Jay Lagare

General

Top S60 Applications: My Own List

By on Thursday, March 19, 2009

Aside from the enhanced calculator, I’ve installed a few really cool apps on my Nokia E51 that some might find useful:

  1. Joikuspot Light – Turns your phone into a wireless router and share your HSDPA signal (if you get one).  It’s free but supports only browsing (HTTP and HTTPS). The full version version offers more features.
  2. Opera Mini – A pretty nifty mobile browser. It uses a gateway that retrieves web pages for you, transforms it into a smaller mobile version, and sends the transformed pages to you. I prefer the built-in browser but Opera Mini has its place (like when your connection is slow).
  3. Fring – reach out and talk to your friend via you can interact with friends on all your favourite social networks Skype, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, SIP, Twitter, Yahoo!, AIM, and more!
  4. YouTube – Watch YouTube videos on your mobile phone. You need a fast network connection though.
  5. Google Maps – Turns your phone into a navigation device complete with map. It even shows your location with GPS or without (via cell site)! How cool is that?
  6. Google Mail – You can configure your email to check Google Mail via POP or IMAP but you can also download this app for checking your Gmail account on your phone.
  7. Google Sync – strictly speaking, not an app but this service allows you to synchronize your phone (just contacts for now) via SyncML
  8. GooSync – since Google Sync doesn’t handle calendar synchronization just yet, GooSync steps in between your phone and Google Calendar to provide you synchronization via SyncML.
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General

Enhanced Calculator For S60 Phones

By on Sunday, March 15, 2009

One of the irritating things about my new Nokia E51 is that the calculator is so damn crude! The calculator from my recently-departed 5310 is so much better. And to think it’s an S40 not-so-smartphone. Thankfully, Nokia is aware of the issues and has actually been working on a replacement calculator. It’s still in beta but you can already download and install it. Way better.

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General

Nokia E51

By on Friday, March 13, 2009

nokiae51My Nokia 5310 XpressMusic bit the dust after a horizontal fall. I went back to my trusty old Sony Ericsson K700i while searching for the perfect replacement phone.

The perfect replacement phone has to be small, slim, and most importantly black. My first choice, the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition fits the bill and is the coolest but is a bit too expensive. My second choice is still the Nokia 5310 which is the second coolest. Reason why I got one in the first place.

But lately, I was thinking of going back to my geeky roots and get a gadget phone. You know, those phones with everything but the kitchen sink. So what would that phone need to have? Bluetooth, GPRS (2.5G), EDGE (3G), HSDPA (3.5G), VoIP, WiFi, etc. aside from voice, SMS, and other phone things.

The Nokia E51 is all that (okay, less the GPS) and more. It comes from a line of business-oriented smartphones and so it has everything you need to remain connected wherever you may go. It’s so business-oriented it doesn’t even have Snake!!! But hey, all those three-letter acronyms is really where the fun is. So who cares, right? So I got it and so far I’m not disappointed.

UPDATE: Very good phone overall but after just over a year of use, ALL the rubber buttons along the sides have disintegrated. Talk about planned obsolescence. Makes me want to boycott Nokia.

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General

Retrenchment Galore

By on Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The global recession is surely taking its toll. Accenture, Branders, Lawson… everybody’s been hit. This morning, I got to the office and Joyce told me another wave of retrenchments, the third in the company so far, have hit. Needless to say, it is very demoralizing. The first time it happened, they said they’re letting go of people whose skills were no longer aligned with the strategic direction of the company. The second time it happened, they said they’re letting go of people with redundant skills. The sad thing was that it happened just as a project wrapped up and a lot of the people who toiled in the project were let go. That sucked even more since it was just before Christmas. Now the third time, almost everyone not involved in any project were let go. And each time,the severance package becomes less and less consoling. When will this end?

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