Nokia e65

I need YOUR help!

2007-06-30T10:09:00.000+10:00

I have a Motorola H700 Bluetooth headset, and when I try to pair it with my phone, it's detecting it as 'Audio/Video' and cannot pair.

Anyone have ANY idea why this is happening??

If music be the sound of Nokia, play on.

2007-06-22T07:56:00.001+10:00

The boundaries of technical gadgets is rapidly blurring. The new nokia N-series ads actually some it up really well. eg "I have a thing in my pocket, but it is not one thing, it is many." and "Its what computers have become."

For me, the E65 really is my little helper. It's my email device, my phone, my eBook reader, my games machine and my music player while I'm on the road. I'm a website developer (drop me an email if you're interested in a quote or go to sitefx.com.au) and I spend alot of time out with clients.

Now, on the way to the said clients, I often go by train, and that means the E65 becomes my sanity saver. I'll post about ebook readers later this week, but as a music player its great, not as great as my iPod, but still pretty good.

I can throw a bunch of track on there (I only have a 256mb microsd which came with the phone) and off I go. It's got all the features you'd expect, play, pause, stop, next, previous and your sorting such as artist, album etc. All in all, a fairly easy application to use.

So what about the battery? I havent thoroughly tested this, but I've spent 4 hours on a train (there and back) and played mp3's and read and played more mp3's and at the end my battery was still on around 2/3. What really kills the e65 is the wireless, but that's another story. :)

If you're considering the e65 as an MP3 player as well as a phone, you'll be pleasantly surprised, it's no frills approach is simple and effective without being too devastating on your battery. If you're like me and have a massive music collection, your still better off with your trusty iPod.

ARGH! I already know I'm on Three!!!

2007-06-22T07:44:00.000+10:00

Another one from Varun,

Is it possible to flash the phone to a generic firmware?

Okay, first of all let me explain this one to the non-technical readers. The E65, like all phones contains software called 'firmware' which resides on the mobile phone and controls all its actions. This is essentially an operating system, which runs all your programs and games and dialling etc. In the case of most carrier phones, they use a version of the firmware that contains branding with their specific logo's etc. Now, flashing the phone with a generic firmware probably breaks some agreement you have with three, so I'm not going to go into specifics, but if you search on google, or call a phone repair shop, they should be able to do it for you. It requires a special cable and the original nokia firmware.

If you break it, its not my fault, blame yourself for meddling! ;)

Three are notorious for stupidly annoying phone branding. Its not enough its etched onto the phone, they insist on having their logo on almost every screen available. However the e65 is different.

Firstly, there's no annoying three logo's in stupid places. They have the following brand specific items.
1) A quick screen that flashes up when you turn on the phone, after the nokia logo.
2) The planet three logo in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. (You can actually change what this key does unlike other phones, so if you want it to run a different program, you can.)
3) You permanently have Planet 3 as a connection type.

That's all folks, no further branding and no annoying three stuff. IF you want to see annoying, have a look at their flip LG phones. YUCK.

Question, questions, questions

2007-06-22T07:36:00.000+10:00

Well people, I go away for two weeks and I come back and I'm swamped with questions! I guess thats what you get for having a high-performing niche specific blog lol. :)

Do you know of any place that sells the Nokia E65 unlocked in black
colour?

The short answer for this is.. no. The Black nokia E65 is an exclusive to Three, so if you want the sexy black version (I personally prefer the red, I'm sick of black phones) you will need to purchase it from Three, or grab a used one off ebay. Unlocking the phone shouldn't be much hassle, there's hundreds of sites that will supply you with an unlock code or an unlock SMS. Just google it.

Snakes on a phone

2007-06-11T16:45:00.000+10:00

In the box with my phone, there was a booklet about all these nifty new applications for use with the E65. The first thing I noticed was the interesting looking game called Snake (kinda a 3d remake of the old Nokia Snake game.)

Anyway, I went to their site and the link isnt there. So what gives?

After plenty of searching around on the net, I found the game on the N95 website, don't worry, it still works 100% with the E65. This game is fantastic and really shows off the graphic capabilities of the E65.

Download from Nokia

Grab it today!

Added some social bookmarking

2007-06-06T17:03:00.000+10:00

For all you regular blog users, I've added some social bookmarking icons below the posts. Feel free to submit my posts to the various links and/or link to this blog from your own!

If you have a nokia e-series related blog, send me an email and I'll add you to the blog list!

Sync'ing ZYB style

2007-06-06T13:57:00.000+10:00

Apart from my last post about Folders and synchronisation, (I'm in australia, so I'm going to use Australian spelling, okay?) I'd like to tell you how delightfully easy it is to use ZYB.com to synchronise your contacts.

I've never really used synchronisation before until I started using this smartphone. My emails were always on my laptop and my SMS/contacts on my phone. If I lost my phone.. well.. umm.. I've never lost a phone yet.. :)

Anyway, I recenlty tried out ZYB.com so I could have a single place to store my contacts and my calender. These guys have spent some serious time making the process as simple as possible.

You login, enter some personal details, put in your phone number and rather than having to setup the synchronisation yourself, they send you a config file to your phone.

All you need to then is go to Menu / Connect. / Sync / ZYB. Since I only do this sort of thing when I'm in my home wireless network, I select my wireless and its done. This works just as well out on the road, but since I don't like the expensive data costs, I wait until I'm at home.

There's a few things I don't like about the service, I'm not sure if they're syncml limitations, or what.

1) Doesnt sync SMS messages. How hard could this be? They have a number you can 'forward' your messages to to be included. I notice however that they do not have an Australian number. Forget it!

2) Pictures. It doesnt save your contact images. I could imagine that after 12 months of using this phone, I might have 400 contacts and 350 images. if I lose the phone or upgrade, why can't I take my thumbnails with me.

Feel free to share if you have any thoughts on this one.

Syncing Categories

2007-06-06T13:47:00.001+10:00

I received this email today from one of my readers. I've yet to find a solution, so I'd like to push it out there to see if any of you might know the answer.

Have you figured out any way to synchronize category information (like
address book groups or calendar category information) on the e-series devices
with any type of data source (whether it be a computer or an online syncml
server)?

I've done alot of searching on the net, and from what I can see most of the online SyncML services such as (ZYB.com and Scheduleworld.com) don't pay any attention to folder names. Schedule world (and possibly ZYB) use an opensource syncing application called Funambol which, apart from the core features, has a massive framework and API library for development.

I think the issue is that all the phone companies use a different set of standards for managing and storing contacts. SyncML which is a derivative of XML, basically transforms the data from the phones DB into a universal format that can be read by the server. Things such as groups etc are not used on all phones and hence not supported. The joy of syncml and xml is that the resultant xml file is compatible across a range of applications, however it never incorporates ALL of the features of the original application. (Try writing an eCommerce store).

Everyone seems to want to target 'all' rather than a niche (my classic argument against open source). Meanwhile, everyone is just content to settle for 'almost good enough'. What we need is a fully fledge Nokia syncing application. If anyone knows one that does folders etc, let me know, cause I'd pay good money for it.

E-Series blog

2007-06-04T14:02:00.000+10:00

Big thankyou to Ed from the E-Series blog for the writeup.

If you havent read his blog, go check it out, there's plenty of good tips and reviews on the range of e-series products.

Protecting Your Investment

2007-06-04T13:53:00.000+10:00

If you're anything like me, you keep your phone in your pocket. In the said pocket, there is also car keys, spare change and maybe the occasional other hard item. This is one of the easiest ways to turn your uber-cool sexy new phone into a scratched and possibly broken piece of junk.

Protect your investment!

As I purchase the phone, a helpful salesperson directed me to the Cellnet clear plastic covers for the Nokia E65. Having used plastic covers in the past, I was thoroughly unimpressed, but not wanting to wreck my new phone, I grabbed one. The cost was $14.95AUD.

Let me just say, I was as impressed with the cover as I was with the phone. The sturdy plastic cover clipped straight onto the phone and fit perfectly. The cover takes almost nothing away from the visual appeal of the E65, in fact most people I've shown it too thought it was just the finish of the phone. The only drawback I see so far is that it makes the already difficult to access side buttons a tad harder to use. But all in all 9/10.

$14.95AUD in a small price to pay for protection this good.

Installing Software on you E65

2007-06-04T08:21:00.000+10:00

Okay so you've got this beautiful new Nokia e65. You need an application that does [insert task here].

The Nokia E65 uses the Symbian S60 3rd Edition operating system. This is important as software from other versions may not work or may even damage your device, so make sure you download the right version!

I've put together a few links on the right hand side of this page, I'm not affiliated with these sites in anyway, so click to your hearts content.

Once you've downloaded a piece of software and unzipped it, you'll find theres usually just one .SIS file. This is a symbian package, kind of like an installer file. If you've got your nokia tools installed, all you need to do is double-click on the file and it will install itself on your phone.

If you don't want to do it like this, you can copy the file to your phone or mini-sd card and run it using the file manager. (Menu -> Tools -> File Manager)

Help! When I install the software I get a 'Certificate not valid' type error!

As part of the security, Nokia has installed an application that checks that the software is from a valid source. Of course, homebrew applications don't have this luxury and use 'self-signed' certificates. To install these applications (though there are probably perfectly good official applications that do the same thing) we need to change a couple of settings on the phone.

1. Firstly, you need to go to App. Manager

2. Press Options and go to Settings.

3. Select 'Software Installation' and change the setting from 'Signed Only' to 'All'

4. Make sure 'Online certif. check' is turned off also.

Fixed! You can now install software with self-signed certificates. If you're not sure about this one, don't do it. You've been warned! :)

Setting up email on Three - Part 4

2007-06-03T23:33:00.000+10:00

Get your emails automatically

As you may have read, this is part 4 of my uber e65 email tutorial.

The final section is setting up the Retrieval Settings.

1. From the main menu, click the messages icon (envelope)

2. Move down to your three email account you created eg "3 Email" and select it.

3. Press options and select 'Email Settings'

4. Select Automatic Retrieval

Okay, here we are, we can send and receive emails, but now we want the phone to check out email regularly. This is where we do it.

Select Header Retrieval and select 'Always Enabled'.

It will prompt you, select Yes. Then it will warn you that you may incur data charges. Ignore this, because with the Three email pack we get unlimited email use! woohoo!

Okay, the main one we want is 'Retrieval Interval' if you select 'Every 5 mins', you will have almost real time email access. However, using this and heavy mobile phone use, your batter may not last out the day. Pick a setting that suits you, mine is set on 30mins.

I also have the 'Retrieval Hours' set so that I dont get pestered with emails at 2am in the morning, so it checks every 30 mins between 9am and 10pm.

Congratulations, if everything is setup right, you now have unlimited free email on your new Three Nokia e65 phone.

It works like a charm, someone sends me an email, within a VERY short time, I receive a sound alert (customise this in your profile) and it mentions that theres an email on my standby apps.

Hope you enjoyed this, tomorrow I'm talking about installing applications and some must have configuration settings!

Seeya!

Setting up email on Three - Part 3

2007-06-03T23:08:00.000+10:00

User Settings

In this section you will set your name, signature and other useful tidbits.

1. From the main menu, click the messages icon (envelope)

2. Move down to your three email account you created eg "3 Email" and select it.

3. Press options and select 'Email Settings'

4. Press 'User Settings'.

Here we have some options that we can configure to make our life a bit easier.

My Name - You can set your name which will replace you.name@three.com.au with Your Name in the email posts. First rule of cover up for those using method 2 above.

Send Message - if you're using your own mail server and want to cut costs, you will want to select 'On next connection' (more on automatic fetching later). For those using Three email sending, then feel free to select 'Immediately'. There's no cost, so why not?

Include Signature - this is where you can put your signature you might normally use in your email program. For me my signature is:

-- SiteFX.com.au
Professional Website Design

New e-mail alerts - whether to use the sound when new emails come along (not sure what else it does)

Reply-to - for those using the three mail server, you will definately want to set this one. example spam@sitefx.com.au. This will make sure that when people reply to your email, it goes to your main address, not your three address. If you WANT to use your 'three.com.au' email address, leave this blank.

Okay, now we're ALMOST setup. (phew this is a long process to get it working right! Don't worry, its totally worth it. You'll make blackberry users jealous!)

Continued in Part 4

Setting up email on Three - Part 2

2007-06-03T22:51:00.000+10:00

Outgoing Mail

You once again have two options here.

a) You send replies using your own mail server and wear the associated data charges. This will mean that your emails are sent using your actual email address eg spam@sitefx.com.au. For hardcore business users, this is your best option.

b) For most people though, there is a free option which means you reply using your three email address. But wait a second, doesnt that mean my mail will come from my.name@three.com.au? Yes, but thankfully the email protocol allows a little workaround called 'Reply-to'. You enter your proper email address in here and when someone click reply, the email goes to your proper email address. The good thing about this option is that like receiving email, sending email is now FREE. No data charges. isnt that a better option?

Using your OWN outgoing mail server

1. From the main menu, click the messages icon (envelope)

2. Move down to your three email account you created eg "3 Email" and select it.

3. Press options and select 'Email Settings'

4. Select Connection Settings then Outgoing e-mail

At this point you need to enter your mail server details eg mail.yourserver.com and your username and password. You will have to change the 'Access Point in use' to Mobile Internet for GPRS access. Remember, this means you will be charged data rates everytime you send an email. You've been warned.

Okay, now move on to the next section.

Using the THREE mail server

Okay so you've decided to use the cheap and easy way out (no one will notice the difference!). Basically you can leave everything the way it is and move down to the next step.

Next stage in Part 3

Setting up email on Three - Part 1

2007-06-03T22:16:00.000+10:00

One of the services three offers is an unlimited email pack for $3 per month. Don't be fooled, this means you can have unlimited access to their email address they assign you, not your own. But after a stack of playing around, I came up with this little document.

If you're a business person like me, you have your own domain name or email address. Since Three is yet to offer 'Push to Email' which requires a server such as the Blackberry server or exchange, you need to use their email address.

Here's how to get around it and not pay a cent.

Basically there are two options
1) Login to your three email and setup their Pop3 fetch. The drawback with this is that a) their application only fetches you mail every hour and b) you have to put your personal username and password for YOUR email into their system. I dont like that option.

2) Login to your mail provider and setup a forward to your three email address. Most mail providers offer this service, but make sure the forwarder works as well as your standard mail box if you want email on your phone and computer.

Incoming Mail
So now, whenever you receive an email it automatically gets forwarded (at no cost) to your three email account. So lets set that up first.

1. Open your messages application (envelope)

2. Press the Select button and hilight Settings and press the select button.

3. Press Options and select New Mailbox

This will open the 'Mailbox Wizard'. For Three Australia, use the following settings.

Mailbox Type: IMAP4
Email Address: firstname.lastname@three.com.au (ring
customer service if you dont know)
Incoming Mail Server: mail.three.net.au
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.three.net.au
Access Point: Planet 3
Mailbox Name: Three Email (or whatever you want to call it.

If everything has gone to plan, your will now have a new mail box. If there's already a three mailbox there, delete it, we'll be changing some settings anways.

Continued in Part 2

Smartphones

2007-06-03T22:09:00.001+10:00

Having used Nokia's for years, I finally left the brand behind about 2 years ago when I joined Three. Their caps were incredibly generous and it was far better than what I had been paying with other providers. As part of the plan, I was given an LG8610 for free. No wonder, obviously they couldnt sell them.

Since starting my business has been picking up (SiteFX - Anyone need a good website?) I needed a phone with a bit more. I spent many long hours trying to get email working successfully on the LG and the regular dropouts, signal problems and other frustrations of the phone, I decided it was time for something new.

The Nokia e65 is a smartphone based on the Symbian OS. This means that apart from your preinstalled phone applications, you can install more applications etc to make the phone better. Think of it as a PocketPC or Palm Pilot and a phone mixed together. Flexibility + simplicity.

The preinstalled applications are fantastic, calendar, email, to do lists even a mini-office application that opens your word and excel documents etc on the fly. Configuration is simple thanks to the handy startup settings wizard that boots when the phone does.

Where Style meets Substance

2007-06-03T21:30:00.000+10:00

Usually marketing hype is exactly that.. hype.

In the case of the new Nokia e65 smartphone, I have to agree with the advertisers. I purchased the phone 2 days ago from Three - Australia and all I can say is I'm impressed. In fact, so impressed that I've decided to write a blog about it.

We'll see lots of tips and hints, some goodies to download and hopefully some lively discussion.

I'm not expert on this particular phone, but as I learn new stuff about it, so will you, my possibly non-existant readers. :) Just to clarify, I'm not an employee of Nokia, I have no vested interest in this apart from my enthusiasm for the product. If you try something that breaks you phone, its not my fault. Everything you do, you do so at your own risk. You've been warned. :)

I've got a few articles I want to do straight away, so expect a few posts today. :) Should flatten out in a few days!