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Johanna is a Helsinki-based writer and performer who also gets into technology sometimes.

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July 26, 2007 Want to make the phone a better place? Make a wish... Posted by at 01:36 PM | Categories: S60 basics

Just a quick tip if you've ever had a brilliant (at least to you) idea about your phone: check out the Application wishlist and Feature wishlist on S60.com. The application wishlist is for ideas for downloadable applications for S60 devices, while the feature wishlist is for ideas for the S60 platform itself. They're then available for developers and the S60 team to use for inspiration. Also, if someone's already made the kind of application you're looking for, they can add a link to your wish. Check it out.

If I were a developer, surely I could make enough for a yearly trip to Malibu with my swish creative flair, but I'm a bona-fide ignoramus when it comes to code and I'm pretty happy to keep it that way, so I'm open to sharing my ideas.

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July 20, 2007 Flash, podcasts, and namaste Posted by at 10:26 AM | Categories: Applications

Darla Mack posted today about a great little mobile Flash application: Yoga for beginners. What's great about the fact that S60 models are starting to come with an integrated Flash player is that it basically means you can play so-called "casual" Flash games, and developers who make Flash applications for Web can also make them for mobile. I really like the feel of Flash online: it just feels light and quick to use, so I'm looking forward to trying it out on mobile as well. While some models come with Flash Lite already installed, if you don't have it, you can try downloading it for free from Adobe.

But speaking of yoga, there's a kind of nice S60 feature that's come up since podcasting really hit its stride: listening to podcasts on your phone. I found a nice bunch of yoga podcasts (easy to find with iTunes) and I thought hey, let's try out a new 60-minute class just to add another teacher's voice to my practice (okay, my nowadays reallyoccasional practice). Normally, I put podcasts on my mp3 player. So I put them on my trusty little machine and... now what? Do yoga with headphones on? I tried it once and got my downward-facing dog tangled up in wires. Plus having something on your ears isn't that nice when doing yoga. You could, of course, burn podcasts to CD or use separate speakers if you have them (I don't) or do yoga in the same room as your computer (very soulful indeed). But suddenly—wuppah! I can just play them on my phone's loudspeaker!

Now, there's already a Nokia Podcasting application (check out the blog!), where you can download podcasts right to your phone! That is absolutely boss—if you have a flat-rate 3G connection or WiFi, but if not, you can also easily download podcasts to your computer and then transfer to your mobile. Listening to music with the phone's speakers is still on the tinny side of enjoyment, but for spoken word, I think the sound quality's fine. So now I've got my hands free... free to grasp my ankle and try to get it around my ear. And that's freedom, I'm sure.

Download Yoga for beginners for N73 (apparently also works with the N95; you could try it on other phones that support Flash Lite but no guarantees from me!)

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July 12, 2007 Best S60 games? Posted by at 03:33 PM | Categories: Games

You know what I don't do enough? Kill time with games... sweet, nourishing games...

But seriously. When I think of games for S60, I mostly think of Texas Hold'em and a bunch of puzzle games, as well as a lot of stuff that basically looks like what I (okay, my brother) used to play on the Nintendo Entertainment System. My bent runs to stuff like Bejeweled and Tetris, although I've also been known to kill eight hours in one sitting with Sid Meier's Civilization III or The Sims. Also a die-hard Zelda fan.

What do you play on your phone? Do you download games? Give me something to try!

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July 09, 2007 Social butterfly? Assign photos to your contacts! Posted by at 01:42 PM | Categories: Friends, Organizing, Photography, S60 basics

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"Good memory, but short" is something they say here in Helsinki, and I have a feeling it applies mostly to Great People You Met At A Party Last Weekend & You'll Never Ever Remember Their Names, Ever. This sort of thing happens to me a lot, it seems—I have a theory about my meeting a lot of people and my brain basically doing social memory triage and deleting tonnes of names and faces really shortly after hearing and seeing them in order to maximize the chances that I'll remember where I locked my bike, or what my own name is, etc.

But anyway there's something in S60 that really comes in handy when you meet a lot of people: assigning pictures to your contacts. What you do is snap a shot of the person, and when you get their name and number, set that picture to be their thumbnail. When they call you (or when you call them, or just look at their entry in the contacts) you'll see a little avatar-sized photo of them. This works great when about a week ago you were at a party where there were a lot of new people, or a conference where you met a bunch of new potential business contacts.

There are two ways to do it: when editing the contact details, choose "Add thumbnail" and you'll open the phone's gallery, where you can select the photo to use. Or, if you're browsing your pictures, you can select a photo, choose Use image > Assign to contacts.

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July 04, 2007 The all-powerful shortcut key! Posted by at 01:14 PM | Categories: S60 basics

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There's a quick way to switch between applications on an S60 phone. This trick goes way back to even 2nd-edition S60 devices and once you find it, you'll never know how you lived without it.

Just press and hold the menu key (you know, the one with the kind of swooshy symbol on it), and you'll see a scrollable list in the upper left corner of the screen. To switch to an application, scroll to it and hit the OK button (or Select). To quit an application without going to it, press the C button and then hit Yes. It saves a huge amount of time. Okay, it saves maybe three thumbpresses, but it feels like it saves a huge amount of time (staggering, maybe even), and that's what really counts.

The first time a friend of mine showed me this, I did a total smack-the-forehead -why-didn't-I-realize-that- before thing, which is pretty much exactly the same way everyone else reacts when I show them. It's so totally obvious and smart, and yet a whole lot of people don't even know they have it.

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July 02, 2007 Your phone comes with a calendar Posted by at 01:03 PM | Categories: Organizing, S60 basics

I remember when I first got a phone that featured a calendar and all that jazz, I really didn't think I could be bothered to put in the time to start using it. I don't know if I just got bored on the train one day or if I got insomnia, but somehow I accidentally started to play around with the phone's calendar, and I have to say I'm a bit of a devotee. My schedule, I would bet a hot dinner, features a complexity set to rival, say, the Secretary General of the United Nations, so I really need to be able to access my calendar whenever changes to plans come up. If I get really, really honest: I have a calendar on my phone, I use Microsoft Outlook at work, but I also have a Moleskine dayplanner (to match my Moleskine obsession) that goes everywhere with me, and a wipe-off-use-again-get-that-nice-ink-all-over-your-fingers wall calendar at home. Looking at just my friends and family, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has an elaborate system worked out, but whether you're looking for redundancy in your timekeeping system, or a way to actually simplify your calendar habits, consider using your phone.

The way I've found that works best with my phone's calendar is to make sure I synchronize with my PC calendar at work. If you don't use a calendar application for your work or to organize your life in general, then you can just rely on the S60 calendar and you're pretty much set.

The biggest advantage of the phone calendar is that you can get a reminder (set a reminder alarm for any time, any day) and you're sure to get it when you need it. A book doesn't do that for you, and a computer only gives you reminders when you're sitting in front of it.

If you have recurring appointments, you don't have to key them in every time. Just type it in once and set it to repeat daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or even yearly. This is great for birthdays—you get reminded to send someone birthday wishes and bingo, your phone's already in your hand. (I have a feeling this feature might even have something to do with why my brother actually remembered to call me on my birthday this year. It's either that or Facebook, surely, but I'm not complaining.)

One more tip regarding calendar reminders: the newer S60 versions, such as that in the Nokia N95, allow you to set multiple alarm clock times, but with older versions you only get one (plus the snooze button, of course). If I had a flight to catch or something else important that required a seriously early start, I'd use the calendar to set a backup alarm a few minutes later.

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