Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve is here already, the year is almost over. I'd like to wish all readers and visitors to my blog, a wonderful Christmas time.

Merry Christmas.

Read more »

Nokia N82 and Mail For Exchange

I'm not sure how long it has been available, but the Mail4Echange client 2.2.0 is now available for download. Click here fill in the details and download.

If you are looking for a (free) email service to use, you could do worse than Mail2Web. I started using it after a great write up over at E-Series.org which you can find here

Screenshots below:

Read more »

8GB Memory Card in my N82

I saw this post over at Modaco the other day. BMC Digital is not a company I have used before, but Paul from Modaco has and the price they are offering an 8GB Micro SD card for is very competitive, just £44.41 inc vat and delivery.

You can see from the screenshot, I have the card in my N82 and working fine. If you want to purchase, the product page is here. Once in the cart, add the promotional code BMC4201 to get a 10% discount. (I've no idea how long the promotion runs for) The card is supplied with a tiny USB adaptor, very handy.

I ordered my card on Thursday morning, it was despatched Thursday afternoon and arrived this morning. It would have probably arrived yesterday, if it were not for the Christmas post.

Read more »

Nokia N96 - More Pictures

This N96, it's the real deal. More photos below. I got these from Slashphone. Stefan at Intomobile has some pictures which came from Mobile Review, so I'm guessing that's the originator place for all this. There is a thread over at Jaiku, if you have an account, sign and and join the chat.

Read more »

First Pictures of the N96

This is a picture of the soon to be released N96. We think. To be honest it looks like I was expecting, so I'm pretty sure this is very much what the N96 will look like.

There's been a lot of rumour about the next NSeries releases, as I mentioned in a post a few days ago here. The expected feature set for the N96 is very good, including:

• 16GB internal memory
• WiFi
• 5.0 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Lens
• HSDPA
• Digital TV Tuner Built in

It is also expected that the N96 will support a wider variety of video formats than current NSeries phones offer. All in, this looks to be a very interesting handset, I look forward to getting my hands on one.

Source

Read more »

Nokia Launches N82 with Free Adventure Pack

Following on from my post about the N82 being available to buy for UK users on contract here, Nokia have now launched the N82 on their own Nokia shop. To promote the handset Nokia are bundling a free sports pack, comprising Free Nokia Sports Tracker software and a Free Salomon backpack.

I've talked a lot about the N82 recently, but it really does deserve all the good press it gets, it simply is one of the best, if not the best, NSeries phone to date.

To purchase the N82 with Adventure Pack, for just £399 inc V.A.T. click here.

Read more »

New Battery Technology for Mobile Devices

Not strictly on topic for this blog, but something I have a real issue with. I do enjoy the whole evolution of phones and the extra features that we have added to handsets but battery life is always an issue. I've just been reading over at Cellular News about some new battery technlogy that we could be enjoying in the near future.

Basically researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to improve the output from Lithium-ion batteries. The example quotes laptop batteries that currently work for around 4 hours could possibly last for up to 20 hours on one charge. A significant improvement. Instead of the batteries anodes being made of carbon as currently, the silicon nanowires, which are 1/20 the thickness of a sheet of paper are used instead.

It all sounds very technical, and if developed should be very useful indeed. Due to advanced current battery technology implementing the new technology shouldn't be a major issue, which is excellent to hear. Anyone for an N95 with two week operating time? Sounds good to me!

Source

Read more »

N82 on general sale in the UK

The Nokia N82 is available to buy on contract now, with a few online stores making it available from today.

I have a few stores linked from my right hand navigation links, please click on the logos, or the links below for the following stores:
www.carphonewarehouse.com, www.mobiles.co.uk and www.e2save.com

p.s. As these sites are updating during the day, the handset may temporarily show as coming soon. If that happens, pop back later. The phone is definitely available to order

Read more »

Nokia Nseries helps MTV with climate change campaign

Nokia Nseries helps MTV with climate change campaign by capturing Cannes Young Advertising Creatives in action

A press release issued today from Nokia, about young film makers recording a 30 second commercial for MTV Switch, to help promote the campaign to educate and encourage alternative options to help climate change. Definitely a worthy cause. The commercials were filmed on Nokia NSeries N93i handsets.

Espoo, Finland - During the prestigious 2007 Cannes Lions Advertising Festival, camera crews using video-optimized Nokia N93i devices tagged along with the Young Creative Film Competitors on their 48 hour mission to shoot a 30 second commercial, also using the Nokia N93i, for MTV SWITCH, a new campaign from MTV Networks International designed to educate and encourage alternative options to help save the planet. This marks the first time such extensive access has ever been granted to a camera crew during the two year history of the Cannes Lions Advertising festival.

Recognizing the unique opportunity to capture aspiring young creatives in action and aid in the education of environmental issues, Nokia Nseries recorded the trials and tribulations of the 20 teams representing 20 countries in their race for first place. With 40 hours of content filmed on the Nokia N93i, the footage was edited into an exclusive behind the scenes documentary, "Short Film Shootout: Cannes", which will be available for broadcast on MTV's 61 TV channels across 161 countries starting on December 20, 2007.

"Nokia Nseries was thrilled to be a part of this project to arm filmmakers with this exciting new medium of mobile video through which the students could create commercials and the film crew could capture the experience for all the world to see," said Tapio Hedman, Senior Vice President, Multimedia Marketing, Nokia. "The Nokia N93i devices that were used in this project are a perfect example of how Nokia constantly pushes the frontiers of technology forward to provide innovative new media for everyone to leverage as they create and share their works."

"We are extremely thankful for the generosity and creativity that Nokia has demonstrated, as well as the talent of these young filmmakers in showing millions of young people around the world how doing small things can make a massive difference to the world's carbon emissions," said Bill Roedy, MTV Networks Vice Chairman. "MTV SWITCH is harnessing the power of these creative minds to make climate conscious behaviour an every day reality. Everyone, no matter what age or where they live, can take simple actions to reduce their carbon footprint."

With the release of the special behind the scenes documentary "Short Film Shooutout: Cannes", all Young Creative Film Competitors participants were able to contribute to this important environmental campaign. The documentary, as well as additional content, will be available for viewing online after December 20 on www.MTVswitch.org and www.nseries.com/cannes.

Read more »

Nokia N78 and Nokia N96 - Weekend Rumours

There's been a few rumours going around recently, on forums and other blogs, about the next NSeries handsets to be released. Nokia have excelled with NSeries handsets recently, with the N95 Classic, N95 8GB and the new N82 leading the charge. I always like to try and keep up to date with rumours, though some of the suggestions and photoshop pictures are pretty extreme.

IntoMobile had an interesting snippet about the N78 way back in October. The supposed successor to the N73, the N78 will likely be a mono block design phone. Features could include:

• 8GB internal memory
• WiFi
• 3.2 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Lens
• S60 FP2

I would like to see the N78 include HSDPA, too. I hope it happens.

The next NSeries handset recently rumoured, the N96, has received a lot of attention recently, due to some highly imaginative images doing the rounds. Features for the N96 could include:

• 16GB internal memory
• WiFi
• 5.0 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Lens
• HSDPA
• Digital TV Tuner Built in

The N96, based on the speculative specs above, could prove to be a very popular handset, although I'm not sure if the digital TV tuner will be UK system compatible. One feature I would like to see included on the N96, and in fact something that would be a good addition for all NSeries phones, is support for a wider variety of video formats. That would be a useful way of using up all the memory the N96 proposes to offer, if I could use it for playing back my video film collection. A DVR option for recording from the TV would be nice, too.

However the new releases pan out, 2008 NSeries releases have a lot to live up to.

Read more »

NGage games for NSeries phones next week

I've never really got into the whole N-Gage thing. The initial N-Gage handsets were pretty awful, and the whole gaming on mobiles thing has never really appealed to me. I'd rather save my battery for something useful, like email, web browsing, calls, texts, etc.

Anyhow, it appears that the N-Gage experience is going to be available for a select few sometime next week as owners of the N81 and N81 8GB will have access to "one or more" N-Gage games as well as access to the N-Gage platform.

All good news for those who are interested.

Source

Read more »

YouTube on S60

It seems many people would love to have access to full YouTube clips on their mobile phone. There are a few workaround options available, such as using Orb, and some networks have agreements to a stripped down version of YouTube for users, such as that offered by Vodafone.

A new beta app is around, from Samir, which works with the new Flash Lite Player released a while back.

You need to install the Flash Lite player, and then install the YT Player to the folder C:/data/other or E:/other. Once done, open the flash Lite Player from your applications folder, select the YT Player and search for a video clip. Remember, this is just a beta version, so don't expect everything to run smoothly straight away. I have managed to get video files showing on the N82, so it does work, searching for files showed only one clip at a time for me, and if I watched the clip in full screen by flipping the phone onto its side, the clip ran very slowly. Some screenshots below:




























































































































One thing to watch out for, if you are going to view video clips streaming like this, from YouTube and other places, either have a proper unlimited data plan or use WiFi. The clip shown in the screenshots was about 40 seconds in length, and you can see the amount of data used from this screenshot:


















The first clip I ran was around a minute and a half, and you can see here how much data that used:


















An unlimited data plan or WiFi usage is a must, or you could end up with a bill like this guy!

Read more »

eclipse netbeans et j2me

Parlons un peu des outils de développement sous Windows, on peut citer deux environnements de développement Netbeans et Eclipse, avant de se pencher sur les outils de développement, nous allons nous intéresser aux pré-requis nécessaires pour commencer tout développement J2ME.

I. Pré-requis:

1. JDK:

Veillez d'abord à bien installé le dernier JDK (Java Development Kit) de chez sun. http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html

Télécharger le SDK, non le JRE.

2. Java Wireless Toolkit :

Le java wireless toolkit de chez sun offre quelques outils rudimentaires de configuration et de gestion du code. Mais surtout il comprend des émulateurs de terminaux mobiles.
http://java.sun.com/products/sjwtoolkit/download-2_2.html .

Une fois Le JDK et le Java wireless Toolkit installé nous allons nous pencher sur les outils de développement.


II. Outils de développement :

1. Eclipse :

est un environnement de développement libre (le terme Eclipse désigne également le projet correspondant, lancé par IBM) extensible, universel et polyvalent, permettant potentiellement de créer des projets de développement mettant en œuvre n'importe quel langage de programmation. Eclipse IDE est principalement écrit en Java.

pour télécharger Eclipse c'est ici : Eclipse

1.1 EclipseMe :

C'est le plug-in propre à eclipse qui permet le développement d'applications J2ME reposant sur MIDP en utilisant un Wireless Toolkit.

Les fonctionnalités proposées par ce plug-in sont :

• Le support de plusieurs Wireless Toolkit
• Un assistant de création de projets de type Midlet Suite
• Un assistant de création de Midlets
• Un éditeur pour les fichiers .jad
• Une compilation incrémentale avec pré-vérification
• Le débogage du code des Midlets
• L'exécution dans les émulateurs fournis avec le WirelessToolkit
• La création d'un package pour les applications J2ME
• La création d'un package obscurci avec Proguard
• Le support du mode « Over The Air »

Le site officiel de ce plug-in est à l'url : http://eclipseme.org/

1.2 Installation :

Une fois le pack eclipseMe télécharger il suffit alors de suivre les étapes suivantes :

• Utilisez l'option « Mise à jour de logiciels/Rechercher et installer » du menu Aide.
• Sélectionnez « Rechercher les nouveaux dispositifs à installer » et cliquez sur le bouton « Suivant ».
• Cliquez sur le bouton « Nouveau site archivé »
• Sélectionnez le fichier et cliquez sur « Ouvrir »
• Dans l'arborescence des sites, sélectionnez eclipseme.feature_x.x.x_site.zip et cliquez sur le bouton « Suivant »
• Sélectionnez les dispositifs « EclipseMe » et « eclipseme.features.siemens »
• Lisez la licence et si vous l'acceptez cliquez sur « J'accepte les termes du contrat » et cliquez sur le bouton « Suivant »
• Cliquez sur le bouton « Fin »
• Lors de l'affichage de la boîte de dialogue « Vérification du dispositif », cliquez sur le bouton « Installer »
• Acceptez de relancer le plan de travail.

Voilà vous disposer maintenant d'un environnement de développement J2me sous Eclipse.

2. Netbeans :

Netbeans est un environnement de développment pour java, placé en open source par Sun sous licence CDDL . En plus de Java, NetBeans permet également de supporter différents autres langages.
Il comprend toutes les caractéristiques d'un IDE moderne (éditeur en couleur, projets multi-langage, refactoring, éditeur graphique d'interfaces et de pages web).

NetBeans est lui-même développé en Java, ce qui peut le rendre assez lent et gourmand en ressources mémoires.

Pour télécharger Netbeans c'est ici : http://www.netbeans.info/downloads/index.php

2.1 Mobility Pack :

C'est le plug-in propre à Netbeans qui permet le développement d'applications J2ME reposant sur MIDP en utilisant un Wireless Toolkit .

Pour télécharger le Mobility Pack c'est ici : http://www.netbeans.org/kb/50/mobility.html

Read more »

Gypsii Client Finally Available for Download

After being announced almost three weeks ago, the Gypsii S60 client is finally available for download from their site. Click here to download the client. A video clip of Gypsii working on an N95 is below:

Read more »

Free WiFi Access with Nokia Store

It seems Nokia have done a deal with The Cloud, to give access to over 7,500 WiFi hotspots so users of the Nokia Music store can gain quick access to download their favourite music tracks on the move.

Various locations of WiFi networks offered by The Cloud include McDonalds restaurants, coffee shops and airports. A full location list can be found at The Cloud website.

Source

Press release

Read more »

Activity Monitor for N95, N82

Nokia have an Activity Monitor available, which monitors your movements whilst running or walking, and charts the activity with real time stats on the phone. Compatibility is currently listed for the N95 and N95 8GB but I have it working fine also on my N82. It counts the number of steps you take, and works out the distance covered and energy used. I tried it out briefly, and it seemed to work well. It is all done by analysing the output from the accelerometer on the phones.

It is warned that the Activity Monitor can be a bit of a battery hog, so beware. It works best when the phone is carried on your belt in a case, or in your pocket, and is less effective if the phone is held in your hand or carried in a bag.

You can download the app from here and more info can be found here

I've taken a few screenshots of the app after briefly testing it out earlier, which you can see below:

Read more »

Free App Friday

Thanks to the guys over at Handango, for today only, you can download for free the S60 application, Papyrus. Just click the link here. Papyrus is a calendar program, and one of those apps that work better than the native S60 offering. Similar to the way Profimail is better than the built in email client.

I think it would be great if, maybe some day in the future, Nokia would purchase these apps and integrate them into the S60 setup. Imagine, built in to S60, Profimail as the default email client, Papyrus as the default calendar program, Handy Taskman as the default application switcher, etc, etc.

p.s. Just noticed AAS have picked this up, too.

Read more »

Nokia acquisition of Avvenu - The Good and the Bad

Not an in depth analysis of the purchase, just a private thought. The good is going to be the integration of Avvenu services to Nokia phones, NSeries in particular for me. The bad, since yesterdays announcement Avvenu is now only available to people in the US. So I have to find another way of accessing PC files remotely. Which kinda sucks, really.

Read more »

The WOM World Nokia Quiz Night

The Nokia world event is currently in progress. and the guys from WOMWorld are there with a selection of bloggers, bringing live updates during the next two days.

Tomorrow night, Wednesday 5th December, after the event there is going to be a Nokia themed quiz, with the bloggers being split into three teams as follows:

All About Symbian
Joint Captain: Rafe Blandford
Joint Captain: Ewan Spence
Noel Kennedy (aka kontraband)
Carlo Longino (aka Carlo)
Tarek Abu-Esber (aka TarekAbu-Esber)

Symbian-Freak
Team Captain: Teo Bartulovic (aka Apocalypso)
Martyn Britton (aka Marty3)
Bica Mihai Gabriel(aka Bytales)
Vineeth M Kumar (aka Vinumsv)
Murray Winiata (aka NZtechfreak)

Mobile Burn
Joint Captain Jay Monatano (aka Jose R.A.M)
Joint Captain Ricky (aka Symbian Guru)
Christian Haslam (aka Chaslam)
Michael Onyeyiri (aka MikeUK)
Mohannad Hammadeh (aka zalameh1)

Donna and Frank from WOMWorld will be hosting the event, assisted by Darla Mack and Stefan.

The best bit is, the whole event is going to be streamed, live, using ustream.tv

You should be able to watch via the embedded player below, but as a back up the URL for the event is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nseries-wom-world-nokia-world-quiz

It should be a fun event, kick off time is 19:00 GMT.

Read more »

Nokia acquire Avvenu

Lots of press releases coming out this morning, from the Nokia World event, one in particular caught my eye. Nokia have acquired Avvenu. For those who haven't used Avvenu, I can't recommend it highly enough. On many occasions I have logged in to my home PC using Avvenu, to download various files to the other PC's or onto my phone, via share.avvenu.com. You can store files which can be accessed even when your main PC is switched off, and you can also access your music, via music.avvenu.com I'm eager to see what plans Nokia have for Avvenu. Press release below:

Nokia and Avvenu today announced that they have signed an agreement under which Nokia will acquire Avvenu www.avvenu.com. Avvenu provides Internet services that allow anyone to use their mobile devices to securely access, use and share personal computer files, even if their host computer is turned off. By acquiring Avvenu, Nokia plans to further enhance its portfolio of solutions for mobile operators, as well as deliver a secure file access and share service direct to mobile workers. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and has not yet been completed.

Nokia believes that anytime access to PC content is a missing ingredient to mobile productivity. Smartphone adoption is growing faster than previously estimated and surveys confirm that many people are using mobile devices to view, process, and edit content. Easy access to existing pc content will fuel mobile computing convenience and productivity.

"This acquisition is another step toward delivering on Nokia's business mobility strategy," said Mary McDowell, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Solutions, Nokia. "Avvenu's 'digital locker' file access and sharing technology allows users to search, access and share PC files remotely, using their mobile or other connected devices, even when their PC is turned off or not connected to the Internet. With the integration of Avvenu's technology, Nokia will further extend its business mobility solutions beyond email to add collaboration tools that enable greater everyday productivity through access to a user's own content anytime, anywhere, from any connected device."

"We share Nokia's vision of quickly and easily connecting people with their information and content regardless of where they are in the world, and whether their PC is with them or not," said Richard French, CEO, Avvenu. "The combination of our experienced team and our patented technology platform will help realize this vision, while access to Nokia's extensive technology and market resources will accelerate our time to market for new mobile Internet services."

Founded in 2004, Avvenu is a privately-owned start up headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Avvenu will be integrated into Nokia's new Services & Software unit as a part of the company re-organization that will take effect on January 1, 2008.

Read more »

Nokia Internet Radio Service Available

Lots of press releases coming from Nokia today, this one in particular caught my eye. Nokia have announced an app for S60v3 phones that will let you listen to internet radio stations on your phone. Definitely one for those with an unlimited data plan or when you are in WiFi coverage. The app can be downloaded from here. Full Press release here:

Discover and listen to radio shows broadcasted over the internet with the Nokia Internet Radio service now available. The application can be downloaded for free from http://www.nokia.com/internetradio and will also be embedded in upcoming Nokia S60 3rd edition devices.

"Most new music discovery occurs while you're listening to the radio," said Tommi Mustonen, head of the Nokia music business. "By offering the Nokia Internet Radio service on mobile devices, the radio experience becomes more accessible, giving people new ways to find music."

With hundreds of internet radio stations to choose from worldwide, the station directory of Nokia Internet Radio makes music discovery effortless - browsing can be done based on station name, genre, country or language. To find out what hits are hot around the world, hourly updates of the top ten most popular internet radio stations are also available in the station directory. Plus, there is no need to search for your top stations time and again because adding them to the list of 'Favorites' makes them easily accessible.

Moreover, the audio quality is enhanced by selecting appropriate streaming servers that match the speed of the current network connection.

The Nokia Internet Radio application is currently available for download to the following devices: Nokia N82, Nokia N91, Nokia N95 and Nokia N95 8GB. The application is planned to be available later on further devices and will be embedded in selected upcoming Nokia S60 3rd edition devices. Please visit http://www.nokia.com/internetradio for the list of the latest compatible devices.

I've installed the app on my N82 and it seems ok, although in two searches for stations it has found nothing! I'll add some stations manually later and post some screenshots.

Read more »

MicroEmulateur emulateur J2me en ligne

MicroEmulateur est une implémentation de J2me en J2SE, MicroEmulator est sous licence LGPL .

1- Exemples d'utilisations :

* Démonstration de votre MIDlet dans le navigateur Web grâce à l'applet d'émulation.

* MicroEmulateur offre un soutien aux plates-formes de développement où aucun émulateur n'est disponible.

2- Il Offre :

* Un support pour MIDP 2.0 . * Un support de la MMAPI (JSR 135) . * Un support de la FileConnection API (JSR 75) . * Un support pour Nokia API . * Un support aux API Siemens . * Interface Skinnable et configurable . * Fonctionne avec différentes bibliothèques graphiques; actuellement avec Swing et SWT * Plate-forme indépendante: Windows, Linux, OSX. Exemple de L'emulateur site officiel : www.microemu.org

Read more »