The Handheld Blog » Tutorials

Now Create Folders On Windows Phone Mango

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:23:30 +0000

Windows Phone’s Metro UI is all about tiles and lists and because of this philosophy, the ability to puts folders on the Windows Phone homescreen is missing. So even if you just want a quick shortcut to a favourite app, you’ll have to pin it as a full size tile. However, Microsoft recently embraced the open spirit and let users deploy homebrew code if they so chose by unlocking their device via the ChevronWP7 labs and that has put the following hack into everyone’s hands.

The folder resembles a tile and shows you a preview of the apps that are inside, tap on it and it will present a list of the app in that folder. If there are more apps inside the folder than can be shown on the tile in one go, then it keeps flipping over to show you the others, copying the behavior of other ‘live tiles’ that may reside on your homescreen.

Features:

Create unlimited folders to pin to your start screen
Completely custom groupings (not restricted by categories of any sort)
Add Marketplace, homebrew, built-in applications, and websites to a folder
Automatic Marketplace look up
Automatic homebrew XAP parsing
Shortcuts to WiFi, Bluetooth, Flight mode, and cellular settings
Fully customizable with the ability to manually edit application entries
Folders. Something other Windows Phones don’t have. Gotta love homebrew, no?

If this is something you’d like to implement on your phone, the guys at Windows Phone Hacker have a full tutorial along with a complete video how to. You just need a developer/Chevron unlocked Windows Phone running Mango.

How To Easily Create Ringtones For Windows Phone Mango

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:14:30 +0000

Windows Phone, with the latest Mango release has started supporting custom ringtones, however with a few caveats. One, the file must be a DRM free WMA or MP3. Two, it must be less than 1 MB in size and 40 seconds in length. This means that you will no longer be able to use just any file as a ringtone and that some amount of preparation will be involved.

Generally this means using a audio editing software such as Audacity, but like me, if you couldn’t be bothered with additional software there is a free website that suffices beautifully. Enter MakeYourOwnRingtone.com, its a free web tool that lets you upload your favourite track, crop it as you desire, add effects if you want, select the quality and finally create the ringtone. Then its a simple matter of downloading it, adding it to Zune or iTunes, setting ‘Ringtone’ as the genre and syncing it to your phone.

If you’re not using this website to create ringtones for Windows Phone, you can ignore the 1 MB and 40 second parameters and experiment even more.

Hit the upload button and upload the file that you want to edit.

It will show up on the website. You can then drag and select the part of the song you want as the ringtone. For Windows Phone, make sure it is less than 40 seconds. Next select the output format (MP3 is fine), and then quality. The higher the bitrate, the better the quality. If that’s all you want to do, hit ‘Make a Ringtone’ and jump to step 5.

Otherwise selecting the ‘Advanced Mode’ lets you use a bunch of tools to modify the sound.

Expert Mode gives you an even greater array of options. Once done, select ‘Make A Ringtone’.

Once you’ve hit ‘Make A Ringtone’ a windows will pop-up which will give you a download link. That’s it.

Once you have the file make sure it confirms to the requirements (less than 1 MB and 40 seconds in length), change the genre to ‘Ringtone’ in Zune or iTunes and sync it to the phone. Finally, select it from within your phone’s settings and set it as the ringtone.

I Talk About Wireless Tethering & JoikuSpot On NDTV’s CellGuru (In English & Hindi)

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 04:36:12 +0000

A few months ago I had made an appearance on NDTV’s CellGuru to talk about the Nokia N900.

A few weeks later I had followed that up with a video guide on how to tether your phone’s data connection to your computer on both NDTV 24×7 and NDTV India with versions in both English and Hindi.

Unfortunately, I had failed to record the episodes and thus never mentioned them here. However, The Handheld Blog reader and friend, Rahul was kind enough to send me recordings a few weeks ago and since 3G services have launched in India, now would also be a good time for you to check out Joikuspot, the application which I talk about on national television.

NDTV 24×7 (English)

NDTV India (Hindi)

In the videos above, I have also mentioned bluetooth tethering, but with high speed 3G networks kicking in, bluetooth is no longer enough to transmit the kind of speed you would enjoy with WiFi tethering.

How To Download Ovi Music Unlimited Tracks From Any PC

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:32:39 +0000

We’ve just had news that Nokia is shutting down their ‘Comes With Music’ aka ‘Ovi Music Unlimited’ services in all but 6 countries. But since your current subscriptions are still valid, you might as well make use of the service as long as it lasts.

The one problem with downloading Ovi Music Unlimited tracks is that your subscription is tied to that one PC you authorized when you first activated your subscription. It is possible to change your ‘registered PC’ once every 90 days, but chances are you would like to be able to download music from any PC you could find, specially because the Ovi Music Store only offers low bitrate downloads over the air to your phone directly. This is where the ‘Ovi Music Downloader’ comes in.

The Ovi Music Downloader lets you download music from the Ovi Music Store on any PC using your existing ‘Ovi Music Unlimited’ subscription. You can also choose to download the 5 MB app if you would rather not deal with the Ovi Music Player.

If you haven’t changed the registered PC in the past and have Ovi Player installed, when you first connect your Ovi Music Unlimited device, you will be prompted with the above dialog box. But you can ignore this if you have no intention of changing your registered PC.

Visit music.ovi.com and sign in, you will now see a download button next to the music. Hit that and you will be prompted to down the ‘Ovi Music Downloader’. Download and install.

You will also be prompted to install the Microsoft DRM tool, install again.

Next hit the download button next to the albums/tracks and the Ovi Music Downloader will launch. Connect your device via USB and the app will start directly downloading the music to your phone.

This dialog box will apprise you of the content already transferred.

That’s it. The only drawback is that you will not be able to play the music you just downloaded on the PC, although understandably due to DRM issues. I have tested this app with the Indian Ovi Music Store, if this works in your country as well, please let us know in the comments section.

Hack: Need A Key For The WIFI? The Nokia N900 Can Help.

Vaibhav Sharma — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 20:10:01 +0000

The N900 recently became capable of Packet Injection, and this mean that the popular network security tool Aircrack-ng just became a whole lot more potent. While this means that you can now use your N900 to crack WIFI networks, cracking a WIFI network of someone other than your own can still land you in jail.

Meanwhile FRuMMaGe on the TMO forms has ported his shell script to work on the N900 which automates many of the functions of the aircrack-ng suite, making it much easier and faster than using aircrack-ng directly to compromise WIFI networks. He is also working on a GUI for the script which will make things even more easy.

FRuMMaGe‘s script features:

Enabling/disabling monitor mode and the package injection drivers.
Scanning for APs with airodump.
Fake authentication with aireplay
Package injection with aireplay
Decryption with aircrack.
Changing mac address (depends on macchanger being installed).

As well as WPA specific functions such as:

Deauthenticating clients (for handshake capturing).
Bruteforcing with aircrack using wordlists (wordlists not included).

It also is capable of the following functions, but these have not yet been tested extensively since porting:

Chopchop attack.
Fragmentation attack.
Building a custom ARP from results of frag or chopchop.
Bombarding AP with custom ARP.

If this aspect of the N900′s prowess interests you, he has a complete tutorial up which you can follow here. Hat tip to @mwkn for the find.

PS: As FRuMMaGe put it, ‘Use at your own risk and only for legitimate purposes. (And no, desperately needing to check your facebook while in a local internet café without paying is NOT a legitimate purpose)!’.

[Image via Flickr]

How To Download .SIS Files From The Ovi Store To Your Computer

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:03:58 +0000

The Ovi Store doesn’t let you download .SIS files directly to your desktop in order to manually install them on the phone. From the desktop website, the maximum you can can do is send yourself a link to the app via a text message. But if you need to download a large game and are without WIFI, you are pretty much out in the cold.

Fortunately, while looking at Ian Wallace’s Lapsed app, I came across a handy way to download SIS files directly to your desktop. The method works for free apps only and needs you be signed into the Ovi Store with a phone selected. Then simply add the words “/download” to the URL in your bar. The “/download” needs to be added after the numerical identifier.

For example, if you want to download NFS HD and see the following in the title bar:

http://store.ovi.com/content/55867?clickSource=search

change it to:

http://store.ovi.com/content/55867/download

That’s it. The best part is that you can even pause downloads and resume from where you left. Once you have the SIS file, transfer it to your phone via USB or bluetooth and install as you would any other app.

How To Sync Google Contacts With A Symbian Device

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:26:46 +0000

While Nokia’s new Symbian devices come with Ovi Sync pre-loaded, there are chances that you might want to keep your contacts in sync with your Google Account as opposed to being backed up on Ovi. Here come the good and bad things, the good thing is that your new N8, C7 or whatever device you have can sync your contacts with Google out of the box, and the bad thing is that the way to do is isn’t very obvious.

Fortunately, the setup is very easy and should take hardly a minute to undertake. If you use plain Gmail, you can get started right away. But if you use a Google Apps account, there is something you must do first. Goto the admin page of your Google Apps account, enter Service Settings > Mobile and make sure that the Enable Google Sync button is checked.

The following demo is done on a Symbian^3 device (Nokia N8) but it shouldn’t be different on others:

Select the create new mailbox button and from the options presented select Mail for Exchange.

Enter your details and leave the Domain option blank. Hit next, you will see a loading screen and chances are that you will come back to the enter details screen again. Hit next once more, this time you will see the ‘Mail for Exchange server’ option, enter ‘m.google.com’ and hit next.

For a contacts only Sync select contacts and on the next screen choose whatever option you like.

That’s it, your Mail for Exchange account will be setup and your contacts will start filling in automatically.

Sync’s can sometimes go wrong, horribly wrong, so its always advisable to take a backup of your contacts first and then at regular intervals. Happy syncing!

How To Sync Your Facebook Friends’ Profile Pictures & Birthdays To The N8 & Other Devices

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:24:34 +0000

The Nokia N8 comes with a preloaded application called Social that offers a degree of social integration between the phonebook and sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Sadly, its only a half hearted attempt compared to what’s available on Android and even the N900 with the wonderful Hermes application. You manually need enter each contact, hit the social networks button, wait for app to search for that name on the social networks you have added and only then can you do something with it.

Anyway, this post isn’t about expressing dismay at the social integration on Symbian^3, but about how to fix it, at least a little. Enter an application called Socially, available on the Ovi Store that lets you pull all the birthdays from your friends profiles on Facebook and also pull their profile pictures into corresponding contacts in the phonebook.

All you need to do is install the application, the developer’s website has the latest version, so get it from here. Then setup and authorize your Facebook account.

Next go to the ‘More’ tab at the righthand corner and select Sync Photos. The app will only sync those contacts who have exactly the same name on Facebook, a spelling difference here and there and you will be out of luck.

Similarly, it allows you to Sync the calendar entries, it will pull in everything this time.

That’s not all. Socially will also pull the latest update from your friend’s social network and put it on your screen when they call you. What’s more, if you get a call from a number not in your phonebook, it will also attempt to give you a location and the network from which the call is being placed.

I have been using the application on my N8 for a few days now, while I did have a bit of trouble with a random freeze or two in the beginning, but it seems to be working just fine nowadays. Add to that the fact that its a free download, Socially quickly becomes a must have.

Nokia, meanwhile please work on the social integration – I’m talking about automatically pulling in profile pictures, birthdays, events, the latest status messages and so on. Automatic and seamless being the keywords. I am sad to say, the current iteration just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Here’s How To Download Swype On The Nokia N8

Vaibhav Sharma — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 10:36:34 +0000

The Nokia C7 has been blessed with Swype officially. The application is available for the download via the Ovi Store and since the C7 is also a Symbian^3 device, just like the N8, the same version also works on it. So how do you go about downloading it? Simple, fool the Ovi Store into thinking you have a C7. Just visit this Ovi Store link, manually change your device to the C7, hit the send to mobile button. Open the text message that you receive on the your mobile and download Swype. Easy.

Swype installed on the Nokia N8.

What are the disadvantages? There’s no portrait keyboard, so you can only Swype in landscape. So if you can’t wait for Swype on your shiny N8, here’s how to get it. Otherwise, wait for the official N8 version, it cannot be far.

[via: Daily Mobile ]

Application: Shoot Video At 30 FPS On The N8 & Take Uncompressed Images

Vaibhav Sharma — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 19:03:39 +0000

Remember I told you about hyperX’s work on getting the Nokia N8 to shoot at 30 frames a second instead of the 25 it does out of the box? Today I’m glad to tell you that hyperX has released that mod as a downloadable application that you can install on your N8 and start shooting at 30 FPS.

What’s more, the hack also allows you to take virtually uncompressed images from your N8 that capture a little more detail than what you would get with the default settings. As a downside, the new images are a whopping 11 MB in size versus the 2 MB default average.

The mod does make a difference, but unless you will be cropping images often or be printing them in large sizes, the default settings should work just fine. However, the 30 FPS makes the hack totally worth it, the video is much more smooth and fluid.

You can download the application (sis file) here, but you will have to sign it before you can install it on the N8. Here’s hoping the next N8 firmware brings 30 FPS shooting as a default.

N900 Hack: How To Get Faster Scrolling In The Menu Post PR 1.2 Firmware

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:26:21 +0000

Post the PR 1.2 firmware for the Nokia N900, the kinetic scrolling inside the menu became painfully slow and coupled with the fact all apps are now displayed on one page, scrolling to the bottom has started taking multiple swipes. If you have a lot of apps installed, then situation is even worse.

But fortunately, as is with most N900 problems, the community in the form of MohammadAG has found a fix and if you are keen on getting the speed back, follow the instructions below.

Install ‘wget’ and ‘rootsh’ via the Application Manager.

Then open the ‘Terminal’ and run the following commands with the N900 connected to the internet:

root
wget http://mohammadag.xceleo.org/public/maemo/debfiles/hildon-desktop_kinetic_2.2.138-1+0m5_armel.deb
dpkg -i hildon-desktop_kinetic_2.2.138-1+0m5_armel.deb
killall hildon-desktop

That’s it.

If for some reason this method doesn’t work for you or there is a problem with the automatic download, grab this file and copy it to the N900′s root directory (/home/user/MyDocs).

Then open the ‘Terminal’ and run the following commands:

root
dpkg -i /home/user/MyDocs/hildon-desktop_kinetic_2.2.138-1+0m5_armel.deb
killall hildon-desktop

This method replaces the default ‘hildon-desktop package’ with a modified variant that also has fixes for PR 1.2 bugs like call UI glitches. After installing this, if you were to use an apt-get command to update, the N900 will reinstall the default version. To override this, enter the following commands in the terminal.

echo "Package: hildon-desktop
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 1001" >> /etc/apt/preferences

A huge hat tip to MohammadAG for this very welcome fix, if you want to know more, this is the thread to follow.

How To Make Your N900′s FM Transmitter Work In The 76.0Mhz – 107.9Mhz Range

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:51:28 +0000

The FM transmitter on the Nokia N900 is one of my favourite features. The N900 was not the first Nokia to have it but the first to actually have a usable one. This was because you could boost the FM transmitter output and thus get clear sound even in slightly congested airwaves.

But in a city like Dubai or LA, its virtually impossible to get a station where there is no interference from other air waves and this makes the FM transmitter much less useful. But as with most of the N900′s other features, there’s a mod to make it even better and a simple hack can make the N900′s FM transmitter broadcast at anything between the 76.0Mhz – 107.9Mhz range. This means that you can go below the N900′s default 88 Mhz and easily find a clear station as there are no FM stations broadcasting at under 88 Mhz due to government regulations and other reasons. All you need is a FM tuner that supports these frequencies.

Here is how to perform the mod:

The first thing you need to do is uninstall the FM Boost and FM Transmitter Widget if you have them installed. Also install any other app/widget that interacts with the FM transmitter. The reason I recommend doing it is because from what I have read, some users have had problems. For the majority it shouldn’t matter.

Next, download this file, unzip it and transfer it to the N900. Make sure you keep in on the N900′s internal storage and not inside any folder.

Open the Terminal and enter ‘sudo gainroot‘ without the quotes. If you do not have ‘rootsh’ installed, install it from the Application Manager before you enter this command.

Next enter ‘cd /home/user/MyDocs/‘.

Now enter ‘mv fmtxd /usr/sbin/‘. If you want to backup your default files first, use ‘mv /usr/sbin/fmtxd /usr/sbin/fmtxd_old‘.

Followed by ‘cd /usr/sbin/‘.

Then ‘chmod +x fmtxd‘.

Finally ‘fmtxd -d‘.

Now close the terminal.

Now open the Application Manger and install an app called ‘FMTX Faker’.

You will find it in the ‘Settings’ menu. Open it and confirm.

That’s it, the FM transmitter on your N900 can now broadcast at anything between 76.0Mhz – 107.9Mhz and the power is also boosted to 120 so you will not need the FM Boost application anymore. The N900 just became more awesome. Follow this TMO thread for more. Original hack by Jacek Milewicz.

PS: Please undertake the above at your own risk. It may also be illegal to use the above frequencies in your country. You have been warned.

Ready To Flash MeeGo Image Now Available For The N900

Vaibhav Sharma — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:24:26 +0000

The the MeeGo preview for the N900 first came out, in order to install it you need to make your own image and then flash it onto the N900. Things have moved along since then and a ready to flash MeeGo image is now available from Nokia’s own servers. So if you have been wanting to install MeeGo on the N900 but have been waiting for it to become just a little easier, the necessary guides are here.

But before you embark on the MeeGo journey with your N900, please keep in mind that this is still very much a developmental release and that it holds no value for an everyday users and if you think you fall under that category, its better to hold off. There also some issues with backlighting, which are being discussed here.

[via: @mwkn]

How To Easily Overclock Your Nokia N900 In Under Two Minutes

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:52:43 +0000

The ability to overclock the N900 has existed for a long time now and we have covered it before. But overclocking the N900 has never been so easy, two simple installs from the Application Manager and a short command via the terminal is all it takes. If you have been wanting to try it out but were holding out because it seemed too complicated, this guide is for you.

However, please note that overclocking the N900 will void your warranty, although it is possible to the flash to the stock kernel/state if you no longer want to overclock your device. Apart from that you also risk damaging your device and losing data. Please continue at your own peril.

That said, lets get started.

The first thing you need to do is install ‘rootsh’ from the Application Manager, make sure you have the relevant repositories enabled.
Next install the ‘Enhanced linux kernel for power users‘ from the ‘System’ section in the Application Manager. It supports overclocking upto 1.15 Ghz.
Restart the device.
Now install ‘Enhanced kernel for power users (settings)‘.
Open the X-Terminal and enter the following command.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load ideal

This will load the ideal profile which overclocks your phone to 850 MHz. At this point if you experience reboots or the phone seems to act funny, try using the ‘lv’ settings that uses slightly higher voltages than the ‘ideal’ profile. If it is still unstable try ‘ulv’. The various presets are ‘default’ – ‘lv’ – ‘ulv’ – ‘xlv’ – ‘ideal’ – ‘starving’.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850

If the N900 seems stable, you can have these settings as a preset of your own.

sudo gainroot
kernel-config load lv
kernel-config limits 250 850
kernel-config save myideal

With the current configuration, the N900 will resort to the default 600 MHz state everytime it is rebooted. This is done to avoid letting the N900 get caught in a reboot loop. If you are happy with the N900′s performance and stability, you can then also set the N900 to overclock by default on startup. Use the following command:

sudo gainroot
kernel-config default ideal (whichever preset you want to set as default e.g. myideal)
kernel-config show (this will show you your current settings)

If you want to revert to the original settings, here is the procedure to follow. Jakiman over at talk.maemo.org has a very comprehensive guide as well, if you are looking for more information I suggest you give it a read.

One last thing, if you want to configure the N900′s overclocking setting with a visual UI and not the terminal, install QCPUFreq from the Application Manager. Then once you have installed the packages mentioned above all you will need to do is move the slider to overclock to the desired level. My suggestion is don’t go past the 850 MHz mark.

Before you do this, please keep in mind one thing ‘because it can be doesn’t mean, you have to do it!’

How To Set A Custom Ringtone For Each Contact On The N900

Vaibhav Sharma — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:29:59 +0000

Marco Barisione’s just released an app called ‘Ringtoned’ for the N900 that brings the ability to set custom ringtones for each contact in the N900′s phonebook. The best part about this app is that it integrates well with the N900 as there’s no standalone setup, you can asign a default ringtone from the Profiles menu as usual and for custom ringtones, just go to the Contacts application, select the contact and press the new ‘Set custom ringtone’ button in the menu.

Search for ‘custom ringtones’ in the application manager after enabling extras-devel and refreshing the repository.

To set a custom ringtone, open contacts, select the contact you want and goto options by hitting the name of the contact in the title bar. Select ‘Set custom ringtone’.

The UI to set a ringtone is just like the one under Settings>Profile. When you are finished, press done and you are all setup.

The app is available from the Extras-Devel repository, or you can also download it from Marco’s personal repository here. Since this is the first release there might be bugs and if here is heavy load on the system, the ringtone might start after a slight delay. Future versions of this application should have the ability to set a custom ringtone for anonymous phone calls and for calls from an unknown number as well.

The inability to set custom ringtones for individual contacts has been something a lot of people have missed on the N900, but once again through Marco Barisione‘s fine work, the community has come through.

Nokia Messaging & Mail For Exchange – Tips & Tricks

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:10:43 +0000

Nokia India has been busy recently and they’ve come up with some really helpful videos in the form of tips and tricks to keep in mind while using Nokia Messaging or Mail For Exchange on QWERTY devices like the E72 and non QWERTY ones like the E52. There are a bunch of shortcuts shown off and if you are new to Mail for Exchange or Nokia Messaging, there are even videos to helpful you set them up on your very own devices.

Tips & Tricks For Nokia Messaging On The E72 & E52

Tips & Tricks For Mail For Exchange On The E72

How To Setup Nokia Messaging

How To Setup Mail For Exchange

Hack: The N900 Gets A Working Bluetooth Mouse

Vaibhav Sharma — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:19:20 +0000

The N8 has it and now, so does the N900 – bluetooth mouse is a go thanks to the efforts of azerty1 who’s even put together a video to show it off. The N900 doesn’t have the bluetooth HID profile that allows for using a bluetooth mouse enable by default, so doing that and the other tasks needed to get the setup up and running is a bit of work, but if TV + Keyboard + Mouse is your thing, its time to hack away.

You can find detailed instructions of the first post in this thread. Oh yes, easy Debian is suddenly now much easier to use.

Must Have Themes For The Nokia N900

Vaibhav Sharma — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 07:01:16 +0000

I am not someone who likes changing themes often. I like themes that look elegant, polished and definitely not brash. Over the last seven or so months of owning the N900, I have tried almost every theme that is available and have come away with the following as my picks.

Most of these themes comes from the Maemo repositories so make sure you have them enabled. Then just type the name to search in the Application Manager and install. So without further adieu, here are my must have themes for the N900, in no particular order.

Black Plastic – The lists in this theme are shaded differently, nice change.

an-DROID – One of my favorites. Love the colours on this one.

Bossa Teal - For times when you want custom icons. Seems to slow down the phone though and takes 6MB in rootfs.

Carbon – Brilliant. Dark. Polished. Makes the N900 look good.

D-Theme Red – I like red themes. They go well with the black on the N900. This is part of the D-Theme series, check them out for different colours.

iStyle Black – Part of the iStyle series. Best of the lot.

Matrix – Its here because it goes amazingly well with the Matrix live wallpaper. Plus I like the vibrant colours too.

Red Alert – Another red theme, but sadly not part of the repositories so you will have to manually download and install if you liked it. Get the .deb here, locate it in the file manager and tap to install.

R-Style Green – Part of the beautiful R-Style series that features similar design in new colours. Green is easily my favourite.

So there you have it, those were my picks. Think there is a theme that deserves to be in this list that I have missed out? Please let me know. What themes do you like?

Irreco Widget Lets You Control Your TV From The N900's Homescreen

Vaibhav Sharma — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:23:53 +0000

Controlling your TV from your mobile phone has been possible for a long time now, I have personally used the Nokia 6600 for this functionality in the past. Then IR ports started to disappear from most devices and recently they have made a comeback of sorts. The N900 has one, so the obvious use is turning it into a remote.

You have already seen Raemote, which turns the N900 into an Apple remote, today is the turn of the Irreco widget. This compact widget features basic features that include volume and channel control, mute the TV and power it on or off.

It works independently of the Irreco app and can be downloaded from extras-devel in the Application Manager. The range is obviously nowhere near that of a dedicated remote, but is good enough for the odd use. After installation reboot the N900 to see the widget on the homescreen.

Next, longpress the widget to enter its settings and go on to download your specific remote.

Once downloaded you should see the following. If you don’t find the specific remote you are looking for, try selecting something close to it.

Simply exit the settings and start using the widget.

Lets us know your experience with it.

A System Wide Portrait Keyboard Comes To The Nokia N900

Vaibhav Sharma — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:08:44 +0000

In my last post, I asked why couldn’t Nokia deliver a system wide portrait keyboard for the N900? In this post I am glad to tell you that the community has once again stood up to the challenge and produced a system wide portrait keyboard that can be used by any app automatically.

The ‘portrait-keyboard’ package by Robin Burchell and Frals is available in extras-devel and once installed, it replaces the inbuilt virtual keyboard and pops up in its place wherever you need to enter text be it Conversations, Notes, Web Browser and so on.

It features a landscape mode (pictured above) as well as a portrait mode (pictured below). After installing the package, reboot the N900 to get this working.

Known caveats:

No fast input. Multi-tap to enter a letter, it’s slow and *very* painful.

Changing orientation results in the text you’ve written so far being lost.

To use it, you’ll need to ‘killall hildon-input-method’ after installing the package (or reboot your n900)

It’s (a bit) painful to use in landscape mode.

Possible future directions (but this is by no means going to happen overnight, these are all quite difficult – feel free to pitch in and help):

Separate layout for landscape mode, for easier use

Fast, predictive input

Automatic capitalisation

This is a great start and eliminates the need of dedicated apps such as VertSMS (although it has a QWERTY layout as well). If you think you can contribute, talk to frals or w00t / w00t_ on #maemo, and see this. You can also follow this TMO thread for the latest. If you haven’t enabled extras-devel, here’s how to do it, the usual warning about software from extras-devel applies.

I can’t wait for the next update. Awesome work.

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