Being a camera centric device, I was really disappointed when I learned that the N82 can’t stand by itself. You know, there are times when I need to snap a scene and I want to be in it! I want to be in the picture! I want to take a shot or record a video of myself, both hands occupied. This is easy with a tripod (which i don't have) and such but isn't it way easier to just place my phone on a safe and flat surface, set the timer, then prepare to put a beaming smile on my face. I can do this by far using most mobile phones like the N95 but with the N82, a big cross on the face.
That's what i thought, but fortunately, there’s a trick. Most of you guys might already know about this a looooong time ago, or even before the N82’s birth. But I just thought it’s nice to bring this out for all our readers. Mustis73's video on how to do this, after the jump..
Nice isn’t it? It’s a bit inconvenient but it works for me. I do this most of the time. What do you think? Do you use this trick often as well or do you know other tips to make your N82 remain still? Share with us! ^^
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Make The N82 To Stand By Itself - Great For Self Portraits & Timer Mode
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
N82 Tips: Getting The Most Out Of Your Music Player
I got an email just the other day from a reader named Alec that wanted to share with all of you a huge guide he wrote about "Getting The Most Out Of Your Music Player". It's a great article for those who love to use their N82 as a dedicated mp3 player like myself.
In this guide Alec will show you how to manage volume settings, tags, music conversion, playlists, and trouble shooting on your Nokia N82. Of course this guide works for any Nseries (and Eseries) device including the N81, N95, and E71.
Keep reading to learn how to take full advantage of your music player...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Getting my brand new, shiny N82, I was excited to finally be able to load all of my music onto my phone (with a relatively inexpensive 8GB microSDHC card).
The only problem was that there was little to no documentation on the best way to do this and, unfortunately, I've faced endless amounts of googling and forum trawling before getting my phone set up just how I want for music, so I thought I'd write a guide.
This guide assumes that your phone is attached in "mass storage" mode throughout. It's possible to do this process connected as a media player and syncing it with a media player, but I prefer the flexibility offered by mass storage mode. It's a personal thing, though, and not all things in the guide require mass store mode connection.
Optional
If, like me, you're too lazy to continually change the volume of your music, you may want to consider normalising it, which cannot be done once it's in m4a format (as far as I'm aware). If you want to do this, you'll have to normalise it before you convert. A great tool to use is MP3Gain, which allows you to normalise your entire library with a single number of clicks, or you can normalise them within folders to maintain relative volume (ie on an album, to preserve dynamic range). I won't go into too much detail, as there are already plenty of tutorials on MP3Gain already (Google it).
Music Conversion
The great thing about the N82 (as well as the N95 and all similar phones) is the support for eAAC+ (or AAC-HEv2), which is a form of compression for music, which can dramatically reduce the size of your library, with less compromise over quality than with MP3.
Of course, everyone's ear for music quality is different and some audiophiles might shudder at the idea of using such lossy formats, but I've found bitrates as low as ~32kpbs to be "fair" quality, especially since I wanted to save space on my memory card for maps, photos and videos. Before you convert your entire music collection, I'd recommend playing around with your settings first on a single audio file and comparing different bit rates to decide between quality and compression.
For the conversion process, I used dBpowerAmp with the Nero AAC Codec. To get this working properly, you'll have to move the downloaded files into:C:\Program Files\Illustrate\dBpowerAmp\encoder\
or wherever you installed dBpowerAmp.
There are alternatives, like WinAmp, but I've no experience with the program.
I opened up dBpowerAmp Batch Converter and selected my music folder. Hitting "convert". This brings up the settings window.
Hit the "Converting to:" dropdown and select "m4a Nero (AAC)". The bit rate settings are up to you, but I chose VBR at quality ".15" (~32kbps). If you want better quality, go for ".25" (~64kbps). I've read that a good bitrate to use is around 48kbps, so if you want this sort of quality, hit the ABR radio button and adjust the slider accordingly.
On the "Encoder>>" button, you may want to check that the program has located your Nero AAC codec. If not, you should point it to where it is with "Locate Encoder". Then, from the drop-down menu next to the "Encoder>>" button, select "Force HE v2" to use the eAAC+ encoding (which it should do automatically at low bitrates, but we just want to be sure).
Finally, select your output folder, hit convert and you're away!
To give you some idea of numbers, when my collection was in MP3 format, it occupied 16.10GB (at 8days, 10hrs running time). In .15 quality eAAC+, the whole thing fit in 3.2GB.
The conversion process was a lengthy one, which ran for about 20hrs, so make sure you get your settings right first time.
Tags
The built in S60 music player is very nice and, in a couple of ways, superior to an iPod. The music player deals with tags, album art and m3u playlists. Not to mention I now couldn't imagine living without the ability to just type in a search and have the results pop right up.
Thankfully, dBpowerAmp preserves your MP3 tags when it converts to m4a. However, it loses any ratings you may have given your library, which, in a library of over 3000 songs, is a royal pain in the arse. I did find a (complex) solution, but I shan't post that unless requested.
If you do need to adjust your tags after conversion, don't rely on Windows Media Player (though I'm sure you've all left this program for some time) or, surprisingly, MediaMonkey (which doesn't seem to read my m4a tags properly - I never found a solution). Other solutions include, again, WinAmp, the context menu that comes with dBpowerAmp, or what I used: MP3Tag, which reads and writes the tags perfectly and can even query freedb and amazon.com for tags and cover art (though not as easily as mediamonkey). However, I'd definitely recommend getting your tags sorted before you convert, so that you can use tools like MediaMonkey.
Playlists
The music player supports m3u playlists, which is great. You can import your m4a library into your favourite music manager (in this case, I did use MediaMonkey, because you can view a library on a particular device and also because of its playlist management). Build a playlist from your tracks and then export this as an m3u playlist. You can export dynamic playlists as m3u, but I haven't yet found a way of adding custom dynamic playlists to the phone besides the 3 preloaded ones.
Save the playlist in the root of your memory card.
You might want to check the playlist in a document-viewer, like MS Word (or even just wordpad) to see that all the paths are relative (ie, they are not preceded with a drive letter), so that the playlist works properly on your phone. If there is a drive letter, it's a simple case of "Find & Replace", where you find "F:\" and replace with "".
Troubleshooting
In order to get all your music and playlists to show up properly in your library, you'll have to refresh it. This is done by opening:Music Player -> Options -> Refresh
This will take a (long) while depending on how much music you've crammed onto your phone, so just leave it to do its thing and it'll beep at you when it's done.
Important: If you delete a file off your memory card, you'll have to delete it within the library also, or you won't be able to refresh.
A great tip I also found is that if your library isn't refreshing, you can delete your library and rebuild it. Just delete these files:e:\private\101FFC31\mpxv1.mpd
e:\private\101FFC31\pcv5.mpd
e:\private\101ffca9\harvesterdb.dat
You'll have to refresh your library again.
Finally
Hit play.
-----------------------------------
Thanks Alec for sharing this great tutorial.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Speed Up Your N82 Gallery - Separation of Videos and Images Makes For A Better Experience
Hi guys, Aaron here again to share some quick tips for your n82. I know most of you may not find this post very helpful, but if you're like me who stores lots of media files on my phone, this tip is very handy. I also created a video guide for this. Again, make sure that your Gallery and Video Center is not open before starting: ----------------------------------------------------------
The N82 maybe one of the fastest phone to date, but if we have hundreds of pictures and several video files stored on it, the gallery application becomes somewhat sluggish and takes like forever to load. I had this problem before, my gallery takes more than 10-15 seconds before the 'Opening..' dialog box let me access my media files. On a fresh reboot, it would take even longer. And it wont't respond to any key presses until a second or two. This is very irritating, especially when I need to take a look on some picture of notes or documents I need for reference. Also, if my friends want to browse my phone's gallery, I don't want them to wait so long and leave them the impression that my n82 is such a slowbro. In addition, my videos were scattered all over the gallery and there's no way possible to make it filter out videos from images or vice versa.
Based on my personal experience, video files are the major factor that slows down the gallery application. Especially those full length movies that you may have on your phone. If you want to speed up that gallery of yours, you can choose to separate your videos from your images on your N82 (a neat feature that is now implemented by FP2) by hiding them from the gallery. Just set your videos' hidden attributes to true using a third party file manager application like Y-Browser or X-plore. NOTE: Do not rely on setting the parent folder in order to hide several videos. See the Update below. Also, Video Center ONLY displays videos that are located on E:\Videos, and C:\Data\Videos (subfolders are not even scanned). You'll need to move all your videos there so that video center can see them.
Basically, your videos will only be hidden from the gallery, and not from Video Center. So if you want to watch videos, Video Center is the place to go. You can now enjoy browsing pictures on a much faster gallery application. I have 381 images on my phone now and the gallery loads it for as fast as 2-3 seconds (3-5secs on fresh reboot) and presentation is very smooth. Video Center on the other hand don't seem to have any problem dealing with my videos with regards to speed and accessibility. To stay organized, you can create folders to group your videos on Video Center.
----------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 3: A very good find by one of our regular visitors here, Gareth, is that, moving your videos to the 'My Videos' folder on your memory card will do it all (hiding them from showing up on the gallery, and displaying them on video center). No need to set file or folder attributes anymore! It works like charm on my n82.. If this does not work on yours, then check out Update 2 below.
UPDATE 2: (Might not work on some phones. See Update 3) Another solution is hiding the 'Videos' folder itself. This way, no need to manually hide your videos. Even if you record new videos, they will be automatically hidden from displaying on the gallery. But it will not work by just hiding the 'Videos' folder. We'll need to follow this workaround:
Well thanks to Feature Pack 2 on newer devices, I don't need to rant anymore about what s60 could have done to make the gallery application more useful and logical.
What do you think? Have you had any problems with your gallery or is it just me? Well you can't blame me, I keep hundreds of media files because friends and relatives enjoy watching them on the phone (sometimes on tv).
It'll be great for me to hear your thoughts. Or if you have questions, feel free to leave a comment.
UPDATE 1:
If your gallery displays several copies of one of your videos or several items with broken icons (see screenshots below), DO NOT delete anything. Or you will lose some if not all of your video files. If im not mistaken, this happens if you tried hiding several videos by simply setting their parent folder as a Hidden or System folder. So those several copies are actually different files (or so the gallery thinks but all of them are linked to only one file, that is the video that was duplicated).
To fix this:
If you still experience problems or have more questions, don't forget to leave comment ^^.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
How To Change Fonts On Your Nokia N82 & Give Your Device A Facelift
I've always wanted to change the fonts on my Nokia N82 but have always been too lazy to figure it out. Lately I've been seeing more and more screenshots around the web of Nokia N95 and N82 phones with a completely different set of fonts. You can literally use ANY .ttf font file that you want to give your Nokia N82 a refreshing new look.
After successfully changing the fonts on my phone I am happy to tell you that the steps you must take are very simple and should only take about five minutes the first time.
Follow this guide and let me know if it works out for you.
Keep reading to learn how to change your Nokia S60 fonts.
Step 1. Pick a font that you think you will like seeing everyday and all day. Don't pick one too annoying and chaotic unless you really don't mind squinting at your phone. You can find fonts from your computer under the Windows/Fonts folder. Best thing to do is copy the one you like to your desktop where it's easier to work with. You can also go to www.dafont.com where they have literally thousands of free fonts.
Make sure the file type extension is .ttf, like arial.ttf. That is the standard font type and stands for TrueType Font.
Step 2. Duplicate the same font four (4) times. You will rename the font to the following...
nohindisnr60.ttf
nohindissb60.ttf
nohinditsb60.ttf
S60ZDIGI.ttf
It's extremely important that you have the exact spelling of each of those files. Put those font files into a folder called fonts.
Step 3. Connect your memory card to your computer. It doesn't really matter how you do this, whether it be usb cable, bluetooth, or card reader. Your memory card should be the E: drive, although your memory card might be called something different. Inside the root of the E: drive make a new folder called resource. Do Not mess with the Z: drive.
Now grab the fonts folder you created in Step 2 and transfer it and the four font files into the new resource folder on your memory card.
So now your folder structure should be E:\resource\fonts\those four font files.
Step 4. Disconnect & re-insert your memory card (if needed) and reboot. Power down your phone and power it back up. And voila!
You should now have completely new fonts on your N82.
Check out the screenshots of the changed fonts on my device...
If you follow these steps correctly there really is no way to harm your phone. If you want to get rid of these fonts and go back to the originals you simply delete the resource folder and its contents.
So far I've tried a few fonts but the one above is my favorite. Some fonts won't have all the symbols that your N82 can display, but so far I've only noticed one which is the New Line symbol that is displayed for a few seconds whenever your making a new line in a message. Not a problem at all.
There Is A Catch...
When using custom fonts you won't be able to use your device in Data Storage or Mass Storage mode unless you follow these steps:
1. Turn off your phone.
2. Take out the memory card.
3. Start-up your phone.
4. Re-insert your memory card, you can now make transfers.
5. Reboot phone and you will have your custom fonts back.
Not really that big a deal if you have the time to fiddle around.
Just to give credit, I found these steps here and here.
These steps should also work if you want to change the fonts on your Nokia N95. If you have another S60 device you can find the exact font file names in the Z:\resource\fonts\ folder. Just rename your favorite font to those files and follow the rest of the steps in this guide. Don't delete, overwrite, or modify the files under the Z: drive. Warning: This entire guide worked fine for me, however, I am not responsible if you try this and something bad happens to your phone. Try at your own risk!
Have any of you already changed the fonts on your N82? Maybe you have a better and easier way.
I would also like to know of any good fonts that you guys (and gals) think looks good on the screen. If you need any help or run into problems let me know and I'll do my best to help you. Hopefully I didn't miss any steps.
Monday, September 15, 2008
N82 Tips: Secure and Hide Files While Still Being Able to Access Them Easily
Posted By Aaron
As you may have remembered, hiding photos and videos from showing on your n82's gallery application has been already discussed here. In addition to setting files' system and hidden attributes, I just want to share additional tips on how to effectively limit access on valuable, personal and private files to yourselves only. ;-)
We can have our files hidden but the following are known concerns...
Solution:
Needless to say, we will need a third party file manager application, preferably one that allows the user to set a program password. You can use any application you want. The one I use is my favorite, X-plore. A great file manager application. You can download X-plore here.
If you are using X-plore, make sure that it is configured to display
System and Hidden Files. To do this, Select Menu > Tools >
Configuration (shortcut is 0).
Ensure that Show Hidden Files and Show system files/folders are
checked:
To set the program password of X-plore:
Select Menu > Tools >
Configuration (shortcut is 0). Scroll down until you see the program
password option, then select it.
Enter a new password then hit Ok to save.
There is another solution, that is to zip the files using the N82's built in Zip application and set a password. This is more secure but the problem is, speed and accessibility. It will take several minutes before you can completely zip a number of files and images or even a single video file! And of course another long wait on file extraction in case you want to access the zipped files again.
To do this using X-plore:
Highlight the location/folder where you want to place the new folder. Then
select Menu > File > Make Dir (shortcut is 9).
Then type the name of the folder and press ok. (in the example, ill create a new folder on root of my memory card and name it "My hidden files"):
With the new folder currently highlighted, select Menu > File >
Attributes (shortcut is 6). Check the Hidden and System
box.
To save the changes, select Change.
To move the parent folder of your personal files, make sure it is highlighted then select Menu >
Edit > Move (shortcut is 2). You should see a "Move marked to:
.." caption at the upper part of the program:
Then, highlight the folder you just created (in my case, My hidden files),
select Menu > File > Select (shortcut is OK) to
paste your personal files there:
In X-plore, highlight the file you want to rename then, select Menu >
File > Rename (shortcut is 7). Change the extension, then hit Ok
to save.
Hope this post helped. If you have some questions / problems, leave a comment and ill do my best to help you.
If you haven't heard, Aaron is a new addition to The N82 Blog. He will be writing articles here and helping make this site more useful to all N82 owners and Nseries fans. Click here to learn more about Aaron and welcome him to the community.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Flash (.swf) Screensavers On The N82 - Bring Your Screen To Life
Posted By Aaron
One of the first things I wanted to do on my n82 the day when I bought it was to set its screensaver. Well yes, I’m a fan of fancy and animated stuffs and to be able to set them as screensaver for my phone is a great way to make it feel livelier and eye catching. It adds flavor to the s60 interface which for me is, quite dry and dull. The only thing I hate is that, aside from gif files, it’s not possible to set your images as screensaver. Thankfully, flash comes to the rescue.
Months before, i created a flash screensaver for my Nokia 5300 which was inspired by Nokia’s Xpressmusic label. I changed the caption to “ilovemyn82” because, I love my n82 ;-). I want to share it with you guys. Hope you like it. (video does not work in some rss readers)
Download here
[Upload your own video]
More flash screensavers for mobile phones that you may like are all around the internet. And some of them have notification icons for battery, signal strength, time and date, etc. Some are also interactive, and the animation or display is based on the status of the phone such as current time or battery life. Check this one out.
And this one (cool, tells you to charge your phone when battery is near empty or when it's already full):
Link
(Note: this is an s40 theme, but you can still get the flash screen saver. Just download the file, then change the extension to .zip, extract the file named demo6.swf)
Setting Up a Screen Saver
Setting a screensaver for your n82 might get tricky and annoying at first. Unlike s40 devices where you can just go to your image, hit options then select “set as screensaver”, you will need to dig down several menus just to find out where to set it for your s60 device. In addition, you will need to configure some display settings for it to work properly.
This might seem to be very common for others but for those who want to know how to set it up for your n82, follow these steps:
1. Go to Themes > Power Saver
2. Select Animation (make sure a check mark appears next to it) then hit Options > Settings
3. Select Animation File, then browse that gif or swf file you wanted to set as screensaver.
4. On Animation Time-out, indicate how long you want your screensaver to stay visible on display.
5. On Light Time-out set it to off, or to a value that is longer than the Animation Time-out.
6. Go to Display Settings.
7. On Power Saver time-out, set the number of seconds for how long you want the phone to wait before displaying the screensaver.
Important:
8. Still on the Display Settings, select Light Time-out, then set it to a value that is longer than (the value you set on [step 4] plus the value you set on [step 7])
That’s it. Step 8 is important so that backlight is available until the screensaver is finished doing its job. You won’t like the light off already when the screensaver have not started yet or while the screensaver is playing.
Tip: On [step 4], the maximum possible input is 60secs for animation time-out. If you want your screensaver to be displayed the longest time possible, I suggest setting it to a value that is just equal to (60secs minus the value you set on power saver time out [step 7]) and then on [step 8], set the light time out to 60secs. That way, the screensaver stops playing as soon as the light times out. Saves some battery.
What is your screensaver now? Or do you prefer not setting it?
P.S. I know having a screensaver = additional battery usage. I only do this when I know I will not be doing too much with my n82 and when I’m confident that I have more than enough battery. How I wish that we can set different display and screensaver settings based on the current profile, so it’s easier to set the screensaver on and off.
If you haven't heard, Aaron is a new addition to The N82 Blog. He will be writing articles here and helping make this site more useful to all N82 owners and Nseries fans. Click here to learn more about Aaron and welcome him to the community.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Find Your N82 MAC Address With This Code
Just a quick heads up. If your router is asking for the MAC address you can find it by typing -
*#62209526#
from your Nokia N82 standby screen.
I've never had to do this but I've recently got a few emails asking for this code. I guess they were having problems connected to WLAN.
ps. I think this is the shortest post I've ever done.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Gmail & The N82: Get Your Labels To Show As Folders In The Built-In Email Application
I've already showed you how to setup Gmail on your N82 using the built-in email application. There are various settings to play around with to keep your Gmail inbox in sync with your N82. But what about Gmail labels? If you get tons of emails on a daily basis Gmail helps you stay organized with Labels, which can also be viewed as folders or tags. You can setup filters that allow you to manage certain emails.
First, A Little About Gmail Filters
For instance all the comments that you guys and gals leave here at the blog get sent to my email as a notification. The subject line always says something like "N82 Blog Comments". So I set up a filter than automatically sets everything with that subject line to my Comments Label and it bypasses my inbox so that I don't get it cluttered. Whenever I want to see those comments I just click on the "Comments" link under my Labels column in Gmail. You can also setup filteres to STAR emails with certain keywords that might be important to you like "bank statement" or anything you want. Click here to read more about filters and labels.
How To See Gmail Labels On Your N82
Now here's the part that I enjoy on the N82. I can subscribe to my Gmail Labels on my N82 and they will be shown as folders. I get an alert whenever a new email comes to one of those Labels (or folders) just like I normally would with my normal inbox.
Check out these screenshots and instructions to see how it works...
1. Go into your Email Settings > Retrieval Settings. Scroll down to Fold Subscriptions.
2. You will be asked to connect to the mailbox to update the folders (aka Labels). Once that's updated you will see a list of all your Gmail Labels. The Inbox will already be checked. If you want to be able to see your Gmail Archive make sure to check the [Gmail] folder. Add a checkmark to any other Labels that you want shown on your Nokia N82.
3. And there you go. You will now see your Gmail Labels on your S60 handset.
If you see a red plus sign above the folder (Label) that means there are new messages. As you can see above I have new messages waiting for me in my Inbox and not the Comments label.
A Few Shortcomings
Of course there is always a negative. New emails that come to my inbox cannot be moved to a Label folder from the N82. Your just going to have to mark it as read and wait till you get to a computer. Another bummer is I can't move the Inbox above my Comments folder in that last screenshot. I think it lists the Labels in alphabetical order. It's not too bad for me to only have to scroll down once, but for others who have lots of labels shown on their N82 it can be a pain to scroll all the way down to see your Inbox.
How To Archive A Gmail Message On Your N82
If you want to archive a Gmail message on your N82 you simply have to delete it. When asked select the "delete from phone and server" option. This will take the header off your phone and in Gmail will archive the message, not delete it. Which is really handy. I hardly ever need to delete emails anyways since we enjoy so much storage.
Do you have any other tips for making our experience better using Gmail and the N82 email application? If so please share.
note: These instructions work on any S60 powered phone including the Nokia N95, N78, E71, & E66.
Friday, August 1, 2008
N82 Tips: Specify Message Contacts Faster And Set Your Default Contact Fields
I just discovered how useful this simple little tip is the other day. When I start a new message and I'm selecting who it's going to, instead of clicking in the "To" field and going down the list I can simply type a few letters of the name of the contact within the "To" field and push the center d-pad. If you typed enough letters to filter out only one contact, that contact will be automatically added.
Default Numbers & Fields
There is something you can do to make this process even easier...
For contacts with more than one phone number you can specify which one you want to be the default.
For instance under my girlfriend I have a cell number and work number. When I'm creating a text message of course I'm not going to text her work number. I specify her cell number as default, and now when I create a text to her I just type in part of her name in the "To" field and push the midddle button. Her name is found and put there automatically. If I don't set her cell as the default number the phone will ask me which number I want to send the text to, taking up extra steps and time.
To set numbers as the default for each contact follow these steps:
Go to your contact in the phonebook and bring up his/her information. Push Options and scroll down to Default. Here you can specify all the default fields including texts and emails.
This also makes it easier for calling a Contact from your phonebook. If you rarely call your buddies work number you can make is cell number the default. Now when your going through the Phonebook you can just highlight his name and hit the green Call button and it will patch you through instead of taking more time to select which number your going to call.
Hopefully these tips help you be more productive with your Nokia N82 like they did for me.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Freeware: Jbak Task Manager Changes The Way I Control My N82
Last week I started playing with the latest version of Jbak Taskman and fell in love with this free S60 task manager application. My previous favorite was Best Taskman but in my opinion Jbak blows it out of the water. To tell you the truth it's realy changed the way I control my Nokia N82.
In order to really enjoy this application you have to take some time setting it up. Once you get everything how you want it like I have you won't be going back to anything else. There are so many different things that can be customized here. I find myself rarely using the S60 menu anymore. Below is a screenshot of how I have Jbak setup on my N82.
Task Manager
The applications you see on the left side are my open applications that I'm currently running. I can scroll through any of those and bring them to the forefront or I can simply minimize all applications and get back to my standby screen while everything is still running in the background. If you have certain applications that are always or almost always open like Contacts, Call log, etc. you can choose to hide those from your task list. This will help get rid of the clutter.
Shortcuts
On the right side is a list of shortcuts that I have assigned. Each one is given a number which of course refers to the numbers on your keypad. Any of those can be changed and re-arranged. Besides applications you can also make shortcuts to documents, apps & docs, and selected tasks that might be open on the left side. As you can see my first shortcut is the Menu. This will take me to the root of my normal S60 menu.
You might ask... Why would you need that as a shortcut when you already have the menu button on the N82? Well under Jbak's settings I have changed the Menu button to first take me to the screenshot above instead of the root S60 menu. I could have elected to make it a long-press of the Menu button but I figured why? I can have pretty much best of both worlds right with just a nice easy press. I personally hate having to long press the menu button to see open tasks. Now if I need to get to the S60 Menu I just push one after the menu button. Very simple. There are plenty of options to choose from under Jbak's settings. To get this setup in Jbak go Menu (left softkey) > Settings > Key Menu Settings > In System Keypress > Main Window. Here you will find all the other options as well for the Menu Key settings. Let me know if you'd like to know how I have all my settings.
Application Launcher
Another great feature is the Application Launcher. Once I have Jbak on my screen I can simply press pound and start typing the name of the application or task that I want. There are also a few settings that you can play with for the Application Launcher. The screenshot below shows what comes up when I'm looking for the applicaton "VibrateCall" (I'll tell you more about this application in aother post). As you can see all applications that have the word "call" are shown.
Don't forget if you don't like to use the application launcher you can always go to the S60 menu instead and find your application. All in all I go to my S60 menu maybe once a day now since I have my most useful shortcuts in the Jbak shortcut list. All of those are besides what's already on my Active Standby screen.
Extra Features
Up on top of the application you can see the memory status of all your drives. The first one tells you the RAM, second is your phone memory and third is your memory card. You can also elect to show the time at the bottom of the screen.
When you have an application highlighted you can push Menu and view the Task Info which gives you details of where it's stored and how much Ram the program is using.
Under the Tools option you can see processes, threads, chunks, etc that gives you even more details of what's going on with your phone. Most of that stuff I would never use. Here you can also lock your keypad and reboot your phone. Thats right. Not just turn off your phone and manually turn it back on. This will do the whole process.
Under the Settings option you will see a plethora of things you can tell Jbak to do. You just gotta see it for yourself.
Best of all this application is free and already signed. No need to sign it yourself. Just download the right version and install it.
Click here to download Jbak Taskman for your Nokia N82. The version I'm using is .99 on the bottom of the page. It says "JbakTaskman9_099_SymbianSigned.zip". That's the one to use if you don't want to sign anything. If you already have a hacked N82 or a Symbian Certificate you can download a newer version of the application.
Hope you enjoy this application and if your already using it let me know if you like it.
Monday, July 7, 2008
How To Copy & Paste Text From A Message Or Email
There should be a built in feature on the Nokia N82 that easily allows you to copy and paste certain blocks of text from text messages and emails, but unfortunately there is not. So that means we are left to find a solution on our own. I often need to take a chunk of text and paste it into a field in the web browser or take it into and email. The only solution I know of looks like this... 
1. Open the message you want to copy from
2. Options > Forward. This will give you a chance to copy and modify the text in that message.
3. Hold down the # key and highlight the text you want. While holding down # push the copy key and now it's on the clip board.
4. Go to your web browser or email that you need to paste the text in and once again hold down the # key and push paste.
5. Go back and delete the forward message you were creating.
Those are the steps I use. Maybe there is a better way and if so please let me know. I've found it extremely annoying that I can't just go in and grab some text right from the message.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
N82 Screen Brightness Fixed! How To Increase Your Brightness, The Hacked Way
Thanks to Mr-X from Finest Fones Blog for bringing it to our attention that there is now a way to increase the brightness of your Nokia N82. This has been one of the major gripes since the release of this phone. The picture (credits to Mr-X) above shows the N82 next to the N95 with equal brightness, something that has never been seen before. Update: It seems as though P@sco may have been the one behind this hack.
This is a huge accomplishment by members of the Symbian fanbase for finding a way to hack this and enable us to make the N82 screen better. It's just sad that it has to be done this win, big thumbs down to Nokia for not listening to our calls. Now Nokia, you will have many customers out there with hacked phones installing whatever applications they please without any restrictions at all. Congrats.
In order for you to perform this you must first hack your phone. I'm not sure how easy it is but I'm going to try it as soon as I have a few hours to sit down at my computer, hopefully tonight when I get off work.
First you can watch this video where Mr-X shows you the steps to take after your phone is already hacked.
Click here to go to Mr-X's tutorial page where you can also find links to hack your phone. Good luck and I'll be posting about this again hopefully with success in a few days. Let me know if any of you have success and let us know how it went.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Be More Efficient By Rearranging Your Menus & Learning Shortcuts
When you first start up your brand new Nokia N82 you might find after a few weeks that the menu setup has some applications and folders that you might find useless. The great thing is that these folders & icons can be rearranged to better suit your needs and help improve your efficiency when navigating through various menus. Towards the bottom of the article you will also find a shortcut that will reduce the number of buttons clicked to reach your menu item.
Below is a screenshot of how I have my menu set up right now. All of my most used applications, tools, or folders that aren't already on my standby screen are displayed in the root menu. Now I don't have to dig around to find anything that I'm always needing.
The folder I have at the bottom called "Dump" contains a bunch of stuff I don't need or use often. Inside that folder is N-Gage, Download!, Video Centre, Nokia Maps, Search, Calculator, Web, and Contacts. Some I don't use and others I already have on my standby screen like I said earlier. This freed up a lot of menu space in the root menu and other menus. Basically our goal is to just get rid of the clutter.
To rearrange your N82 menu just push options then "move" or "move to folder". You can also create a new folder to assign different applications to it. You'll find that it's not possibly to move some folders so you'll just have to make do with what you can. There are also some applications that you can't delete which is why I moved them to the dump. Don't forget that when you see a half circle just above a certain icon that means it's being used and open in the background. You'll notice in my menu I have applications open in the Tools and Applications folder as well as Shozu.The last tip I'll show you is the shortcuts. When viewing any menu screen there are twelve icons visible. There are twelve buttons on your numerical keypad. Each button corresponds to the menu icons. The 1 button will be the top left icon and the # will be the bottom right, with everything else in between. This gives you one click access to your icons, similar to a touchscreen menu like the iPhone.
If anyone else has any tips for efficiency in navigating a Nokia S60 smartphone I all ears. Let me know if you have any questions.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A Look At The Active Standby Screen, Whats On Yours?
Seems as though everyone enjoyed the "Here's my applications, what are yours?" post the other day so I decided to take a look at the Active Standby Screen of our Nokia N82 and how we have it customized. I love seeing how everyone else uses their phone, it helps give me ideas. The point of having the active standby screen is to make us more effecient and organized. I'm curious to see what everyone else has going on and I'd also like to show you what mine looks like...
In order from left to right the applications are...
Contacts, Email Inbox, Web Browser, Google Maps, Music Player, & Calcium Calculator.
As you can see I do use my Calendar application even though I am not extremely business oriented. It helps me keep track of bills & due dates, important dates, non important dates, birthdays, to-do's, etc.
I rarely use the Search plugin, mostly for searching emails. I love the Wlan plugin and use it all the time. Maybe if Nokia would add prioritization of Wlan access points I wouldn't find a use for it, but for now it's great. I don't have Share Online 3.0 installed so there are no Ovi or Flickr icons on the bottom. I hate that you can't get rid of those, I find them useless. And of course the Music Player plugin is great, but I really think it needs more. Why not add little pause/play/skip icons next to it? That would be great instead of having to launch the application just to pause the music.
My two shortcut buttons are Clock & New Text Message. I do alot of texting and probably set 2-3 alarms a day so the having these on my standby screen is crucial.
Don't forget you can add bookmarks from the Web Application to your standby screen. I sometimes have a link straight to Google Reader as one of my standby apps. A link to weather, sports scores, myspaces messages page, etc. might come in handy for some.
More Options Are Needed
What we really need is more options. Don't you agree? I think we should have the option to remove anything on the Active Standby Screen and have more plugins. Recent emails or/and text messages, rss feeds, sports scores, alerts for new podcasts we are subscribed to, etc. The possibilities are endless and I'm sure many of you can come up with more ideas.
So how does the standby screen look on your Nokia N82 beauty? Similar to mine? Maybe it's more business oriented, or more for fun. Leave links to screenshots or just list them out. And stay tuned in a few days I'll talk about the re-organization of the N82 menu & folders.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Using The N82's Data Connection To Connect My Laptop To The Web
One of the three jobs I have involves lots of down time and sitting around while not getting paid. Pretty much I have to wait sometimes up to 2 hours a day just to have the opportunity to work and on occasion I have to go back home without a job and wait for the next day. The job is really good pay when you actually get a chance to work, so in the long run it's worth it.
Besides the reasons, during this down time I thought it would be a good idea to get some work done here on the blog and on some of my other side projects. Right now I'm sitting in my car using my N82's data connection to connect my laptop to the world wide web. To do this I have two choices. Either tether my phone to the laptop via Nokia PC Suite or use the popular application JoikuSpot to transform my phone into a Wifi hotspot.
I decided to use the first method. I might be wrong, but I think Wifi would use more battery than over a data cable. Saving battery life is crucial for me since my car charger is broken.
Steps to tethering your Nokia N82 data connection with your computer:
1) Start Nokia PC Suite on your computer. Connect your phone to PC Suite with your data cable or bluetooth.
2) Once connected, click on the 3rd icon in top row of PC Suite, it says Connect To Internet. You will then be presented with the One Touch Access window.
3) The first time I tried to connect it failed. I had to go into the settings and select AT&T United States and Nokia N82 USB as the modem. After that click connect and everything should work fine and connect.
Of course the N82 doesn't have North American 3g bands so I'm relying on an Edge connection. It's a really slow connection, but not painfully slow. I'm still able to get the basic stuff done. If you try loading a large website or downloading a file over 1mb it's not even worth it. I've found that the Opera browser renders websites much faster than Firefox so when I'm tethering I prefer using Opera. Times like this I really wish we had 3g on the N82 in North America. This would make this phone almost perfect in my eyes. You might not want to try this if you don't have an unlimited data plan with your carrier, and even AT&T has stipulations saying you can't do this with their unlimited data plan. Try At Your Own Risk. But they haven't said anything as long as you don't use it on a daily basis or download huge mp3s and movies. I've been doing this for years no and have never heard a complaint from Cingular or ATT. Also keep in mindwhen a call comes through the connection is interrupted because Edge can't stream voice and data at the same time.
Tip: Make sure you don't have any background processes on your computer that might be using the internet. A few programs I had open in my System Tray were checking for updates on their servers, includines Windows Update. It's best to disable these so that you don't use data thats not needed.
Overall I'm happy with my experience tethering the internet from my N82 to the computer. The ease of use is amazing and it's such a breeze to setup and convenient.
Have you tried tethering with your Nokia N82? If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Browsing Tip: What To Do When There Is No "Login, Ok, or Go" Button
On the N82 and all S60 3rd Edition phones you simply push the "0" key 3 times repeatedly and this will act as the "Enter" button like on your computer.
This simple shortcut also acts as the "Enter" button when texting or emailing as well, allowing you to create a new line in the message.
What other tips or shortcuts have you found on your N82?
Monday, May 19, 2008
How To Silence The Camera Sound On Your N82
For whatever reason you need to turn off the camera's sound here's a small tip that will let you do this. I've found this useful when taking pictures of some text in a book I was reading at the library. You don't want the shutter sound going off in a quiet room do you?
Follow these steps.
Go to Tools > Profiles > Whatever Profile You Want > Personalise > Warning Tones "Off".
Holding down the # button will also put your phone in the Silent Mode profile which already has warning tones disabled.
Simple as that. All warning tones will be disabled including the Nokia sound that happens at startup every time you restart your phone.
Note: Keep in mind this solution will not work on North American N82 models because of some apparent privacy laws in the United States. There is a way around this but it involves changing your phones product code which is a risky procedure. Check out this article at Eric's Corner where he shows you the step by step instructions to changing the Nokia N82's product code.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Get Full HTML Emails On Your Nokia N82
The other day I posted at Symbian Addict about viewing full html emails on S60 powered phones. It's actually quite simple and was right under my nose. This may be obvious to some and helpful to others. Viwing full html emails is done with the built in email application on the N82 and works flawlessly.
You'll see it right below the subject line in your email. Look for "Attachment.html" with a little paperclip next to it. It's where all your normal email attachements are at. Click on it and you'll get the html version of the email opened up in web browser. Simple as that. View the article at Symbian Addict if you want to see screenshots.
I use the email application to connect to my Gmail account. If you haven't already learned how you can click here for the instructions.
Do you find this helpful or have any other methods for viewing email on your N82?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Roundup: Interesting News & Articles From Recent Weeks
There as been a lot to cover the past few weeks as far as Symbian S60 and Nokia news goes. Everything from applications to tutorials, to discussions about the N95 and how it affects Nokia. Below is a roundup of all the latest happenings.
Qik Tips For Live Video Streaming
Matthew from the Darla Mack Blog has posted an article talking about everything you need to know about the Qik application for live video streaming. Click here
The Black N82 Is Amazing
Stefan from Into Mobile talks about his time meeting one of the project managers of the Nokia N82. He also talks about how much he loves his new black N82. Click here
The Where Application & Sling Player For S60 Update
Rick from Symbian Guru has posted articles about the popular Sling Player which allows you to watch your live TV on your phone and a new application called Where which is a location based application and tells you things such as gas prices, events, places to eat, etc.
Uploading Your Photos To More Than One Place At The Same Time
Mark from The Nokia Blog wrote up a great article about the free Shozu application which allows you to upload photos and videos to popular online social websites. It's like Share Online 3.0 on steroids. Click here
Listening To Baseball And Hockey Radio On Your Phone
Have you ever wanted to stream live internet radio to your phone. Here is the only solution for right now if the format is Windows Media Player, which S60 phones currently don't support. Click here
What Makes A Smartphone Smart?
Great question by Steve from All About Symbian, along with a great article. Click here
S60 Software Thats Worth Paying For
Do you buy a lot of applications? Or do you prefer to find a free solution. I only have a few applications on my phone that are worth paying for. Vaibhav from The Symbian Blog has posted an article about this. Click here
Nokia N78 & Nokia N82 Side By Side Pictures
Just Another Mobile Blog has posted a ton of photos showing the two phones side by side. Click here
Problems Updating Firmware With Vista? Look Here
Do you get this error? "Nokia Service Layer Host Process has stopped working". If so Mr-X from Finest Fones has posted a article to get around this. I highly recomment eveyone to read this before you update your firmware with Vista. Click here
That's it for now. If you've seen any good articles recently let us know in the comments below.