You've got to love Ricky and Rita at Symbian Guru, here unearthing (and providing a brief tutorial for) another gem - Pixelpipe, a new plug-in for Share online which widens the photo (and video) uploading compatibility to encompass Facebook, Twitpic, Picassa, YouTube and others. If you've used Pixelpipe then your comments welcome.
A couple more S60 5th Edition tutorials from myself and Tzer2, looking at How to Sync music from Apple iTunes to the Nokia 5800 and Shooting, editing and sharing videos. And, again, here's the full Nokia 5800 XpressMusic tutorial index, which should help you get much more out of your device.
More beginner features in our S60 5th Edition tutorial series from Tzer2: How to use the FM radio (and RDS) on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and How to transfer and listen to music tracks and CDs on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. This last is lengthier and includes material on the newish 'Nokia Music' Windows application. It is planned to extend this comprehensive set of tutorials once the N97 is available. And, no doubt, to some degree when the Samsung Omnia HD arrives, as well. Enjoy.
So much for the quality stamp of being in the good 'ol BBC. Their latest Digital Planet podcast, going out worldwide, starts with an scaremongering piece which claims that the only reason why there hasn't been a mobile phone virus pandemic is that there aren't enough Symbian OS-powered phones out there yet. Completely ignoring the fact that the viruses mentioned are ALL for really old phones and OS versions, involve manual, deliberate installation and are aimed at really naive users. The Symbian Foundation's new PR dept would do well to fire a rocket into Gareth Mitchell, Jason Palmer and self-confessed expert Prof Barasbi, who, patently, haven't a clue what they're talking about. Pah.
Perhaps a little trivial and off-topic, but I thought readers might like to know how I got on with polishing out the micro-scratches in the camera 'glass' on my Nokia N95 8GB. Using Displex, bought for a song from eBay, I managed to get all the scratches out in under 5 minutes. If nothing else, bookmark this for the future in case your phone's display or camera cover get scratched?
There's a nice piece by Chris Meadows here talking about the future for Mobipocket and its previously ubiquitous ebook reader software, now that Amazon have not only bought Mobipocket but are competing against it vigorously with its own Kindle hardware and software. In fact, it's looking increasingly as if Amazon bought Mobipocket simply to put paid to a competitor. Yet there's nothing else decent to fill the vacuum on S60 and Symbian. Read on for some thoughts and links.
In an affectionate companion feature to my "Ten Things that Nokia Did RIGHT in making the 5800 XpressMusic" from last month, I now present "Ten Things that Nokia Did WRONG in making the 5800 XpressMusic". There we go, never ever say that I and All About Symbian aren't balanced!
Ewan muses on Nokia Messaging and the lack of category support in Nokia's PIM software in the third part of his video diary with the qwerty-side-sliding Nokia E75 - remember that he's been using the device for a month straight now. Video below. Oh, and watch out for the sci-fi ending.
Asri al-Baker steps up to the pedestal with a brief tutorial on setting up IMAP folders and Gmail labels in the new Nokia Messaging application. Look out for more 'how to's for Nokia Messaging in the near future.
In a move that will surprise absolutely nobody, Nokia's Java-based proto-widget system Widsets is to be closed and the widgets rolled into more generalised form as part of Ovi Store (for both S60 and Series 40 phones). June 1st is given as the Widsets closure date. This move follows similar announcements about Nokia's MOSH file sharing service and (implied) the Download! client on every device.
Apologies to those who already know this, but it was news to me and perhaps to other people too: if you run an internet radio station you can add it to Nokia's online directory of stations for free by visiting this link. The directory is used by Nokia's Internet Radio application currently available on Symbian S60 3rd Edition phones and Maemo internet tablets, and allows people to browse and listen to listed stations on their devices through wi-fi or the phone network. The directory accepts both internet-only stations and internet streams of conventional broadcast radio stations.
Following our observation that the 'price/payment' fields in Download! on all devices had been upgraded and made more sensible, it seems that the main 'Applications' folder in Download! (i.e. the bit that doesn't involve paying Jamster) has now acquired sub-folders, to whit: 'Business', 'Entertainment', 'Social networks', 'Reference', 'Utilities' and 'Widgets'. All interesting stuff, but that Ovi client can't come soon enough for us, with as wide a compatibility as possible. No new apps at this point, but to see the changes, just go into Download! - Applications on your phone.
With the advent of Google Latitude, Nokia Chat, Nokia FriendView and other similar services, Steve Litchfield ponders their future, wondering why they haven't taken off as fast as he'd originally predicted. Part of the reason, he suspects, is that the typical demographic for such mo-lo-so applications is fairly restricted, i.e. most of us either know exactly where our main contacts are or don't need to know.
The UK's Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been commenting on alleged police brutality during protests at the recent G20 conference in London. The head of the IPCC has apparently said that "the widespread use of mobile phones by protesters to take photographs and video footage of the clashes was providing invaluable evidence" in investigating three separate incidents including one death. Many worry about intrusive surveillance putting too much power in the hands of authorities, but perhaps cameraphones are turning the tables?
Nokia's Download! system, integrated into every S60 device, has finally had one of my long-standing bugbears fixed. Never mind that the whole thing is now seemingly administered by Jamster (explaining all the '1 of 3' 'costs' listed throughout some of the app pages), the core 'Applications' section now has freeware marked as '0' (i.e. costs nothing), while trialware and demos now appear, less misleadingly (they used to say '0' too), as 'Try for free'. There's also the new 'Payment in application', in readiness for Ovi. See below.
