Blackberry Playbook Update - OS 2.0

Finally RIM released the new operating system for Playbook today, 21th of February.
I Haven't had a lot of time to use it but the most important features are: 

- Messages (email client)

- Contacts 

- Calendar

I completed the setup with a Gmail account in just a few seconds, the synchronization seems to work (the calendar and contacts were filled in very fast).

I didn't succeed in syncing with a free Yahoo Mail account (an invalid SMTP server setting issue).

The three apps Messages, Calendar and Contacts seem to work only in landscape mode.

A new interesting app/feature is called PrintToGo. It allows you to copy documents from your computer to your Playbook. Actually you can print the documents to your Playbook using a virtual printer. 

Check it you, it's cool.

Nokia Belle on Nokia E7

Nokia Belle released for "old" models

It's been a few months since Nokia announced the release of Symbian Belle, the new version of Symbian powered phones.

Well, on the 8th of February the update was finally released. The new Symbian Belle is now called Nokia Belle. Nokia seems to be dropping the Symbian name and they are doing the same Ovi. Maybe the brand Nokia is more powerful without the two names...

Installation

Nokia Belle can be installed on the latest phones like E7,C7, N8, E6 etc. To check if your phone is going to receive the update, check this site out: http://europe.nokia.com/symbian-belle.

For installation you must connect the phone to your computer, and using the PcSuite software (or however they call it now) you can easily get your phone up'n'running.

Fist thoughts

After the first update (to Symbian Anna) I was a little skeptical about the new update, but then again, I still had a little bit of hope. It was really a shame that I couldn't use my Nokia E7 because of the slow, weird operating system. I mean, Nokia E7 is a really awesome phone: it has aluminum casing, qwerty keyboard, AMOLED display, enough CPU (~600Mhz), WiFi, A-GPS and I can go on and on.

I installed Nokia Belle:

- it seems to be faster

- flexible widgets (you can move them around at what position you desire)

- 6 tabs for internet browsing (accessible by 1 button click - that is really)

- Android style notification bar (also you can toggle Wifi, Mobile Data, Bluetooth, Silent Mode)

Overall, Nokia Belle is a really interesting update, a  breath of fresh air at a first  glance!

Everybody update!!!

Symbian Programming - still impossible to do

During the last four years I've attempted to write native apps for Symbian powered phones - mainly Nokia. 

I tried taking up programming in C for Symbian a few times but the coding style, program structure, signing process gave me headaches every time.

After seeing QT code I said to myself: "well, this looks human enough - let's give it a try".

As I am writing this post, it's the second or third time I've tried to install the QT Sdk from Nokia and build & run a HELLO WORLD project on their Emulator/Simulator. It's  a shame to say that on a clean Windows XP Sp3 installation, the QT Sdk installer yield an error, reinstalled it - another error.

Created a simple blank application, another error: "module com.nokia.symbian is not installed". 

WTF Nokia - this is just out of the box! It's really extremely annoying - without trying to do anything fancy I JUST DOESN'T WORK?! The same stuff happened with the old C for Symbian setup - you would get like 100 warnings when trying to compile one of their samples provided with their installer...

This is why IOS & Android are 100 lightyears in front of the old rusty Symbian.

I give up...

Laptop touchpad connected to PS/2

In recent posts I wrote about connecting a laptop's touchpad to a desktop using a PS/2 connector. Here are some pictures with the touchpad. Enjoy!

Synaptics Touchpad on PS/2

In an earlier post I wrote about my attempt to take out a Synaptics Touchpad form a laptop and connect it to my computer's PS/2 plug. 

The Synaptics Touchpad pinout seems to be different for each model, so be careful not to fry the  circuit! Triple check every pin and connection before you power this up. Also remember that the touchpad is not plug and play: you need to connect it to your computer before powering it on.

I have used a Synaptics T1006 0544 touchpad. 

The pinouts for the PS/2 keyboard connector and the Synaptics T1006 0544 touchpad can be viewed in the schematic below.

Synaptics Touchpad to PS/2 connector. 

You can observe in the schematic that I only connected the communication pins (Vcc, Ground, Clock, Data).

The pins Left Click, Right Click, Scroll Left, Scroll Right, Scroll Up, Scroll Down can be linked to external buttons (I haven't done that because the Synaptics software allows default scrolling and normal tapping).

For the right mouse button you can define a corner of the touchpad that when tapped will trigger the right mouse click action.

Good luck!

Laptop touchpad for my desktop

I like laptop touchpads (almost every laptop I've ever used had a touchpad that behaved well). I also like computer mice as input devices. 

Everyone knows that with a good mouse you can do just about everything - from browsing to multimedia editing - sound, video and even fine graphics. 

What about the touchpad then? They say it's not a very precise input device. I think they're wrong. Back in the days, I was playing Counterstrike using my laptop's touchpad and I was good too.

The cool thing about the touchpad is not having to move your right arm away from the center of the keyboard every time you need to access a different object on the screen. You just need to move your thumb from the Space key to the touchpad (1 cm movement). That's faster and more efficient.

After switching to a desktop computer, I've been searching for years a keyboard with integrated touchpad. Most of the keyboards with touchpads have the touchpad instead of the Numerical Keys (in the right) or under the Arrow Keys. That is not ergonomically correct.

One day, the revolutionary Steve Jobs had an ideea: What if we made the macbook's trackpad a standalone version for the desktop users? This way, Apple's Magic Trackpad was born. The Magic Trackpad has a big working surface and it's wireless. It is tilted to and angle similar to Apple's keyboard. It's designed to be placed in the left side or the right side of the keyboard. You can't place it between you and the keyboard, under the space button, because of that angle. 

Because the Apple Magic Trackpad wasn't helping me, and I couldn't find any good keyboards with touchpads, I decided to dig a little bit  more. 

If you open a laptop and look inside it, you'll find a slim, small touchpad that's linked to the mainboard with a flex cable. And so the big question raises: Can we use a touchpad from a laptop on a desktop? 

Well, the answer is: WE CAN! Laptop touchpads are communicating with the laptop via a PS/2 interface. If you can extract the touchpad from the laptop and properly connect it to the PS/2  interface on your desktop, then, you've got yourself a new Desktop Touchpad.

I managed to take a touchpad from an old Acer Travelmate 2410 and connect it to the desktop. I'm using it as I write this post. I will write a technical tutorial on how I did all the work. Stay tuned!

G1 rooting & battery issues

HTC Dream - alias Google G1 - was the first Android powered phone ever to be released. Full slide qwerty keyboard, wifi, gps, camera. What more could you wish for? Well you might want to tether your phone's internet connection via WiFi or bluetooth. For internet tethering you must have on your device an Android operating system greater than 1.6 & also root rights. 

Now, the rooting process for HTC G1 has been explained everywhere on the internet, I won't go into details. 

Here are a few very very very IMPORTANT things you must keep in mind when rooting your Android device (in our case HTC G1):

1. Use an SD card partitioned accordingly when installing the new operating system. For example, AmonRa has an option that partitions your sd card for installing the new operating system.
2. If your new Android doesn't load as expected:

• wipe everything - (using AmonRa's menu)
• allow the OS to start (5-10 minutes)

3. Battery live troubleshooting:

• calibrate your battery if it drains fast
• overcharging the battery will damage it.
• It seems that overcharging a battery, even if it's a li-ion damages the battery in time. The HTC Dream battery, when damaged will slightly change its shape. Notice how the battery is not flat any more and can be rotated freely on a flat surface. Even you can't see this only by visual inspecting the battery, the deformation exists. Check out the movie below to see how to spot a faulty battery that needs to be replaced.  
• If you phone goes dead in a few minutes when running on battery - don't reinstall the Android OS 1000 times, it's a hardware problem - the battery must be replaced.