Symbian in Motion

I’ve tried more SoNets/microblogging/life streaming sites than I care to discuss, and until I came across Jaiku I didn’t stick with any of them. I won’t go through the whole list as I don’t want to insult your SoNet of choice, but I was absolutely certain that life streaming wasn’t for me until I came across Jaiku. There are three main reasons for my decision:

1. The people there are friendly and inviting, and they actively participate in interesting conversations.
2. The team behind Jaiku is extremely talented and responsive and they have created a well organized, ever-evolving environment that encourages interaction rather than stunting it (as others do).
3. The S60 app!

Other SoNets might have mobile sites or third-party tools that let you post, but no other SoNet has embraced S60 like Jaiku. As a result you’ll find many, many S60 users on Jaiku but it’s by no means limited to S60. You’ll find people from all walks of life and from all over the world on Jaiku. I highly recommend that you head over to their site and sign up your free account to check it out. Beyond the Jaiku SoNet itself and all of the great contacts you’ll make, you’ll have the upcoming updated Jaiku Beta to look forward to…

The S60 Jaiku app overview is set up just like the web overview, but trimmed a bit to make it more usable on your mobile. On the overview screen you’ll find Jaikus (initial entries) from all of your contacts along with comments (responses to Jaikus) made by your contacts. To clarify; unlike SoNets such as Twitter that provide a waterfall of posts, Jaiku allows you to make an initial post (Jaiku) and then comments to that post will be listed in chronolgical order beneath it. This provides an organized means of conversation that is easy to track and easy to participate in. Jaikus and comments alike stream chronologically in your overview but click on any entry and you will see the initial Jaiku at the top of your screen followed by subsequent comments:

Posting a Jaiku is very simple. You can either select New Post from the Options menu or click on Post a Jaiku at te top of your overview. Once posted, your Jaiku will appear at the top of your overview and as new Jaikus and comments stream in it will move further down the list.

You’ll notice that at the top of the screen there are two main tabs. All of the functionality described above took place on the overview tab. The other is the contacts tab which lists all of you Jaiku contacts along with your phone book contacts. Just like the integrated S60 phonebook you can initiate phone calls and SMS messages from the Jaiku contact screen. I often use it in place of the integrated phonebook because it’s much faster.

Scroll to a contact and select him/her and you will be brought to their individual stream that lists their current status along with all of their recent Jaikus and comments. If they are also listed in your phonebook you can merge the two entries easily as seen below. You can then tab right/left to switch between their Jaiku stream and their contact details.

By accessing your own Jaiku stream you can click on your presence at the top of the screen to view your presence information and location. Location information is stored and automatically updated according to cell tower data, and is shared by the entire Jaiku community. If you enter a location never visited by a Jaiku user before, you can enter a location name yourself.

Jaiku is not just for posts and comments - users can also add any RSS/atom feed they wish and as these items are pulled from the feeds by Jaiku the are added to their stream (you can always unsubscribe to any user’s feeds individually and they will no longer display in your overview). Many users add feeds from their blogs, last.fm feeds, and Flickr feeds (photos from Flickr feeds will be displayed in the overview!). This content would surely clutter the S60 app so most of it is omitted. You will see subscribed Flickr feeds though and by clicking on the RSS icons you will be sent to the Flickr mobile site (S60 browser will launch) and the selected image will be displayed.

I could go on forever about this app and about Jaiku itself but the bottom line is that you have to try it for yourself. I’ve met many interesting people on Jaiku and I enjoy participating as much as I can in their conversations. The Jaiku app gives me an excellent way to do so from anywhere. It’s a huge upgrade from their current public beta and faster/more convenient than their mobile site although it doesn’t include as much content. I’ll post an update as soon as this new beta becomes available - and you can expect that to be very soon!

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This is just a short one for you today, but I found this little tip while browsing a German site dedicated to S60. Even better, it has sections dedicated to the E90 and E61/E61i respectively including themes and more. Granted I don’t read a word of German but thanks to google I don’t need to.

On to the tip. This very well could be mentioned in the user manual for the E61/E61i but this is the first time I’ve come across it and I’m glad I did.

Pressing function (1 above) and the control key (2 above) toggles bluetooth on and off from the standby screen. Pressing function and the character key (3 above) enables infrared.

So it looks like I can get rid of BT Switch now and free up my Own key. :)

Thanks to PDANet for this great tip and definitely check out the site for some great themes, tips and tricks, freeware, etc.

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It’s been quite some time since my last Quick Clicks entry but I have a bunch of things to tell you about and not enough time to dedicate to individual posts. Are the days getting shorter or is it just me?
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Skyestream has a lot of exciting things in the pipeline that we’ll all be seeing an enjoying soon. In the meantime they have just released an updated version of their extremely popular app Skyecaller PRO. Version 1.01 addresses several issues and adds some excellent functionality such as backup/restore (woo hoo!) and it now runs as a system app so it won’t crash in low-memory situations.

Chage log for version 1.01:

• Improved handling of large image sizes (no more “out of memory” error)
• Does not close unnecessarily in low memory conditions
• Scans sub-folders for content (videos/images/sounds)
• Fixed bug: SkyeCaller PRO closes when entering the “Images” view
• Fixed bug: incoming messages are not detected if user’s Inbox is stored on the memory card
• Better handling of key-lock state
• Video thumbnails are displayed if available
• Better support for landscape/portrait on incoming/outgoing call/message
• Icons displayed in contrasting colour to the background colour
• Supported added for renamed and user profiles
• Fixed bug where incoming calls from private numbers were not detected
• Support added for backup and restore

Head over to the Skyestream online shop to upgrade your existing copy or save 10% on your Skyecaller PRO purchase if you haven’t already purchased it.
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Anthony Pranata has announced that he will no longer be developing his essential S60 app, Screenshot. This is a direct result of the train wreck that is Symbian Signed. I’ve spoken about it here and you’ve read about it on plenty of other blogs, but maybe this will help drive the message home. Symbian is losing developers because Symbian Signed can’t get their act together!

Read Anthony’s post about it here and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. As bloggers such as myself have been speculating, we can now see that Symbian Signed is becoming cancerous and killing off the very elements that have enhanced the Symbian platform for so long. While Symbian Signed does everything in its power to increase Windows Mobile’s global market share amongst savvy users, we need to collectively think of a way to address this matter because we’ve already seen that it’s not going to be solved internally.
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As a result of Symbian Signed’s counterproductive policies, we’ll continue to see more and more unsigned apps floating around the internet. BT Switch is the latest example I’ve come across and I’m very happy that I did. I couldn’t even locate the author’s name, but this is a simple utility that toggles your bluetooth status just by clicking on the app. There’s no UI and no pesky confirmations - just on and off.

There are a few apps that can toggle your bluetooth on and off such as one of my favorite apps NStarter, but BT Switch is particularly handy for me because I like having bluetooth assigned to my Own key. Now I can easily toggle BT on and off with one press of my own key on any screen. Woo hoo! The app itself was compiled without an icon but you’ll find an excellent icon by boroda1 (also unsigned) in the archive.

Please note that this app is unsigned. You must sign it yourself before you can install it (please don’t post here asking me to sign it) using this guide or similar.

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An app that I’ve mentioned in passing a few times here on SiMo but have never given a dedicated review to is PowerBoot by Wireless Labs Technologies. PowerBoot is a very handy freeware app that allows you to autostart any app on your device. This really comes in handy for those apps that don’t include autostart functionality. Just one example of this app’s usefulness: add BT Switch to PowerBoot’s startup list and your bluetooth will be enabled each time you boot your phone!

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Finally, here are some great themes for you to enjoy:

Black Innovation Theme by p@sco

This is a terrific black theme with an icon set that I actually enjoy! There’s also a default icon version for the memory conscious. P@sco’s latest theme plays with contrasts, uses nice simple graphics and even mimics the reflected digital clock numbers found in Psiloc’s Reflect theme.

Themes by Luca136

The very talented themer Luca136 now has his own site where he showcases some of his themes. His themes are bright and fun with excellent graphics that look great on your device.

MacOS by adonisdemon

Available for both QVGA Portrait and QVGA Landscape devices, the MacOS theme uses great colors and original graphics. Perfect for all you Mac enthusiasts out there.

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I’ve been so busy lately on various different fronts otherwise this review would have been up days ago. Just as Rita predicted though, Tracker is an app that I just had to take some time to review! Ported from a UIQ app of the same name, this beefed-up version of Tracker takes some of the best functionality found in Best Taskman 2.01 and combines it with much needed customizable desktop functionality. The timing is actually very interesting - just a few days ago I was playing with a WM5 device and pondering why no S60 3rd apps integrate with Active Standby yet. Tracker is the first step towards AS customization but rather than integrate SmartphoneWare has provided users with an alternative option to AS. So let’s get right to it.

The main function of Tracker as I use it is the Desk (desktop), pictured above. You can create several folders (pictured above, bottom right of screen) and add several different types of shortcuts in each folder. Most of what you see above is app shortcuts but you can also add tons of operational shortcuts such as “speed” functions and much more. A speed dial/email/sms/mms/etc will allow you to make a call or open a new email/sms/etc for a specific contact with just one click!

Adding a new app shortcut or any other shortcut is quite straight forward. From within the target folder just choose New from the Options menu and select your desired shortcut type. Then add the required details and you can even assign a hotkey shortcut that will be functional from any screen on your device!

You can hide Tracker at any point in time and call it to the forefront with a fully-assignable hotkey - I use shift + [send]. For heavy users, the Tracker Desktop can actually be left in the forefront at all times and effectively replace your Active Standby screen. I do this sometimes for fast and easy access to all of my key apps.

There are two other main windows in Tracker beyond the Desktop and they are accessed by moving right and left, or with the shortcuts shift + right and shift + left (this can be defined in your settings). The first is the Recent window, which displays a list of recent calls and used applications along with recent calendar events, messages and to-dos. Recent apps can easily be launched with a click of the select key and calls can be placed to recent callers the same way.

The last main window is the Tasklist page. As I mentioned, some of the tasks functionality of Best Taskman 2.01 (see my review for further details) is integrated into this great app. Memory status and running running apps are all covered here and can be accessed or closed/killed very easily.

Tracker also includes the very handy Switcher functionality from Best Taskman. Switcher allows you to easy toggle between all open apps and is quite useful for me. By default it is accessed with shift + menu (or pen + menu for portrait devices) but you can change the hotkey to whatever suits you best. Of course all hotkey shortcuts can be accessed from any screen while Tracker is in the forefront or in the background.

If you’re not impressed by now I think you must be in the wrong place. This app adds SO MUCH essential functionality to your S60 3rd device it’s almost crazy that they included everything in one app! As always SmartphoneWare provides a good free trial period so that you have ample time to play before you pay. Trust me when I tell you though - you’ll seriously miss this awesome utility if you let the trial expire…

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