I saw on Engadget ( Who sourced the link from Electronista ) that Symbain^4 screen shots have been released for the first time, allowing us a glimpse at where this OS is headed.  I checked out Electronista’s article and after seeing the screen shots I was checking to make sure this is a recent story. For the reason why, read on and then take a peek for yourself how Symbian^4 is looking…

Eventually I realized this actually is a story from July 16th 2010 and not 2001 as I suspected. The screenshots being enclosed in the classic WindowsXP menubar and borders has something to do with it, I’m sure. But even without the border I thought I was looking at something from 2001. The Symbian^4 UI looks like an early Linux desktop, right down to the KDEesque folders. It’s about as appealing as a concrete bed. Release is sometime next year, and it sure looks like the UI team has their work cut out.

Symbian^4 Screenshot Gallery

Electronista: Symbian^4′s Home Screen Surfaces, Shows new UI Design

Filed in categories: News

Tagged: Symbian, Symbian OS Related

Symbian^4: UI Screenshots Revealed originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 18, 2010 at 11:00 am.

mWallet by Total Wireless Solutions is a very nifty application. You don’t have to use every feature that it offers but if you decide you want to, it’s definitely a practical step. It only costs $7.50 for an S60 device and $6.50 for a UIQ device.

In its most basic form, this application is great for those with a bad memory or those who keep written record of absolutely everything. The feature that sets this apart from simply putting details in your contacts list or your notes folder is that it is passworded.

I was previously keeping my bank details in my phone, because it’s much easier and less messy than having to dive into my filing cabinet every time I need my personal information.

This application simply offers far more detail, ease of use and security.

As well as keeping my bank details in my phone, I was also keeping a small pocketbook with ALL of the email newsletters I was signed up for and all of the online clubs and memberships I had. Passwords, I’m sure you all know, vary from website to website according to their requirements: length, requires numerals, case sensitive etc so my passwords were also in this pocketbook.

Although these passwords may be for silly things like clubs and memberships (by silly I mean, no one has anything to gain by hacking them), the passwords may also be reused for something that IS important, for example, email addresses and social networking. It’s highly risky keeping them written down. Unfortunately, I took this risk to make allowances for my shocking memory.

I never went as far as putting my pin numbers in my phone, however, this resulted in various trips to the bank because I had forgotten my pin numbers for various cards.

With mWallet, all I have to remember and keep safe is one password and everything else is remembered and kept safe for me.

The categories mWallet provides you with are:

The category “Cards” includes:

And the category “Passwords” includes:

There are many fields under each category giving you options to keep extensive or minimal details. The view within each category is nicely laid out, enabling you to see multiple details at once.

It also has a personal notes category which is similar to the application “Notes” on most Nokia phones. It comes in handy if you want to make a protected note to come back to later. Unfortunately it only takes 512 characters.

The great thing about it is when viewing anything confidential (ie. PIN numbers, credit card numbers, passwords etc), it masks them by displaying them as asterisks as a further precaution. All you have to do is press options then unmask all and it will display them for as long as you need:

As well as this, if you leave it idle for a long period of time it will reask for you password.

The only fallback I can find for this software is that when you go to view your information, it displays it in the same editing form that you used to enter it. It makes it difficult to view all of the details you need at once. It would have been easier if it only showed the information you entered rather than having to scroll through several blank fields to find the information you’re looking for.

I will reiterate how great this application is for those of us with a bad memory. I’m a very organised person with a shocking memory. I even had to reset my password to log in and post this article. (And then I entered the new password into my mWallet so I can’t lose it). It’s a great product and is going to save me a lot of hassle in future. It’s more secure than carrying a notebook around, more convenient than having to go through my filing cabinet and more organised than keeping details in a txt file on my phone/PDA.

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: S60, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, UIQ

mWallet – Symbian Utility Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 19, 2009 at 11:07 am.

The Nokia Podcasting application, developed by Nokia comes with the sis file already preloaded onto the memory card of some of the more recent Nokia phones. It’s also free for download from the Nokia website and it’s available for all E or N series phones that have WLAN and is compatible with some others.

I’m currently using a Nokia E66. It’s beautiful, it’s edgy and, even though it slides, I like it better than its QWERTY keypad brother, the E71. But that’s not what I’m reviewing today. A Symbian application that comes with the handset is Nokia Podcasting.

Once I began listening to podcasts, rather than loading them onto my (now dead) iPod photo, I experimented with the Nokia Podcasting software. I discovered that it’s extremely different to and far more inconvenient than, say, using the iTunes store on an iPod touch.

To begin with, the first thing you have to do is download, copy and install the file. If you’re reading this article in the category of Symbian software, I’m assuming this isn’t an issue. But you’re the minority. Everyone else out there uses their phone for texting and calling and most of them get their tech department to set up email for them because they haven’t figured it out yet. Let alone figured out that there are installable freeware applications that are created for them.

Once this application is installed, you have the joy of using the search function. It is a terrible function. The search engine they use is either out of date or sponsor-only. I searched “Dane Cook”, “Howcast” and “Homestar runner” and nothing came up.

I thought my access point settings might be playing up so I searched “yoga” (which is what they use as the example in their trusty 16 page manual) and, lo and behold, ten podcasts. But, unfortunately, it’s not what I wanted to listen to.

After exhausting all my other ideas for searching (“trance music”, “music technology” and “home decoration”), this left me with one other option: to manually key in an OPML link (Nokia suggests http://www.opmlmanager.com in their user guide). Here we hit another snag.

You have to create your own OPML file of the channels you listen to. Then you have to download it to your phone by either hosting it or using the data cable. Then you have to subscribe to the channels you want and then you can download individual podcasts. I tried to imagine my mother trying to do the same thing (when I think of ease of use for anything computer/phone related, I try to imagine my mother figuring it out) and realized that it’s actually quite a difficult and fussy process.

Once that was done, however, the beauty of this application started to show.

You can easily tell whether a directory is up to date (globe) or requires a connection (arrow).

You can select your access points, memory storage and whether to update directories and channels manually and automatically (including how often).

You can keep channels organized within directories.

It notifies you if you’re downloading a podcast that is in an incompatible format to your handset.

You can view the type, size and progress of downloads and easily view. Arrows also indicate what is currently downloading.

and like most Symbian applications, you can run it in the background against other applications.

All around, it’s a great program for podcasts that you’re familiar with and regularly listen to, however, I wouldn’t suggest it for browsing new listening material or impulse downloading programs. Apple have marketed their apps well and have made them accessible to everyone, not just the technically savvy. I believe Nokia should have worked on marketing their applications (not just this one) to the layperson by improving usability and ease of set up. That said, I like Nokia Podcasting and once it’s up and running, it’s easy to maintain, useful and fun to use.

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: Nokia, podcasting, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related

Nokia Podcasting Application Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 25, 2009 at 2:29 pm.

It’s been a week since I started using the Nokia N85 and in that time, I’ve found a lot to like and some things that left me wanting more. This last part of my series on the Nokia N85 will focus on:

• Built in applications
• Week wrap up

Although the Nokia N85 is called a smartphone, it doesn’t quite feel as like one to me. I know it has WiFi, a GPS and a camera. But one of my personal requirements for a smartphone is an easy input mechanism. The N85 does not have a touch screen or a keyboard, so that makes things a bit difficult for entering appointments, addresses, etc.

Let’s look at some of the other applications included on this phone…

GPS

The N85 has a built in GPS receiver, that requires a view of the sky to get a fix on the satellites. This phone also includes an application called Maps. Turn by turn voice guided directions requires paying a subscription fee, but you get a 3 month free trial to test it.

When you start the Maps application, you are presented with a globe that you can roll and zoom. I was using AT&T on Edge and it was a bit slow updating. Then at one point, it got stuck and wouldn’t zoom in or out.

By pressing the Left soft key (Options), you can search on popular destinations like gas stations, rest areas, etc and get driving or walking directions to their location.

Of course you can also enter your own addresses to navigate to, or navigate to the address for one of your contacts. The turn by turn spoken directions are handy, but street names aren’t spoken. The male voice just speaks the direction to turn, not the road name.

I found the GPS to work really well, but since it can be difficult to see the display in sunlight, it can be hard to see the GPS info on the screen.

Misc. Applications

Some of the other included applications are an Adobe PDF viewer, unit converter, Zip compressor, Quickoffice and a notes app.

The Adobe Reader application doesn’t work very well on the N85. One of the more obvious reasons is that this phone has a small display, so you have to scroll around a lot to see all the document. But the other reason is that it just doesn’t work worth a hooey. I tried several simple PDFs and you can see the results in these screen shots… Notice the large blocky Black sections? That’s not in the PDF file…

When I was able to get a PDF to load correctly, the resulting image quality was jaggy. Not good.

The unit converter isn’t anything super special, but little apps like this always come in handy from time to time.

The QuickOffice suite will allow you to load Excel, Word and Powerpoint files for viewing on the N85. If you want edit or create capability, you have to pay for a license…

I didn’t have any issues with viewing Excel or Word files, but I didn’t have much luck with powerpoint files… Again, a phone with a screen of this size, really does not lend itself well to working with documents.

Wrap Up

As usual, a week of using one phone ends with me ready to try something new. I’m just never happy… what’s up with that? The Nokia N85 does have a lot going for it. I really like the size. It’s almost perfect in that respect. The 5MP camera which takes very nice macro shots is a real plus too. I can’t fault the GPS or Wifi either for that matter. But when all is said and done, it comes down to the lack of a real keyboard. That tends to be a real deal breaker for me. If I didn’t text as much as I do, the keyboard  probably would not matter to me, but I do, so it does. So there you go… Even though the Nokia N85 isn’t going to work out for me personally, I still highly recommend it as a great little full featured phone.

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: N85, Nokia, S60, Smartphone, Symbian, Symbian OS Related

A Week with the Nokia N85 Smartphone – Day 6 & 7 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 12, 2009 at 4:52 am.

This part of my series on the Nokia N85 will focus on:

• The camera
• Capturing video
• Listening to audio
• Playing games

Camera

The N85 has a 5 megapixel digital camera with a Carl Zeiss auto focus lens and an LED flash. To use the camera, you slide open the lens cover over the lens. You can launch the camera application, but without opening the lens cover, you’ll be unable to capture images. I learned this the hard way duh…

Opening the lens cover will unlock the phone and allow you to take pictures right away. The on-screen icons should be familiar if you’ve ever used a digital camera.

There are even several scene modes that you can use if desired.

Captured photos can be saved in albums, tagged with GPS coordinates and played as a slide show.

Images can also be emailed and individual photo details can be edited.

Here are a couple example pictures. The camera does a pretty good job. I was happy with the macro capabilities. There are two things that do annoy me about the camera though. The main thing is that it is very hard to see the display (viewfinder) outdoors in sunlight. This makes it really difficult to take pictures and videos when you can’t see what you’re trying to capture.

The other problem with the camera is the shutter button on the Right side. It is very mushy feeling and kind of hard to press. You have to press the button halfway to auto focus and then all the way to capture the picture.

Video

In addition to capturing still images, you can also use the N85 to take videos.

Like the still image display, the video display shows you the necessary information.

There is even a night shooting mode.

And White balance settings.

Capturing video suffers from the same problems that I encountered while capturing still images. Hard to see viewfinder outdoors and mushy capture button. The capture button isn’t as big a deal though as you just have to press it once to toggle the  start and stop of video recording.

The main camera on the back can capture 640 x 480 resolution, MPEG-4 video and the camera on the front records at 176 x 144 resolution using the H.263 codec.

Main camera video sample (.MP4, 11mb)

Not bad video for a cell phone.

Front camera video sample (.3GP, 96kb)

Typical grainy low resolution video.

You can watch videos on the phone and find other videos to watch too.

Music

The N85 has a nice set of audio programs too.

There’s a digital music player for your .MP3 files, a Podcast player, FM and Internet radio players and even a nifty built in FM transmitter.

Music can be copied to the microSD card and organized into folders for artists and albums. Music sounds pretty good through this phone and I like that it has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

It’s also cool that you can turn the N85 into a music player by sliding the display down (to the Right while in landscape mode) to reveal special music control keys.

If you enjoy listening to FM radio, you can do that too. You have to plug in a set of earbuds or headphones though in order to tune stations though. It uses the headphone / earbud wire as an antenna.

If you are more inclined to listen to streaming Internet radio stations, you’re in luck. There’s an app for that too. It can stream using your phone’s data connection, or via WiFi. There is a station directory based on genre, or you can add your own station address manually.

Games

This little phone can play games too.

There is a large selection of trial games that you can install either on the device itself, or on the microSD card.

The games are pretty fun and are great for wasting time while waiting in a checkout line. I tried several, including the oldie but goodie – Tetris.

The Nokia N85 makes a great little media device with its built-camera, camcorder, music player, FM radio, streaming internet radio player and games. You definitely won’t be bored with this phone. My only complaint is with the shutter button and even that isn’t a major complaint

The next part of my series on the Nokia N85 will focus on:

• Built in applications
• Wrap up

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: N85, Nokia, S60, Symbian

A Week with the Nokia N85 Smartphone – Day 3, 4 & 5 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 9, 2009 at 1:00 am.

You know how it is when you get a brand new phone, you have to adjust to the location of its buttons, navigation of menus, etc. That’s what I’ve been doing the last couple of days with the Nokia N85. This part will focus on:

• First impressions of the user interface
• Making and receiving calls
• Browsing the web

User Interface

Prior to buying the N85, I had been using the N80 off and on. Even though the N80 is over 3 years old and very chunky in comparison to current phones, I have always enjoyed using it because it just plain works. There is also something about Nokia phones that has always impressed me… they seem to be able to hold a signal better than most other phones.

A quick look at these two phones shows that the N85 is a sleeker version, updated with a thinner and shinier body. While I do like the thinner body of the N85, I find myself missing the individual buttons of the N80.

As you can see, the buttons on the N80 are all seperate physical buttons, while most of the buttons on the N85 are not. What’s the big deal? I can’t really put my finger on it (pun intended). I’m probably just being picky as usual, but for me the N85 feels slightly awkward to use. Interacting with the phone feels stiff and not as comfortable as on the N80. The N85 is also a bit ‘creaky and cracky’ when pressing the various buttons.

The Navi wheel on the N85 does have two unique features. One feature is touch sensitive. You can actually turn on a feature that will allow you to slide your thumb around the Silver ‘wheel’ to scroll through menu items. Think iPod nano touch wheel and you get the idea. In reality, the feature isn’t all that great. I turned it off after a day or so playing with it because it acted a sort of hurky jerky.

The other feature of the Navi wheel is the LED that surrounds the center button. You can turn on a breathing feature that will slowly fade the White LED on and off. It’s sort of like the power LEDs on Macbooks. Just a little eye candy…

Navigating the interface is not difficult. The main menu is accessed with the dedicated menu button in the bottom Left corner that looks like two planets revolving around each other. Pressing it will present you with one screen of icons in grid view. You can also show these icons in a list, horseshoe or v-shaped list views.

Making and Receiving Calls

There are several ways to initiate a call with the N85. If you have a Bluetooth headset, you can use voice dialing.

From the home screen, you can just type in the number you wish to dial with the keypad or hold down a number on the keypad if you have 1-touch dialing set up.

Another way to dial is to look up a number from your contacts list. Go into the contacts application and start typing a name using the keypad and the list will continue to filter as you type. Then you can go into the desired contact and select the number to dial.

When a call comes in to your phone, you will see the number along with their photo if the person is in your contacts list and has a photo associated with them. You can silence the call and have the option to send a predefined text message to the caller.

When you miss a call, you’ll see a message on the display and have the ability to see details about the call.

You can also view the call log, which includes incoming, outgoing and missed call lists. Press the Green call button on any of the entries in these lists will dial the number associated with that log item.

Like other Nokia phones that I’ve tested, this one does very well at holding a signal. I haven’t had any dropped calls yet and the audio quality on both sides of conversations is as good as can be expected here (Columbus, Indiana) on the non-3G AT&T network. Am I dissing AT&T? Yeah, a little…

I did find out that you will want to extend the phone (slide open the keyboard) when you are making or receiving calls with this phone. Calls do not sound as clear (to the other party) when the phone is closed even though I believe that the microphone is built into the bottom edge of the top sliding part of the phone.

Browsing the Web

For the browsing part of this review, I mainly used the built in WiFi because it’s much faster than EDGE speeds.

Browsing with the N85 is only a so-so experience for two reasons – text input and screen size. Typing in web address can be really frustrating using the numeric keypad.

And the small display can be a challenge as well. To see the entire main column of The Gadgeteer, I had to zoom the display to 50% normal size. The image above on the Left is at 100%. The image on the Right is 50%. It’s still readable, but not really comfortable.

Rotating the display to the landscape orientation does help considerably though.

Since the N85 does not have a touchscreen, you use the Navi Wheel to move around a tiny pointer icon to click on links. It’s not hard to use, but if you’ve ever used an iPhone or iPod touch, the N85 will make you feel like you’re trying to surf with your hands tied behind your back.

I would say my main issue with surfing is that I groan every time I have to enter any text such as a user name / password or web address. Using the keypad to enter even a few words gets tedious very quickly for me.

As you noticed from the screen shots shown above, you can watch YouTube videos on the N85 as it has support for Javascript and Flash Lite. When you click a video link, it will load into Real Player. It works pretty well through WiFi.

As a phone, the N85 does a decent job and I don’t have any real complaints. I would like to be able to use voice dialing without a Bluetooth headset though *. As a web surfing device, I wouldn’t use the N85 unless that was the only device I had nearby and I didn’t need to do any intensive surfing.

The next part of my series on the Nokia N85 will focus on:

• Using the camera
• Capturing video
• Listening to audio
• Playing games

* Reader Kenneth Wong pointed out to me that you don’t need a Bluetooth headset to use the voice dialing feature. All you have to do is hold down the Right select button above the Red end key. Thanks Kenneth!

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: Nokia, S60, Smartphone, Symbian

A Week with the Nokia N85 Smartphone – Day 1 & 2 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 2, 2009 at 1:00 am.

The Android G1 was a cool phone, but you and I both knew that I wouldn’t stick with it very long. What can I say, I get bored easily. So, this week I’m going to be trying out the Nokia N85 smartphone. It’s been awhile since I’ve had a newer Symbian phone, so I’m excited to see if it will keep me interested enough to stick around after the week is done. 

Day 0

This first post, otherwise known as Day 0, will provide a short tour of the physical features of this phone. The rest of the series will delve into more detailed usage of the these features.

Hardware Specifications

OS: Symbian 9.3 S60
Bands: Quad-band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, WCDMA 850/1900/2100 MHz
Data: GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA/WiFi
Memory: 74 MB internal, 8GB microSD flash card included
Display: 2.6″ 16 million color QVGA Active Matrix OLED, 240×320 pixel resolution
Camera: 5 megapixel  (2584 x 1938 pixels) with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and dual-LED flash
Video: 640×480 VGA, up to 30 frames per second
Bluetooth: 2.0 with Enhanced Data Rate and A2DP
WiFi: 802.11b, 802.11g
Audio: 3.5mm stereo headphone jack
Battery: 1200mHa, Estimated 4 hours talk time, estimated 12.5 days standby time
Size: 4.o5 x 1.97 x 0.63 inches (103 x 50 x 16 mm)
Weight: 4.5oz (128g)

Package Contents

Nokia N85 Smartphone
Battery
AC Adapter
micro USB cable
Video connectivity cable
3.5mm earphones and controller
Getting started guides

Out of the box, I was impressed by the size of the N85. It’s very close to the same dimensions as the Palm Centro as you can see from the image below.

For me, this size is pretty much perfect because it is comfortable in both your hand and your pocket.

The N85 has a shiny Black plastic face that attracts fingerprints and smudges like flowers attract bees. The non-touchscreen display takes up most of the front surface of the phone. Above the display is the speaker, light sensor and a front facing secondary camera.

Below the display is a collection of 9 buttons. The buttons that you can actually see include Call and End keys, the Navi wheel / scroll key with the center select button and to the Right of that is the small multimedia key.

The four buttons that you don’t see when the phone is in idle mode are the two buttons that map to the bottom screen menu items, as well as the Menu key and Clear key C which are located along the bottom edge. To activate these buttons, you just press the case in that area.

On the back side of the phone, you will find the easy to remove battery cover, the camera lens and LED flash.

There’s a protective slide cover for the camera lens. Sliding this cover open exposes the lens and also launches the camera application.

I really like the fact that sliding the cover open will immediately start the camera application and will allow you to capture images straight away without having to navigate various menus in order to launch the camera application.

On the Left edge of the phone, you will find the microSD card slot and lanyard attachment point.

On the opposite edge, you will find two speakers for stereo sound with 3D effects. There is also a camera shutter button, key lock switch and the volume / zoom button.

The top edge has the micro USB connector for charging and syncing. Next to it is a 3.5mm stereo earphone jack and the power button.

To access the numeric keypad, you slide the display upwards. The sliding mechanism feels like it has a spring assist, which makes it pretty easy to slide it open and closed.

The only issue I have with this design is that to slide the display up, you have to use your thumb on the screen to move it. That means smeary fingerprints all over the screen.

Sliding open the screen will ‘wake’ up the phone if it is in idle mode and will not require that you press the screen unlock buttons.

It’s important to note that the keypad does not have individual keys. Instead, it has one flat surface with the buttons under it. It has good tactile feedback and is backlit, but I personally prefer separate keys. That’s just me though…

The numeric keypad isn’t the only keypad on this phone. If you slide the screen in the opposite direction, it will expose four short side keys.

These keys have different functions depending on the application that you’re in. In the image above, you can see that the keys have play/pause, stop, next and previous track functions for the music player. When using the web browser, they can be used to zoom in and out as well as to play/pause and stop music that you may be listening to in the background. They can also be used in game mode.

So far I’m loving the size of this phone. It’s perfect for sliding in my pocket when I take walks at work. The phone is solid, has a good heft to it and feels good in my hand. It does exhibit some creaking noises when I apply my ever popular gadgeteer squeeze test on it.

My main complaint so far is the flat keyboard. I’ve never been a fan of that style and am not sure this phone will be the one that changes my mind.

That’s it for the hardware tour. I’ll be back with my Day 1 and 2 impressions, which will include:

• First impressions of the user interface
• Making and receiving calls
• Browsing the web

Filed in categories: Wireless

Tagged: N85, Nokia, Smartphone, Symbian

A Week with the Nokia N85 Smartphone originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 23, 2009 at 1:00 am.

One of my favorite mobile apps is ShoZu. So when Julie asked me to do a piece on a *really* useful mobile app, I didn’t have to look too far.

What is ShoZu?

ShoZu sends/receives content (photos, videos, etc.) to/from your web-based services directly to/from your mobile phone. It completely cuts out the intermediary – your desktop – in the process. The best part about ShoZu is all of this happens in the background – invisibly and automatically.

ShoZu works with dozens of web-based services including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, Picasa, etc.

Download, Installation and Setup

I loaded http://m.shozu.com on my mobile browser to begin the process of downloading and installing ShoZu

As you can see from the screenshots, the download/install process is pretty straight-forward. The installation is followed by a terse warning titled “Please be aware”.

I clicked OK to reach ShoZu’s main screen.

The main screen has 3 options
– “Share-it” is the outbound service – it’s what lets you upload content from your phone to the web.
– “ZuCasts” is the inbound service – it’s what lets you download content from the web to your phone.
– “Contacts” is the outbound contacts backup service that backs up your phonebook contacts to your web-based ShoZu.com account

But wait – before I can use any of this, I gotta setup a ShoZu account. The sign-up process is breezy – ShoZu doesn’t even ask for a username or password!

Share-It

I then proceeded to setup the “Share-It” service. Naturally, to use this service, I need to tell ShoZu what I want to share and where I want to share it (ShoZu calls them “destinations”).

ShoZu supports upwards of 30 such destinations. Each such destination supports different types of content. Here’s a snapshot of where you can share your content:

a)Photos: Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Webshots, Twitter (through TwitPic), Box.net, Buzznet, Cellfish, Faces.com, Friendster, HotSMS, Hyves, Kodak EasyShare, Qipit (for conversion to PDF), Pikeo, ipernity, etc.
b)Videos: YouTube, Box.net, Dailymotion, blip.tv, Box.net, Buzznet, Cellfish, Seesmic, ipernity, etc.
c)Blogging: Twitter, Blogger, Dada.net, LiveJournal, MetaWeblog, Moblog, Typepad, Vox, Windows Live Spaces, WordPress

d)Citizen Journalism: BBC, CNN, ITV, Scoopt

Additionally, you can also specify email IDs and FTP account details for direct uploads to custom locations.
Phew! That’s a lot of coverage, isn’t it?

I chose to add Flickr as a destination first.

Immediately thereafter, I received a confirmation-seeking email from Flickr which completed the process of linking my Flickr account to my ShoZu account.

And then I added my YouTube account as a destination.

Right – adding destinations was easy – now, I am ready to upload.

Once I say ‘Yes’, the entire transfer process takes place invisibly in the background. Naturally, I don’t have any screenshots to share…

After that, the next time I click a photo using my mobile, ShoZu pops up soon after the capture – asking whether I’d like to upload it to Flickr or some other source.

I can also hand-pick existing photos and upload them to your destination(s) selectively.

I am allowed to add tags, titles and description to the photos before uploading.

If your phone as GPS (mine, didn’t unfortunately), ShoZu can also geo-tag your photos before uploading them. Now, isn’t that really cool!?

ShoZu allows uploading photos to multiple destinations in a single upload operation.

I can also ask ShoZu to auto-send photos. I can even ask it to compress photos to save time/data.

Although, ShoZu doesn’t really require you to login to your online account, I was curious to see how it looks…

My destinations were duly “synchronized” with my online account. There’s also an option to add destinations/sites from this web-based account.

ZuCasts and Contacts

Let’s look at ZuCasts now. ShoZu gave me an option to subscribe to 60 ZuCasts. I browsed through all my options…

… and chose to subscribe to the Webshots “Photo of the Day” ZuCast. Again, the process of subscribing to ZuCasts is so simple – there’s hardly anything to write about.

ZuCasts are downloaded invisibly. There’s an option to save ZuCasts in a “Saved files” folder.

You can also subscribe to your friends’ Flickr photo streams or Facebook updates as ZuCasts.

Let’s look at the Contacts service. Once you switch the service on, it keeps uploading contacts slowly, gradually and invisibly to your ShoZu.com account.

Data Transfer & Notification Management

As you have noticed so far, ShoZu is all about data transfer. The “Share-It” and “Contacts” services upload data and the “ZuCasts” service downloads data. Data charges in some parts of the world can be very steep, so you might want to be careful, particularly with ZuCasts.

ShoZu allows you to choose how you want to connect to the internet – I chose my GPRS account, but you want to use Wi-Fi instead.

Let’s look at two of ShoZu’s super-cool features.

One – ShoZu also has this magical ability to know when you’re roaming. In most parts of the world, data charges are higher when roaming – so ShoZu suspends all data transfers when you’re away from your home network.

Two – When ShoZu wants to notify you of something while it’s running in the background, I doesn’t throw a pop-up. It composes a local “text message” and ‘sends’ it to your SMS inbox, without ever using your mobile network.

As soon as I stepped out of my home network and began roaming, my phone buzzed and I was told I have a new text message. This text message turned out to be a local message from ShoZu…

The moment I entered my home network again, I saw another message…

Of course, at any point of time, you can see the transfer status to know just how much data ShoZu’s been consuming in the background.

Impressions

You simply cannot ignore ShoZu if you:
-upload mobile photos/videos on your photo/video sharing websites
-update your facebook status or tweet often
-blog while on the move
-send photos/videos to email or FTP accounts

ShoZu has been around for more than 3 years now and the maturity shows. The application is rock-solid and behaves exactly as expected without freezing or hanging-up.

Handset support is widespread, ranging from Windows Mobile to Symbian S60 to UIQ to Palm Treo to even the Blackberry – the iPhone is not supported yet, though.

It integrates beautifully with the phone’s camera application. So much so, that after a point, you forget it’s a 3rd party software you installed – you begin believing it’s a part of your phone’s native OS. It’s really that stable.

On the downside, like all powerful toys, ShoZu can hurt if not handled with care.

I’m sure there are a lot of ShoZu users who’ve chosen to auto-upload photos/videos and then forgotten about it. Some day, ShoZu might end up uploading something on their Facebook profile that they would rather not.

Moreover, if you choose to use your mobile network to connect ShoZu to the internet, you should be prepared for some heavy duty data consumption – particularly, if you end up subscribing to a lot of ZuCasts. In ShoZu’s defense, it does warn you about these perils from time to time, but hey!

Also, a powerful application like ShoZu can drag your phone a bit. You see, mobile phone processors don’t really have a lot of juice yet, unfortunately.

ShoZu “auto-starts” in the background and while that’s a convenient feature, it effectively means your phone takes slightly longer to start up.

Similarly, ShoZu has a larger-than-normal memory footprint, so lesser memory is available for other applications causing them to slow down a bit.

But then, ShoZu does so much for you – do you really those other applications?

Filed in categories: Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Palm, Palm OS related, Pocket PC, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, Utility

ShoZu Mobile Photo and Video Sharing Application Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 16, 2008 at 6:00 pm.

One of the perpetually unresolved debates among web users and observers alike is, “Who among the big three – Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and Gmail – has the best email service?”

Well, there’s no such debate as far as mobile web users are concerned – Gmail has the best mobile email client by far.

Sure, you can access your gmail account by loading up gmail.com on your mobile phone’s browser (just like you do on your desktop browser) – but mind you, we’re talking about the somewhat-oddly-named “gmail for mobile application” – a free downloadable email client for your gmail account. We’ll just call it GMA to keep things simple.

Let’s start…

Point your phone’s browser to http://gmail.com/app to download and install GMA on your mobile.

The process is simple and straight-forward. Within seconds, you see a message asking whether you want to start the application.

When you start GMA, you’re greeted by a “Java” splash-screen, reminding you that you’re using a Java MIDP software.

Immediately thereafter, you reach the familiar login screen. Please note that you cannot signup for a new gmail.com account from GMA – for that, you have to go to gmail.com from your desktop’s browser.

Once you login, you’re taken to your inbox.

One of the first things you’ll realize is that the look-and-feel of GMA is very similar to that on your desktop browser. – Complete with that trademark google clean-cut interface, that unmistakably friendly color scheme and the background-loading-of-the-second-email-while-you-read-the-first-one.

GMA even loads regular attachments like word files and images.

GMA supports the most frequently used gmail commands.

It even has mobile keypad shortcuts (just like keyboard shortcuts for gmail in your desktop’s browser).

#1 is the shortcut for search (works superbly)
#2 for compose
#3 for mark as unread
#4 for reply
#5 for reply all
#6 for forward
#7 for delete
#8 for report spam
#9 for archive
#0 for refresh inbox
* key for star/unstar
# key for view message

Sadly, you cannot label messages in the current version.

Reading and replying to emails is easy.

But we found a slight annoyance while composing a new email.

GMA does not allow entering email addresses in the “To:” field. When you click on “To”, instead of a text box, your contact list with your most frequently used contact loads.

If you wish to send an email to a not-so-frequently-used contact, you’ve got to choose “all contacts” from the menu. If you wish to send it to a new contact, you’ve got to choose “add new email address”.

The “Go To” menu can be customized to load messages with specific labels.

The settings menu has a few interesting and self-explanatory options. If you’re on an inexpensive data plan, we suggest you keep the “Preload unread mail to open faster” option checked. Yup, this is the same background loading feature that gmail first impressed all of us with 3 or 4 years ago.

There’s also an option to add a “sent from gmail for mobile” signature at the end of all messages, but this signature itself cannot be edited.

The engineers at google managed to fit in a help screen as well.

So, that’s gmail for mobile application for you, then. It’s a simple but powerful application that lets you do almost everything you need do with your gmail account.

Don’t you feel like taking it for a spin, right away?

Then, go ahead and load http://gmail.com/app on your mobile.

Filed in categories: Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Palm, Palm OS related, Pocket PC, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, Utility

GMail Mobile originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 6, 2008 at 4:20 pm.

Last week, I discovered that two of the most frequently asked questions we receive are “How can I stay in touch with my IM buddies on my mobile phone?” and “How can I make VoIP calls from my mobile phone?”

So, earlier in the week, fresh from a vacation break, I set out in my quest for the perfect IM client & the perfect VoIP client for mobile phones. I found the solution to *both* the problems in fring.

fring is an IM client that runs on Symbian and Windows mobile phones. So what’s the big deal with that, you ask. Well, consider this:
— fring supports *all* major IM networks: Skype, MSN (Windows Live) Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM and Gtalk
— apart from text chat, fringsters (yup, that’s what fring users are called) can also make VoIP calls to their IM comrades
— you can also make VoIP calls to regular phones using SkypeOut or an SIP service like Gizmo
— you can tweet straight from fring without sending a text message to 40404 (US) or 21212 (Canada) or +447624801423 (UK & rest of the world)

Impressive, eh?

Here’s the best part. fring bypasses your mobile network and works on regular/mobile internet, instead. You can connect using your mobile data network like EDGE/GPRS/3G or even Wi-Fi. This means you can save some serious money by placing VoIP calls (instead of regular mobile calls) and using text chat (instead of SMS messages).

So, how much does fring cost? You can get fring for the unbeatable price of zero dollars. Yup, fring is free.

By the way, in case you haven’t notice it yet, the name’s fring, not Fring.

Let’s take fring for a spin and see if it lives up to its promise.

Download

Fring works on Windows Mobile (ver 5 and 6), Symbian (ver 8 and 9) and UIQ handsets that support 3G, GPRS, EDGE or Wi-Fi. Nokia N-Series? No problem! Nokia E-Series? You got it! Sony Ericsson p1i? No sweat! Palm Treo? Come right in! Does it work on the iPhone? Not yet. Blackberry? Sorry, try again later. Of course, you also need a data plan on your mobile subscription… and no, just WAP won’t do.

Click on thumbnail to see fullsize image

You can download the fring installer straight to your phone or you can choose to download it on your PC and then transfer it to your phone. If you choose the former, you will need to visit http://www.fring.com/download and provide your phone make/model, mobile phone number and email ID (optional). Immediately thereafter, you will receive an SMS with a download link on your handset. You can also visit http://wap.fring.com from your phone.

If you do not receive that SMS or if you do not wish to provide your mobile number, you can also download the installer on your PC from at http://www.fring.com/download/Symbian_UIQ_Windows_Mobile/

Installation and registration

I chose the former. The next page on the desktop was a confirmation screen. Within seconds, my Sony Ericsson p990i buzzed. I opened the message and launched a link in my phone’s browser.

Click on thumbnail to see fullsize image

Then I was taken through the usual installation rigmarole – a series of OKs, really. Uninstalling is as easy as uninstalling any application from your phone.

Click on thumbnail to see fullsize image

Immediately upon completion of installation, you need to register as a fringster. A simple unassuming registration screen asks you for a User ID, a Password and a Username (a nickname, really). Fill it in and you’re ready to go.

The “default” screen of fring is a buddy list. My buddy list had only one user – called “fring test call”.

Next, I selected “Configure Services” from the main menu to add my IM/VoIP accounts to fring. I was able to choose my IM/VoIP account (see following picture). Fill in your details and voila! You’re signed into to your IM/VoIP account. You can also sign in to your account from SIP providers like Gizmo, VoIP Stunt, etc.

Once you register your IM/VoIP account(s), your buddy list gets populated with all your IM/VoIP contacts in one consolidated list.

Usage

Right – this is where the rubber meets the road.

The big fring icon on the top left corner of the main screen shows the overall connection status. Green means you’re connected to the fring service. Any other color means you’re not. Moreover, a status bar near the bottom left of the main screen shows individual connection statuses for each of your IM/VoIP services.

The statuses of your buddies are shown just before their names. They can be either online, offline, busy or on a call (see red box in the following screen). Too bad, fring doesn’t color code buddies by their network – they all appear one below the other.

You can also see a call quality indicator near your buddies’ names, much like your handset’s network quality indicator. This is an indicator of the expected call quality between you and your buddy based on the connections you are on. If both you and your buddy were on a Wi-Fi connection, for example, the indicator would be quite healthy. On the other hand, if both of you were on a regular GPRS connection, the indicator would probably show only one bar and that usually means it’s a bad idea to place a VoIP call to that buddy. Of course, this works only when the other buddy’s a fringster too.

To look for the buddy you want to chat/talk with, you can browse through your buddy list or type the first few characters of the buddy name in the search box.

To chat with an online buddy, just select the buddy and click on chat. Chats open in their own tabs so you can have multiple concurrent tabs. My chats worked fine. The handset’s dictionary (with my custom words) & all language options were available.

To place a VoIP call, click on the call button, instead. In my tests, I made a few fring-to-IM VoIP calls with buddies who were logged into their IM clients from their PCs (I was connected on my home Wi-Fi network). I also made a couple of SkypeOut calls using my SkypeOut account. The call quality in every case was as good as a regular phone call or a regular internet VoIP call. I also have a SkypeIn subscription and asked a friend to dial from SkypeIn phone number from her regular phone. This, while I was signed into Skype from fring. Within seconds, I got an incoming call on fring and I was able to talk clearly with my friend.

I also signed into my twitter account and was able to tweet effortlessly. There’s no support for Jaiku, though.

Features and Impressions

Fring is a native phone OS application and not Java. On my p990i, I found fring very stable even after several hours of usage and running in the background. Even when I got a regular incoming GSM call during a fring call, fring was able to relegate itself to the background very gracefully without crashing.

On the other hand, as long as fring runs in the foreground or the background, a data connection remains active and that can mean creeping consumption of battery life and more importantly, data. The folks at fring have put up an estimated data consumption chart on fring.com (see chart below).

Click on thumbnail to see fullsize image

The call and chat functions work absolutely fine. I was able to test call quality on Wi-Fi and chat on regular low-speed GPRS connections. The application can became slightly sluggish, though, in longer chat sessions (I observed this after my chat conversation had lasted for some 200 messages & 20 minutes of usage). But that’s largely a function of the phone’s power and not so much the software’s. Besides, all one needs to do to work around this, is to close that tab and continue chatting in a new tab.

Fring provides an option to import/display your phone contacts as buddies in your list. You can then choose to place regular phone calls or SkypeOut/SIP calls to those contacts *from within* fring. That, in my opinion, is a very handy feature especially for users who’re on high speed 3G or Wi-Fi networks. There is a history feature too.

Conspicuously absent from fring’s impressive repertoire, though, are buddy list management options. You cannot add or delete any IM buddy (you have to go back to your desktop for that). Only other fringsters can be added or deleted from the buddy list. There is an option to “add new contact”, but that only allows you to add fringsters by sending them an SMS invitation.

I was unable to test fring’s acclaimed auto-roam feature that allows automatic movement from a 3G/EDGE/GPRS network to a Wi-Fi network when fring finds one. So, if you’re out on the street connected to fring through your mobile data network and you walk into a coffee shop with a Wi-Fi hotspot, fring would put you on the Wi-Fi network automatically. From what I’ve read online, it appears this feature works rather well.

If you’re an IM, Twitter or Skype user (that’s pretty much all of us, ain’t it?), then fring is a must-have for you. According to its cofounders, fring was born “out of a desire to fundamentally change the way people communicate”. I’m not too sure it’s reached that far yet, but it has certainly integrated IM, VoIP and mobile telephony in a way that no other application has ever done.

Filed in categories: Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, Utility

fring Mobile IM Client: Symbian OS Utility originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 13, 2008 at 5:09 pm.

Released in November of last year, the latest offering of Opera Mini, version 4, hasn’t really sent shockwaves through the World of cell phones. Whilst the iPhone browser (which I think is very annoying!) has been hailed as a revolutionary success, Mini has taken the sidelines slightly, but as I have learned, this isn’t really a position it deserves.

Supported by any cell phone with Java, Opera Mini is extremely compatible, and very capable of turning an ordinary phone into one with the same web browsing facilities that one might only associate with a smartphone. The use of a Java interface slows start-up to a certain extent, but after getting used to this twenty or thirty second wait for the web, it really isn’t a problem.

For a free piece of software, Opera is very powerful indeed. For me, top of the list is the small-screen rendering. For a long while, I have been ever so slightly fed up of having pages squashed and having chunks missing when using other mobile browsers. Mini 4 shows the user a fullscreen overview of the page and then decides a good starting point, which it suggests you zoom to. Another feature that stands out is the synchronization with a PC. The browser uses a ‘mouse’ for the user to choose a point to zoom to, and by giving the option to synchronize bookmarks with your main browser, Opera allows you to move between your PC and mobile device without noticing too many interface differences.

Admittedly, this new found mouse does take a little getting used to, as do some of the shortcuts, which, as they are useful, bear no resemblance to those on conventional desktop browsers…

Oh, and what’s more, you can very quickly switch to the new landscape mode – very iPhone huh!

But on the subject of speed, I didn’t really notice much of a difference with a conventional mobile browser, but considering that the page is being rendered to the size of your screen, the average 16 seconds or so that it takes to load BBC News site (dependent on your connection…) is pretty impressive. The Mini browser works by sending your page to the Opera servers for ‘processing’, before being returned to your phone compressed, and therefore as a slightly smaller file. This will inevitably bring down data charges, however if you have a data plan this isn’t a problem, and at peak times, the Opera servers perform much slower.

There are the occasional niggly things that I have noticed though; the difficultly to save images, the menus are a bit annoying occasionally, and it has a fairly high crash rate. But no other browsers can offer quite what Opera Mini can, and for those reasons, I can look over these problems to a certain extent!

But overall, a real success… The browser was nice and easy to use, had a quick installation, and the compatibility with such a wide range of handsets is a real bonus. It is worth pointing out that the interface is greatly improved if you learn your shortcuts! )

And as for the desktop, I’m still a Firefox boy at heart…

Filed in categories: Windows Mobile related

Tagged: Palm, Palm OS related, Pocket PC, Software, Symbian, Symbian OS Related, Utility

Opera Mini v4 Mobile Web Browser originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on February 19, 2008 at 9:18 pm.