Smartphone Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Customizing The New Sliding Panel Homescreen

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone Talk" @ 11:37 AM

http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile...homescreen.aspx

"Hi, my name is Jorge Peraza; I am a Developer on the Windows Mobile team that was responsible for the new “Sliding Panel” home screen in Windows Mobile 6.1. When we were working on the visual style and functionality of the home screen we tried to make something that looked both professional and appealing while still showcasing all the information the user is going to need to know what’s important and requires attention. While I think the default design looks really cool, we added some customization features to enable users to make it their own..."



Jorge Peraza, developer on the windows Mobile team, gives us a quick look at the flexibility of the new Windows mobile 6.1 Standard homescreen. If you are a homescreen developer - or just you’re run of the mill techno-curious individual like myself - then I suggest giving this article a read! Inside you will learn how to rearrange your sliding panels and remove items you don't need. Jorge even points us in the direction of what files to modify for more advance customization features... though he doesn't go into them at all and states that they are not supported by Microsoft. Makes you wonder what Microsoft's new, and refreshingly pleasant, homescreen is capable of, huh?

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Friday, April 4, 2008

Samsung Blackjack II Windows Mobile 6.1 Homescreen in Action!

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone News" @ 02:00 PM

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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Samsung Blackjack Card Wheel Homescreen

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone Talk" @ 07:00 PM

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Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard and Professional Reviewed!

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone News" @ 12:00 PM

http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=po...ews&id=1050&p=2

"The latest Windows Mobile upgrade brings minor, but very welcome additions to the platform. In this article, we'll cover both the Standard (non-touchscreen) and Professional (touchscreen) editions and show you what's to love about the Windows Mobile 6.1 update. Now, you'll notice this is not a full version upgrade, but just a ".1" upgrade so you know you can't expect a full overhaul. It really feels like just a quick update intended to fill in a couple of gaps between the Windows Mobile and Apple iPhone functionality. You'll notice some similarities between the Standard and Professional operating systems (such as the Internet Explorer and Text Messaging updates), but you'll also notice some odd differences. Read on for our thorough rundown of the next version of Windows Mobile to hit your phone!"


[Windows Mobile 6.1 in the flesh! From left to right - Standard and Professional]

Pocketnow.com has brought us a quick review of Windows Mobile 6.1. This review contains a ton of screenshots and two videos of WM 6.1 in action on both the Standard and Professional handsets! All in all, I'm really excited to get my hands on either a device that is equipped with this new update or a Windows Mobile 6.1 ROM image for my Emulator. Oh man, good times! You guys have no idea how relieved I am that this didn't turn out to be a huge April fool’s joke from Microsoft!

You can see the videos (I promise it isn't another Rick Roll) for the Standard platform here and the Professional platform here. Enjoy!

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Monday, March 31, 2008

SBSH Facade 1.4.1 on Sale For $9.95 until April 10th!

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone Software" @ 08:46 AM

http://software.smartphonethoughts....-Screen-Plugin!

"Facade is a highly customizable tab-based Home screen plug-in for Smartphone devices. With Facade, you can view your upcoming appointments and tasks directly on your Smartphone Home screen, keeping you up to date on all your important appointments and tasks. Additionally, Facade puts a launcher tool right onto that same Home screen, allowing you to launch your favorite applications directly from your Home screen with just a single click and monitoring your Smartphone battery and memory status using special meters."



Yep, thats right. I have another fantastic deal for you guys today. From now until April 10th, 2008 you can purchase the extraordinarily popular Facade productivity plugin from our affiliate store for a incredible price of $9.95USD. Enjoy!

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Google Makes Search Plug-In Available to Windows Mobile

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone Software" @ 11:57 AM

http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/20...-than-slow.html

"If you're a Windows Mobile user, browse to mobile.google.com on your device to download the plug-in and start searching faster than ever. Once you do, we think you'll find it so much faster and easier that you'll start conducting more mobile web searches than you ever had before. How do we know this? Well, when we look at the combined usage numbers for BlackBerry and Symbian versions of this plug-in, we see that users are able to get Google search results up to 40 percent faster. And, BlackBerry and Symbian users with the plug-in installed search 20 percent more than those without it."



It pleases me to see that more and more companies are showing our Windows Mobile handsets some love as of late. First we get MSN Direct, then Google Gears and now a dedicated Google Search homescreen/today screen plugin. Installing this application couldn't be easier. Just point your mobile browser to mobile.google.com and select the "Search (Download)" link to start a download of the plugin. After it is installed the program should send up a message to inform you of whether or not the plugin can work with your existing homescreen. If you are using an incompatible theme, Google Search will offer to automatically switch your theme to one that does work. Like I said, this plugin couldn't be simpler to use. Hats off to Google!

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• Source: Phone Scoop

Monday, March 10, 2008

Samsung BlackJack, BlackJack II and ACE Leap-Year Calendar Patch Available

Posted by Rocco Augusto in "Smartphone News" @ 12:00 AM

http://www.theunwired.net/?item=fix...patch-available

"You might have noticed that 2008 is a leap year and while you (and even Microsoft's Outlook Mobile) noticed it, it seems Samsung's BlackJack, BlackJack II and ACE Windows Mobile smartphones have overseen it... Anyway, I've got my hands on a couple of patches, just small CAB files for your device, which corrects the issue described above. So if you are either using a Windows Mobile 6 upgraded BlackJack/SGH-i607 (the patch isn't working with Windows Mobile 5.0) or a new BlackJack II/SGH-i617 or a recently released ACE/SPH-i325 Windows Mobile Standard smartphone, you might want to install the patch to get the Home screen issue fixed."



Just like Mike (no pun intended), I was a little baffled to see that phone was trying to trick me into believing I was living one calendar day in the past. Now the good news is there is a fix for this annoyance. Arne Hess of the::unwired fame has a few patches in the form of CAB files on his site that will correct this issue for us. The only bad news is if you have to perform a hard-reset in the future, you will have to reinstall this patch. Hopefully, if we're lucky, Samsung will just release some fancy Windows Mobile 6.1 ROMs for our Samsung Blackjack, Blackjack II and ACE handsets.

EDIT: I have created a ZIP archive containing all three patches. You can download it by clicking here .

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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Homescreen Designer Updated to Support Windows Mobile 5 Smartphones

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 09:45 AM

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Wednesday, January 4, 2006

New Madbeetle Animated Homescreen Plugin

Posted by Jerry Raia in "CONTENT" @ 08:00 PM

http://www.madbeetle.com/animplugin_beta.html

"We've created a new animated homescreen plugin, and before lauching it, we're looking for some feed back. What we're after is to get some people trying it out on their devices and designing some homescreens to see how it all hangs together. Key features are, you can overlay the plugin over other plugins so you can have better layouts, more than one animation per homescreen, and its backwards compatable."



This looks good. It will only work on newer QVGA phones though. I have been looking forward to some new homescreens for my new 2125 and the pickings have been slim so far. Not may tools out there to make them yet either.

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• Source: MoDaCo

Monday, December 5, 2005

PhotoPlug Homescreen Slideshow 1.0

Posted by Jerry Raia in "SOFTWARE" @ 01:00 PM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=1809

"With PhotoPlug, you can access your phone's camera right from the home scrceen. When you take pictures with your phone, or copy JPG photos to an sdcard or internal storage, they will immediately play on your device. This is a must have application for Smartphone users."



We originally posted on this here back in January and now the final version with WM2005 support is out. You can pick it up for $12. There doesn't seem to be a trial version though. [Affiliate]

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Thursday, September 8, 2005

New Desktop Homescreen Editor from Sunnysoft

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:00 AM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=1646

"Sunnysoft Home Screen Editor for SmartPhones is a unique desktop PC application that lets you edit the home screen in your SmartPhone and customize it according to your personal preferences."



It looks like there is some new competition for Ruttensoft's Homescreen Designer. In much the same manner as Ruttensoft, this application is designed to allow you to create and customize your Smartphones homescreen from the comfort of your desktop computer. It's a little confusing to use at first, but it seems pretty powerful. I wish it had the drag and drop support for positioning controls on your homescreen. :( You can download the trial version or purchase a license for $25 from our affiliate store.

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Thursday, August 25, 2005

Customize your Homescreen from your Smartphone with 1-HomeEdit

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 06:40 AM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=1631

1-HomeEdit allows you to make various changes to your homescreen right from your device. You can change the background, add or remove various plugins, and change the colors, all from within this application. IF you're constantly on the road and like to update your homescreen on a regular basis, this sounds like a pretty handy application. You can download a trial version or purchase a license for $19.99 from our affiliate store.

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Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Animate Your Homescreen with PhoneThemes

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 07:00 AM

http://www.phonethemes.com/

"Phonethemes are animated themes that restyle your entire mobile device! Phonethemes bundle together the background images, color schemes, theme animation and, depending on the theme a ringtone to add that "Wow!" factor to your mobile. Because they reskin the entire device you should set the 'Colour scheme' and 'Background image' settings to 'Default'. Windows Mobile phonethemes are also extremelly efficient and have a power-management utility ensuring minimal impact on the battery life of the phone. Installation is easy and using them is even more straight-forward"



I find these animations a little too distracting for my taste. However, if you are interested and want to try out an animated homescreen, PhoneThemes.com are giving away 4 animated themes for free: Cool Aquarium, XP Sky, Snow Mountain, and Pretty Girl. Just register on their site, and you can start downloading. If anyone does install these, please report back and let us know how you find them. :)

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• Source: CoolSmartphone

Thursday, March 10, 2005

New Homescreen Calendar Plugin

Posted by Jerry Raia in "SOFTWARE" @ 02:00 PM

http://www.modaco.com/index.php?showtopic=202836

One of the MoDaCo members has come up with this homescreen plugin. Personally, I think things like this take up too much screen real estate. From the thread it seems you install plugin with a .cab file. Then install the theme you see in the image above. If you want your own theme you will have to edit the xml yourself however.

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Friday, February 4, 2005

Ruttensoft Releases New Version of Homescreen Designer

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 06:59 AM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=870

Ruttensoft has recently released an upgrade to Homescreen Designer. They have added support for 2002 based Smartphones, more plugins are now supported including Fizz Traveller / Oxios / Slideshow, Volume / Question box / Information box screens are now supported. You can find a full list of new features and bug fixes here. With over 13,000 downloads on Smartphone.net alone, I'm sure that most of you already have a copy. If not, you can download a trial version, or purchase it for $12.00 here. [Affiliate]

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Tuesday, November 9, 2004

Upgrade & Bug Fixes for Homescreen Designer

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 07:00 AM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=870

Homescreen Designer is an amazing new tool that allows you to create WYSIWYG homescreens for your Smartphone. Ruttensoft, the company behind this great product, has just released an upgrade that fixes a couple bugs, and adds a wealth of new features. Version 1.1.4 supports more plugin, multiple lines for calendar, ability to move the icon bar, alter prefix label for carrier and email, and lots more. This is a free upgrade for anyone who has already purchased Homescreen Designer version 1.0.



Homescreen Designer requires the .NET Framework on your machine. You can download a trial or purchase a copy for $12.00 here. [Affiliate]

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Monday, October 25, 2004

SmartMonitor Homescreen Plug-in

Posted by Jason Dunn in "SOFTWARE" @ 03:56 PM

http://www.smartphinger.co.uk/SmartMonitor/

"What does SmartMonitor do? This plug-in displays text representing different parameters of your phone such as battery life, temperature, storage space and available memory. You can also add icons representing any of these things as you see fit. The plug-in is extremely configurable in that it allows you to place as many or as few bits on information on the screen, wherever you want with just a minor tweak of the XML file."



I'm always looking for a new way to enhance the home screen on my Smartphone, and this looks like a good solution!

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• Source: PPCW.net

Thursday, September 30, 2004

WYSIWYG Homescreen Designer Available For Smartphone; Honest

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 05:04 AM

http://www.smartphone.net/smartphonethoughts/software_detail.asp?id=870

It appears that my post earlier this week was a little pre-mature. I had stumbled across a work in progress. Ruttensoft has finished up the application and it's now ready for everyone to enjoy. Homescreen Designer is available for $12.00 here. Please download the trial version to ensure it works on your system before you spend your hard earned cash. Oh, and if you haven't see the Flash demo, it can be found here. [Affiliate] :D

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Monday, September 27, 2004

Easily Customize Your Phone With Homescreen Designer 1.0

Posted by Mike Temporale in "SOFTWARE" @ 08:45 PM

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