With Nokia PC Suite 6.86, you can:

• View your mobile device’s calendar in the main window
• Delete and reply to text messages in the main window
• Experience the fresh appearance of applications
• Released 9 April, 2008

Their are a number of options out there besides using the n95’s own built in navigation. Two that spring to mind are Garmin and TomTom.

I am currently using Garmin XT which performs like a dream. especially after the Assisted GPS and the extended battery life firmware updates. The product is easy to install and works well in driving mode. The one thing I don’t like are the safety camera warnings that present a red warning header and no audio, not very useful for a driver who is focussing on watching the road! I am informed that voice files can be substituted for the silence but haven’t got this to work on my unit to press but otherwise a very capable bit of kit and more power to the n95’s elbow. The one bug bear of the Garmin’s utility-ware is Mapsource (this is a bit of software for the pc, where you can create sub-maps, create waypoints and routing for maps and most important of all install maps to your unit) which I have had endless fun trying to install, I eventually got it to install only to find it grind to a halt later that day giving me the now more than familiar and just a little annoying recurring “reinstall MapSource” message.

TomTom is a different story on the other hand altogether. TomTom Mobile will NOT work with the n95’s internal GPS. I spent much of yesterday messing about with TomTom on my n95, it is easy to install to and you can set it to work with an external GPS no probs, but it does not recognise the n95’s internal GPS. With no patch imminent to rectify this, I feel that TomTom are missing out on a big market here with the n95. The n95 isn’t even mentioned as compatible with the n95 according to their own site!

The n95 comes with a barcode reader but I haven’t really used it up until now. It’s a great little tool once you get to use it with a lot of untapped uses. You can even create your own barcode very quickly and easily on the nokia site

Just open your barcode reader application in the office folder on your n95 and open your camera and point it at our very special nok95 message below.

What’s in the release:-

New features
1 Flash Lite 3 support added
2 Widget (Web runtime) support added
3 Default year changed to 2008

Improvements
1 General stability improvements.
2 Pre-defined access point kept after switching to different type SIM card.
3 Localization improvements.
4 Standby time improvements.
5 Improvements to BT headset interoperability.
6 Improvement to Calendar data restoring.
7 Switch from landscape to portrait mode & screen rotations improvements.

Browser
1 Improvement to long text writing to web page text boxes.
2 Browsing from WLAN wizard improvement.

Media Player
1 Localizations improvements in Music player.
2 Windows Media Player recognizes device as Nokia N95.

Messaging
1 Improvement to SMS reception.

Java
1 Improvement to Java application start.
2 Java midlet certificate checking improvement.

Navigation
1 General improvements to Maps application.
2 Localization correction to Search in Maps application.
3 Improvement to Navigate To -function when started from search application.

SIM
1 Contact names with accents and more than 11 characters can be copied to SIM card.

It’s getting beyond a joke now with UK phone providers so far behind with firmware updates for the n95 classic and inparticular my provider t-mobile. When I go on to check for firmware updates it still says v12.0.013 is the latest version despite 2 or 3 v20 firmware releases and now a v21 firmware release.

I wouldn’t mind if these were insignificant small bugfix releases but they are not; increasing battery life by 30% and increasing RAM size by significant levels (16-25mb increases are being reported) significantly improve the usability of something that we have paid for and we are unable to get the best from because providers are making sure that all their money making schemes can be incorporated into the releases.

There is however a workaround will I will pass on in the next couple of days but it can be dangerous and voids your warrranty, more later.

The horror stories that I have read from people about the sheer apathy of providers is frightening.

Is you provider doing the same, please let us know and if enough people get together may be we can do something about it?

Here is a list of product codes for some suppliers:-

Nokia N95-1 (classic) Operator Specific codes

0536065 - KPN Netherlands
0546659 - T-Mobile UK
0547686 - T-Mobile (P4U) UK
0547867 - DTAC Thailand
0547869 - Vodafone UK
0548020 - Movistar Spain
0548021 - O2 UK
0548170 - Orange UK
0548364 - O2 (CPW) UK (Graphite)
0549533 - T-Mobile (P4U) UK
0550199 - O2 Ireland

It appears the non operator euro codes are the first to get firmware updates: -

0534841 - Euro 1 - Sand
0536062 - Euro1 - Plum

Here’s an extract from nokia’s update page I got today, try it for yourself, (the code enetered is a euro code - 0536062):

Quickwrite, through word suggestions, helps improve text input speeds greatly making writing tezt quicker. It’s a great little app, have got something a little similar to this on my PDA and found it invaluable. Although this has a few less features than my PDA app it’s still a great time saving bit of software.

The latest version of the famous application “CorePlayer” uses a configuration file to mark the file formats it supports. This configuration file can be edited so that you can download EVERY file format.

Download every File Format with the S60 Browser:

1. Get the necessary applications: a file explorer like “X-plore” and the “CorePlayer v1.2.0″. “X-plore” is freeware, the “CorePlayer” however not.

2. Open the “CorePlayer” and select “Options” -> “Tools” -> “Preferences…”.

3. Choose “Select Page” -> “File Associations”.

4. Set a hook at the point “Audio Interchange File Format (AIF)”. Then confirm by choosing “OK” and close the “CorePlayer”.

5. Launch the “X-plore”.

6. Select “Menu” -> “Tools” -> “Configuration”. Set a hook at “Show Hidden files”.

7. Select the path “C:\Data\” and look for the hidden file “coreplayer.ext”. With the file marked, choose “Menu” -> “File” -> “Edit”.

8. Now you should be able to edit the file. Change the part marked in the screenshot “aiff” to the file extension you want to download. In this example, I want to download “*.rar” files; so I am editing the file to “rar”.

9. After editing the file, select “Menu” -> “Save”. The edited part must always be adapted to the file format you want to download.

9. After editing the file, select “Menu” -> “Save”. The edited part must always be adapted to the file format you want to download.

10. I uploaded the public version of “rotateMe v2.0″ to Rapidshare.com packed into a RAR archive to show you how to download the normally unsupported “.*rar” file format.

11. And the download works! However, you must quickly choose “Hide” seeing the “Download details” window. Otherwise your phone will try to open the file with the “CorePlayer”, because we edited the file to do so.

After the download is finished, select “Later”.

12. Choose “Options” -> “Downloads” to show the downloaded file.

13. Select “Options” -> “Save” and choose the path where you want to save the file. In my case, I can now open the RAR archive with “X-plore”.

This solution works great, with every file format. Only change the file extension in Step 8 and you will be able to download every file you desire.

Only very little files will cause problems, because you cannot select “Hide” fast enough and your phone will try to open it with the “CorePlayer”. Then you should use a file explorer and enter the location “C:\system\dmgr” which is used as temporary saving place for downloaded files.

However, the “Hide” solution should work in most of the cases as this happens only with very little files.

Found a great game the other day. For those of you old enough to remember, “Say what you see.” was a popular catchphrase from the UK TV quiz show called, believe it or not, Catchphrase. It’s a great little game with some natty graphics.

The official mobile game of the cult TV show. Featuring Roy Walker and Mr. Chips !

* Over 300 catchphrases for hours of entertainment
* Join Roy Walker and Mr.Chips and relive the show’s best moments
* Includes the ready money round, the bonus catchphrase and super catchphrase
* an exclusive game mode “”catchphrase attack”" to discover