Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Disable WLAN energy saving and extend the range.

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fernando
on August 26, 2008
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WLAN settings

Today’s post is a quick little tip, just to break the silence.

There’s times you know there is an wifi access point nearby, and you have the password or whatever you need to get to the internet, but your phone is not detecting it, even when nearby laptops are getting it. There’s an option to change that.

Go to Menu -> Settings -> Connection -> Wireless LAN -> Options -> Advanced Settings -> Yes -> Disable Auto config and finally scroll down that you’ll find the screen in this post. You can disable the power saving mode for WLAN, and the device’s range increases greatly.

But there is a reason why the buried this setting so deep, and you have to confirm what you’re doing a few times. When the phone says this option saves power, it means it! To the point that one day I forgot to turn it on after an wifi session, and I seriously thought there was something wrong with my battery. It drains power like nothing else.

But when you’re in an email emergency, and need your internets, this setting comes in handy. Just remember to turn in on again afterwards and you should be fine.

The Revenge of Shinobi on Picodrive S60

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fernando
on July 3, 2008
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The Revenge of Shinobi on Picodrive S60 from Fernando Santos on Vimeo.

I had recorded a video to illustrate this post, but had forgotten to post it. Err… Here it is then. =P

More menu icons h4xing

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fernando
on June 20, 2008
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The internets are buzzing with themes that use this new pack of icons made by Flahorn, ICEman made one, p@sco made one, Flahert himself made one, but they all require a certain appshelldata.xml (the file that saves your menu order) and menu.mif (the file with the icon graphics). I uploaded them here: http://www.fwrnando.com/files/menu.zip. Included in this file in is my personal xml, the one you see on the screenshot, because the included one does not change the folders name together with the phone language.

I was posting in mobile-review about my experiences, for now I’ll just copy the post, if I get something conclusive I’ll update it.

“I thought just using Menu Editor I could get them. But alright, I got the .mif and .xml and will try pronto!

edit: yup, I got it!

edit2: aha, it messes with the folders name (no more changing name according to language), I’ll have to edit the xml myself. Like the real name for the music folder isn’t music, it’s &qtn_apps_musicfolder;, and the OS replaces it with a name according to the language.

edit3: yep, I got a modded icon Games folder, that becomes Jeux if I change the phone to french, now I just need to find the real names of the GPS and etc folder

edit4: ok, better post my research/etc here:

Code:
<appshell:folder title_name="&qtn_apps_gamesfolder_title;"
long_name="&qtn_apps_gamesfolder_list;"
short_name="&qtn_apps_gamesfolder;"
applicationgroup_name="games"
icon_file="C:\resource\apps\Menu.mif"
icon_id="16388" mask_id="16389"
icon_skin_major_id="101F86E3"
icon_skin_minor_id="1977">

is the code for a well named, iconized game folder, not available on the N95.

And if someone who is reading this has a hacked E90, I’d LOVE to get a copy of your appshelldata.xml (found in C:\Private\101F4CD2\Content\) because it might have the real name for the help and GPS folders (the other two I’m searching).

edit5: woo stream of thought post
now my factory themes don’t show the GPS icons, while ICEman’s and P@sco’s do. Guess I’ll have to keep 2 xml files depending on the theme I’m using. Or maybe it’s just because standard themes weren’t expecting the GPS icon? Sometimes I just hope restarting will fix things :P”

edit6: I think the original themes tell the phone explicitly to use the Z:/resources/apps/menu.mif file, that’s why they aren’t showing. And if you remove the “icon_skin_major_id=”101F86E3″ icon_skin_minor_id=”1977″” from the xml, the icons will stop obeying to the theme, and use the C:/resources/apps/ mif. But as as they don’t listen to the theme anymore, they don’t change icons with the themes, leading to the screenshot a couple posts above.

Although I was experimenting with the xml I got together with the mif, sometimes the Games folder would keep it’s icon. Unfortunately I can’t reproduce the situation. Also, it seems that the N95 .mif has the Extras folder icon (the stars one) unused.”
So my solution for now it keep switching between XMLs, using the ones linked to the theme for Flahert icons, and the ones unlinked to the default themes. And of course, the final solution would be include the complete mif in drive Z, but that won’t happen.

zomg huge proto leak

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fernando
on June 9, 2008
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At my favorite forum ever, Mobile-Review, user Tissot posted a link with pictures of 3 leaked models, following the link and ending at this flickr, I found out there were LOADS of unrealeased models pics there.

  • 2680
  • 3610 Fold
  • 5800 XpressMedia (the tube!)
  • 6260
  • 7210 Supernova
  • 7510 Supernova
  • E66
  • N85 (marked as N00)
  • and N79

9 leaked models!

And just in case he deletes his flickr, I have mirrored high-res versions of all unreleased phones here: http://www.fwrnando.com/protoleak/

Use media keys for Picodrive!

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fernando
on June 8, 2008
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Finally, with the use of hacking though, I have my (almost) perfect set-up for playing Mega Drive on my N95, landscape mode and using the media keys as gaming buttons.

First, with the recently outed MagicKey (from the most excellent opda.com.cn forum) you can remap certain phone keys to other funcions. Example: You can make the 5 key print 4 on screen. But the real treat in this app is the possibility of remapping otherwise hardwired keys, like the media ones. So you can make the media keys look like normal keys to picodrive.

Once you got that app signed and installed, use it to create a new keymap, assign it to picodrive.

When creating new pairs, press the green send key to go into select mode. It’s pretty straight forward once you figure that out. =P In my case I use the 4, 5 and 6 keys to play in portrait mode, so I’ll map the media keys to those:

When you’re done with that, don’t forget to set the daemon to open at boot:

Restart the phone afterwards.

Now, with the media keys properly set, time to set Picodrive. Pico can’t show a reverse landscape image while the whole UI is rotated (ex. when you open the media slider). You need to force the phone to stay in portrait mode with RotateMe, and use pico settings like this:

Now that you got the media keys out still in portrait mode, you can finally enjoy the wonders of true landscape gaming.

Seems like quite a bit of work just for playing some games eh? But Mega Drive emulating is serious business =P

…now if only those media keys weren’t so flat, lol.

When the internet is down, N95 saves the day.

Published
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fernando
on June 2, 2008
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modem

This saturday, my modem decided to die, just after business hours too, so I’d have to wait until monday to order a new one. So it was up to my phone to keep me connected meanwhile. And, surprisingly for anyone who tryed to tether an older phone (memories of my 6600 :p), it was incredibly straight forward!

I started connecting my phone to my mac in PC Suite mode, just to see what would happen, I figured I’d have to download thousands of drivers and whatnot, but that was not the case. As soon as I opened the Network prefpane, a new connection appeared on the sidebar:

A couple settings after, and I was connected! The only thing that slowed me down for a while was the modem type, but that was solved pretty quickly by clicking the Advanced… button and selecting the right “vendor” from the drop down menu:

So there, I was online again, kudos to whoever at Nokia or at Apple who made this so simple. The only downside to all of this really is the speed

I really wouldn’t mind having a N95-3 now. :P

OPDA’s MenuEditor

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fernando
on May 3, 2008
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..or finally a reason to hack the permissions on my N95!

After all that trouble in making past posts about ordering your folders in place, and why wouldn’t S60 allow you to create folders with icons, bugb at OPDA.net.cn finally make an app to do it. Even if it needs a little hacking prior to using it…

First you need to hack the permissions in order to gain access to all files on your phone, then download a allfiles capable file browser (such as X-Plore or ActiveFile, my favorite) then copy a certificate and key to a certain folder, and finally selfsign the MenuEditor sis with OPDA’s Mobile Signer. I won’t explain about those things here, but feel free to google around for guides.

But once you have all set, you can alter any folder’s icon and name, and choose from a list of all icons on device. and you can also make special folders that change their name when you change the phone’s language, much like the default ones.

Here’s all the different folder icons from the default N95 ones:

And if you know me, you know that I love having an organized and “iconized” menu. I already changed the more apps folder to the blue square, and the games folder to the dice one. And I’m going to make a GPS folder right now!

All the folder names, icons and better explanation of how they work are at OPDA.net.cn and this app was found via pretty much any underground symbian site. I’d offer a download link, but as it depends on how you hacked your phone, I’ll just link to symbian freak, as they have 3 versions of the file.

New Picodrive S60 version!

Published
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fernando
on March 30, 2008
in Uncategorized
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A week from last friday, our favorite emulator developer AnotherGuest released a new version of Picodrive S60, based on Notaz’s GP2x source code, and it’s totally awesome. Here’s a video I made of it in action, how the sound syncs perfectly now:

Highlights:

  • Perfect sound! (see the last version for comparison, awful video)
  • Future SegaCD/MegaCD support!
  • Multiple savestates
  • Better landscape rendering?
  • Loading times increased :(
  • Finally a non-pixelated icon :P

This version was released at My-Symbian forums, but the download is for registered members only, so I mirrored it here.

S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 review

Published
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fernando
on March 16, 2008
in Uncategorized
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The english version of M-r review is out, go read it!

http://www.mobile-review.com/review/nokia-s60-fp2-full-en.shtml

S60 inverse landscape

Published
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fernando
on March 8, 2008
in Uncategorized
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landscape2

Recently I found out about this Landscape Pro V2 that allows you to rotate your s60’s screen both ways, and I wondered how did the app handle it? Manual turning or did S60 had a secret inverse landscape mode?

Turns out that it is the former, and now I’m trying to documentate the differences between the behavior of certain app.

screes

It unlocks the N95 8GB exclusive landscape screensaver, but it actually shows up upside down when holding the N95 270º (just the way it shows up in the N95 8gb).

Menu acts oddly too, it can show up two ways:

screenshot0045.jpg

Normal landscape view (but the softkeys are inverted in this view, meaning the up left one is options and the right one is exit, just like normal portrait.) (This also happens with custom UI apps, like Nokia Maps 2.0)

Or it can also show up as the native inverse landscape orientation (!!!)

screenshot0047.jpg

In this way the softkeys are normal and apps act just like normal landscape, just that the blue bars are inverted.

Other example of the native inverse landscape mode:

screenshot0049.jpg

Now for the even weirder things, as you know the front camera app forces the phone to go to portrait mode when opened in the normal landscape mod, but it allows itself to show up on the inverse landscape:

screenshot0048.jpg

(This showed up upside down in the N95, with the inverted softkeys, just like the menu)

The regular camera also handles this new orientation surprisingly well:

screenshot0051.jpg

Just the softkeys stuck to the left side of the screen, like the should to stay near the real keys, expected behaviour.

screenshot0052.jpg

(btw,the image shows upside down, because there is no way of rotating the sensor, of course)

And then, there’s a couple apps that just screw up everything, for example Device Status (rip :(), didn’t recognize any key press, besides the review/gallery key, so I couldn’t take a screenshot, but when turning it into portrait it showed up like this:

screenshot0050.jpg

And then there is just some bugs that will probably be ironed out when this landscape mode comes out (FP2?!?), like rotating via software to inverse landscape and then manually to portrait (opening the slide) give you this:

screenshot0053.jpg

So this is what I have discovered about this mode until now, I had to restart my phone and it is turning on again right now :P But again, I’m impressed of how well S60 handles a screen orientation that isn’t supposed to be there! Ah the benefits of a mature platform!

Edit: N-Gage app also looks weird:

screenshot0056.jpg

It was physically upside down when launched in the inverse landscape mode. So I can assume that every app that forces the phone into portrait mode (N-Gage, screensaver, front camera) will screw up the screen. And if the N-Gage app doesn’t know how to react to this inverse landscape mode it doesn’t give me hope that we’ll see this mode in FP2… Ah well, maybe in Touch.