Eseries

Ever since I bought my first PDA I have been a big fan of device cradles. It helps me organize my cluttered desk while providing a natural place to put my device. In addition, the device is being charged and you can syncronize it at any time.

I was waiting for a USB cradle for the Nokia E61 to come along and when I saw one online I immediately placed an order. The packaging leaves a bit to be desired…. It's good that Mobile Planet / Expansys do their business online and are not a terra firma retailer

The package includes the cradle and a mini USB cable. Although there is support for AC, an adaptor is not included in the package. The  USB cradle will charge the Nokia E61 with the mini USB connected to a PC. The cradle feels very solid and stable. Nokia E61 fits perfectly in the USB cradle. Not too tight and definitely not too loose.

With a little nudge the Nokia E61 is connected with the cradle through the pop port and you instantly see the familiar "Select mode" screen. Syncing with PC suite and charging the device worked like a charm.

I wish the cradle had support for charging additional batteries through something like a slot on the back. It's not a big shortcoming but it would have been a nice to have. However, I still think the cradle is well worth the modest cost of $24.95. Highly recommended! 

I am slowly but surely catching up on questions and feedback I have received while on vacation. I should have replied to all email by tomorrow. I am sorry it has taken a while for some of you to hear back from me.

It will be another few days before the blog postings are back to normal. In the meanwhile, here are some photos from my vacation.

Vacation is nice but there is no place like home! Especially when you come home and find a few notices of delivery attempts from FedEx and UPS. I ordered some gadgets that now are waiting for their new home. With a bit of luck I can pick them up tonight and post something tomorrow. Stay tuned….

It will take me a while to get up to speed with email, comments and postings so please bear with me for the next few days.

I want to thank Daniel for blogging here while I was on vacation. I enjoyed reading his posts from my E61 in Europe
I am sad to see that e60blog is temporarily put on hold. However, I will do my best to convince Daniel to continue to post here until he revives his blog.

Thanks Daniel~! 

After three months, 62 posts, 1,057 comments and 257 deleted spam comments it's time for some vacation with the family.

During my absence I have asked my friend and colleague Daniel over at e60blog to post here from time to time. However, from now until August 28th there will be fewer posts here. 

When I get back from vacation you can expect posts about cases and other third party accessories for the Nokia E61, GPS solutions and of course more "must have software" posts.  On the recommendation of many readers I will also set up a forum for E-Series. Many have written to me asking for a forum. By setting up the forum it will be easier to track the progression of certain topics that now "live" in the various blog entries. Another goal is also to make it easier to keep the comments more on topic.

To do in Europe:
1. Enjoy quality time with the family
2. See the sights
3. Visit every Nokia service center until I manage to get the new firmware
4. See if I can pick up any E-Series related gadget paraphernalia. Perhaps even a Nokia E60 or a Nokia E50

See you all August 28th! 

I added five new themes to the Nokia E61 Theme Page. It's nice with variety but I don't think these themes can compete with OrangeBlue, Aqua, BlueDream or White. I get the feeling that I am scraping the barrel so these are the last themes I will post for a while. (Unless Roman, Daniel and Pfleuger cranks out some more quality themes

Not sure who the author of these themes are - if you know please drop me a note. I zipped all the themes and made them available for download.

Day and Night by ? 

Thanks Kshitij

Several readers have contacted me about Cingular Video on the Nokia E61. Some have had problems setting it up and some have just written to say how much they like it. I decided to give it a try.

These are the steps that I went through in order to make it work. It's seems as if there are different approaches to get Cingular Video to work on the Nokia E61 but one thing is sure - it does work.

The process to make it work can unfortunately be a bit cumbersome. Some have no problem at all but for others it takes some tweaking. It's good if you have a large dose of patience when you start.

I started off trying to connect to cingularvideo.cingular.com using my three standard access points. None of them would connect successfully to the site so I used the Nokia carrier setting configurator, described here, to get additional settings for Cingular. I tried each one of those settings but I still couldn't connect. I got various error messages or just a blank page that wouldn't load. 

I decided to make myself a MEdia Net access point. I used the new access point option to create a new access point and made some minor changes to it.

I left everything in the standard setting as is but changed the following in the "Advanced Settings" I changed the Proxy server setting to > wireless.cingular.com and the Proxy port to 80.

Those simple changes made it possible for me to successfully connect to cingularvideo.cingular.com 

However, the first time I tried to click on a link I got an error message saying that I had to sign up for "MEdia Max" I clicked "Ignore & Don't Show Again" and  could connect and watch the video clips.

The clip launches the RealPlayer and takes a few seconds to launch. The quality is actually quite good. 

Until now, I wasn't convinced that mobile TV or TV on the Go would be something compelling for mobile phones but after trying this out I can see how this is just going to get better and better in the future. It's great being able to catch up on the Daily Show while waiting in line at Peet's Coffee.

6dVczqDNMrI

Richard sent me this photo of his dissected Nokia E60. He doesn't have any more images of the disassembling process but reports that the device is still working after putting the pieces back together. (I hope this one doesn't make your stomach turn Daniel

Thanks Richard! 

In preparation for my upcoming vacation to Europe next week I decided to try to find some relevant applications for the Nokia E61. I came across three applications by Handmark. A company I know very well from my Treo carrying days.

I found three applications I will bring to my vacation in Europe: The Michelin Guide, The Green Guide and CNN Mobile News.

The Michelin Guide and the Green Guide are fourteen day trials but the CNN application is an advertising (very unobtrusive) subsidised free application.

It's a side note but I really don't mind when free applications or services are paid for by advertising. A great deal for everyone involved in my opinion. Of course I would prefer everything to be free but until that happens I prefer "free" because of advertising.

All three applications rely on data connections so if you worried about your data usage these applications might not be for you.

The applications are all available as over-the-air downloads. Just go to eu.handmark.com on your Nokia E61. Click on "downloads" and that will take you to the page with all three applications.

The Michelin Guide application let's you search for hotels and restaurants by categories, rating, location etc. Search results can be saved to a favourite list.

The Green Guide looks and works like the Michelin Guide application. It let's you search for tourist attractions by categories, locations and type of attraction etc.

I am not terribly impressed with the Michelin and the Green Guides but perhaps some real life usage of the applications will change my mind.

However, I did find the CNN Mobile News application well worth downloading and keeping. I don't think I will rely on the application as my primary source of news but if you have a minute or two to spare and want to see what is going on, then this is a great application. 

The application is easy to use, includes images and the text is quite large. The news selection doesn't feel terribly important but as a quick update it is great - and free ;-) 

Now head over to eu.handmark.com on your Nokia E61 to download these applications. 

Many of us are painfully aware of Kodawarisan who takes apart (and hopefully put back together) any Apple hardware he can find. Andres over at Risotto sent me a message and told me that he Disassembled a Nokia E61 - I cringed~! when I read that but after looking at the pictures I feel a bit better. However, I wouldn't recommend this for the faint of heart. 

Thanks Andres.

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 am not quite sure who the creator is of this Nokia E61 theme but it seems like a nice variation of Mac OSX desktop "Aqua Graphite"  The name of the theme is MacGraphite_N71.

Thanks Jussy

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.

The Nokia E61 Theme repository page has been updated with some new themes. Daniel from e60Blog has created a very simple and useful theme, appropriately called "White". If you sometimes are having a hard time reading on your Nokia E61 in dimly lit locations then this one's for you. It's simple white with black text - can't get much more legible than that.Keep up the good work Daniel!

Drop me note if you know of any other good Nokia E61 themes not included on the Nokia E61 Theme page.

Although I use Bluetooth to connect my PC or Mac to my Nokia E61 on a daily basis I have never been a big fan of Bluetooth headsets.

I didn't think the convenience of not having a wired microphone was worth the inconvience of having something slightly dicomfortable stuck on/in your ear as well as sacrificing sound quality. The sound quality of my previous BT headset that was not up to par with what I got from a wired microphone. Well, that was then! Fast forward a few years.

Since it's been several years since my last experience with Bluetooth headsets I thought it was time to give the concept of BT headsets a second try.

After reading a good review of the Nokia BH-900 Bluetooth Headset I decided to give it a try.

Wow, a lot has happened since I last tried out a BT headset! The BH-900 has 8 hours of talk time and only weighs 18g (.6oz). It also has a built in noise reduction and echo cancellation feature so the sound quality is very impressive. I have only used it for about a week but so far I am very happy and impressed.

The set up was a breeze. It took less than a minute to pair the Nokia E61 with the BH-900. 

I received a rather urgent message from a reader - Nick, who is having trouble setting up his boss' Nokia E61. Nick is short of time and his tail is on the line for this one…

Nick writes:
"I just upgraded my boss to a E61 from a Treo 650. My problem is this - whenever I try to get one of the special blue characters on a key, eg. the @ symbol - the character doesn't show up after I press theblue key and the key itself.For instance,Blue key + "a" should be a quote marks.  Instead, I get the yen sign.Blue key + "." should be a hyphen or underscore; instead I get nothing. Blue key + "s" should be an "@" sign; instead I get a dollar sign."Can you please help me out on this, or post something about this? I really need help - my boss is leaving soon and my tail is on the line."

I have very little experience regarding the various keyboard layouts and language versions that exist.  I thought I should throw this one out there for all readers with far more expertise than I have to chime in with their suggestions and ideas. Nick's boss' Nokia E61 was purchased from Hi-Mobile.net.

Let me start off with the basics. The first thing I would do is to see what languages your device support. Look under Phone Settings and see what options you have. Can you switch to a different language that better corresponds to the keyboard layout?

Everyone - let's all help Nick. Remember, his neck is on the line.