17 posts tagged “n95”

Yep, another N95 post.

Tired of waiting for T-Mobile to come out with the latest firmware (see my recent post) I decided to take the plunge and debrand my N95. Thanks to an article by adonisdemon here, I found following the instructions quite straightforward, though I did hit a couple of minor problems.

Based on his instructions, I followed a fairly simple step plan, as follows:

1. Note which applications I use/have installed. Make sure I know where the install kits are, or can be located. Make a note of the T-Mobile VoiceMail number - this setting will be lost! (See Tools/Call Mailbox)
2. Backup the phone, using PC Suite. This is with the old Product Code, just in case.
3. Install the NSS software.
4. Connect the phone to the PC (note: close down PC Suite or NSS won't find the phone)
5. Update the Product Code using NSS (I opted for EURO 1 SAND - 0534851)
6. Power Cycle the phone Off/On - I had to do this as I was having problems backing up the phone contents at this point.
7. Backup the phone contents again using PC Suite, Do it twice just in case. This backup has the new Product Code.
   
8. Offer up a libation to the gods, and Upgrade the Firmware...
9. Restore the backup from point 7. As long as the restore works, delete or otherwise lose the backup from point 2 - it will 'brick' the phone if you try to restore this onto the new Product Code.
   
10. Add in the Voicemail Number again.

At this point, I was assured all would be well with my world. And it would have been, but most of my applications were now missing. Never mind, I had point 1 above to fall back on. It's an unpleasant task, but at least it gave me a chance to review all the stuff I'd installed. Do I really use it all? Are there any alternatives?

I decided to bite the bullet and give Shozu another go, as I'd had some comms problems earlier today with Share Online 3.0. My previous attempts at using Shozu were abortive, as mixed with Vox Mobile, the two conspired to kill video recording on my phone. I've come to the conclusion that T-Mobile must have been the culprit, as initial tests show that Shozu and Vox Mobile can live happily together on this firmware. In fact, they can both also live happily with the Location Tagger beta running as well! So far, I've tested Shozu uploads to Vox and Flickr (geotagged, yay!!), and I've uploaded a test video stream to Qik. I've not reloaded Kyte at this point - for my purposes I see no need at the moment with Qik installed, though that may change later.

All my other apps are now installed, all my settings for contacts, email accounts etc have all been retained, and with the Demand Paging in this version of the firmware, it's fun seeing how many I can run concurrently now. Something I only dreamed of with the T-Mobile firmware in place.

Oh, and the phone can still make phone calls! :-)

Differences I've noticed?
 

• The Web'nWalk button is now Music (I've changed it back to 'Web'). I've lost the T-Mobile home page, and starting the web now leads to a bookmarks page.
• Sliding out the music controls doesn't bring up that hideous circular menu thing - it just rotates the screen display.
• There are some additional options on the menus - including an N-Gage application that I've not fired up yet, and others that look equally intruiging.

I've been waiting for something like the Location Tagger (LT) app from Nokia Beta Labs for my N95 for some while now. This allows photos to be automatically geo-tagged with location information, straight in the EXIF data. Nokia say it will become part of the normal functionality in future, but has been released as a stand-alone beta app for now.

In a search for similar functionality, I'd tried Showzu previously, but that killed the video functionality on the phone for me. I'd tried a couple of other applications that purport to be able to geotag my photos too, but they either plain didn't work for me, or were too fiddly to get results, or (shock horror), I'd have had to pay for them!

So along comes Location Tagger from Nokia to answer all my prayers. Except. This app needs to run in the background, checking on GPS position to add to any photos that are taken. Now, my N95 might be a bit 'special', but I have a particular problem with this. As soon as I open my camera app, all other apps close: Music, Jaiku, Messaging, whatever is running just disappears from the Task Bar never to be seen again. Same with Location Tagger. It's running, I open up the camera screen, the LT icon appears on the camera screen. I take a picture and one of two things happen: either the picture is saved, but without the geotags and the Location Tagger closes, or the screen goes blank, the camera app itself closes and I lose the photo completely.

I had a particularly disappointing weekend, as I'd hoped to get some decent geotagged photos during a drive out to Kent.

Now Nokia would say they have the answer to all this, in the form of the latest firmware for the N95, which allows for On-Demand Paging (ODP). This would allow multiple apps to share the available RAM, thus allowing concurrency and true multi-tasking among the  apps.

For my sins, I have a phone on a T-Mobile contract, and I've written before about how they drag their heels in making available the branded version of the firmware, but this time it's serious! OK, I waited a few weeks for Assisted GPS, but it's been a couple of months now, and still no sign of the ODP firmware upgrade for us T-Mob customers!

I'm rapidly being led to the conclusion that the only option open to me is to invalidate the warranty on the phone, and de-brand it in order to get the upgrade. Not an option I'd take lightly as I still have some 9 months to go on the warranty.

I've been urged by others who have taken this drastic step to do it, it won't hurt, and I'll be forever grateful that I did it. But I have this reputation with computers in general: as soon as I depart from the norm, things break. My greatest fear is that I'll 'brick' the phone during the process, or forget to copy down a vital setting and lose access to Web'n'Walk, or VoiceMail, or SMS or any of a myriad other settings that are hidden in the depths of the phone. If anyone has taken this step with a T-Mob branded phone and has a 'dummies guide' handy then I'd certainly appreciate any pointers, but in the meantime:

C'MON T-MOBILE, STOP DRAGGING YOUR HEELS, AND RELEASE THE FIRMWARE UPGRADE!!!

Being a bit paranoid about the poor performance of the battery in the N95, I decided not long after getting the phone to purchase the portable power pack (Mobile Survival Kit) from Proporta. 

ProportaMSK

Anyway, the kit comes with multiple connectors for various phones, and the battery is charged via a USB port from the PC although an adaptor for a mains plug is also included. The good news is that when fully charged, the pack can be carried with a short connection lead for when needed. It's not much bigger than the N95 itself, and can charge the phone from flat up to a maximum of three times from a single charge! More than enough to get me off the moor...

The nice thing is that with the variety of connectors provided lots of different devices can be charged.

Have I used it in anger yet? Well no, to be honest.  It's always kept fully charged and ready for action, but I've been lucky enough to not be away from power points long enough to have needed it yet. I look upon it as a form of insurance for now...

Ok, I've had this for a few weeks now, so thought it was time to write about my experiences to date.

First off, actually getting one seems to be fraught with difficulty. I'd searched multiple web sites, trying to find someone who had them in stock. I trawled around countless mobile phone shops, all of whom looked at me as if I was speaking Martian when I asked if they had a Bluetooth keyboard.

Eventually, I placed an order with Expansys, a reputable vendor, who had it listed as awaiting stock: 28 day delivery. And I sat back and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Each time I checked on the progress of the order, it was still reading as 28 days delivery. After three months I cancelled the order (patient huh?) and checked on Ebay.co.uk. I found someone who had a brand new unit on Buy-it-Now for £50, as opposed to the £68-£70 advertised price. I jumped at it, and in a few days had the unit in my hand at last.

It fits nicely into the side pocket of my combats when folded, so is easy to carry and coupling the unit to my N95 was a breeze. I was set.

Initial use was restricted to a few text messages, but a sterner test occurred a couple of weeks ago, when I attended an all day meeting, at which I had to take notes. I tentatively left my laptop at home... I was concerned about relying on the N95 battery having BT active all day - even with a Proporta backup battery. I needn't have worried. Despite having BT active from 10am to 5pm, with a short period of web browsing at lunch, Jaiku running all day and a couple of calls and texts, the battery indicator hardly dropped.

Well. Widsets seems to have ironed out some of the intial problems I was experiencing. But although I've been impressed with the concept since the early beta period, I'm afraid I'm not too impressed with the live execution.

A Widsets account can be controlled via their web site - widgets can be created/added/deleted via the web site and are then picked up by the mobile client when next logged in. This all works well enough from a functional point of view - I've easily created a couple of widgets myself for feeds that I'm interested in following. Easily, but slowly...

From a practicality POV the system stinks at present. Over the last couple of days I've consistently experienced page load/refresh times of >40 seconds, and that's on a 4Mb line, where pages from other sites can load in 2-3 seconds.

The mobile client itself can take 40-50 seconds to start up and log in, before it starts to pull down the latest updates. I've actually waited for an entire bus ride of 1.5 miles in the centre of town to get a connection and updates downloaded. In this day and age that type of response time is frankly unacceptable.

Sorry Nokia, I love ya, but you've gotta do better than this!

Today is the day that the Widsets application comes out of beta. I've been using this for a while now, to keep track of various feeds and news websites when I'm on the move, and find it quite useful.

I've managed to get the new version of the application loaded onto my N95, finally - the service was very unresponsive and connection was difficult earlier today. I've got a browser window open on the web site now, and the connection keeps being reset, making it very difficult to see what the new version of the site is like, let alone try to find any new widgets, or even to create my own.

No doubt this is due to teething problems and initial load as everyone tries to get upgraded. I'll try again over the next few days and try to remember to report back here on how I'm getting on..

I finally managed to update my N95's firmware last night, after the T-Mobile update (to 12.0.0.13) was made available.

I took a full backup, synch'ed my contacts and Lifeblog, and made a list of applications installed. Then I hit the button, and went to watch TV. When I came back, the update had completed and I started the restore.

After that, I was amazed to find that only 4 or 5 applications had disappeared requiring a re-install. In all, the process took about three hours (but most of this was backup/restore time, including my 2Gb card).

My main reason for wanting the upgrade was the Assisted GPS functionality, which is supposed to get a fix, even without a view of the sky, by triangulating on the mobile signals received from known masts. I'll admit I haven't had this working indoors as yet, though getting a fix outdoors this morning took seconds rather than the usual minutes, so I'm impressed enough for now.

I tried taking a photo, to get it geotagged, using ZoneTag, but Zonetag wouldn't play ball. It continually requested a code, which has to be obtained from the web site. As soon as I entered it, it requested the code again. I never did get that photo uploaded. Strike 1 for ZoneTag - I've emailed their support people asking for an explanation.

Next job is to upgrade my partner's phone - she won't be best pleased if I cock that one up!

I recently documented problems with my N95.

With much trepidation last night, I finally decided to bite the bullet and go for a full hard reset (*#7370#). I'd done a full backup and synch, and also file copied everything I could see using the Nokia File Browser. I removed the memory card (to be reformatted), I then typed in the fatal combination...

A couple of minutes later and the phone rebooted. I checked the firmware, and the later version 11 I'd previously installed was still there. I re-installed the latest firmware anyway, just in case - v12 is still not available for T-Mobile in the UK :-(

Now came the tedious bit - re-installing all the software. I'd made a note of what was installed, and where it was sourced from, so it was just a question of running down the list one by one.

Vox was first, and sadly the problems remain. Seelcting New from the Vox application hangs the phone. Switching off and on seems to be the only solution. The settings for 'Prompt to Publish' still can't be switched off. Sending to Vox from the Gallery works fine though, so I can use that route for now - see my Breakfast post below, posted using this method.

Call Log is back! Hurrah! This was my main reason for re-setting the phone. I found it extremely tedious having to go through the Contacts, search, select route every time I wanted to call someone back. Particularly if the phone was engaged.

I've still got some tweaking to do for the email settings, couldn't get my downloaded podcasts recognised (so had to re-download them all), and still have one mapping application, ViewRanger, to re-install, but I now have full functionality back on the phone, and will feel a bit more confident if I have to do a similar exercise in the future.

Points to note:

• Always make a note of what software you install, and where it was sourced from.
• Also note any settings for things such as Email, Access Points etc. UserId, Password, Server addresses, WEP Keys etc are very easy to forget!
• If pre-downloading the maps for Nokia Maps, don't do this via the cable connection. I tried and it was taking literally hours! I cancelled, removed the memory card and placed it in my PC USB port, and restarted the download, which then completed in minutes.

I stumbled over the Google maps application for the N95 today. Now, I'm pretty much sorted for maps on the phone,  what with the built in Nokia Maps, and ViewRanger but you can never have too many maps so I fired up the GMaps app to take a look.

The maps are fine, similar to the Nokia maps in definition, and zooming is reasonably fast on a 3g connection. But what blew me away was the satellite imaging. Much clearer than on Google Earth (at least, for W Cornwall which only appears as a white smudge when I look at it on Google Earth) - I can make out the individual stone circles in the area when I zoom right in, and that can't be bad!

Maens Danse

So, full navigation using ViewRanger/OS maps at 1:25000 scale, then flip over to GMaps to take a look at what the terrain is actually like, and see if it's 'achievable' for someone like me who's not fully fit (i.e. a lardarse).

Sorted!