VT’s Tech Blog

Google has brought out their Google Mobile App for Nokia S60 Phones. You can get the application by visiting m.google.com on your mobile browser. This application provides a shell for Google applications and services. When you start the app, you get a search screen, and the app detects your location to give you area specific suggestions.

As you start typing in a search term, you get search suggestions. Performing  a search opens up the mobile browser to continue browsing. The app provides a shortcut key to quickly jump to Google search from the Home screen on your mobile. This cuts down the number of keystrokes required to startup a Google search.

Apart from the quick access to Google Search and mobile apps, this app provides little else for Indian users, as the suggestions I saw while using the search were hardly relevant to my location.

Link : http://www.google.com/mobile/nokia_smart/app.html

If you’re looking for a free native Twitter client for your S60 device, you’ve got to check out Tweets60. It’s works on S60 3rd and 5th Edition phones. As with most Twitter clients you can view your Timeline, Replies, DMs and Favorites and follow/unfollow Tweeple.  The interface is good and simple with the actions to post, reply or retweet in the Option menu.

One cool functionality in Tweets60 is that you can configure multiple access points and prioritize them. Useful when you’ve got Wifi access and then default to GPRS/3G connection when you’re not in Wifi range. If you’re on a tight data plan, this application also comes with an option to save your bandwidth by allowing you to set the refresh frequency to manual or set it to 5, 10 or 30 minutes.

For a basic twitter client – Tweets60 does it’s job pretty well. According to Ravensoft’s tweets, it looks like a pro version is in the making. I just hope the free version doesn’t get too crippled to promote the sales of the pro version.

A few missing functionalities in the current version of Tweets60 are (in my order of my preference):

• Delete & Mark Tweets as Favorites
• Custom Twitter Search Timelines
• Post images from phone to twitpic ( hopefully will be out in a future version)
• Multiple Twitter Accounts
• Theme support – A darker theme ( like Gravity? )

Get Tweet60 from : http://www.tweets60.com/

Task Manager's Interface

If you’re looking for an advanced task manager for your Symbian phone, you can check out this free and powerful utility called Jbak TaskMan. When you install this utility on your phone, it replaces the default Symbian Task-switcher with it’s own interface which you can configure. You can switch tasks and even kill tasks from this interface, useful when an app hangs and you don’t want to restart the phone to kill it. The screenshot (click to enlarge)  shows the new Task Manager which comes up on the E71 when I installed Jbak TaskMan.

The site for this utility also mentions the other functionality that this utility provides:

• Ultimate replacement of standard task list, which called by menu-key long press.
• Customizable quick launch, where you can add program, document, phone number, SMS and e-mail.
• List of all programs in your phone with quick search by name or UID.
• List of processes, threads, chunks with quick search.
• Quick and stable termination of busy tasks.
• Setup Autorun  programs.
• Phone reboot.
• Uninstalling  sis-applications.
• Info about free memory.
• Detailed information about runned task, which you can copy to clipboard.
• Quick task switch by pressing and holding menu-key (Smooth task switch)
• Remember last-visited position in system phone menu.
• Detailed setting of menu-key
• Powerfull possibilities for power and memory saving

Link: http://jbak.ru/jbaktaskman_en.php

TaskMan Menu

I just came across this S60 freeware today which allows me to manage my wordpress blog on my E71. Wordmobi is a Python app which can be used to perform the following tasks on the blog:

• Create and publish new posts (with basic HTML formatting)
• Include  images from the phone or a remote URL into the posts
• View and approve comments on the posts
• Delete Posts

Before going and installting WordMobi, you’ll have to install Python for S60 from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=154155

After you install Python, you can go ahead download the latest version and install WordMobi. Before you can start  managing your blog, you’ll have to setup the app with your wordpress details. Here’s how to do that:

Open WordMobi, select your access point then click on Options > Settings > Blog Access

Once in the blog access screen, you’ll have to enter the following information:

• URL to your WordPress blog. For my blog, I entered: http://blogs.vinuthomas.com
• Username – the administration username you use to login to your blog
• Password
• The number of recent posts you would like to download
• The number of recent comments to download

Once your settings are in, all you need to do is to update the posts, and you’ll get the recent posts down into your phone for you to edit.To update the posts, select Options>Posts>Update

This app should work on any S60 3rd Edition phones like the E71 orN95 (according to the WordMobi Site). If you get this working on other phones, do let me know. Also if you can’t seem to connect using this, see if your xmlrpc.php file is accessible on your blog url (http://yourdomain.com/xmlrpc.php). For me this file was disallowed on the server because the server I’m on had some wierd restriction placed on the xmlrpc file.

Links: WordMobi Project Site, WordMobi download, Python for S60 download

One sorely missing functionality on S60 phones is the ability to automatically sync the phone with SyncML sources. I use GooSync to sync the E71‘s calendar with Google Calendar and the phone data (address book, notes,… ) with Nokia’s Ovi Service. Having to manually hit the synchronize option to get these services to work.

Here’s where Swim comes in as a saviour. This app is a remote sync timer and allows you to automatically sync these services on a periodic basis. You can download the unsigned application from http://code.google.com/p/bergamot/downloads/list. If you’re on Nokia’s newer N or E series mobile, download the S60 version.

You can’t directly install the downloaded file since it an unsigned file and the phone will complain about the app not being signed. Follow these steps after you download Swim from the download page mentioned above :

• Note down your IMEI number on the phone – Dial *#06# on your phone to get that.
• Head over to Symbian Open Signed Online
• Fill in your IMEI number, Email ID, and select the Swim file (which you downloaded) to upload
• Under the Capability Information in the form just select all.
• Once you agree to the terms and submit the form, you’ll get a confirmation mail. Click on the link on the confirmation mail to start the process of signing the file.
• Once the service finishes signing the app, you’ll receive another mail with the link to the signed download, download this (signed) file and install it on your mobile. Remember to keep a backup of this file, since the download link will work only for a limited time.

Once installed, just open the application. In the application screen you’ll see the Sync points already defined on your phone. All you need to do now is to select the frequency of updates you’d want for each one. Syncing is so much more simpler now.

Links: Swim for Symbian Project Page , Open Signed Online

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Been busy in my spare time for the past few weeks playing on N-Gage. One game I got a hold of is One. The first thing which amazed me was the graphics this game was belting out on a N81 – some of the best graphics I’ve seen on a mobile game!

There are various gameplay options for One – you can play out the story mode, Versus, Survival and Multiplayer.There’s also a training mode which takes you through the various moves in the game. I would advise you to go though the training mode first, there are quite a few moves you’ll miss out on if you don’t. The keys combination are pretty easy to remember – but in the heat of a combat, you’re sure to fumble on which moves to use !

You can customize your player with various hairstyles, gear and fighting styles. You keep unlocking new gear to wear as you keep progressing in the story mode.

The story mode allows you play out the story of the One. In this mode you have to keep fighting opponents to progress in the game – each level has it’s Boss whom you’ll have to defeat to move on to the next level. While you progress through the game, it gets auto-saved only after a few fights- this behavior can be a pain at times. I would have been better if it auto-saved after every fight. Also keep an eye on your rank – every win increases your ranking – beware that ever loss also brings it down!

You can practise your skills in the Versus and Survival mode where you can choose the scenery and the computer player you would like to play against. Practise makes perfect, so hone in your skills in these modes if you find that you’re loosing too much in the story mode. Remember to set the “Ranked” option to “No” in these modes if you don’t want your Ranking to dip while practising your moves.

One piece of advice while playing this game is to keep mixing your moves – if you play the same moves, the computer player usually ends up blocking or countering you. So practice all your different moves and unleash hell for your opponents.

The multiplayer mode works with bluetooth. I couldn’t get anyone else who had One in the same room to go head to head. It would have been better if this was an internet multi-player option instead of just bluetooth.

This game is overall a good buy and will keep you occupied for quite some time if you are into martial art games. Take a break while gaming – I’ve had a bad case of cramps on my fingers after an hour or so of intense gaming.

More about One at the N-Gage Site

Twibble mobile is S60 application to send your tweets to Twitter. Tried it on my N82 and it works great – a small problem I had was that the screen scrolling was painfully slow – but I liked the way twibble allowed to switch between a data network and sms to send tweets. Twibble also allows you to tag your location to your tweet based on the in-built GPS unit on your phone. The location tagging feature is optional, so you can turn it off when you don’t want others to know your location.

Features of Twibble mobile include:

• post messages via your mobile network (WiFi, UMTS, GPRS), or using text messages (SMS).
• auto refresh: twibble can retrieve tweets automatically after a given time period.
• optimized to generate as little data traffic as possible. Only new tweets are fetched to reduce data traffic.
• integrated timeline: Tweets and direct messages are displayed in a single list sorted by date. There is no need to retrieve tweets and direct messages separatly, or to switch between various lists.
• open web links contained in a tweet (via phone browser).
• re-tweet (forward) of tweets.With a few clicks you can re-send a tweet you received without re-typing.
• quick @replies
• you can add friends
• mark tweets as favourites: Useful on the road when you want to mark a tweet for later reading.
• cancel network requests (twibble is multi threaded)

Head over to Twibble mobile to learn more or m.twibble.de to download the app for your mobile.

Here’s the latest product from Psiloc called Connect, which allows your S60 application to smoothly transition between 3G/Edge connections to Wifi connections saving costs on the data plans.

Key features of Psiloc Connect:

• Psiloc Connect always makes sure you use the fastest possible connection
• Psiloc Connect allows you to save some money, by not using 3G data connectivity when WLAN is available
• Psiloc Connect handles access point switching in the background for you, no more of that tedious tasks

Psiloc Connect allows you to connect to the Internet in a smart and convenient way. By defining the Psiloc Connect access point in any application you prioritize the way that application connects to the Internet. Psiloc Connect will choose the best available WLAN connection, if no WLAN is available, it will connect though the 3G/GSM access point defined in the application, or if you please it will only use WLAN connections to keep you connected.

Link: Psiloc Connect

Finally a scrobbler for Symbian S60 phones – now you can scrobble what you listen to on your mobile to last.fm. To check if your phone is compatible, head over to a comprehensive list of S60 Phones. You don’t have to be online all the time for your tracks to be submitted to Last.fm. Mobbler will queue up the tracks you’ve played and will send all of them online as soon as you go online and connect to last.fm

Mobbler, Mobile Scrobbler, is a last.fm scrobbler that works with Nokia s60 third edition smartphones. It allows you to scrobble from the Nokia s60 Music Player, both whilst you listen to the tracks or whilst offline to be submitted later.

Link: mobbler, Downloads, Instructions, Other info