.

I don’t know what any of those things are, so I am bound to be rubbish at General Science Quiz (£4.), which claims to have over 1000 questions to test you.

Wiki Encyclopedia (free)

For general knowledge it is difficult to beat Wikipedia and this app is the perfect way of looking up entries on your Asha.

As you would expect it is very simple to use: You just type your subject in the search box and click on the link that is most irrelevant or that you are most interested in.

One area of general knowledge in which it is always useful to be clued up on is the ability to identify different national flags. Thanks goodness then for World Flags (free).

Scientific Calculator (£3)

Your Nokia Asha comes with a calculator pre-installed but to work out more complex equations then you may find that it’s worth investing in a scientific calculator. 

I actually did pretty well in my maths exams (honestly!) but just seeing those buttons SIN, COS and TAN brings a shudder down my spine!

Something that I do know how to use though is a ruler. Measure objects to your heart’s content with Pocket Ruler (free).

Pocket Classroom (free) 

Pocket Classroom is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I mentioned at the top of this article how new technology can make education much more fun and accessible. 

You pick your subject, and even a specific strand of your subject, say quadratic equations in maths, and then you follow a link, which opens up a video that gives you a practical lesson.

Pocket Classroom claims to have over 2,600 videos on a variety of common school subjects and, they’re all free. You can even download the videos to your phone for offline viewing. We didn’t have this sort of thing in my day.

Do you use your Nokia Asha at school? Let us know in the comments below.

Image credit: <cleverCl@i®ê>

The Windows Phone Store now has over 120,000 apps ranging from photo apps to those that help you stay in touch with friends across the globe. Simply put, there are apps for all uses and all Lumia owners.

In fact, of the top 50 apps available for iPhone and Android, 46 of them are available for your Nokia Lumia.

If you’re considering a switch to Nokia Lumia (or just bought one), you might be wondering what apps are available that match up with your old phone. Well, App #Switch is here to show you the way. 

The site, created by Xyo, is available now and serves a simple purpose: it allows Android and iPhone owners to select their current phone and current country and type in their favorite app. Then, the site gives suggestions on replacement apps for the source application, complete with QR Codes for easy install on your new Nokia Lumia.

The site is currently available for prior owners of Android and iPhone and is localized to 15 countries.  Give the site a whirl and spread the word to others who are planning to #Switch to Lumia and upgrading their smartphone experience.

What is your new favorite Lumia app?

Smartphone users are some of the heaviest consumers of music, with 42% claiming to have a collection of between 2000 and 5000 songs. There was a time, not so long ago, when only the most hardcore music aficionados would have such a staggering collection. But digital music has changed all that. And that’s not all it’s changed.

1. Freed music from physical objects.

In 1987, Karlheinz Brandenburg chose Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” as the first song to fine tune his MP3 compression algorithm. The human voice being the hardest sound to compress, Vega’s a capella version of the song provided the perfect challenge for Brandenburg to test bitrates and further refine his codec. Little did he know then that eleven years later, with the advent of the first portable MP3 devices, his invention would liberate us and music. No longer was it bound to records, tapes or discs. For the first time in human history, music was freed from physical objects.

2. More music for the masses

If it wasn’t for the fact that music fans learnt to rip a CD into MP3s, we could still be waiting to buy music online. Why? Because record companies had a very profitable and cozy arrangement selling music via retailers. The large scale copying of MP3s meant record companies had no choice but to share the digital music love. Now, you can listen to a breathtaking array of music from services as diverse as Spotify, Last FM and Nokia Music.

3. Choice, choice, choice

The MP3 has made it easier than ever to be a music junkie. Long gone are the times when to know about the latest bands you had to scour the music press or go to gigs in seedy basements. Albums that might have before taken months to track down can now be found and listened to with a quick online search. What’s more, with apps like Shazam, even if you forget a band’s name, you can find out who they are in seconds. Plus record companies no longer get to dictate what we listen to.

4. Helped launch Web 2.0

Until everyone started downloading MP3s from places like Napster, people found it tough to justify spending the extra cash on broadband. Faster Internet was nice, but was it really worth the extra investment? Suddenly being able to download tons of MP3s through file sharing meant it was. And once people upgraded to broadband, web designers could create more amazing web pages. Web 2.0 would undoubtedly have happened eventually anyway, but without the incentive of MP3s it would have taken a lot longer.

5. Gave new bands a break

Which brings us to the last amazing way, and certainly for some people the most important. There are now loads of great websites for checking out new bands, places like thesixtyone, Ourstage and PureVolume, which cater specifically to upcoming bands, letting them upload their music for our listening pleasure. Before the advent of digital music, these potential superstars would never have had the chance to get their songs listened to by millions. Now we can decide if they’re any good. Not some record company executive.

Think of any other great ways MP3s have rocked our world? Drop us a note in the comments below.

Image credit: Eurok +Birgerking