Symbian in Motion

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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One of the many reasons that I am anxiously awaiting FP2 is for the RSS capabilities. Since I first heard that Motorola was working on SCREEN3 many years ago, I’ve been very excited about always- available content on my standby screen. Here in the US, SCREEN3 was somewhat of a bust though - in fact, (please correct me if I’m wrong) I don’t think any US devices support SCREEN3 even now. While we all wait to see what FP2 has in store for us, here’s a way for people like me to at least have something to tide us over in the mean time.

To start things off you’ll need a copy of MobliNews by Ian Ratcliffe. MobliNews is a very basic RSS reader with one main function - scroll headlines from one (and only one) RSS feed in a ticker-style bar that is in the foreground on all screens. Now because MobliNews doesn’t ‘really’ support any feed content other than the headlines, the key to making this app useful is finding feeds with useful content IN the headlines. So here are two examples of useful headline content:

Sports Scores

I don’t know about you, but it took me a very long time to find a good site that would deliver ONLY sports scores in the headlines. I did find one though and it’s actually set up very well. Totally Scored (sorry guys, US sports only) is a site that provides free RSS feeds containing sports scores in the headlines and nothing else. They provide feeds by sport or by team, which is great!

Custom Stock Feeds

Even harder than finding a good sports score feed, was finding a free custom stock quote feed. Finally after a great deal of searching I finally came across TC’s Blog where he details his Yahoo stock to RSS converter. TC’s AWESOME solution allows you to create your own URL that will automatically pull a feed containing current quote info on any stocks you desire. You can also add portfolio information to get a quick idea of how your investments are doing. I won’t go into how to create the URLs because TC does a great job of that of course. Above, you can see the basic feed I created to give me quotes for Nokia (NOK) and Apple (AAPL) stock. Here is the feed, if you want it. :)

In terms of my opinion of MobliNews, I think that it’s an ok app that needs A LOT of work. It does what it is intended to do I suppose, but the functionality is extremely limited, the organization is poor, and the options are lacking. Some features I’d like to see added:

• Update and scroll more than one feed at a time
• Browse through feeds in the app - not in the Options menu
• Simplification and better organization of user-entered feeds (this is the most important part of a feed reader - no one uses the included feeds!)
• Support for full-content feeds with a REAL viewer.
• Hotkey shortcut to open the full-content of the current headline that is scrolling.
• Ability to change the location and size (width) of the ticker. Currently you can only change the color, although that’s a nice feature to have.

So what good custom headline content do you guys know of/use?

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Mobile Task by Odendahl SEPT-Solutions has the potential to be a very useful application but it doesn’t perform a few essential functions that would make it useful. You cannot create a schedule that will launch and then kill an application on a daily basis at preset times. Mobile Task is great for one-off app launches at a predetermined time, but I personally have no need for such an app. It has also been available for quite a while now so I’m not sure when and if it will ever be updated.

That brings me to my latest Tips & Tricks entry. Beyond managing your profiles schedule, Best Profiles by SmartphoneWare can also be used as a fully functional schedule-based app launcher/killer! Many of you probably know this already but how many people are currently using it to its full potential?

Here’s an example: Let’s say that every Monday you want your General profile active all day long. During the day there are several apps that you use at around the same time every Monday - for example you use Handy Weather to check your local weather around 7:30am before you leave your house. Why not automate that process and let your phone do the work for you? Best Profiles can be configured to launch Handy Weather every Monday at 7:30am, and even play a chime when it does to remind you to check the weather! Then you can use the app to your liking and close it when you’re done, or configure Best Profiles to close it for you after 15 minutes (or any other duration). The following is another example with details and pictures to guide you through the process of setting it up:

In this example, let’s say that you want to launch ProfiMail by Lonely Cat Games each weekday when you leave work at 5:00pm and then close it when you go to sleep at 11:30pm. When you leave the house for work each day at 8:00am however, Best Profiles activates your General profile for the day and you don’t want ProfiMail launched at that time so you cannot set it to launch with the General profile.

Well the first step in this case is to create a ‘copy’ of the General profile with the exact same settings but a different name. To do this, simply go to Tools -> Profiles and then hit Options -> Create new. Now adjust the profile settings so that they match your General profile and then give the new profile a logical name. In this case I called my new profile “Enable ProfiMail” because that’s what it will do. :)

Now that you have your new profile, it’s time to configure Best Profiles to work its magic. Open Best Profiles and choose Options -> Advanced Settings. Now click over to the new profile you just created, scroll to Run Applications, and click on it with the center joystick/D-pad key.

Now choose Options -> New entry. In the Application field on the next screen, scroll to the app that you want to be launched when this profile is enabled. In this case you also want ProfiMail to be killed when you go to sleep (which is also when Best Profiles will change your profile again) so choose Kill application in the next field as seen below.

Now just click OK and you will see ProfiMail listed in the Run Application field. All you have left to do is add your new ‘Enable ProfiMail’ profile to your scheduling as you would with any other profile (Options -> Profile rules -> Schedule, and create a new item Mon-Fri at 5:00pm).

The possibilities really are endless. This functionality can be used with calendar events and charger setting as well. In addition, you can set a profile to launch/kill multiple apps at once if there is more than one app you want to run at a particular time. Sit down and think about the different ways that you might use this functionality and I’m sure you’ll come up with plenty of things that I haven’t even thought of!

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Quite some time ago I posted a guide detailing how to remove themes installed on your memory card that do not appear in your Application Manager list. Basically, this guide allows you to spoof your device - the installation entry is still recorded on the device but the improperly referenced theme files are deleted. It works like a charm but it poses a new problem: Since the phone thinks that the theme is still installed - but cannot find the theme files - it will not let you reinstall the theme if you decide to do so.

Getting around this problem is actually quite easy. I’ve posted this in the comments section of the removal guide referenced above but I see a lot of questions about this topic on various forums so I think a new post is in order:

Do a quick google search for “unsis 3.2″ - it’s pretty easy to find. Unsis is a PC app that allows you to unpack sis/sisx files and save their contents on your PC. Once you’ve installed it, simply follow these two steps:

1. Open uNsIs and load the theme by clicking on ‘Open SIS’, then browse to the theme file on your PC.

2. Press the ‘Extract’ button. 3-4 files will be unpacked into a new folder with the directory C:\uNsIs\temp\private\10207114\import (if you installed unsis to the default location).

In the directory listed above, you will now find the theme folder (with a long alpha-numeric name) that used to be on your MMC before you deleted the theme. Simply transfer that folder with all of its contents to \\private\10207114\import on your memory card (using Mass storage mode or a card reader). Viola! You’re back in business. ;)

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Despite the excellent guide created by DZed over on the Go Symbian forum, I still see many people having problems with signing SIS files on just about every s60 3rd-related forum that i visit. There are a few key steps that can be added to DZed’s guide that will help ensure your success when attempting to sign a SIS file.

As such, I’ve created my own guide that incorporates a few additional steps that should take care of all of the common problems that people run into. I’ve also added instructions to create your own key file (which is very easy) as many people seem to have problems with key files found elsewhere. So if you’ve been having signing problems, be sure to check out the following link:

http://www.mobile9.com/invboard/index.php?showtopic=37281

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