1. For a blogger, who uses WordPress system, having a dedicated mobile WordPress client is very important.

2. The developers are working hard preparing a Symbian and Maemo version of the popular app which was available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry previously.

3. The latest version for Symbian is numbered 0.71. Compared to the previous versions, this one improves a lot especially the UI.

4. Developed using Qt, and utilising the new QtMobility APIs, this WordPress app is a joy to use and to behold.

5. However, getting Qt onboard is not easy. In order to be able to use WordPress app, you must install the Qt runtime first.

6. Version 0.71 comes with Qt Smart Installer which will automate the download and installation of the necessary Qt components required by the app such as QtMobiliity and QtWebkit. Here is a video by Lucian Tomuta showing how Qt Smart Installer works on Symbian^1 smartphones :

7. If you are more adventerous and would like to explore Qt universe on your Symbian smartphones, you can also install the complete Qt runtime from :

ftp://ftp.qt.nokia.com/qt/symbian/4.6.3/qt_installer.sis

8. With this WordPress app, you can do some WordPressing such as creating new posts or editing existing ones, approving or rejecting comments, view statistics, and more, and all wrapped in a nice clean UI.

9. There are rooms for improvements and clearly, the developers are looking to support future Symbian devices such as the Symbian^3 powered Nokia N8 because it will be pre-installed with Qt and beginning from Symbian^4, Qt will be the application layer for Symbian, replacing Avkon.

10. I hope, the developers can continue improving it, adds functions like adjusting the font display and managing plugins. Which will make the experience more complete.

11. More information and download from :

http://dev.nokia.wordpress.org/2010/07/09/minor-0-7-1-maintenance-release/

- Asri al-Baker

2. At that time, information about it is not available that much. We can only guess and shoot in the dark. But I managed to scourge some very interesting specifications of the E7-00 such as the 1024MB ROM, Microsoft Communicator built-in, 256MB RAM, and so on.

3. Today, the good folks at Negri Electronics posted 3 new photos of a real E7-00 but they believed it’s an Nseries.

4. Whether it’s an Nseries or Eseries, we wouldnt know until it’s announced. I will leave that open to debate. But for your information, Nokia N8-00 is the last Symbian powered Nseries. All future Nseries will use MeeGo OS.

5. I dont want to comment much on the photos. Suffice to say it does resemble what shown to me in early 2010. The QWERTY is N97 Mini-like and it’s definitely powered by Symbian^3.

6. Lets get the facts straight, again. It’s not Nseries. It’s Eseries. And will be announced as E7-00.

7. To recap, here is what I posted as the specifications of E7-00 :

- hybrid design (touchscreen and QWERTY)
- 4 rows QWERTY keyboard
- 4 inch AMOLED capacitive tilting touchscreen supporting multitouch and gestures
- (maybe) using snapdragon processor
- 256 MB of RAM
- 1024 MB of ROM
- 16 GB of internal storage
- microSD slot
- 3.5 mm audio jack
- 8 megapixel camera with LED flash (no Xenon, no Carl Zeiss optic)
- HD video recording
- No HDMI output
- Microsoft Office Communicator Suite included
- Symbian^3 goodness
- availability in August or September
- super thin at only around 13.8mm
- anodised aluminium body
- 1200 mAH unremovable built-in battery
- same design philosophy as the N-800

8. I say, bring it on!!!

Source : Negri Electronics

1. Before the N8 was even announced, the people are talking about it. Good publicity, bad publicity, you name it. It was everywhere. People were talking about what Nokia will do with Symbian^3. And people are watching carefully to see whether Nokia will compete in the high-end smartphone battle or not.

2. When N8 was announced on April 27th 2010, many felt it was not enough. It’s missing this, it’s missing that… All sorts of complaints like “Why the battery is only 1200 mAH?” or “Why the battery is unremoveable?” or even “Why the UI still looks like N97? Aint Symbian^3 suppose to bring new and fresh UI?” Which, in one way or another, showed us the real attitude of these people – Ignorant.

3. The question all of us should think, right now, is : WHY THE FUSS? N8 IS NOT EVEN SOLD ON THE MARKET YET. Not many people outside the closed circle of Nokia engineers have the opportunity to test N8 at the moment. Cant we all wait patiently until it’s available in the market and after that, do all the condemns and bashing that you want. All these negative reactions are immature opinions and views that are not based on “actual” experience with the device.

4. On paper, what we see about N8 are incredibly delicious. I think this is the most impressive Nokia Symbian smartphone to date. To share my enthusiasm, here’s 10 things why I think Nokia will sell the N8 in truckloads :

10 Supercool Things About Nokia N8

1. The name. N8. This is the first Nseries with a single digit in it’s name. And it’s not ANY number. It’s number “8″. It’s a big and bold statement. In Asian culture, number 8 is associated with “GOOD LUCK” and “PROSPERITY”. All the big online media coverage before and after it’s official announcement shows a signal that Nokia is still in the game and will charge at all cost to defend it’s throne.

2. It’s colours. It’s available in a family of colours. You dont like Black? Choose the Blue one or if you are not into Orange, you can pick the Green one. To my eyes, all the colours looks gorgeous. Together with the anodised aluminium body, N8 looks like a piece of an alien spacecraft! Shiny.. and metal… and looks exclusive… and unique!

3. Strong Multimedia support. In my opinion, Symbian has always been underestimated by all manufacturers especially Nokia. In recent memory, only Samsung i8910 OmniaHD and Sony Ericsson Satio can be considered as having some of the best Multimedia hardware amongst Symbian smartphones. With N8, finally Nokia give Symbian justice by putting superb hardware :
- Capacitive OLED screen, check
- 12 Megapixel camera powered by Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash, check
- High definition video recording with stereo sound, check
- HDMI support, check
- Dolby Digital sound, check
- 16 GB internal storage, check
- FM Transmitter, check

As an independent writer and blogger, as well as producer of audio and video contents, I need a powerful device that is able to grab important moments without fuss. For example, I can attend any launch events and record high quality videos and snap photos to be published on i-Symbian.Com for all of you to see

4. I haven never seen any other smartphones support USBToGo. For Symbian, it is actually a standard which was included in Symbian OS v9.5 specification which was announced somewhere in 2007. With USBToGo, transferring huge files (such as videos taken using N8′s 12 mp camera, obviously) to USB thumb-drive or USB hard-drive is easy. N8 sales package will include a cable that will act as the connector to the external USB device. This is supercool!

5. Powerful processors. A 680 MHz main procecessor which powers the overall operations of the N8 and another processor dedicated to the graphical needs. This opens many possibilities. One of them, hopefully, is more compelling and efficient user experience. Application developers will be able to create richer eye-candies for their applications. In short, Symbian applications will look better.

6. 256 MB RAM with Writable Demand Paging. This will make N8 fast and stable to cope with many applications running in the background. As one of the enhancements in Symbian^3 combined with visual task switcher to ease jumping from one application to another, multitasking experience on Symbian will be pushed to the next level.

7. Built in Ovi and Nokia applications and services. One of Nokia’s strengths (or weaknesses, depends on how you look at), is services and applications developed around Ovi ecosystem. N8 comes with Ovi Store, Ovi Maps and Ovi Contacts integrated as well as Nokia Messaging Email, Nokia Messaging Chat and Nokia Messaging Social Networks. All these will make a more complete user experience. For me, Ovi Maps, Ovi Store and Nokia Messaging Emails are the must haves.

8. Symbian^3. As the world’s first Nokia smartphone powered by the new Symbian^3 operating system, N8 itself is a history in the making. Many people asspciated it with Symbian^1 aka S60 5th Edition but they never consider all improvements under the hood that make Symbian^3 a force to reckon with. It’s not the make-up in the interface department only that makes Symbian^3 different from Symbian^1 but the Operating System has been carefully open sourced and enhanced. Look at the single-click direct interaction, easy internet connection and supports for a wide variety of processor related stuff. To those who are short-sighted and made early negative judgement before even testing Symbian^3, please do more research and do some reading. Dont simply write-off Symbian^3 without real hard facts and hands on experience. One important feature of Symbian^3 is it’s backward compatibility with older Symbian versions because it’s still supporting AVKON apps and also future compatibility with Qt runtime. This is only one of many more enhancements and improvements in Symbian^3 that should be considered.

9. It’s a Nokia. Do not underestimate what this Finnish behemoth can do. Whatever bad reputations they made in the past years especially in the case of N97 Classic, they have shown that they are willing to offer free firmware improvements. The fact that Nokia is the major contributor to the success of Symbian in the smartphone market is also a proof that Nokia is doing more than other Symbian manufacturers. We’ve seen Nokia releasing enhancements after enhancements unlike Samsung and Sony Ericsson who seems are not bothered to support those who bought their Symbian products. N8, in this regards, will hopefully not be abandoned by Nokia and will be improved further. Who knows if Nokia decided to backport some Symbian^4 features to N8 in the near future?

10. The price! EUR370 is more or less RM1565.00. It can be considered as very affordable. Not that far from the introduction price of Nokia 5800 Xpress Music 2 years ago. Normally, for a flagship, Nokia’s price is more than EUR500. This is really unbelievable!

Well. That’s my excitement and hope for Nokia N8. It’s been a while since I was this excited about a Symbian product and to be honest, I cant wait! BRING IT ON Nokia N8 FTW!!!

1. Sorry to my readers for the long hiatus. Been really busy

2. This is a short post. Just want to ask contribution and donation to help me repair my laptop’s screen. The cost is going to be around USD200. As you can see, only 60% of the screen is usable at the moment.

3. If you are willing to help this poor fella, please email me or DM me @asrialbaker over at Twitter.

Cheers!

1. I own and maintain 3 self-hosted WordPress blogs. This blog, SymbianKu.Com and MeeGoKu.Com. I choose WordPress for it’s simplicity, elegant and flexibility.

2. On my MacBook, I use an offline blogging client called Ecto. A superb and easy to use software that fulfills my blogging needs.

3. For Symbian S60 3rd Edition, there are some solutions available namely Telewaving’s Wavelog (not free), WordMobi (free, based on Python) and the official WordPress for Nokia client (free, based on Qt).

4. I’ve talked about how WordMobi helps me blogging on the move (HERE and HERE) and personally, it’s the most useful and feature complete WordPress client for S60 3rd Edition at the moment.

5. WordMobi is very stable, doesnt eat RAM like crazy and works brilliant. And I prefer using it for blogging anytime.

6. Another solution for WordPress blogging on Symbian is using an official application developed by the WordPress team. It’s using Qt technology and currently being developed heavily for Nokia Symbian smartphones and Maemo.

7. In order to use it on Symbian smartphones, you have to install Qt runtime or it will not work. You can get the necessary files from :

Qt runtime : Version 4.6.2
WP Client : Version 0.54a Self-signed

8. Although it is designed for touch-screen smartphones, it works on E90 but there’s some usability and stability issues. It crashes randomly, and sometimes it doesnt respond to keypresses. It also freezes when it cant cope with user’s action and to run it smoothly, you need to have plenty of RAM.

9. The design looks familiar. Any WordPress user will feel at home because it looks like the WordPress Admin Panel.

10. You can view and edit posts, comments and pages. But I think, it’s not ready yet to be used to write long and complete posts. It’s useful if you want to view and manage comments or write a short and simple posts.

11. On Nokia E90 Communicator, it works on both screen. But on the external screen, navigation is slower compared to the internal screen.

12. Other than the slowness and non touchsreen related issues, in my opinion, it also needs an offline mode.

13. Everytime I launch it, it will ask me to select Access Point to connect to the internet and I have to reject it by pressing cancel 15 times before can use it offline!

14. An offline function without the annoying prompts will enhance it’s usability even more. There should be an option for users to choose to connect to server for fetching and updating contents or stay offline.

15. The connectivity issue also happens when I toggle from one blog view to another. It will try to establish a connection.

16. Like I said, there are many user scenario where it fits perfectly okay for offline usage. One of them is to write short post or to draft an idea in an area without WiFi or internet coverage.

17. I believe the development team is working very hard to make sure this WordPress for Nokia application easy to use, stable, relevant and functional. And they are almost there.

18. Until it becomes really useful on E90, and optimised for non-touch operations, I am sticking to WordMobi at the moment.

19. But for you who own one of Nokia’s Symbian^1 touchscreen smartphones or N900 (Maemo 5), this is the most elegant solution for your WordPress blogging needs.

20. Visit http://dev.nokia.wordpress.org to follow it’s development. It’s a free open source project and you can also contribute to it’s progress.

- Asri al-Baker

2. Out of the box, Symbian supports multitasking since the glorious days of Psion.

3. The built in method in S60 to see the running applications in the background is to press and hold the Menu key aka the Applications key which will list opened applications.

4. If you want to close an application, press the delete or the cancel key while highighting an application in the built-in taskmanager.

5. There’s also some 3rd party applications for those who want more power in managing multitasking. Applications like Handy Taskman, Best Taskman and JBak Taskman are the most commonly known.

6. I prefer to use Best Taskman. Which, in my opinion, has better features for my needs.

7. Compared to Handy Taskman which looks more polished and better designed, Best Taskman doesnt score in the design department.

8. However, Best Taskman wins with regards to ease of use and quick access to most commonly used functions such as the task-switcher whic is unique. With a click of a button, Best Taskman displays a task-switcher which pops-up in the centre of the screen and allows user to toggle between opened applications quickly. It looks and functions just like the Alt-Tab shortcut on Windows PC.

9. Other than that, Best Taskman also offers quick-access shortcuts to applications. This can be configured in the setting.

10. Another important Best Taskman function for me is the ability to show hidden processes and if you want, you can kill any rogue process. It is one feature that is not available in Handy Taskman.

11. A quick way to close all running applications is also available from the menu. Very useful to quickly release RAM.

12. Best Taskman is also useful to view available RAM, internal storage as well as memory card space.

13. And if you fancy looking into applicaton details such as app uid and keep track of how many applications are installed, it’s just a few clicks away.

14. All in all, I’m comfortable using Best Taskman on my E90 because although it looks kinda ugly compared to Handy Taskman, it has unique features that are not available on other applications.

15. So, what’s your preferred multitasking tool? Care to share with us?

16. Get Best Taskman from Smartphoneware’s official website for only $7.95. A 15 days fully functioning demo is available for you to test to help you decide your purchase.

1. If there’s a Symbian application that I can talk about for hours, it must be Gravity.

2. It made my friends who use iPhones, Androids and other smartphone platforms jealous and wanting to use E71 just for Gravity.

3. What made Gravity so special? To me, it’s about the unique user experience and the amount of effort by Jan Ole, (the developer) put in to enhance Gravity.

4. I use Gravity mainly for 2 things. Twitter and Google Reader.

5. With usability in mind, Gravity pushed Symbian applications further by giving an intuitive user interface unlike anything else in we’ve seen.

6. Gravity is not a software that sits idle and do nothing. It’s (for lack of better word) ALIVE!

7. Those who have used Gravity would know that it’s not Twitter nor Facebook nor Foursquare nor Google Reader that make Gravity part of their life. It’s the lifestyle.

8. Bringing all these services into Gravity was fun. Using them in Gravity is a luxury.

9. What’s next? I’d say please bring Bloglines support and port it to other devices as well. Android, iPhone, Symbian^3 and beyond and to desktops as well.

10. Happy first anniversary Gravity!

1. Aint rumours the best thing since sliced bread? No?

2. Apparently, the above photo has been circulating on the internet for quite some time now.

3. It looks like a mix of N97 Mini and 5230. But instead of a tilting screen, it slides-up to reveal the full QWERTY and D-Pad.

4. I noticed the keyboard is also aligned to the screen’s edges. Maybe for ease-of-typing and also ergonometry.

5. There are not much information about this rumour except it’s C6 designation and the photo above.

6. If this is true, then it means that the new Cseries will also has a range of devices from normal phone without touchscreen to the more modern and powerful smartphones with touch interface.

7. Regarding the system, I bet it’s going to be Symbian^1 aka S60 5th Edition because the Homescreen doesnt look like to have the trademark of Symbian^3 like the small dots at the bottom of the screen (to indicate multiple homescreens) and there are 3 hardware buttons whereas for Symbian^3, I’m told that one hardware button is going to be the standard.

8. Suddenly, this year 2010 looks like to be a very interesting year for Symbian

1. Scott Weiss, User Interface Manager of Symbian Foundation has posted an update of the progress for Symbian^4 UI development.

2. From the blog, there’s nothing much to report actually. If you are expecting new screenshots or video of the upcoming Symbian^4 UI cncept, you’ll be disappointed.

3. However, Scott did summarize briefly of the contributions and ideas that have been generated as well as the sheer amount of interest from the community who want to see a better Symbian in the future.

4. It has to be noted that Symbian^4 is still under heavy development and it will be a good year or more from now before we can see the actual product on real hardware.

5. There’s also 2 videos showcasing the same Symbian^4 UI concept that have been circulating on the interwebs for some time. They showed the photo gallery and the homescreen.

6. What do you think?

2. Basically, all Symbian smartphones have this feature built-in. No 3rd party application required to manage your personal information.

3. However, the built-in software is too basic. Take the calendar for example, there’s no way to link calendar entry to a contact. This is really a downer for advanced users.

4. This is where DreamLife came into the picture. It was developed and produced by DreamSpring, an old-timer in the Symbian application space. They have announced the availability of DreamLife for Symbian^1 smartphones.

5. DreamLife combines contacts and calendar management into a smart and cool-looking application and more powerful compared to the built in apps.

6. Before this, DreamLife was a must-have for UIQ3 owners who want more control over their personal information.

7. It was designed to incorporate modern features of a smart PIM application such as focussing on the information display and usability.

8. It was developed for months before released to the end users.

9. However, the pricetag is quite high. Make sure you really test it before buying it.

10. More information about DreamLife for Symbian^1 at : http://www.dreamspring.com/products/dreamlife-for-s60/dreamlife-for-s60.html