In past, whenever I wrote any post for symbianOSmobiles, I recieved many comments/mails saying that SIS files I referred cannot be installed. The problem was many of them was unsigned. While few people turn-off certificate (signed) verification, rest either don’t know how to do it or need a signed version for some reason.
First how to turn-off sign checking…
Go into menu > tools > settings > applications > app.manager. Turn software installation to all and online certificate check to off.
This may vary little depending on your handset model. But the process is similar. This will allow you to use any app that hasn’t been digitally signed.
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Next how to get a symbian app signed online…
There is an Open Signed program, currently in beta, which do signing job for symbian application. Its free but have few limitation and also note the restrictions before using the service.
The service is quite simple to use. Just enter your handsets IMEI number, email address, and upload the unsigned SIS file. You will get it signed.
PCMover is a migration utility by Laplink softwares to transfer files, settings, installed software, etc from one Windows machine to another Windows machine. Here Windows machine can be a real PC or a virtual machine running on any platform e.g. XP/Vista via Parallels or BootCamp in Mac.
LapLink Software is celebrating their 25th anniversary by giving this $49.95 software free. Also their partner firms are offering many softwares at unbelievable prices.
Simply install PCmover on both your old and PCmover will determine which programs, files, and settings need to be moved, and when the transfer is complete, your new computer will have the personality and functionality of your old PC plus all of its own pre-installed software.
I will personally give it try as I have a Windows XP desktop computer and also XP on my Mac using BootCamp as well as Parallels.
Google Reader is favorite feed reader for many, but some people are just not comfortable with any online reader. As most of them AJAX apps and consumes high amount of memory. But on the other hand, online readers offers you advantage of being available from anywhere!
Now a new app built on Adobe Air platform, ReadAir successfully brings Google Reader to your Windows/Mac/Linux desktop. Yes, as Adobe Air is available for all major operating systems, ReadAir automatically becomes available for all desktop users.
Below is screenshot of my ReadAir – Google Reader…
Also I have noticed YouTube videos are not showing-up in ReadAir. They smoothly run in online Google Reader. The project have few small open issues like support for custom keyboard shortcut but overall its really nice, specially if you are waiting for Google to launch a desktop feed reader! 🙂
One of the oldest firefox extension I am using from long time is Google’s browser sync. If you access internet from multiple location like home, college, office, etc, you can install this firefox extension at all places.
Once installed it keeps synchronizing your firefox bookmarks, history, saved passwords, cookies & session (i.e. tabs & windows).
Do not worry much about security. The extension itself is protected by your Google account login and password plus a 4-digit PIN. Also sensitive data like cookies and password are by default encrypted.
The extension is free as like most Google services. If you have large number of bookmarks you may notice slight delay at first synchronization, but after that it works like a charm! 🙂
Additionally, if you have a dual-boot machine with any OS combination you can use this extension to sync firefox in every OS. Although on dual-boot machine there is slightly geekish way to do this which also sync installed add-ons, greasemonkey scripts and anything else which this extension skips.
Started as orkut messenger, scrapboy improved over the time. After myspace, they now added support for facebook.
Long list of supported features and appealing user interface will make scrapboy your sweetheart. Designed with keeping minor details in mind, scrapboy take care of missing feature on individual social networks. So do not think it as another desktop-way to access few online sites.
As a simple example, have a look at facebooks’ birthday reminder feature enhanced in scrapboy…
Still latest facebook chat feature is not available in scrapboy as it is integrated into Digsby. But on the other hand scrapboy is much more centered around social networking sites while digsby is yet to support orkut.
In a smart move from orkut team, to reduce spam notifications you get in your mailbox, a new setting – Notification Filter is added to orkut’s existing settings.
With this setting you can choose to receive notifications from either:
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everyone
friends of friends
friends
groups of friends
You can also configure filters individually for email notification, orkut message-box notification and orkut pop-up notification.
Although not strong as Gmail filters, these orkut filters can provides fine-grain control over existing orkut settings.
Still one major improvement many orkut users awaiting from long time is list of online friends. It will be great if small pop-up notification window on orkut blinks whenever a friend comes online. As of now such notifications are shown only when somebody scraps you on orkut.
Here are prominent features as highlighted by facebook…
Start instant conversations with all of your friends.
Check the Online Friends menu to see who is online now.
A green dot means your friend is available to chat.
Don’t want to chat? Make yourself unavailable.
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few more…
You can update your status from chat panel
feature is implemented as a chat-bar. So length of page have no effect on user experience
speed is quite impressive (atleast as of now) considering the overall slow facebook!
To-Do list…
Group chat is not there as explained earlier.
There is no invisible status option. You can go offline but you can’t hide… 🙁
It turn out to be much better than what I have expected. Specially pop-out chat window is something Gmail team have a look at. I am wondering why Gmail never thought about giving extra features in pop-out window!
Update: Official site of gnubox is down from more than 3 months now. So all links now point to wayback archive pages. I have uploaded few gnubox versions I found here. If you get more, please mail them to rahul@devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw (October 14, 2008)
Yes, you read it right. I am not talking about using mobile to access internet on your PC. Its the opposite I am demonstrating here. So you will be able to use FREE internet on mobile. Of course, you may need to pay for internet service you use already on PC.
Now as with most mobile hacks, this is limited to symbian mobiles which includes almost all Nokia Series60 and Many Sony Ericsson phones.
Why do I need this?
Yep. I felt the same long time back and also left the idea, but our reader Manish wanted to know this. And now I am done with this I am finding this quite useful. I need internet on mobile only to update themes, games and other stuff. Downloading themes, softwares and other stuff on PC and then sending them to mobile is one option but I always find its tedious.
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This one is really better as its FREE and speed is much better than what GPRS ever offered!
How it will work?
We normally connect PC and Mobile for file transfer and data synchronization. One step ahead, we use GPRS on mobile to connect internet on PC side. All these means, two devices can connect to each other and share Internet. Only remaining possibility left to check was, can mobile dial/use/access internet on PC?
And here is the solution which will work for sure but may need some efforts…
Requirements…
A PC with internet connection. OS does not matter. Also it doesn’t matter how you connect to internet from PC.
A symbian handset with GnuBox – a free and open-source tool which will do thing on your handset.
mRouter to do things on PC side. Its optional but can save your lots of time. You can manually handle
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Now first requirement is obvious, lets take care of the remaining too…
Preparing PC side…
#using mRouter (Windows only)
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Windows user can download mRouter. Then install it on your PC and restart the machine.
Next you need to configure mRouter which is quick & easy. Tam Hanna explained it very well here.
#without mRouter
Now all major OS have internet connection sharing feature.
On windows, you need to add a new modem and attach it to COM port which is used fro Mobile-PC communication. As an example check this article for details on how to do it on Windows, Symbian Mobile & Bluetooth channel combo.
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Covering all details of other OS is not possible here. Check tutorials section below for a matching reference.
Thats it. I know it sounds a lot of work! But its worth it… 😉
I have done this on Nokia N70 and using mRouter on Windows XP machine. So I am quite sure it will work. Still if you stuck somewhere feel free to comment… 🙂
Facebook is testing a new one-to-one chat feature which will add much demanded instant messaging support.
Considering slowness of emails and hard-to find walls on cluttered facebook profile pages, this move will really improve communication with online facebook friends.
Following is a screenshot of this upcoming feature, courtesy CNN.
Yep, this looks more like Gmail chat feature with other notable similarities. It will also have option to pop-out chat into a separate window and a partial history feature where you can see and clear recent conversations. But Gmail being an email service, reside in a single window, while in facebook multiple profiles and other apps’ pages remain open in multiple windows at the same time. So it will be interesting to watch how this feature will be integrated?
One more thing, the same chat window will be used for other notifications like stories from news feeds, much like Orkuts scrap alerts feature.
Although in first release, there will not be any support for other instant messenger networks, Michael Arrington is hopeful about third parties figuring out a way to hack into the service as they’ve done with Yahoo, MSN and AIM in the past.
Long time back we reviewed meebo and other web-based messengers. All of them had one common problem – no support for Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Although many users prefer graphical and simple to use messengers like Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN, AIM, etc, IRC is still something many geeks can’t live without. But thanks to mibbit, now IRC is no more geeks territory.
Features…
Its free and registration is optional.
Tabbed conversation windows will give you feel of desktop clients.
Search feature to find IRC channels using keywords. Have database of 150,000+ channels across 49 IRC networks.
Works behind proxy. I tested it behind corporate firewall but being a plain online service it worked like a charm! 🙂
Built-in support for translation. You can translate your messages to another language or read others message in your language.
Pastebin support. If you are a programmer then you know how often we go to pastebin to share codes. Now you can do it right from mibbit.
Chat widget which you can add on your website (live example below…)
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Registered User get additional options…
My channel option – To save a list of favorite channels which can be automatically joined on logon.
Preferences – set colors, fonts, configure alerts, etc.
Logs – All conversations can be saved. This feature will be available soon.
I personally use IRC channels when working on wordpress plugins and firefox add-ons. But I always had some problems on windows machine. I don’t like to pay for mIRC and xchat (windows version). Also chatzilla failed to impress me as it doesn’t work behind firewalls in offices & colleges.
So I guess mibbit is best for windows, specially when you want to waste your office time! 😉
