Eseries

My Nokia E61i is amazing! I have dropped the device on concrete, tile and asphalt and it is still going strong. Not even a noticeable scratch!

I thought I killed the device for good the other day when it slid down from the roof of my car. (I put it balancing on a bunch of books on the car roof) But despite the fall it worked great. It didn't even drop the call I was on!

However, it is good to know that there are several online vendors specializing in selling (original) spare parts for Nokia Eseries devices. Among the parts you can buy are keyboards, LCD displays, Nokia Eseries housing, microphones, camera, speakers etc.

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I've come across some good collections of url's for mobile optimized websites before but this one, PDA Mobile Sites at Cantoni.org, is really good and very extensive.

It is categorized so that you can find the relevant links to business, information, entertainment sites etc.

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As several readers have pointed out, the newly released Yahoo! Go 2.0 for Nokia Eseries is somewhat sluggish and a bit bloated from a memory consumption point of view.

So what are the alternatives if your favourite colour is Purple and can't live without access to your Yahoo! email from your Nokia Eseries device?

Well, it depends.

If you live in a region where Yahoo! allows POP3 access you can use the same settings for the native client on your Nokia Eseries device. However, in the US and some other regions POP3 access is not standard and part of a "premium" package.

You might still be in luck if your carrier has an agreement with Yahoo! and possibly also provided you with access to Yahoo! email through Seven Always On or some other third party application.

However, if you can't access Yahoo! through POP3 or through your operator you might want to try out the following IMAP settings to access Yahoo! email on your Eseries device.

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One shortcoming of the built in address book application of the Eseries devices is that you cannot search contacts by company name.

Sure, there are additional software that you could add/use to overcome this issue (we will get to those applications later) but here is a quick solution for which you don’t need any additional software.

Just open up a new text message, type the company name in the “To” field and then press in the center key. The contact information which includes the company name you searched for will be displayed.

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I am amazed that I still stumble across and discover shortcuts for the Nokia E61 (and other Eseries/S60 3rd edition devices) that I didn't know existed.

The other day I discovered that holding down the "End Key" will bring up a screen asking whether you want to close the active data connection or not. It might not be the most commonly used feature but nevertheless I think it is cool that the shortcut exist. (more…)

There are a number of more or less known shortcuts for the Nokia E61. Here are a few shortcuts specifically for the calendar application.

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By judging from the search queries that bring traffic to e-series.org I think there is a big increase in the number of readers who are new to Nokia’s E-Series devices. I suspect that many of those readers have the Nokia E62 and might not be as familiar with S60 3rd edition or the Nokia E-Series devices as “long” time readers are.

Here’s a tip from Vinit, especially* for new Nokia E62 users - How to reduce the steps needed to create a text message.

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A reader pointed out the inconsistency between the Nokia E61 and the Nokia E62 in regards to solving the issue of “Certificate Error” when installing applications and themes. Since the “Certificate Error” is the most commonly asked question I thought I should highlight this again, for the benefit of our new readers whom I suspect are Nokia E62 users.

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If you don't use a push email service such as the BlackBerry Connect on your Nokia E61/E62 it can be hard to track what emails you send from your mobile device. Here is a tip to to get your email acccount outbox in sync. (Something that is very important for business users)

1) set up an email account (for an example e61@xxxx.com) - this is only to be used for receiving messages from the e61.

2) When you send an email from your Nokia E61 BCC, it to the address you have set-up.

3) In outlook (or any other mail program that allows rules) set up a rule that any email sent to the e61 account, (associated with your device), is marked as read and moved to the sent folder.

That way you always keep a record of what you sent.

Thanks for the tip Charles! 

I really like the standby screen of the Nokia E61. It gives you as the end user a great deal of flexibility in the way you set up the layout.

The standard set up with the left selection key mapped to "Notes" and the right selection key mapped to "Contacts" worked pretty well for me. However, when I started thinking of my own usage pattern I realized that I could sacrifice Notes as the left selection key.

As I have mentioned before I am a data hog. I send a lot of emails and SMS. In order to optimize the standby screen of my Nokia E61 I decided to set it up accordingly.

To change the layout of the selection keys go to Menu > Tools > Settings > Phone > Standby mode

I decided that the best usage of the left selection key was to map it to "New text msg."

You can map the selection keys to any applications and browser bookmarks. The selection is surprisingly large when you scroll down the list of options.

While I was rearranging the selection keys I decided to also also move the the "New text msg" function in the "Active standby apps" setting.

I moved the New text msg function from the 7th spot, last, up to the first spot. This way I have two buttons that provides me with a easy access to creating a new text message. The first way is the one click option of using left selection key and the second way is to use the joystick. This could potentially also be a one click selection depending on where you "park" the joystick selection.

I admit that it is a bit excessive to dedicate two such important keys to one task. I plan to reassign one of key to another function when I have figured out which layout I prefer to use for accessing New text msg.

Needless to say you can map the right and left selection keys and the Active standby applications to any application. I encourage you to tweak the layout and set up of your Nokia E61 to get a more optimized layout that fits with your usage scenario.

Whenever I get a new device I inevitably enter a period of trying to shave off time or steps to perform certain tasks. Per this and my previous post  I can safely say that I have entered that period. I try to find shortcuts that help me perform the tasks that I perform over and over again on my Nokia E61.

I use the the built in numeric shortcuts for the various folder/application positions on the device.

It might appear trifle but I prefer using these numeric shortcuts instead of navigating to the appropriate folder or application using the joystick. I imagine that I save second or two  

To further cut down time I also rearranged the layout of the folders on the menu screen. Since you always "land" on the 6th spot I consider that prime real estate. I decided to move the folder I access more than any other folder - "Installed" to that location.

Now I always "land" on Installed when I press the menu key. Tomorrow I'll write about how I have optimized my Active Standby screen. 

I send and receive a a lot of SMS and emails. Consequently my message inboxes quickly gets clogged with messages. The problem is that I want to keep some messages while throwing out most of them. Instead of going throw my message inboxes and deleting message after message, and saving a few messages, I am using two ways to cut down on time to clean up my message inboxes.

The first way to manage this is to mark the messages I want to delete. I do this by holding down the shift key (arrow up) while moving the joystick up or down. That will mark the messages I want to delete. I then press the backspace key and that will prompt a message asking if I want to delete them.

The second way of quickly cleaning out my mailboxes is by selecting "Mark All" and then do the reverse. For each message I want to keep I press the shift key (arrow up) while pressing in the joystick, or if I want to deselect several messages keep the shift key pressed in while moving the joystick up or down. I then use the backspace key to delete the marked messages.

Setting up the voicemail number is something most of us only do once per device. If you for some reason need to change your voicemail number it can be hard to find the setting.

A friend of mine entered the wrong voicemail number when setting up his Nokia E61 and then spent hours trying to find where to change this. You might think that the settings is part of the general "phone" setting but it is not. The settings is tucked away under "organizer".

Once you find it you can easily change your voicemail number.

As I have mentioned in passing before - I am a switcher. I have used a number of smartphones over the last few years. My past devices of choice have primarily been Treos. I have used a few other devices in between but I've stuck with the Treo more or less since the introduction of the Treo 180.

I am interested in hearing from other "switchers". I expect that there are a quite a few whom like me took the jump from a different device and quite possibly also a different platform. I'd like to put together some information aimed at helping us switchers and make the transition from one device to the Nokia E61 as easy as possible.

I am not interested in hearing how much you miss feature X from product Y but instead how you came up with a solution or a fix. If you miss a feature/application/shortcut from a different device what are you using now? If your favorite application is not yet available for the Nokia E61 what replacement application are you using? What information would have been helpful to know when you made the switch to the Nokia E61. 

Use the contact form and share your tips and ideas with me. 

I'll share an example of something that was an issue for me when I first got my Nokia E61. If you have used Nokia devices for a long time this will seem so trivial to you but if you are new to Symbian and Nokia perhaps you can relate.

I am often on conference calls and have long thought that automatic dialing of DTMF numbers, those extra digits that control pass codes for telephone banking, voicemail etc. have been a God sent. I had no problem setting them up on my previous devices but couldn't figure out how to do it on the Nokia E61. I just wanted to be able to dial a number and then have the DTMF tones dialed automatically.

Naturally, I didn't start reading the manual! Instead I used my combined knowledge and experience from previous devices to try to set it up. Nothing worked! I tried to use comma, punctuation but it didn't work. I also asked a few friends and none of them seem to know it.

Desperate I started reading the manual. Take a look at the below text - it sure as %$#@ didn't help me. I still couldn't figure out how to make the DTMF tones dial *automatically*. I could enter them as part of an address book but couldn't understand how to make them dial directly after the main number. 

Anyhow, I finally figured out, with no thanks to the manual, that I should enter "w" or "p" directly following the number in the address book and then the extra digits. As I mentioned, if you have used Nokia devices before it is the most natural thing but for me it was a big issue. Had I known this when I switched to the Nokia E61 it would have saved me hours.

So let me know what your tips and advice are for people switching to the Nokia E61. 

The Nokia E61 has a great tool for keeping track of the device's complete communication history - the log files. In the log files you can see detailed information about Recent Calls, Call Duration and Packet Data.

In Recent Calls you can find information about missed and received calls and what numbers you have dialled. You can also dial and manage numbers from the Recent Calls log. You can set the length for which the logs you should be stored.

There is nothing truly unique about these types of logs. They have been a standard feature for quite some time. However, when you are using an advanced device such as the Nokia E61 you will be surprised by the information in the log.

If someone would have asked me to guess how much I have been using the E61 I would have been completely off. Never would I have guessed that I have been on the phone for 22 hours!

What is even more surprising to me is how much data I have been using. Oh boy - am I glad I signed up for an unlimited data package…. phew! Over 40 MB of data.

What is even more surprising is that this is less than 30 days' of usage and I have NOT been using the Nokia E61 as a modem for my computer - I know that can rack up the data pretty quickly. No, this is data I used on the device.

A word of advice - keep an eye on those log files. It's a great device and if you are anything like me you will use it a lot… 

Quite a few readers have contacted me regarding problems installing applications on their Nokia E61. When installing <insert application name here> they get the following error message “Certificate Error contact the application supplier”. I have previously written about this in the comments section and in the FAQ but it is probably good to highlight it again.

For added protection against “malware” there is rather strict application signing procedure implemented for S60 3rd edition. The device comes with the standard setting to check for proper signatures and will not install applications unless they are correctly signed. Although the intention behind mandatory application signing is good it locks out applications that for some reason are not signed and approved. To accept all applications and solve this issue:Go to Tools > App. mgr > Options > Settings Change “software installation” from “Signed Only” to “All” and “Onlline certic check” to “off”. This will most likely solve your problem regarding installing unsigned application. However, please be aware that you turned off one extra layer of security for the device. Your IT department might not approve of this. I normally don't worry too much about malware or viruses but it is a good role of thumb to only download and install applications from known sources.

Update: I've created a separate post for how to solve the "Certificate Error" on the Nokia E62.

When connecting to Gmail, does the following message ring a bell - "This site has sent an untrusted certificate. Continue anyway?" If it does you might want to consider changing your settings for Gmail on your Nokia E61.

If you change your outgoing mail server setting for gmail from "smtp.gmail.com" to "smtp.googlemail.com" and

your incoming mail server setting from "pop.gmail.com" to "pop.googlemail.com" on your Nokia E61 you will no longer recieve the untrusted certificate warning. 

You can now connect directly to gmail from your Nokia E61 without having the message pop-up. Four seconds and one click saved per connection

Imagine that you misplace your precious Nokia E61. A tragedy in itself but with the amount of information on the device it could be a disaster. There is a great, built-in feature that lets you lock your Nokia E61 remotely. This trick could save your day by preventing unauthorised access to your Nokia E61.

The only thing you need to do is to enable this feature and set up the lock code. You send an SMS with the lock code to your device to turn on the lock.

Go to Tools > Settings 

Security > Phone and SIM. Scroll down to "Allow remote lock" and toggle to yes.

Enter a remote lock code of at least 5 numbers and/or digits. 

Verify your remote lock code and then confirm the setting with your device lock code.

The default device lock code for all Nokia E61 is 12345. If you haven't already change your device lock code I encourage you to change it. Once you have confirmed with the lock code you have enabled remote lock of your Nokia E61.

By sending an SMS with the lock code in the message to your device you can now lock it down. 

Although this is far from an "enterprise strength" device management solution it is a great way to protect your device. Since this feature comes standard on all Nokia E61 (all S60 3rd edition devices) why not use it. It might save you one day.

I have used a number of different mobile operating systems over the years. However, I am actually a fairly new user to Symbian S60.

A feature I today take for granted, but was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it, is the ability to see all active/open applications and easily move between the applications. I am sure that many are familiar with this feature but if you like me, move to the Nokia E61 from the Treo or from another non Nokia based Smartphone it might be a feature that you are new to. I am sure you will find this nifty little feature very useful.

Press and hold down the menu key (the key directly to the right of the joystick) to see a list of all active applications. You can easily switch between the applications on your Nokia E61 by using the joystick. As a reader, kindly pointed out, to close an open application press the backspace key. Jim, another supportive reader pointed out that you can also use the application key to step through and select an app from the list.  A short press will highlight the next app on the list, a long press will switch you to it.

It's very simple but one of the shortcuts/features I use daily on my Nokia E61.