Symbian in Motion

Well I’ve tried to take everyone’s comments into consideration so I thank you all so much for your feedback! I really like the way that this theme came out and I hope that you guys enjoy it as well. Unlike my last free theme, you will find three versions of the new blog theme; hi-rez portrait (352×416), QVGA portrait (240×320) and QVGA landscape (320×240). Alright, enough talk! Actually, just one last thing…

Terms of Use: This theme is provided 100% free with no strings attached. You may download it for your own personal use and you may distribute it as you wish, provided you DO NOT SELL it. I repeat, this theme is for NON-COMMERCIAL use and distribution ONLY! I only ask that if you do make this theme available to anyone in any way, that you link back to my blog. Also if you post this theme on another site, feel free to post any screenshots you like but please use the download link provided rather than hosting it on another site.

Hi-rez (352×416) Portrait-Orientation Version
for N80 / N80IE / E60 / E70 / N90

QVGA (240×320) Portrait-Orientation Version
for N95 / N93i / N93 / N92 / N76 / N75 / N73 / N71 / E65 / E50 / 5700 / 6290

QVGA (320×240) Landscape-Orientation Version
for E62 / E61i / E61

A special thanks to Ron for testing out the landscape version and providing the screenshots!

Enjoy! :)

subscribe to comments made about this post

So hopefully you all like the new look of the blog - I personally like the color scheme a lot more. Since the look has changed though, it stands to reason that the “official” blog theme should change as well! I’ve been working on it for a while tonight and I really just can’t look at it anymore. I’m not sure if I like the direction that it’s headed in, but what do you guys think?

_________________________

UPDATE: What do you guys think? I think I like it much better with the mosaic on the top and bottom - it looks a lot better on my N80 display at least…

_________________________

NOTE: Images removed for the sake of page load time. Please see post above for screenshots and download link.

subscribe to comments made about this post

This past Wednesday I read Jake’s rant about Nokia firmware update notifications. Then this morning Ricky asks the question: Firmware Updates - How Do You Keep Up? Well I thought I would answer that question with a post of my own.

I agree with both bloggers that it would be nice to have a better notification system but it’s not a big deal for me. A while back I found a great site linked on a forum somewhere and I’ve been using it to check firmware versions ever since. I probably only check it once or twice per month because honestly, I’m never in a rush to go through the pain of upgrade my firmware.

The site is quite straightforwardly named Firmware versions of Nokia mobile phones and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better firmware version resource. I find that it’s updated relatively quickly and I have seen some new firmware listed on there even before bloggers were reporting it.

On the left side of the main page, you’ll find a search box where you can enter the model number of any Nokia phone.

Click the search button you’ll get a report as seen above. The latest firmware version is listed just below the search box followed by a history of all previous versions. To the right, you’ll now find a line graph that represents all firmware versions for your selected model. The latest version is shown to the right and you can hover your mouse over each dot to see older versions and release dates.

There are a few other cool little features on the site, such as an assisted change log search via google. Basically it’s plain, simple, nice and neat with no ads. Anyway, that’s my answer to Ricky’s question and hopefully some readers will find this site useful. :)

subscribe to comments made about this post 

Yesterday I “upgraded” the firmware on my N80 to 4.0707.0.7 from 4.0632.0.38 with NSU and spent a few hours removing all of the apps I didn’t want and then restoring all of my settings, data and apps. The actual process went fine, but my experience since then has been abysmal - even more so than other people’s experiences that I’ve been reading about.

• For the first time(s) since I’ve owned the N80, I’m experiencing freezes - and lots of them. Basically about one out of every five times my phone goes into sleep mode it freezes when I try to wake it up. I just get a white screen and can’t even power it off, so the battery has to come out. I’ve also gotten freezes while receiving SMS in sleep mode. Great! So what should I do - disable sleep mode and lose battery life? Format my phone and go through the pain of restoring all of my settings, data and apps again without even knowing whether or not it will help?
• Aside from the above, when sleep mode is enabled my phone forgoes the screensaver and slips right into sleep mode. Is it supposed to do that? I have no idea. Actually, I would love to skip the 10 minutes of screensaver and go right to sleep mode, but not if the phone freezes all the time as a result.
• I’m getting A LOT of web time-out errors while browsing via WLAN or EDGE (more so with EDGE).
• The Multimedia key long-press is assigned to Music Player and is no longer configurable. WTF?!? I love all of my shortcuts and it just so happens that the MM-key long-press is one of my most used ones! Now it’s useless to me as I seldom use my N80 as a music player. Why on earth would they reduce the number of configurable shortcuts?

There’s plenty more to report but you get the idea. So… Was this firmware tested? I’ve yet to find a change log online so I’m not sure what purpose this “upgrade” serves, but I can tell you that it’s a big step backwards. A bunch of pre-installed apps that had been removed from the 4.6032.0.38 firmware have come back and hog up a whole lot of your c drive. Beyond that I haven’t noticed any fixes of existing bugs (indicator light keeps blinking when a call is received in sleep mode, screen is jumbled when call is received in sleep mode, etc).

If you’re thinking of upgrading, you might want to wait for the next pass - which is a shame because of the compatibility issues with the new version of Rotate Me…

_________________

Please see the comments sections for some notes on the freezing problem that I mentioned above.

subscribe to comments made about this post 

I for one am VERY happy that the new version of Rotate Me by Samir is now on Samir’s site. This version consumes MUCH less RAM on my N80 than the previous version and it adds a cool hot key feature that lets you quickly and easily switch back and forth between portrait and landscape mode by pressing [pen] + [green]!

Of course Rotate Me is still freeware, and it’s unsigned which means you’ll need to follow this guide before you install it on your mobile.

Awesome job Samir!! :)

Download rotateMe 1.21 

A few things to note: To use this app on your N80 you must first upgrade your firmware to the current version - 4.0707.0.7. Also, this app is reported to work on at least the N80 and N73 but is reported to not be compatible with the E50, E70, 3250 or 5500. Only time will tell what other models are supported.

subscribe to comments made about this post