Its been awhile...

Its has been so long since I've updated my blog. Having a job seems to be a big part of the reason. The other reason I guess is that I've played with my phone to the brink of crashing it. There is really nothing much to add on to the wonders of having the N95 8GB. It has served me well, and having it as a wireless internet router using JoikuSpot Premium is always impressive.

Anyway, I must confess, during this period of time, I have been cheating on my N95. Yup. I know. Its not the N95. Its just me. And a third party known as the N97.

The N97. OH MY GOD.

This is the shit right there. For the 1st time, I am actually lusting over a gadget before its being released. Normally, I'll explore some older piece of gadget that is cheaper to begin with, and more stable in terms of usage, but this, my friends, has got to be it. For awhile, at least.

You can google it up first and check it out yourself first. I'll upload some pictures and videos of it when I have a little more time on my hands.

The N97. OH MY GOD.

Hacking V31.0.017

It seems that many people have updated their firmware and are having alot of trouble hacking their firmware. Haha.. Well, I hope that I can bring you good news, as I have trawled around the net and have come up with a solution for those looking for an answer. The V31.0.017 firmware is hackable, although the process is tedious and requires you to really do it manually. You are required to know how to sign your files, and know about certificates. So,if you think you are up to it, here’s the link and I wish you the best of luck in your little endeavour. Do let me know if it works and give others hope too okay?

*Note: To download the files from the link, you’ll have to register for free in the forum.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Hello everybody! Its that time of the year again, where we dish out very unhealthy foods and munch on mandarin oranges for days on end. I’ll be away for awhile to celebrate the Lunar New Year and usher in the year of the Ox, and I want to wish all you people celebrating too a very Happy Lunar New Year, and hope that you and your family will sail through the current bad times with minimum problems and prosper along the way! Gong xi fa cai! Huat ah!

GPS on the N95

Someone asked me if she should get a N95 because it featured a GPS function, and it would aid her in finding her way around. That’s all cool. Except that in the world of global positioning, the N95 fails miserably. I know. I just uttered pure blasphemy against the phone I practically worship. It’s not that it isn’t cool that the N95 packs a GPS chip inside. It’s simply it doesn’t work very well at all, and with a battery life that can barely handle my normal day-to-day internet usage, using the GPS on the N95 would simply deplete it before you can arrive at your destination.

You might also realize that I never spoke much about the GPS function on the phone. It simply, sucks. Here’s the breakdown for you. When you activate your Nokia Maps software, your phone GPS chip is activated, and it attempts to get a signal from the satelites above us. Now, this is quite a mean feat, because you need to have more than one satelite locate your phone, before it can calculate your precise location. To further understand how GPS works, click here.

Apparently, the GPS chip in the N95 is located at the bottom of the phone, which is why to get optimal strength, you have to slide and expose the keypad. And above all, the lock on time for the N95 can be painfully slow. And I mean really really slow. To me, for your phone to double as a serious GPS device, you have to get at least a decent lock on time. A lock on time is basically the time it takes when you start the GPS program to the time it actually finds where you are. In general, a good lock on time without using A-GPS (more on that later) could be a couple of minutes. With A-GPS, it should be a matter of few seconds.

Now, A-GPS is also another feature that is supported by the N95. It stands for Assisted Global Positioning System. What it does is, it sends out a small packet of data (note: chargeable by your telco) much like sending out an MMS, which in turn, tells your phone where you are using the mobile network. Read more about it here. Do note that A-GPS can only aid in the speeding up of the lock on time, as it tells the satalites where to look, and not give you your current location and track you from then on. Most people never like to use the A-GPS function, as it incurs additional cost using GPRS.

However, to get a decent lock on time for the N95, you would most probably have to do just that. Otherwise, you will just have to wait, and at times, you might even have to wait a good 10 minutes or so. And if you drive, do note that the Nokia Maps software doesn’t give you turn-by-turn navigation for free. To activate your voice guide, you will have to pay extra for it. Something that I find very silly. They give you free software and free maps, but if you want to get your phone to tell you where to go, you’ll have to pay extra. To tell you where you are, however, is free of charge.

Those are my gripes with the N95 GPS. It is a great phone, but with so many functions, something has got to give. But not to worry. If GPS is of major importance to you, I can provide you with a cheaper alternative. Stay tuned for my next post for it.

* Alot of people get confused between GPS and GPRS. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, and its the technology that allows you to find out where you are in real time. GPRS however, stands for General Packet Radio Service, and its just a way for your phone to send data in and out. Some services that uses GPRS would be your MMS or mobile internet.

Barcode Reader on Other Nokia Phones

A friend was just asking me if she could use the barcode scanner function even if she wasn’t using the N95. And the answer is YES! You can just install a software in your phone and use the camera as a scanner. The software that I found is called The Kaywa Reader, and to see if it supports your phone, click here.

Simply download the software, and install it as you would like any program. Have fun reading QR Codes!

Barcode Reader for N95

One of the features that came with the phone which I almost never used was the barcode reader. I mean, come on. Does Nokia really think I’m gonna walk into a supermarket and start focusing my handphone camera on their product barcodes? I dare you to try it. As a result, I never touched that very puzzling application.

That is, until recently.

If you’re anything like me, then you most probably would’ve tried grabbing the nearest product that has a barcode and tried to focus the damn camera and not move your hands for a good forever until the program went into standby, and then do it all over again until you think that the stupid program is broken. If you’re anything like me, that is. I just realized I made myself look like an idiot if no one is anything like me. Anyway, I assume that the barcodes that we are all familiar with looks like this:

Problem is, this is not what the barcode reader is programmed to read. Yes, the barcode reader cannot really read all sorts of barcodes. What it does read though, are these:

That, my fellow reader, is a QR Code. Its a special kind of barcode that contains messages that need to be decrypted. Its kinda fun. Try it. Whip out your N95 now and try it on the QR Code above. It is actually a link that will bring you to the Wiki page that will explain all the technical stuff about this QR Codes. What is really cool about this QR Code is, anyone can generate their own codes to use. Check it out here.

Simply type the text you want into the text field, click generate and viola! You have your very own barcode! And as a reward for finding out this new function, scan this barcode for the link to a free game download straight into your phone! (Internet connection needed) Enjoy!

Risks of Hacking Your N95

There are some curious people out there who want to know the exact risks they take, should they hook their phones to their computers and install some really suspicious software that will allow them to install any unsigned softwares. Sure, there are risks involved. I mentioned that you might brick your phone, rendering it useless should things really fuck up. That’s really on the extreme side, and the only one time I’ve seen a phone screw up so bad was when I updated the firmware on the N95 Classic. But on the other hand, I’ve worked with both the N95 8GB and the N95 Classic, and the method that I’ve prescribed worked for both without a hitch. Furthermore, there are no hardware mods, and everything is confined to the like of softwares and patches.

You can Google for more information on the hack as well as the risks involved, but I speak through my experience, and that it works flawlessly. No more signing unsigned apps, ever! Its a simple procedure, and I’ve tried to painstakingly explain it in detail. If you have any questions regarding this, do leave a comment with your email and I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge.

N95 Gets Firmware Update (v31.0.017)

Nokia N95 has just received another firmware update just days ago. This is bad news if you wanna hack your N95, but have already updated your firmware, because the new firmware is not hackable (not now anyway). So, if you still want to hack your phone, do not update your firmware and check my previous post for files and instructions on how to do it.

Hacking your N95

Times are bad, and people want to cut back on their spending, therefore budgeting on daily expenses and cutting back on other less important things like gadgets.Which sucks. Cos’ I love my gadgets, and I imagine if you like your gadgets as much as I do, you would feel the way I do.

So I guess its only right to milk more outta my existing gadgets and try to make it do more than what it should or should not do. In this post, I will share with you how to hack or modify certain files on your N95 in the simplest way possible. I did mention in my previous post very vaguely and even posted a YouTube link on how to go about doing it, but I feel that I should explain the how and the why first.

Simply and roughly put, the operating system that your N95 is running on is called the Symbian OS, much like a program like Windows or Mac OS that operates the hardware and runs the softwares on board. To install a program say on Windows, chances are, you’ll need to run a file with an extension .exe. In your Symbian OS phone, you cannot install an .exe file. You can however, install programs ending with .sis or .sisx.

There is not much difference in the two extensions that are mentioned. The .sis is basically an installer package which can contain anything such a picture or sound or video what have you. The .sisx basically tells you that the installer has been signed, although it is common to see .sis files that have already been signed too.

So what’s this whole signing thing? You know, it beats me too really. Apparently, when developers want to create a software for the Symbian OS, they had to submit their application online to sign their files digitally before end users like you and me could install them into our phone. This, of course took a long time before developers could get their shit running, so alot of changes were made so that end-users could sign their applications easily online. But the hassle was still there. To install a program on your phone, you literally had to still log in to the internet from your computer, submit an unsigned application online, key in your IMEI number (a number unique to every phone), then wait for the site to sign your file and then check your email for the link to download your signed file.

Sounds stupid doesn’t it? And its not fool-proof either. You could sometimes still get a file that doesn’t install properly, and you wouldn’t know why. It is also helpful to note that if your friend has a self-signed copy of the program that you want, you still cannot use it because it is tied to his IMEI number so that application can only be installed on his phone.

But thank goodness for all of us, especially the ones who have just gotten hold of their N95, you’re in luck! You may have gotten the phone a little later than most people, but what an exciting time it is! There is a way now to actually bypass this whole signing thing altogether, which is to install a patch in your phone. After which, you can download all sorts of freewares that charge nothing and not need to sign another file. Thats saving time AND money. Now, I must warn you that by going ahead with this process, you risk voiding your phone warranty, and turn your expensive gadget into a mere paperweight. So, try it at your own risk.


- To begin, download the files that you need here.

- Unzip the file, and connect your phone to the computer via data transfer or if you wish, copy the files downloaded into your memory card by other means.

- You should now have 5 files in your phone. First, install X-plore, which is a file browsing application much like Y-Browser.

- After installing X-plore, run it. You will notice that it is a free and unregistered version with a very naggy pop-up. Ignore this and press ’OK’.

- Click on ’Menu’, and go down to ’Tools’ and select ’Configuration’.

- Check ’Show Hidden files’, ’Show ROM drives’, ’Show RAM drives’ and ’Show system files/folders’ and then click ’Back’.

- Go to E:, which is either your mass memory space (N95 8GB) or your memory card (N95), and look for the folder which you have copied over earlier.

- Run ’HelloCarbide’ and install it on either memory.

- After installation, DO NOT exit X-plore. Instead, press and hold your Menu key to switch tasks. Look for ’HelloCarbide’ and run it.

- Click ’Options’ and then select ’Menu1’. Keep pressing ’Yes’ until the program exits itself.

- Now, pressing and holding the Menu key, switch back to X-plore. Go back to the folder and look for ’installserver.exe’.

- Once you find it, copy the file. To do that, select ’Menu’ and scroll down to ’Edit’ select. You will find your ’Copy’ option there.

- Now you’ll have to paste the file in c:’sys’bin’ folder of your phone. To do that click left on your D-pad until you can see all the drives on your phone and then scroll up to C: on top. Press the right button on your D-pad to go into the drive and look for c:’sys’bin’.

- Once there, press the centre of your D-pad to paste the file into the folder. Make sure you see the file in the folder, or else you will have to re-copy the file again. When done, restart the phone.

- When you have restarted the phone, run X-plore again and go back to the folder to install ROMPatcher.sisx.

- After this step is done, you are set. Congratulations! You may now install unsigned applications and skip the whole bothersome signing process!

Some freewares for your N95

Back to what I love: My N95 8GB.

I just love it. It has done so much for me and I really really want to share what I can with the community. While there are many sites offering free downloads for N95 applications, allow me to share what I can. Note that some files require signing, and if you are plain lazy like me or have no idea what signing your applications mean, you’ll have to hack your phone in order to get the best out of it. This process has been made to be very simple and has worked for me and lots of people, but TRY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. Hacking your phone can potentially turn your phone into a very expensive paperweight, but if done right, you can install any applications that require signing WITHOUT actually signing it, so if you are game enough to try it, you can refer here.

Y-Browser

Now, I’m not going to do any reviews here, but I’m just going to share with you how and why I use these freewares. The Y Browser is an alternative to the File Manager that is included in your phone. The cool thing about Y-Browser is that it’s free, and you can view system files that the regular File Manager cannot. It is very user friendly, and copying and pasting my files all over the place is simple. Also, there isn’t any time limitations, and it works the way it should work, fuss-free.

Click here to download Y-Browser

Calcium

This is a sweet little calculator app which I really like. Calcium a very simple interface that works better than the default calculator app in the phone as it requires less keystrokes to compute in a calculation. Give it a shot and see whether it works for you.

Click here to download Calcium

Slide Helper

There is one feature missing from the N95 that should be in every sliding phone: End calls when you close the slider. For some reason, this feature is not included but not to worry. This nifty little software will do the trick. Slide Helper not only allows you to end the call when you close the slider, it also allows you to customize the sliding settings, such as keylock and backlight. It also supports VoIP calls, which means you can slide to end your phone calls even when you are making internet phone calls.

Click here to download Slide Helper

Mobile Weather

This app does a simple job of telling you the weather. Mobile Weather can use either your wifi connection or your 3G connection to connect to their weather server to tell you how the weather is going to be. Useful for days when you need to be outdoors. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this program though. You’ll have to download it and see how it works out for you.

Click here to download Mobile Weather

I’ll just leave you with these 4 applications for the moment. If you think you might need some other applications for your phone, do leave a comment with your email and I’ll see what I can do to help.

Sounds like Evil (part 2)

And the battle rages on. As you might have known, my best friend -d- has been duped by a couple of people that sold him really worthless speakers for a whopping $600. As I am not the victim, and just the teller of a very sad and brutal story, I shall let him conclude this little episode that he has sponsored for $50 (you’ll find out why $50).

WARNING: Very heavy reading ahead.

~ ~ ~

Happy 2009 everyone. If you have not already known, my 2008 culminated with a white van speakers scam and ever since, I have been actively seeking options on how to handle this incident.

I went down to the Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) to file a claim against the company which is utilising these techniques to sell their wares to unsuspecting victims. The registrar arranged a date (some day next week) for me to meet with the owner of the company in order to mediate a settlement. I asked the registrar what else can we do and she told me to go to the Consumer’s Association of Singapore (CASE).

So off I went to CASE to ask for their assistance in creating awareness but to my horror, the officer and CASE’s media team was not interested (At least the officer did attempt to ask their media team I guess). Sadly, They told me that this has been happening for so long and they have done a story on this before and thus, they will only key in my complaint against this company without taking any action or follow up. I think that doing this is useless because these companies have been known to change company and product names to prevent people from getting too familiar with their schemes. She said that I should go to SCT.

I gave the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) a call and the officer who attended to me told me that essentially, these companies are not cheating because the CAD’s definition of cheating is one of a higher order. The "cheating" that happened to me and many others are what they refer to as the layman’s understanding of cheating. He then told me to go down to the SCT or to CASE.

So what now? SCT and CAD tells me to go down to CASE. CASE tells me to go to SCT. Are we playing passing the baton game here? In colloquial speech, this is what we term as "LPPL" (It isn’t the best definition but the closest I could find. haha.)

The company also called me a couple of days back to offer an out of court settlement for $500 even though the receipt stated $300. The person kept persuading me to settle it out of court, saying that his boss didn’t want any trouble due to the upcoming Chinese new year and also because the court will only offer me less than $300 due to the receipt (which stated $300). They are very clever indeed and know how to weave around the law. I wonder why they would be so willing to offer me $200 more than the receipt if they are not guilty of selling it to me at $600. Who in the right frame of mind would be willing to do that? Well, this is simply because they will still earn $100 from me (since they sold it to me at $600) and get back the speakers to con others. I didn’t accede to their request and merely said I would consider it.

My plan initially was to take them to the SCT and later to a referee and to make their ’boss’ come down to make things inconvenient for them but I’ve come to realise through some forums that there is another way out for them. They can simply not turn up. Although a default judgement will be entered against them if they don’t show up, the next step to take is to file a "Writ of Seizure and Sale" to seize and sell the movable property belonging to the Judgment Debtor (the company).

Here’s comes the catch if I choose to take this path:

1) Bailiffs carry out execution upon the Applicant’s/Judgment Creditor’s [My] instructions. They are not responsible for tracing the whereabouts of the debtors or to ensure that the sum owed to Applicant/Judgment creditor is recovered.

2) There is no guarantee that the outcome of the Writ of Seizure & Sale will be successful, but the Judgment Creditor [ME] has to bear the execution costs incurred.

3) A filing fee of S$105 (at least) for the Writ of Seizure & Sale (WSS) and Request for Writ of Execution.

4) An initial deposit for the Bailiff’s Expenses is S$300.

5) Regardless of whether or not the execution is successful, the Bailiffs expenses for each attempt of the execution are deducted from these deposit(s). Therefore, the more attempts you make, the more costs incurred. You may have to pay further deposits if you want to make more attempts.

6) The cost may only be recovered if the execution is successful and the payment of the defendant or the proceeds of sale are enough to cover the judgment debt and the cost incurred.

7) For any other enforcement options please obtain advice from your own lawyer.

The above are just a few "catches" which I have quoted. For the full articles, you can find them here, here and here.

This is just so darn disappointing. In short, this means if you can’t afford legal counsel, or the company closes down (changes name in their case),the company or the boss files for bankruptcy, boss runs away or changes address, there’s NOTHING you can do.

No wonder people always say that the law only protects the rich.

When quizzed about this form of cheating as mentioned earlier, the reply that CASE, CAD, SCT and the Police gave me was simply unacceptable - If this has been going on for so long and yet people are still being duped, shouldn’t they have a duty to do something about it instead of shrugging it off as ’been there done that?’. What’s the point of having a consumer’s association? No wonder they didn’t dare name it Consumer’s Protection Association which the Aussies did. It’s also nice that they have a ScamNet to warn the public and provide advice though I feel that this is still inadequate. Scams should be covered as often as possible when there’s a new report of it. Conmen are not so silly. They lie low after they are being reported and will only strike again when people have been lulled into a false sense of security. Terrorism also works the same way.

Knowing that you Singaporeans are an apathetic bunch, I would like to remind you that while it may not affect you directly now, you’ll never know in future if it will affect the people around you. By then, it’s too late to start feeling guilty about not doing anything when you have the opportunity to.

So what do you readers think I should do now? Should I accept the $500 and let them have the last laugh, or risk getting nothing back because I can’t afford to file a WSS against them when they don’t turn up at the mediation? If anyone of you have some rich relatives or legally trained friends who are willing to help or finance the fight against them, I will certainly do it. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Follow follow up

The company called me up to offer me $500 as a settlement. They told me that the SCT would only offer me $300 or less because of what was written on the receipt (Damn they’re good, they know the law too!). After checking out the forums and getting some legal advice from my friend’s friend, I realised that they are right. It was not worth pursuing further since $300 was probably the most I could have gotten from the SCT. I asked for $550 but they counter offered $520. I said no deal and they said ok then, “See you at the SCT”. In less than 2 mins, they called again and said ok, $550. Damn! I should have demanded $600 this time but since I rarely go back on my word (even with such people), I agreed. They would be coming at night to collect the speakers and do the refund.

It was then I decided to film the whole transaction down. I planted a camera in a shoe box and faced it towards the door. My best friend lent his support by coming down and doing an audio recording of the transaction. They made me sign a refund form which says that I had received a full refund although it was only $550 and not $600. I trashed talked with the guy and finally, he left. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to view the video. It is only for archival purposes since I won’t be pursuing the matter any further than trying to create awareness. Close friends may get to see it on my com but no, it’s not something for youtube. I still value my life and my family’s life. It was a good lesson. $50 taught me how to file for a small claim and I discovered that the law is so easily manipulated. If you are rich, the law can be your best friend. Too bad I’m not or else I’ll bring the buggers to court for sure.

~ ~ ~

Sounds like Evil...

There is evil lurking all around us. Evil lurking everywhere.... At times like these, we might not even spot the evil anymore. But evil is indeed amongst us. Evil has taken a form here for around a decade, and maybe older. That’s right. Be afraid my friends. Be very afraid. Evil has bestowed upon us, in a form that you see everyday.

Evil has taken the form of a van.

That’s right. This everyday transport vehicle is now mobile evil everywhere. Recently, my best mate -d- had been coaxed into what he thought was a good deal. Unknown to him, evil was at work. Its not new though. This form of evil has been around for quite awhile.

If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, then please read on, and please pass the message on to your friends and family members who drive. This evil I’m talking about, are people who drive around in vans and offer to give you free sound systems for free.

Yes. For free.

Here’s the pitch. You could be in a car park, or even on the road driving and they’ll just pull up right beside you and tell you they have alot of excess stocks of really expensive speakers that they cannot sell, and they don’t want to return it to their boss because he’s a cheebye. Then, before you know it, they’ll quickly unload the speakers from their van and try to load it into your vehicle. Then, the money part comes in.

They’ll ask you for kopi-money. And we’re not talking 5 or 10 bucks kind of money. They’ll want at least a couple of hundred bucks for these premium speakers, and if you’re not convinced within the first 2 seconds of their value, they’ll whip out a catalogue showing you the price of the speakers, which normally ranges in the thousands of dollars. Of course, when you actually see the thing in black and white, you’ll think, maybe those REALLY are expensive speakers. And to make it even more convincing, these speakers also have their own manufacturer’s website, and come with warranty. They’ll even give you a receipt that bears a local company name. So, what’s to lose?

EVERYTHING!

When -d- got hit by these very eloquent bengs, he called me and asked me if I knew anything about sound systems.

"Hello, eh, ask you ah, you know anything about sound system anot?"

"Er, sound system ah? Why leh?"

"Just want to find out if you know anything about this brand call what Sound Sonic ah."

" Sound Sonic? Familiar lah. I think got heard about something Sonic one."

"Or how about Glatten Audio? Some German engineered brand."

"Har? Glatten what? Eh, I driving now ah and I don’t have my bluetooth with me. I call you back later."

"Okay okay. Bye."

Sadly, my not having a bluetooth headset that day cost my dear friend 600 bucks. If I had my headset, I imagine the conversation might go like this:

"Hello, eh, ask you ah, you know anything about sound system anot?"

"Er, sound system ah? Why leh?"

"Just want to find out if you know anything about this brand call what Sound Sonic ah."

" Sound Sonic? Familiar lah. I think got heard about something Sonic one. Why you asking anyway? Christmas want to buy sound system for who?"

"No lah, cos got some guy want to give me free speaker, but he want abit of kopi lui lah, so I wanna...."

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE! THOSE CHEEBYE KIAS ARE FUCKING TRYING TO CON YOU! THE SPEAKER GOT NO VALUE ONE! YOU GIVE KARANG GUNI FOR FREE HE WILL THINK YOU TRYING TO SCAM HIM AH!"

That’s only in my head. Anyway, -d- purchased the speakers and then found out from forums when he was at home that he had been scammed. Being human, he felt cheated, and a surge of rage and sense of helplessness came over him. How could anyone do this? How could anyone treat another human this way? How could they con people like this and still sleep at night? I felt for him man. I really did. So, we tried to focus back to see if there was anything we could do to get his money back.

Yes. He didn’t just give up hope like that. -d- being -d-, he would not give up without a fight. So it began. The battle with evil had begun. And if you thought this is the end of it, you are wrong. Stay tuned to my next post for the climatic battle between good (the cheated), and evil (the cheaters).

How I Use My N95 (part 4)

This is part 4 of how I use my N95, and I hope that it has shed some light on a phone that is used by so many, but at the same time, so damn under-used by many. In this post, I wanna talk about the fun stuff. The stuff that just doesn’t make a difference in your everyday life, but is just cool to have.

LimeWire for your N95

Heh. Bet that caught your attention eh? Heh. Too bad there isn’t really a LimeWire for your phone. However, what exists out there is a peer-to-peer software called Symella that will run on S60 Platform 2nd and 3rd edition phones. What is really nice about it is you can actually connect to other people’s computers online such as how LimeWire does, and download stuff. Now, the technology of file-sharing isn’t bad. Just the downloading of copy-righted materials is. So please do not indulge in illegal file sharing. There. I said it. Now I move on.

This little bit of software is simple to use, and it works fast on my mobile internet plan. Simply connect, search, and download. Give it a shot, even if you’re not using a N95. Its free, and you can also use your wifi instead of a 3G connection.

Opera Mobile/Mini

There are 2 alternative browsers for your phone, and in my opinion, loads faster than the one that comes in your phone. I’m talking about Opera Mobile and Opera Mini. These 2 browsers are different though, even though they bear the Opera tag. Opera Mobile is an application that will come in a .sis format, and the Opera Mini is a Java application.

The big difference in my opinion is in the speed. Opera Mobile works alot faster than the Mini version, and the latter takes quite awhile to boot up. The other difference is that one version is free, the other you gotta pay. Opera Mini is free to download, but Opera Mobile isn’t free although it has a free trial. Both though, are very similar in appearance, as you can see in the above pictures. On the top you have the Mini, and at the bottom you have the Mobile. From what I know now, alot of smartphones these days come shipped with Opera Mobile. And there is a good reason why. When you browse the web on your mobile phone, what happens is that the information goes into your phone, and your phone will have to process all that crap into the size of your mobile phone screen. How Opera stands out from the rest of the browsers out there is that all that processing is done on their servers, so what you get in faster loading pages. Impressive eh? I prefer the Opera Mobile though. It is more robust, full-featured browser and even though it’s payware, the program boots up and reacts a whole lot faster than the Opera Mini. But give it go. Check out the two versions yourself and see which one floats your boat.

Windows Live Messenger

I’ve mentioned about how I use instant messaging to keep in touch for free with my girlfriend, but not everyone has a girlfriend/boyfriend who carries a smartphone that also has unlimited data access. Instead, you might be at a wireless hotspot somewhere and have some time to kill. Enter your ever familiar Windows Live Messenger!

This software is free, and pretty easy to use. If you don’t have it already, you can download it at the website in the above link. It works with my N95 perfectly, but if you’re not using the same phone as I do, you can still try installing it and give it a shot. Better still, read the comments in the site and see if your phone model has any success stories.

There are alot more stuff out there for the N95, and the ones I’ve listed are the ones that I’ve used personally. For more N95 stuff, you can visit this guy’s blog here. He has tonnes of stuff, and I’m sure if you’re into your phone, you will learn alot there. Also, before I leave, here’s something you might want. Notice to change your theme in your N95, you have to go through so many shitty steps before you reach the themes page? Not any more! This guy called Sittiphol Phanvilai who owns Neuvex Group which does alot of cool stuff with the N95 has come up with a free app that does just that. Simply install it in your phone, click on the icon and viola. You’re in the themes page. Fuss-free, and really a great idea. Download from his website or get it here.

How I Use My N95 (part 3)

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR to ONE AND ALL! Like my best friend -d- said, what’s so happy about the new year? I don’t know. But come to think of it, noone wants to start their day, much less their year, badly yeah?

There are people I know that make up resolutions for the new year. But they ain’t gonna work. You know why? Cos’ if you have to wait for the year to start before you do something, you’re pretty much fucked on the willpower bit. One thing everybody should do all year, all day long though is to use their gadgets to the best of their abilities. People, alot of you have so much power in your pocket. But what most people do with their phones?

"Eh, my phone I think spoil ah."

"How come leh?"

"Dunno. You help me see leh."

"Okay. Let me see... WAH LAU. You have 7000 SMS in your handphone memory ah."

"Ya, why?"

"Piang eh, no wonder you think spoil lah! How your phone run with so many rubbish inside?"

Maybe because noone has told them how to properly utilize their phones, but more and more each day, the little gadgets that we hold so dear in our everyday lives, begin to take control of our lives with each passing day. Our music players, cameras, photo albums, contact list, just to name a few, are all squashed in that tiny little device. How many of us actually back up our handphone data? Let’s not even talk about all the other data. Just the contact list. Do you have a back up of your contact list? If you do, good for you. If you don’t, maybe you should back it up before you lose your phone and start the whole "its not the phone that’s important, but all the contacts inside" routine.

Anyway, back to my little gadget of my life. My precious little N95. If you have a phone bill that’s over 50 bucks and more than half of it is due to your overwhelming need to text someone every 4 seconds, read my previous posts about getting a mobile internet SIM card and hooking it up with a smartphone such as the N95. Today, I’m gonna touch on some softwares I use on my phone that gets me a little more productive for work.

Free Push Email

This one got me really excited. Really really cool stuff. How would you, if you’re the busy sort that gets email all-the-time kind, like to have your email appear in your mobile phone just like an SMS? Its not new technology. The users of Blackberry phones have been enjoying something like that for awhile now, and you also do have the option of checking your mail as and when you want or in a wifi zone. But now even you can have that option if you carry the N95, and for free too.

This little app and service is called emoze Free Push email, and not only does it work on the N95, it supports alot of other phones too. Why I like this app alot is, it works great with Gmail, really easy to setup, able to view attachements, and to compose a new email is akin to typing a new SMS. Really easy stuff, but super impressive. And if you delete a mail that’s on your phone, you can opt to have the copy in your Gmail server deleted too, or just to delete the copy on the phone.

Just in case you don’t get it yet, the whole idea of "push email" is the opposite of "pull email". When you set your device to periodically check for email, say every hour, your phone connects to the mail server and "pulls" the information at the stipulated time. To have push email though, your device is "always on" the network, waiting for new email to arrive at the server, before "pushing" it to your mobile device, making you look ever so cool.

Syncing With Google Calendar

If you have a free Gmail account, hopefully you’ll have heard of the Google Calendar. If you haven’t, this is the low-down on it: Google Calendar is basically a free online calendar where you can plan and organize your day-to-day activities and memos and have the ability to share that data with friends or colleagues. It’s a pretty simple idea, and since its online, chances of you losing that data is very rare indeed.

Now, I use the N95, which means I’m running on a Symbian S60 v3 operating system on the phone, so therefore I have a Calendar function on my phone. Please do note at this point of time, the Calendar app on my phone has NOTHING to do with the Google Calendar online app. I’ll make the link later. Anyway, on most phones, you can jot down little scraps of memos and birthdays even, and then save it as events in your calendar. You can even set an alarm that goes off to remind you that you need to pay your bills or meet some friends at a particular time of your choice. But if do use Google Calendar, and also rely on your phone’s calendar to get your day-to-day shit done, wouldn’t it be nice to have both apps synchronize so that you when you key in data on one device, the other gets updated as well?

Enter GooSync, the link between both worlds. You can finally back up your calendar data to an online database for free using this simple piece of software. Not only that, both sides get updated, so if you’re at work and you key in a new event, you’ll get the same data in your calendar app on your mobile phone after you sync it.

Now, if you think that’s all there is to it, here’s a little tip on how I make my push email work for me with GooSync: You can set up email reminders in Google Calendar, so if you have your emoze in your phone on, you can actually have the email reminders appear in your phone, just like sms reminders. Just a little back up just in case you ignore the native alarm you can set in your phone calendar.

Microsoft Office in N95?

Okay. That’s not possible. It is NOT POSSIBLE to install the entire Microsoft Office suite into your phone. You’ll have to be crazy to even imagine that’s possible. However, you CAN find 3rd party softwares that are NOT from Microsoft which will allow you to view your Microsoft Office documents. (Sorry, but I’ve been asked many times by different people this same question.) Apparently, some people today still think that you can install the same softwares that you do in PCs into your phone. Please don’t do that. Its really scary.

Anyway, if you use a Nokia smartphone (N, E series or running Symbian S60 v3 OS), they should almost come with some form of Office document viewer, like QuickOffice. Do note that you can only VIEW the documents, and not create or edit on them. To do that, you will almost indefinitely need to pay for an application that will allow you to do just that.

For most people, I’m presuming that opening Excel and Word documents ranks the highest on their list, but for N95 users, Powerpoint slides can also be included into that list. Why? Because we have a TV-out port that can allow us to hook up our tiny little phone to a projector and flash a Powerpoint slide onto a big big screen.

If having the power of editing Office documents is important to you, consider buying OfficeSuite by MobiSystems. Its pretty straight forward, and not at all complicated like other softwares available. Heck, you can open up native .doc files and edit them on your phone! That’s just one of the features available. Check out the link if you wanna find out more. Price is pricey, but if you need to have something like that, you should invest a little bit of money and make your phone a little pocket monster of a device.

That’s it for now. It’s late and I’m still up trying to educate a bunch of people I don’t even know existed in the first place. Plus its New Year’s day....... oh my God... I’m becoming of them.. befriend me, will you?