Category: Nokia

How to Prepare for Forum Nokia Developers’ Workshop 2011

This post will help you for preparing yourself for the first Forum Nokia Developers’ Workshop 2011 in Karachi “€œ Pakistan from 31 Jan to 3 Feb 2011.

qt_and_j2me

The workshop focuses on two mobile technologies, J2ME and Qt available on Nokia’s S40 feature-phones and Symbian S60 smartphones. With countless Nokia devices around the world and over 3.5 million downloads from Ovi Store every single day, these technologies are highly profitable for mobile developers.

Let’s get started. First things first. You are required to bring along your notebook, so you need a notebook with either Windows (XP SP2 / Vista / 7) or Mac OSX (Leopard / Snow Leopard).

If you are going for J2ME track, you need to install J2ME SDK and related developer tools. Below are the download links of recommended tools:

If you opted for Qt, then you only need Nokia Ovi Suite and Nokia Qt SDK 1.0 or better go with latest Nokia Qt SDK 1.1 Technology Preview which includes QML and Qt Mobility 1.1 support.

Install these tools and be sure to at least open the IDE of installed SDK (Qt Creator or NetBeans) and compile a sample project that came along with SDK to make sure the installation does not have any issues.

The most important part is what you’re going to do at the workshop?

Other than educating you about J2ME and Qt and what you can do with these technologies, Forum Nokia is recommending that you bring your own idea for a project you would like to do. The instructors at the workshop will help you while you work on your project.

It’s still one day to go before the workshop starts, start planning your mobile project using J2ME or Qt and get the most of out of this great opportunity offered by Forum Nokia.

I will be at the workshop as well with some cool projects and you are welcome to connect and discuss mobile development at the event.

See you guys on Monday!

// chall3ng3r //

Nokia N8 or C7 Software Updates Failing? Try This : Updated

Nokia is earning bad reputation almost every day. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. Recently Nokia published some minor OTA software updates for Symbian ^3 devices, Nokia N8 and C7.

The updates are named as follows:

  • Phone apps update (important)
  • Apps update 1.0
  • Nokia DAB Radio
  • Videos

For some users updates are failing without any apparent reason, this includes me, and I’ve been following the discussions on official forums.

Users have tried changing the dates, soft-rebooting and hard-rebooting (8 secs power button) their devices, even some already tried factory-rest without any luck, this also includes me. All four updates failed every time, even it felt like the software updater not even trying to make a connection to internet to retry the download.

Now lets get back to the solution, which worked for me. As I mentioned, I also own a Nokia N8, and it was happening to me as well. Since it’s my secondary device, I am using it without SIM for emails, news and keeping an eye on Facebook and Twitter activity.

I found an old prepaid Tchibo SIM bought from Germany, I just popped in this SIM and did a soft-reboot. After the reboot when device was responsive again, I tried the updater. This time all four updates installed successfully, one by one. Yay!

nokia-n8-updates

So, the root cause seems to be with the SIM a folder located in Mass Storage “E:Private20019119”. You can try with the following:

Working Solution Update:

Big thanks to user “Unick” on Nokia Support Forums, who posted a working solution to the problem, and there are couple of successful installs reported from the solution.

Today I deleted folder E:Private20019119. Aftar that I run update and it finished successful. Maybe current version on Nokia server is correct.

The simple steps would be:

  • Connect your Nokia N8/C7 in Mass Storage mode to PC via USB cable
  • Locate and delete folder named “20019119” under Private folder of Mass Storage
  • That’s all.
  • Unplug the device from PC, and retry again. It should work.
  • If you have installed a SIM in your N8/C7, and update is failing. Remove the SIM, do a soft-reboot. Then try the updater without SIM. If it’s successful, reinstall the SIM and do a soft-reboot.
  • If you are using it SIM-less, like me, just put any SIM into device, do a soft-reboot. Try the updater.
  • If updater is failing with your current SIM and without SIM, you can borrow a SIM from your friend or family member, but remember, it should be from different operator than yours. Try the updater after soft-reboot.

I hope my findings will help others with the same issue. And also let me know if it worked for you as well, and which method you used.

I hope Nokia engineers are already working on a permanent solution, and they will be more careful with the updates in future.

// chall3ng3r //

New project: Make SVG icons for Symbian from any image – Free!

I am glad to announce our latest online project SVG2Go, for mobile developers targeting Symbian platform. As the name suggests, SVG2Go is for making cool looking SVG icons from any image file. And best of all, it’s online and free ;)

Start using SVG2Go online here: http://www.orison.biz/apps/svg-icon-maker/

Icons made with SVG2Go can be used for all Symbian applications made using Symbian C++, Qt and Flash Lite. Even you can use it with our other product SWF2Go, to rapidly develop cool games and applications using Flash Lite and publish them on Ovi Store.

Until now, making a nice looking SVG icon was a really hard task. The icon made using Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape doesn’t look the way designer created them, when it appeared on mobile device. Let me give you an example:

tron-icon-example

You might have checked out the Disney sponsored Tron : Tanks Arcade game on Ovi Store, made from the Tron : Legacy movie theme. Take a look it’s icon, no offense to anyone here, but I’m guessing that the developer might have not been able to produce a better icon in time, so he used this one, which doesn’t look good enough. But, the game is quite impressive, smooth graphics and play experience.

Using SVG2Go, anyone can make a really nice SVG icon instantly using the same Photoshop raster artwork. No need to experiment with SVG-T or fiddling with viewbox property. The output SVG icon looks exactly as you have made them. No tweaking needed.

As always, bellow is the screenshot of SVG2Go in action.

svg2go-screenshot

Give it a try, and do let us know of your experience with it, or any suggestions you might have. And don’t forget to share it with your fellow Symbian developers.

// chall3ng3r //

SWF2Go Professional 2.6 – Now Available as Free Trial

We are proud to announce another update of our flagship product SWF2Go Professional. This new version now natively supports latest Symbian based devices, such as Nokia N8, C7 etc.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead, and download the trial and see how easy it is to publish Adobe Flash Lite based games and applications to Ovi Store.

Also, you might like to see what kind of games are already made with SWF2Go and are available on Ovi Store. Check out some great games by Breakdesign at http://store.ovi.com/search?q=breakdesign

The biggest advantage of SWF2Go is that it’s completely standalone product. You just install it, and click the Build Project button. It’s that simple!

Download now and let us know what you think, or you might like to showcase your new game or application on our website :)

// chall3ng3r //

Some updates about SWF2Go Pro

Just wanted to share some new updates regarding SWF2Go Pro.

  • SWF2Go have now social media presence as well. You can become a fan of SWF2Go on Facebook and follow on Twitter for latest news and updates.
  • We have published a small guide to make SWF2Go v2 made SIS files compatible with S60 5th Edition devices. Read it on SWF2Go wiki
  • We are now running a special holiday season sale. Instantly save 20$ on SWF2Go Pro v2.0. So, what you are waiting for!!!

FYI, we are working on an update for SWF2Go which will be available soon. Stay tuned!

Happy holidays and have fun!

// chall3ng3r //

Nokia Ovi Store is LIVE!

Today I received an announcement that the Ovi Store is live, and products are available to end users. Great job Nokia!

Orison Tecchnologies,
 
The big day is here!  Ovi Store http://store.ovi.com is open for business!  Our thanks to you for helping to fill the shelves and get the store ready for opening day so that consumers around the world can discover your applications and content on their Nokia device.

We are working on some cool stuff as well for Ovi Store ;)

// chall3ng3r //

Happy Birthday SWF2Go!

I can’t imagine its been two years now since we released SWF2Go. The first ever Flash Lite developer toolkit which enabled developers to sell Flash Lite applications through regular channels.

SWF2Go - Home Screen

SWF2Go Professional have made great success in these two years. We successfully released one minor version as free upgrade and one major version with exciting new features.

We are truly thankful to all the developers who have supported SWF2Go all this time and kept us motivated to bring innovative new features to Flash Lite developers.

Here I’d like to share a news. We successfully enabled Flash Lite 3.1 support in our internal builds on the 2nd day Flash Lite 3.1 was available on Adobe Labs website. The second part of the news is, there will be new features in next update, so be prepared ;)

Have nice day!

// chall3ng3r //

Be My Lips – Let the phone do all the talking for you!

Never be afraid of saying anything anymore, type it in and let your phone say it for you. But be careful, don’t cross the limits ;)

This application is freeware, made using Flash Lite and Python for S60 (PyS60) and packaged using SWF2Go v2. It demonstrates how to make powerful and engaging mobile applications using Flash Lite and PyS60 on S60 3rd Edition platform.

Symbian S60 3rd Edition SIS files and full source code is available under free source license (no license at all, have fun ;)).

Download Be My Lips and read more about it at SWF2Go Wiki

Couple of screenshots:

 Type your message  Screenshot3

// chall3ng3r //