Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Ovi has a jingle now?

From the Ovi virtual event, this video showed the new ovi jingle. It appears by the end of both segments, with the logo.

I recorded it and uploaded it here, maybe someone wants to use it as a ringtone.

How to remove Share Online from your active standby

As usual, this one’s for hacked phones only. I thought I had made a post about this earlier but no. Better, since now this post can be updated with phones that come with Share Online on the rom (e.g. v30 N95)

Let’s start with identifying what puts that in the standby. The culprit is a file called SoActiveIdle.dll. It stays at !:/sys/bin/

So if your phone didn’t came with SO3.0, it is mearly a case of hacking your phone, disabling caps, and deleting that file.

But when that file is in the rom (Z:/), it gets trickier. UPDATE: You have to make the OS look for the file in drive C:/, and to do that you have to install a Share Online Upgrade from europe.nokia.com/A4388352 (The one it comes with is 3.0.08(13) and this one is 3.0.08(23). After that you can modify the SoActiveIdle.dll.

You can’t just erase it, as then the OS will load the Z: version, you have to corrupt it. I did this by opening the .dll in notepad, changing a few characters in the file, and then copying it back to C:/sys/bin. Rebooted and the shortcut was gone!

So long story short, you can just install a Share Online upgrade, download my modified dll, throw it on C:/sys/bin, reboot and enjoy the clean active standby!

Thanks Ben for noticing I had missed something :P

UPDATE 2: Or you could just do this. Which removes share online AND search, god bless Symbian-Freak :P (found here)

V30 firmware for N95 classic

Man I really dislike it, bugs came back, the benefits are negligeble, and the only new cool thing is a new theme (in my opinion).

Let’s see the changelog:

  • Nokia Maps 2.0 built-in
  • Full N-Gage client
  • Nokia Search 4.0 with Google plug-in
  • Share online 3.0
  • Enablers for Comes With Music
  • Download! application updated (v 3.1.50)
  • Upgrade to Music Player
  • Update for Flash Lite 3 (improved viewing of sites like YouTube)
  • Current consumption improvements (for e.g. WLAN scanning)
  • New baseline for VoIP (with significant error corrections)

Now my complains

  • Nokia Maps 2.0 built-in (old version already, you can download a newer build on europe.nokia.com/maps)
  • Full N-Gage client (comes installed in drive C: instead of Z: (rom), negating any space saving. besides that, it is already obsolete too, since 5230 and N96’s version (1.10) is available to download)
  • Nokia Search 4.0 with Google plug-in (still slow and useless, not the new firmware’s fault really, plus is occupies 2 lines of active standby now, weird)
  • Share online 3.0 (as it comes in Z:, I can’t remove C:/sys/bin/SOActiveIdle.dll, to get rid of the standby shortcut. Again not really a firmware fault UPDATE 3: found a solution)
  • The camera buttons bug is back. When the backlight goes out, the gallery and volume/zoom keys flash blue. This bug was solved back in firmware V12.)
  • Menu is bugged out, showing it’s icon, leaving less space to apps’ icons. (see screenshot below)
  • Auto screen rotation is slow, as with other Nseries, Samir’s rotateMe is better (not that I use it that much, just for turning the screen 180 degrees)

I haven’t really noticed the improvements to the music player/flash lite/battery life, but I guess it’s too soon. Anyway, I expect a V31 firmware soon.

Screenshots via AAS

UPDATE:

Found a difference in the Music Player, the controls are now blue instead of green:

Compare with V20

There is a new option under configurations in the connection settings (because I’m sure Configurations was the last one):

And the last change, is that the display rotation that happens when you open the multimedia slider got slower (!). Now it’s open, wait a second, then the display rotates. The same speed as auto rotate.

I think I’ll make a video to show the new speed, but it’s very annoying.

UPDATE 2:

Someone found a way to get rid of the menu icon, only until a restart, but still. This, as random as it seems, works.

And another change I noticed, they removed the transitions option (which didn’t work) from V21 firmware:

This option isn’t available anymore on V30. (Not that it did anything)

Disable WLAN energy saving and extend the range

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


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

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

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!

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.

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

..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.