2. I mean, seriously? There’s not even a good & fluid PDF Reader app for Symbian in this modern age? What do Symbian users do with their smartphones? Only for making calls? Pfffttt….

3. The situation is so frustrating. If you receive PDF email attachments, and if you are not using Mobile Documents, you’ll be suffering from headache.

4. Today’s requirement for a proper smartphone is not the same as say, 5 years ago. Handling documents properly is one of the functions that defines true smartphones.

5. Enter PDF Eagle. A PDF reader app for Symbian that blows away other Symbian PDF readers. For real!

6. Visiarc, the team led by Peter Lindgren, the same team who brought us the multiple award winnings Mobile Documents, is working very hard to bring real PDF app for Symbian. I mean, this is “THE PDF Reader for Symbian“. Period.

7. The interface is fluid and smooth. It’s less cluttered. Menus and navigations are hidden and only shown when necessary by a simple tap on the screen. The app presents PDF documents as it should.

8. Pinching and zooming is also everywhere. Making viewing PDF documents a pleasure. And for the first time in Symbian, if I’m not mistaken, the app will follow screen orientation in all four axis. It doesn’t matter how you hold your Symbian smartphones when using PDF Eagle, it will rotate accordingly. This is cool!

9. The smoothness of PDF Eagle is apparent not only in the UI. But also in the rendering of PDF pages. It can open multi-megabytes of PDF files with ease. It does stutter when the PDF files contain a lot of graphics but for text based PDF documents, it has no problem dealing with.

10. I cant show you how PDF Eagle truly performs in words. Hence, I shot this video for you guys to see yourself the goodness inside PDF Eagle.

11. PDF Eagle was developed using Visiarc’s proprietary rendering technology and for the UI, they use Qt.

12. PDF Eagle is not only about the application. It’s a solution where Visiarc plans to bring the best PDF experience on your mobiles. For example, if you find a PDF document that cant be opened using PDF Eagle, you can email it to the team and they will inspect the file. Any improvements and patches will be included in future updates which will come free for regisered users.

13. When asked on why Visiarc brings PDF Eagle, Peter Lindgren answers :

“Dealing with PDFs on your mobile has always been a challenge, especially large PDFs. Frankly, we were missing a touch-optimized fullscreen PDF experience. We wanted a responsive interface that maximizes the use of the limited screen real estate, so we developed the PDF Eagle app to deliver its smooth and pleasant mobile PDF experience”.

14. On future updates and improvements, Peter adds :

“We hope that users will appreciate the user experience we deliver and see this as a good and promising start for something that will become great, and ever greater if they give us their feedback. Full text find/search, text reflow and links, top the wish list now, but we’d like users to provide their feedback.

Send your wishes to us!”.

15. PDF Eagle, in it’s current form is not perfect, it does have some weaknesses like unable to open PDF files at random, but for for an initial release, it’s an impressive app.

16. One more thing, Peter, if you read this, can we have a demo version with limited functions please? Maybe some people will be more convinced about it after testing it.

Get PDF Eagle for only 3 Euros from Nokia Store : http://store.ovi.com/content/186299

Official website is at : http://www.pdfeagle.com

Thank you Visiarc!

- For i-Symbian.Com
- Asri al-Baker
- October 19th 2011

N – Night and day, I dream about it since it’s announced.

O – Of course I feel this is going to be the greatest Nokia event in years.

K – Kuala Lumpur to London. 12 hours flight. 6,557 miles/ 10,552 kilometres!

I – I cant wait to be the among the first to see Nokia’s awesomenesss.

A – A year of waiting has passed since last year’s Nokia World.

W - What would I do if I go there? A lot. I want to document all the moments from leaving the house to the flight, to the events, to the people…

O – Oh… Dont forget the developer session. It will give me some edges in this competitive space.

R – Rest? Relax? What do you mean? It’s the BIGGEST TWO DAYS for a Nokia fan! Not a second will be wasted!

L – London. The megacity. Nokia Maps will be utilised to the max! It will be my guide and companion.

D – Did I say it will be one of the defining moments in my life?

* The entire text above was typed on a Nokia E7.
** According to LibreOffice, total amount of words above is 179.

- Asri al-Baker
- For SymbianKu.Com
- October 15th 2011!

1. I dont know about you guys but I notice recently if you go to http://touch.facebook.com using your Symbian Anna Web browser, you’ll experience a new Facebook Touch experience.

2. Previously, visiting the same URL will present the basic Facebook mobile website.

3. Now, there are more than just simple access to status updates, and inboxes. There are more functions and the user interface is also refined and more touch friendly.

4. I am not a heavy Facebook user. But it’s good to see Facebook implementing something as a standard accross all mobile smart platforms. The decision to use HTML5 as the framework is very welcomed. You can be read some mumbo-jumbos about it HERE.

5. Previously, iOS and Android devices receive the most advanced Facebook mobile experience while Symbian only have the option to use the most basic Facebook mobile interface.

6. I believe the current iteration is standard across all mobile smart platforms? No?

7. It’s true that at the moment, there are many ways to access Facebook using Symbian devices. Among them are :
- Gravity
- Facial
- fMobi
- Borg
- Nokia Social
- Kasvopus

8. And with this enhanced Facebook Touch also available for Symbian, it makes us Symbian users feel great again.

9. How about you? Have you experienced the new Facebook Touch at http://touch.facebook.com?

10. Enjoy these screenshots!

- Asri al-Baker
- for i-Symbian.Com
- October 12th 2011

*** the above photo is unrelated to this post at all

1. I dont know whether you guys noticed this or not but apparently, Symbian Anna’s kinetic scrolling performance is worst than Symbian^3.

2. On Symbian^3, the kinetic scrolling works and feels faster. You can scroll in a long list with ease. It doesn’t stop frequently. You can flick your finger or thumb in all over the OS with ease.

3. However, since I updated my Symbian^3 smartphones to Symbian Anna, I feel it’s kinetic scrolling performance is slower and it stops frequently. Dunno why…

4. Many will say it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t matter, but for me, having a really fast kinetic scrolling does help in enhancing the user experience. I dont want to do a lot of flicking and I want a fast kinetic scrolling everywhere in my Symbian smartphones to go to the place I want faster.

5. I dig deep into Google and found a solution, a mod to be exact, which turbo-boosts Symbian Anna’s kinetic scrolling. It was developed by Ancelad. From what I read, it also works on Symbian^3.

6. This mod is unsigned. You need to know the workaround on how to sign unsigned Symbian app. Do ask Uncle Google

7. I’ve recorded a video for you guys to see how different my E7 with the mod installed to my N8 which does not have the mod yet. Both with Symbian Anna.

8. Notice how fast the kinetic scrolling is on the E7? With just a flick, the list scrolls from top or bottom vice versa without stopping. You can do another flick to make it go faster.

9. On the N8, without the mod, the kinetic scrolling needs continuous flicking and is jerky.

10. You can experience this yourself by installing this file :

Mediafire : Kinetic Scrolling Improvement for Anna by Ancelad.

11. Remember, it’s unsigned, you need to sign it first.

- Asri al-Baker
- For i-Symbian.Com
- September 7th 2011

2. Option 1 : Using the stock Symbian Web or Opera Mobile, or Opera Mini, you can access your Google Plus account using http://m.google.com/+. BUT, this URL will open the basic version. And sometimes the pages are not displayed very well.

3. True. You can use the basic version of mobile Google Plus but the basic page is too… well… Like the name suggests, basic…

4. Option 2 : is using Opera Mobile or Opera Mini to visit the HTML5 mobile version of Google Plus but the layout is effed up.

5. Option 3 : is to use the latest Opera Mobile 11, change the user agent to Desktop, go to http://plus.google.com. This opens the full desktop website of Google Plus with all bells and whistles. It’s very heavy on RAM and clunky to navigate on mobile.

6. Option 4 : designed for HTML5 enabled advanced mobile web browsers. It offers a better Google Plus mobile experience because it offers more than just basic html.

7. The full URL for this HTML5 version of Google Plus for mobile is https://m.google.com/app/plus/?force=1

8. Try typing that URL on your Symbian touch smartphone on the alphanumeric virtual keypad. Your brain wil pull a stunt and synchronising your thumb is painful.

9. Therefore, for all Symbian touch users all over the world, I developed this Widget launcher. Go download this Zip file, extract the “sweetgplus.wgz” file inside it and install. There will be an icon called sweetGplus in your Application folder.

Here is how it looked like :

10. Do take note that Google Plus is a new service and it requires registration before you can use it.

11. If you like what I do, and want to see more cool WebApps for Symbian, send me some PayPal love will ya!

Download the file HERE!

- Asri al-Baker
- For i-Symbian.Com
- July 21st 2011

Donate to us

If you like what we do, please help us to maintain the Independent Symbian Blog.

2. According to the official website, Opera included a number of updates in this version. Which makes Opera Mobile 11.1 the closest thing to a desktop class internet browser for supported mobile devices such as Symbian smartphones.

- An easier way to select texts on any webpage and copying them (also searching the texts on Google). Honestly, it is very intuitive and easy to use.

- Viewing webpages in a single column. Eliminating the need to scroll left and right. This is just a rebranding / rewrite of Opera Mobile’s mobile view which is good. Great and very useful in portrait mode using one hand.

- Browse websites in mobile version or in full desktop glory. There’s a new item in the advanced setting that enables users to select between “Desktop” or “Mobile” user agent. And this does wonders. More on that later.

- More HTML5 compliant than any other web browser for Symbian. For example, using http://www.html5test.com as a benchmark place, Opera Mobile 11.1 Symbian scores 269. Waaaaayyyyy higher than the stock Symbian Web browser who only scores a disappointing 36…

4. I really like the new version especially the User Agent changer. Which enables full scale desktop web browsing on my Nokia E7.

5. True, there are some issues, particularly the following.
- Unable to post to Disqus comments
- No Flash support for Symbian
- RAM usage is still high.

6. Get it from :

http://www.opera.com/mobile

or

http://m.opera.com

7. More information from :

http://my.opera.com/operamobile/blog/2011/06/30/opera-mobile-11-1-has-arrived

http://my.opera.com/operamini/blog/2011/06/30/opera-mini-6-1-launched-today-for-java-blackberry-android-and-s60

2. It’s the User Agent changer. Though limited to Desktop and Mobile only, it opens a lot of possibilities to Opera Mobile 11.1 users because when the Desktop User Agent is selected, Opera Mobile turns almost to Opera Desktop.

3. For bloggers who use self-hosted WordPress, and happen to be a Symbian user at the same time, this is a great option to blog using Symbian devices. Why? Because it’s better than anything else on Symbian currently.

4. There’s an official WordPress client but I hate to say that it’s almost useless. It’s buggy, always crashes and doesn’t have copy & paste function (a bug in Qt text implementation).

5. With Opera Mobile 11.1, you can do almost everything to your WordPress blog that you normally do on desktop web browser. Things like creating new posts, managing plugins, approving comments, uploading and embedding photos to your posts and more.

6. Opera Mobile 11.1 has an extensive support for Javascript and it’s the only web browser on Symbian currently that can comfortably load WordPress Admin Panel without a choke. Try that with the stock Symbian Web browser.

7. For me, I’ve been waiting for this day to come for years. Mobile blogging is something I do very often.

8. Here’s how :

- I write the text using the stock Notes app on my Nokia E7.

- The hardware qwerty on Nokia E7 is really good. Making typing texts so easy. For example, this post is written entirely using Notes on Nokia E7.
- I copy the texts using Ctrl + A (Select All) and Ctrl + C (Copy)

- I log in to my WordPress Admin using Opera Mobile 11.1

- Create a New post

- I paste the texts into the text field using Ctrl + V (Paste)

- If I want to add screenshots or photos, I can use WordPress’ upload function.

- Screenshots were taken using Smartphoneware’s Best Screensnap.
- All posting options like Categories, Tags etc can be configured using Opera Mobile 1.11

- Publish!
- It’s just like using a desktop web browser!

9. I cant say enough on how I love Opera Mobile 11.1!

10. Get it if you havent tried it!

http://m.opera.com

1. It’s been a while since Symbian apps looked beautiful and function well, making using them a joyful ride. If I remember correctly, Jan Ole’s Gravity is one of those apps which brings some fresh ideas to the world of Symbian apps. But that was like 2 years ago…

2. With the full release of Nokia Qt SDK 1.1 last week, developers can publish their Qt Symbian apps (developed utilising Qt 4.7) in Ovi Store. This include apps that are developed using latest Qt (including QML). Lets leave the technical jargons and see what Qt and QML can do :

Flowd

In my opinion, flowd is the best-looking Qt app for Symbian at the moment. Developed by a Digia, it is a social networking client of http://www.flowd.com that connects to your Facebook and Twitter accounts to follow favourite artistes and celebrities, as well as to check-ins and create locations.

The UI for Flowd for Symbian, is very iPhone-ish but there’s some twists and enhancements done by the team. Makes you feel very easy using it.

For some people, who couldn’t get what Flowd is, you can use this app to create favourite locations that you can visit, add details, add photos and so on.

Flowd for Symbian requires latest Qt and Qtmobility to work. Get it from Ovi Store : http://store.ovi.com/content/118220

Linkedin

For professionals, business and corporate users, Linkedin is their preferred social networking platform and for years, Symbian users have been left behind.

Finally, us Symbian users can experience Linkedin in our Symbian smartphones using a dedicated Linkedin app. It is available for FREE in Ovi Store : http://store.ovi.com/content/121603.

Although it is not as extensive as the Linkedin Web or the mobile client on other platforms, it performs very well, smooth and connects without problem.

If you are a Linkedin user and carry a Symbian^3 smartphone, this is a must.

TwimGo

A Twitter client, developed by Tommi Laukkanen. It’s not as feature rich as Gravity but for a free client, it does offer some great functions.

You can visit the developer’s website to follow the development, because it is being heavily developed and new versions are released.

Get it for free from Ovi Store : http://store.ovi.com/content/103956

Kasvopus

A Facebook client, also developed by Tommi Laukkanen.

If you hate the built-in Social app inside your Symbian^3 smartphones, you must try Kasvopus.

It is not yet feature complete but the basic Facebook functions are there. Heck, it’s so smooth and a joy to use compared to the crap Social app.

Get it for FREE from Ovi Store : http://store.ovi.com/content/120928 or from it’s official website : http://kasvopus.substanceofcode.com/

- @asrialbaker
- May 8th 2011
- For i-Symbian.Com

2. Of course there’s a built-in method to sync Google Calendar to Symbian^3 smartphones, it’s called Mail for Exchange, an implementation of Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol by Nokia. But in my experience, it drains battery faster, not in a significant amount but my experience taught me that leaving Mail for Exchange in the background to sync data, does have an impact on battery life.

3. So, if Google Calendar is very important to you, and you dont want to use Mail for Exchange (for whatever reasons), what will be the options? To sync Google Calendar to your Symbian smartphones?

4. There are a couple of methods, free and paid. You can use GoogaSync, an app that syncs multiple Google Calendar to Symbian smartphones. Or you can use GooSync, a paid service that utilises SyncML capabilities. Or you can choose Memotoo, another powerful commercial solution which also uses SyncML.

5. But they are all commercial, either one-off payment or annual fees.

6. So, how? Isn’t there any free solution to sync Google Calendar to Symbian smartphones without using Mail for Exchange?

7. Before I proceed, please take note that I am not a Windows person. Yes. I’m aware that there are methods to sync calendar to PC or Mac (which syncs to Google Calendar) via Bluetooth or USB cable but I’m not going to write about that. I want to sync Google Calendar to my Symbian smartphones without using any intermediary local agent or PC. In a nutshell, cloud-synching without PC.

8. After digging, and googling, not to mention testing one after another, I came accross a free service offered by Lorenc Consulting Inc. It is called SyncMe.

9. You can visit the website http://www.syncme.se to find more information.

10. This is the method that I use to sync my main Google Calendar (I use Google Apps For Domain) and it works without problem. I dont have multiple calendars, nor using complicated calendar functions such as invitation, or adding recipients. I also dont use Tasks (todos). My calendar is simple. It’s a place for my appointments and meetings, reminders and some important notes.

11. This method has been tested to work on Symbian^3 smartphones namely the N8 and the E7. It might or might not work with older Symbian smartphones.

***DISCLAIMER***

If you are worried about submitting information to 3rd party service provider who lives 3 million miles from you, then DONT use this service. We at i-Symbian.Com are not responsible for any data loss or any other bad consequences if you use this method.

Step 1

Go to Settings – Connectivity – Data Transfer – Sync

Step 2

Options – New Sync Profile

Step 3

Write the name of this sync profile. I use Google Calendar. You can use whatever name you want.

Step 4

In Server Version, select 1.2

Step 5

In Applications in Sync, select “Calendar” only.

Step 6

In Calendar database, write Calendar with Capital C.

Step 7

In Data bearer, choose Internet

Step 8

In Host address, write https://syncme.se (Note the https)

Step 9

For Server ID, write syncme.se

Step 10

In the Username field, write your Google username. It’s your full Gmail address. Something like yourname@gmail.com. If you are a Google Apps For Domain user like me, write your full email address . After that, click Next.

Step 11

Write the password for your email address that you use in Step 10.

Step 12

Click Next. It will notify you to Activate the profile you just created. Select Yes if you want to. Otherwise, select No.

You are almost done. If you want to activate automatic synching, you need to configure the auto-synching parameters. Please refer to my previous article, jump to number 16 to set auto-synching.

Done!

Remember, only one Sync Profile is allowed to use auto-synching. For me, I set my Google Calendar to sync automatically using this method because I am more comfortable to check and enter my appointments and calendar entries using my trusty Symbian smartphones. I move around a lot. I sync my contacts manually once in a while if there are changes I made to my contacts database.

There you go. A free method to sync Google Calendar using SyncML to your Symbian smartphones. If you have tried this, share with us your experience.

Cheers!

@asrialbaker

1. Nokia just rolled out new firmware OTA (Over The Air) update for the Nokia N8. The size of the update is just around 900 kb and it should be available to Nokia N8 users globally anytime from now.

2. I installed the update on Tuesday March 22nd 2011 at around 7 pm and to be honest, there’s no major changes that are visible. I believe the update is to fix bugs and also acording to Nokia Discussion Board, this PR1.2 is a voluntary update, which also brings improvements to Mail For Exchange and Ovi Maps, as well as Ovi Store.

We have released a voluntary software update for Nokia Symbian^3 smartphones primarily to address a synchronization issue identified in a limited number of Nokia smartphones using Mail for Exchange on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, Service Pack 1.

We listen to people’s feedback and continue to constantly improve the user experience of our smartphones with software updates. While we are working to make available the next software version, which will provide a renewed user experience, including new browser, refreshed widgets and home screen as well as many other performance enhancements, we released this software to quickly resolve a potential issue affecting our business users.

The software update will be available through the on-the-device Software Update or using Ovi Suite. The roll-out schedule will be determined operator by operator, market by market.

3. The OTA update process went very smooth over WiFi connection. Honestly, this OTA technology is very welcomed. Gone are the days where I need to hook my Symbian smartphones to a Windows PC to update the firmware. OTA is verey useful for people who dont use Windows PC like me

4. Please ensure the Nokia N8 battery is fully charged before doing the OTA update or else your Nokia N8 will go bonkers.

5. It’s already fourty hours after installing the update, and during that time, I use my Nokia N8 as my main phone for calls, texts, Gravity-ing, lots of web-surfing using the spanking new Opera Mobile 11 and sometimes Opera Mini 6, emailing via Mobile Documents, reading documents via Picsel Smart Office etc, etc. Internet connectivity via WiFi, sometimes 3.5G and when out at places without those two, I use plain ol EDGE.

6. With all the above, I am very-very surprised to see that the battery in my Nokia N8 has not died! This is unbelievable! Previously, on PR1.0 and PR1.1, I can only squeeze around eighteen to twenty hours before the battery juice dried.

7. I mean, I dont know how, or what did the engineers do to the firmware but it seems my Nokia N8 battery life lasts longer. More than one hundred percent increase! I have not charge it yet, it was switched on last two nights when I went to bed and picked it up in the morning as usual. The battery just wont die!

8. I think there’s something wrong with my Nokia N8 battery. It might be broken after the update to PR1.2

9. I believe the update will be rolled gradually to all parts of the world, especially SIM free units.

10. Have you updated your Nokia N8 firmware (also C7 and C6-01) to PR1.2? Share your experience with us here yeah!

- Asri al-Baker
- For i-Symbian.Com
- March 24th 2011