Nice to see.  Click here to get the details.

See this box of grapes on the counter in a shopping mall. You can see part of the counter and the box as well as the grapes.

There is a lot of pixel noise so the color filters do not work well here. The image was taken under artificial light.

fruits

So this is my first non Linux-related post on this blog. I depend heavily on my mobile phone for productivity, time management and web connectivity. For me talking on the phone is just an alternative use of the device itself although over time that could probably change.

One of many things I’ve learned from Linux is adopting minimalism. A simple approach to getting work done. Minimalism in interfaces is always important when it comes to reaching out to the user, be it on the desktop or the handheld. GNOME offers a minimalistic approach to things and that is one of the reasons why Ubuntu is quite a popular Linux distribution. Some users I understand, state Ubuntu’s simplicity as one of the factors that won them over.

Drifting back to handhelds, I’ve applied minimalism to the way I use my phone and I’ve realized that its about as feature-rich as something like say the Blackberry, when it comes to meeting my needs. I’m not suggesting my requirements are the same as everyone’s, no. But I happen to own a Nokia E51 and I think that it is reasonably at par with the iPhone and the Blackberry with the addition of a few third party applications, in providing me with a productive and enjoyable mobile experience.

So I’ll just go over the features I require and how my good old E51 meets them quite effectively.

Camera - Was never a priority at the time of purchase, so it didn’t bother me that there was no flash along with it. The BlackBerry, as I recall offered a 1.3MP camera more than a year ago, and now its just bumped up to 2.0MP. Which is hardly spectacular. So I just lack a built-in camera flash then. No biggie.

Media Player - Nokia provides its own Music Player and Real Player for my basic multimedia needs. It does fine for basic mp3 playback and video codecs for .avi and others. The screen factor is ultimately a personal choice so my 320×240 suits me just fine.

Instant Messaging – This is where the Symbian platform, more than Nokia itself, comes in. Nimbuzz manages my Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, GTalk and MSN protocol usage. From what I’ve seen the BlackBerry doesn’t manage the former two and both the Berry and the iPhone can manage it with 3rd party applications. So that’s pretty much the same with me.

Web Browsing – Nokia’s default browser is alright. I prefer Opera Mini though, the killer feature for me is simply hotkey support to enable me to navigate faster. With Opera Mini 5 in beta phase  development at the moment, a quick spin of this latest development version showed that there is promise in this release. If you do give it a try and you happen to use Opera on your desktop, you’ll be more than happy to see the direction they’re taking with the mobile browser.

Email – This is an interesting one. Now I’m not a businessman nor am I currently employed. As a student, my email requirement is simple – Gmail via IMAP.  Basically, I need to be able to do the basics – reading, sending, deleting, etc so it doesn’t seem like a mammoth task. The Gmail mobile application fits the bill as it pretty much replicates Gmail’s functionality and even supports hotkeys which is a priority for me, be it on the mobile or PC.

Maps – Again, its another Google product, Google Maps, that does the job well enough. There are new features released now and then – Latitude, for instance, though basic navigation and directions seem to be covered and that itself is sufficient.

Personal Information Management (PIM) – This is a term that I used so often when reviewing KDE releases and now I’ll use it here to sum up the functionality of the calendar, organizer, notes and to-dos provided in the E51. Dedicated keys help immensely so even if you do have to make a few touches on the iPhone to access PIM tools, then the E51 isn’t too different. Functionality-wise, with the recent addition of Google Calendar and Mail support via Exchange using Google Sync, Symbian and the iPhone benefit from using web services again.

Office – QuickOffice is provided by default and a free upgrade to the latest version which supports Office 2007 file viewing is also available. Adobe Reader Lite is present for viewing PDF files so as far as viewing office files is concerned, the essentials are in place. A simple file manager is present as well for accessing documents so there’s no need for thumbnails or anything fancy.

Web 2.0 – Facebook Chat as I mentioned was covered by Nimbuzz. I update my Twitter feed via Opera Mini. There is a YouTube application for Symbian, and I can sometimes have videos linked via Opera Mini to stream in Real Player, which is neat. Mobbler is a fine Last.fm scrobbler and works well with Nokia’s Music Player.

Wi-Fi – This is the most important feature of the E51 in my opinion (again it was at the time of purchase). In fact I didn’t even have wireless access for a long time and it was only a few months ago that I setup a wireless home network (not much of a network if its just the phone and the PC but hey, I like using the terminology). So with wi-fi I can actually use most of the features I’ve described above to their full potential.

Ergonomics – This is one I am surprised to find myself writing about. I’ve realized that I end up doing a lot of things with one hand quickly, so an iPhone would be a bit different in this case. Using BlackBerry might not let me face that issue, but hey I don’t want to get one anyway. Other than that the E51 is pretty small and sleek and thanks to personal care it shines even a year after its purchase. A friend of mine was nervous holding it the first time I got it, the polish seemed to make it look delicate to him. A year on, he still glanced at it nervously once when I showed it to him.

Just looking at this iPhone feature list provided by Apple, there is little that my E51 can’t do:

• Compass – I don’t think I’d use it even if I owned an iPhone. With life moving so fast and commuting via train to college and stuff, there’s hardly any requirement for direction at the moment.
• Landscape Keyboard - Well, I don’t have QWERTY keys anyway, but my friends don’t realize when I’m chatting with them from Nimbuzz or the PC. It’s true.
• Accessibility - Not required personally, so nothing further on that one.
• Stocks - Again, something that I don’t use but if I had to there’s probably an application out there for Symbian or even Java that I could use.

Now at the end of it all, you’d question why on Earth would I go on in detail about my phone when I could just quietly buy an iPhone or something. Well, firstly, you’d have to gift it to me or win a lottery or go the old fashioned “beg-borrow-steal” way and produce one for me. In the event that you can’t do so, don’t fret. My E51 is rock solid, and at Rs. 10,000 (roughly $215 USD) it is well worth the money.

A strange observation I’ve made is that a lot of people don’t tend to utilize something like an iPhone or BlackBerry to its full potential. It’s strange indeed. There are several possibilities with the iPhone as far as 3rd party applications go, I believe. Symbian isn’t far behind, even on my phone, which is running v3 FP1. There is, you could argue, a slight aesthetic drawback to using multiple 3rd-party applications. You miss the feeling of uniformity in your applications. But this is minor and is likely to be present only when you use less native S60 applications. Undoubtedly, though I tend to receive a good speed gain, even at the cost of uniformity.

I think that should cover what I had in mind right now. Until my next experiment, see you when I see you.

If you are an executive in the market for a suitable cell phone, Nokia’s E series offers the best bang for the buck. The Nokia E51 is the latest from the venerable E series, and an apt successor to the hugely popular E50 model, which it will eventually replace. The Nokia E51 brings in new features at a price that’s hard to beat.

The keypad is completely revised, with dedicated keys for Contacts, Calendar,

E-mail and Home. The soft menu keys, however, are too small for comfort. The rest of the keypad is a delight—good tactile feedback, and key spacing is immaculate. The rubberised keys for volume up / down, push-to-talk and power are hard to operate, though.

The E51 feels peppy—it uses the same processor as on the flagship N95. With 130 MB of memory on board, you can do a lot of multitasking without the phone getting sluggish, and the memory can be expanded to 4 GB via the microSD slot (a 512 MB card comes bundled). The E51 runs on Symbian OS Series 60, and crams in lot of features besides the standard set. Most of these will go down well with executives—for example, the Advance call manager lets you manage incoming and outgoing calls efficiently. In addition, WorldMate, an application for frequent fliers, comes bundled.

I’ve been eyeing this mobile phone for quite some time. But it took me a month to finally acquire one. I searched through a lot of electronics stores and there even came a point that I almost lost hope in having the phone in my hands after hearing that they’re out of this stock. So what am I talking about? It’s the Nokia E51 from its Eseries.

candybar semblance

What exactly caught my attention is its slim and compact design, considering that E51 is a business phone. Some even say that it looks like a candy bar. It comes in three different colors: White Steel, Grey Steel and Black Steel. I chose the one that resembles a chocolate bar because it just looks so sleek.

Don’t let this small phone (it weighs 100 grams) fool you for it has a lot of incredible features. Since it’s basically designed for busy professionals, everything that they might need for work is just keypad presses away. It has office applications that support word documents, excel files and powerpoint presentations. The mobile phone also has Adobe PDF for reading compatible files.

E51 is especially useful for people who need to be connected all the time. It has HSDPA for fast downloading and browsing on the web. This phone has easy access to WiFi, making it easier to send important mail or even just tweet.

easy navigation

For the not so serious stuff, it has Real Player for clearer viewing of videos, and a Flash Player as well for the flash files. It also has a 2-megapixel camera that gives you the option to adjust the white balance for perfect-looking photos.

But what I find cool about E51 is its text-to-speech feature that allows reading aloud of messages. There’s even a selection between a male or female voice. I also find it handy that it has a search tool. I’ve always wanted a sort of Ctrl+F option in mobile phones and I’m glad that E51 has it.

Nokia is known for creating user-friendly phones and E51 is no different. So there’s no need to worry about navigation troubles. It also has quick access keys to commonly used functions such as Menu, Contacts, Calendar and Email.

I haven’t mentioned that I got this Nokia E51 for PhP 13,xxx. It’s definitely a steal.

Com a popularização das mensagens de texto enviadas pelo celular, os fabricantes desses aparelhos se depararam com um novo desafio: como oferecer um teclado confortável em um aparelho tão diminuto? Já foram experimentadas várias tecnologias, como teclado em tela de toque, o padrão QWERTY comprimido em pequenos botões, o sistema de previsão de texto T9 e até teclados projetados na mesa, mas os consumidores ainda não estão satisfeitos. Pesquisadores da Universidade de Duke querem dar sua contribuição, e apresentam o PhonePoint Pen, um sistema que transforma o aparelho celular numa caneta.

O aplicativo PhonePoint Pen teria como novidade a função de “air writing” (escrita no ar), um trocadilho com a brincadeira nerd ‘air guitar’, brincar de tocar uma guitarra invisível. Para escrever com o PhonePoint Pen, basta segurar o celular como uma caneta e sair escrevendo. “Estamos tentando deixar para trás a idéia de escrever em um teclado ou utilizar uma canetinha stylus para inserir informações em um dispositivo”, disse Romit Roy Choudhury, engenheiro da Universidade Duke ao site LiveScience.

Tudo isso é possível graças aos acelerômetros que estariam embutidos no aparelho mais modernos. Esses sensores de movimento, presentes em celulares como o iPhone, reconhecem inclinações e movimentos feitos pelo usuário, construindo a escrita e enviando a mensagem automaticamente. “Segurando o telefone como uma caneta, você pode escrever pequenas mensagens ou desenhar diagramas simples no ar”, declarou Sandip Agrawal, engenheiro elétrico e de computador da Universidade Duke.

Além da praticidade de não ter mais que ficar digitando naqueles minúsculos botões, o sistema aumentaria a segurança dos motoristas que adoram enviar uma mensagenzinha enquanto estão dirigindo em trânsito. Entretanto, o site Switched informa que ainda há muito o que aprimorar no aplicativo, já que além de não reconhecer letra cursiva, a função air writing só reconhece as letras se forem escritas com um pequeno intervalo de tempo entre elas.

O aplicativo PhonePoint Pen ainda é um protótipo, mas deverá estar disponível nos próximos meses. Futuras versões dele poderão criar pequenas anotações em fotos antes de enviá-las.

Fonte: Geek

Muito bom!! A ideia é sensacional… pena que o meu E51 não tem acelerômetro… : (

The Nokia E51 has the best build quality among the many Nokia phones that I have used. It sports a metal body with an all gloss finish. Although this finish attracts a lot of fingerprints, it is what gives E51 the executive looks that it possesses. Unlike the E50, the E51 is a flaunt device. Apart form the slimness, which was the only flaunt factor for the E50, the E51 is a bit slimmer and offers a lot more. The battery cover of the phone has a neat abstract design which blends very well with the class of the phone. The E51 is available in 3 color options and each of these has a unique design.

The Nokia E51 silver Mobile Phone has a 2MP camera as compared to the 1.3MP camera seen in the E50. The camera has a maximum still image capture resolution of 1600×1200 pixels. It does not have any light assistance nor does it have auto-focus. It is been provided just to complete the phone package, since a camera now has become a default part of a phone. The images captured by the phone are adequate enough. In areas of good lighting the camera performs well, while poor lighting leads to dark images.

Even with the camera mode set to night, the picture quality only becomes grainy. The face of the phone has a sharp 2-inch screen. Above the screen is the earpiece next to it is a white LED which denotes notifications like SMS, Missed Calls, etc. Below the screen is a 5-way D-Pad for navigation.

Keeping these keys pressed individually for a couple of seconds allows you to instantly add an activity to the schedule, add a new contact, or write a new SMS. The top of the phone only has one button, the Power Profile button. Even this button shares the same nuisance as seen with the buttons on either side of the phone.

The Nokia E51 camera may not score its points for quality still images, but its video capture mode is pretty good. The phone records video at 320×240 pixels resolution with a frame rate of 15fps. Just as the lighting conditions affect in the still images captured, the same applies to video recording. Please purchase on online www.phoneandbeyond.com

So lets say you have a brand new (or you know, slightly used) Nokia E51 phone. You looked it up, saw it had some cool features, all that smartphone stuff etc. So you buy it and now you want to connect your laptop to the Internets using it as the modem. Well its not very hard to do on Windows because Nokia provides Windows users with the Nokia PC Suite which makes connecting to the Internet a piece of cake.
But in Linux or Ubuntu specifically, because that’s what I use, we can use the wvdial utility to connect to the world wide web. For that we need to install wvdial (if its not already in the system). Since you aren’t connected to the Internet on Linux yet, find a Windows box or if you’re dual booting fire up that trusted Windows XP (or Vista if you’re one of those people) and download it from http://packages.ubuntu.com. Be sure to download all the dependencies as well. Once you have wvdial just create a new wvdial.conf file at /etc. And fill it up with the following:

[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyACM0
Baud = 460800
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
Init3 = AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","ufone.pfinternet","",0,0
ISDN = 0
Modem Type = USB Modem
Phone = *99#
Username = "blank"
Password = "blank"
Stupid Mode = 1

|
Since I’m a Ufone subscriber (unfortunately) I’ve used its APN i.e. ufone.pfinternet. If you have a different provider use theirs. If you’re already using GPRS on your phone then you can find it in your phone’s connection settings. And if the username and password are blank use “blank”, otherwise type in the correct credentials. Now fire up a terminal and type:

sudo wvdial

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Give your password and if successful should show some output like this:

--> WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.60
--> Cannot get information for serial port.
--> Initializing modem.
--> Sending: ATZ
ATZ
OK
--> Sending: ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2 +FCLASS=0
OK
--> Sending: AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","ufone.pfinternet","",0,0
AT+CGDCONT=1,"IP","ufone.pfinternet","",0,0
OK
--> Modem initialized.
--> Sending: ATDT*99#
--> Waiting for carrier.
ATDT*99#
CONNECT
~[7f]}#@!}!} } }2}#}$@#}!}$}%\}"}&} }*} } g}%~~[7f]}#@!}!} } }2}#}$@#}!}$}%\}"}&} }*} } g}%~
--> Carrier detected.  Starting PPP immediately.
--> Starting pppd at Sun May 17 13:07:08 2009
--> Pid of pppd: 8662
--> Using interface ppp0
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> local  IP address 10.2.85.37
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> remote IP address 10.6.6.6
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> primary   DNS address 172.16.13.219
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��
--> secondary DNS address 58.65.175.74
--> pppd: ���  ��  ��

|
If the connection process breaks then check your credentials and APN. Most likely one of them is wrong. Fix it and try again. I’ve tried this procedure successfully on both Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.04. Although in 9.04 when you connect your phone to the PC using a USB cable, a dialog will pop up asking you if you want to connect to the Internet using your phone. It provides a very convenient GUI interface to do the same thing wvdial does. But for some reason it gives me slower speeds so I had to go out and install wvdial and now mostly I use that. A word about the Ufone GPRS/EDGE services in case you didn’t know it already, it kind of sucks. Also using your phone as a modem for long periods can result in decreased battery and phone life and a general disturbance in the force. So be careful…

JawBone Prime is a new model Bluetooth headset comes from Aliph. This third generation headset is a slight cosmetic redesign, which comprises new and more colors. It has the facility to cancel the noise by its noise cancellation engine that adds another 6DB to 9DB of outside sound reduction through the namesake jaw-based method. Moreover, it has a reliable mechanism, which can bring good result when the jaw is not in contact to reduce wind noise.

Click to know about Elecom XCALGO Headphones

It has a battery efficiency to offer 4.5 hours for active talk, an 8-day standby time, and new support for Bluetooth 2.1 on those computers and phones that have the more efficient standard. It is expected to be available from May 2 for $130.

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has no smileys feature. I am so sad. I am devastated. I shouldn’t have bought it.

That sounds so bratty, no? But really, lower end phones have smileys and an E series phone doesn’t? Okay, so Nokia can always say it’s a business phone. So? Don’t business people have a right to emoticons? they’re human beings too, you know.

Screen rotation is something that most nokia s60v3 fp2 devices come with, but this feature is nowhere to be found on phones like the nokia e65 and the e51 but here to save the day and to rotate the screen is Landscape Pro v1.50.

What is it*

“Landscape Pro v1.50 is an application for symbian OS 3rd edition devices, which allow you to change your phone screen from portrait to landscape mode” that’s what the website said and it is 100% true but i think it’s more then that,

landscape pro makes every thing that you do on your s60 phone 50% easier and more fun, from browsing the web to playing games, using landscape pro is the most fun i have had testing an app in a long time.

how does it work*

there are two ways that you can use landscape Pro,by using the auto rotation or by using hot key rotation.

The auto rotation let you pick a list of apps to auto rotate when you open then,this is one of the features that i like the most and it works great for application like web,calendar,google maps,gallery and resco viewer.

Hot key rotation lets you press a key to rotate the screen, auto rotation is the feature that i like the most but the hot key is the feature i use the most, you also have the option to pick or disable the hot key.

hot key option are – edit + * , edit + #, the camera key, (c) the backspace key, # + * or disable 

other option incude - rotation side (left or right) ,auto start and hidden application 

The bottom line and Score*

what more can i say, this is a great app that i think you should buy or give a try, and it’s now on my MUST HAVE list. all you have to do is try it and then i know you are going love it.

LandScape PRO Website

Try now

Buy now

or  

Video Review*

 

Wedding photo at the LegCo, originally uploaded by paperandlines.

taken by my phone cam

It’s my first blog post, so bare with me. So I have a Nokia E51 and i tested a lot of applications, but a lot of them are crap for this phone.  The Symbian software is limited in UI and this is the most important thing for every technology nowadays. This is the best thing in the phones that are in the top e.g. Iphone.  This are the  “must have” application for every phone. I try to choose only free applications, so that all users can use them.

1. SkyQuiKey. The application search for everything in the main screen, so it’s very helpfull finding contacts, application etc.
2. WibraWait. The application is a background application, that vibrates when you call someone so you don’t keep your phone at your head the whole time.
3. Emoze(Nokia Messaging). Push email software that keeps you in touch with your mail. The Emoze is free for one account and then you pay if you want more. The Nokia Messaging doesn’t work for everyone so if you can install it, this is the best. The only bad point in the Nokia Messaging application is the lack of html display of the email.
4. Contails. This is an online application for your contacts and is not just for the symbian phone, is for everyone that wants to sort out their contacts, add pictures, add email, merge contacts. Then you sync it with your phone or with your friends.
5. Wefi. The Wlan manager of your phone. You can add applications to it, add locked Wlan and it connects you directly.

Pictures taken with Nokia E51 as usual…