E71Blog.com

It’s no secret that I can’t stand the grey icons that the E71 was given from Nokia. They’re ugly, old-looking, and should be banished as soon as possible. I’ve highlighted several themes that use an icon pack from Flahorn that gives your E71 the look of a regular S60 phone, and now, Flahorn’s at it again with another killer icon pack. These new icons are being taken from the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and they look really close to the new Ovi icons.

While that’s already some good news, the great news is that other themers are already using these sweet new icons in their themes. NaHiD is the first such themer that I’m aware of, with his new Colorfull theme, just released today! I’ve got it loaded up on my Nokia E71, and as you can see, the icons look great! Unfortunately, the background is a bit too loud, and the Active Standby text blends in too much, but it’s exciting to see these new icons being used already, and I can only hope to see more in the future.

You can download Colorfull by NaHiD here.

Vaibhav Sharma, over at The Symbian Blog, has taken advantage of the new year to put together an exhaustive list of tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Nokia E71. Here’s the big ones:

• STICKY FUNCTION KEY – A quick double press on the bottom left ‘function’ key locks it. This is helpful in situations when you need to press a combination of keys or in applications like Gmail which can be controlled via the keypad.

• 1-800-WHATEVER - To dial 1-800-WHATEVER: type 1800, hit Fn, then Shift twice, type WHATEVER, and press the Call/Green key to dial. (The idea is to type in the alphabet mode in CAPITAL letters ONLY). The alphabets will automatically be converted to numbers.

• ONE TOUCH MUTE – You can simply mute a call by press the button between the volume keys present on the right hand side of the phone. Press it again to cancel the mute.

• REMAP THE KEYS - There are times when you feel certain keys on the E71 are being wasted when they could have come in very handy. For example, the volume keys would work wonderfully with the web browser to scroll pages or in your music player and the mute key could work as select. Make that happen.

• TIME & DATE – When the phone is in the locked state and the screen is blank, hit the Navi Button to display the time and date in a large font.

• TEXT MESSAGES – When in the standby mode, hold down left soft key to read out new text messages.

• ASSIGN SHORTCUTS -  If you have a lot of applications installed on your E71, you might want to assign additional shortcuts to different applications by definying a set of keypresses with an application called Cute Keys. Learn how here.

In addition to this, Vaibhav has written out the various keypad shortcuts for different applications. Head on over to The Symbian Blog to get the full list.

Symbian-Guru brings us news today of a new exploit found, called the Curse of Silence. This exploit could potentially affect our Nokia E71s, so I thought I’d let you know about it. Basically, this is a remote DoS attack, where the attacker would need to send you a series of specially formatted SMS messages that render your phone’s messaging functions useless (hence the name, Curse of Silence).

The attack can not be made over Bluetooth or by installing an application, the assailant would have to have your actual cell phone number in order to carry this out. They would also need to know how to setup the attack message, and send it to your phone repeatedly. Also, note that it doesn’t completely ruin your phone, as a simple hard reset, while annoying, would easily fix your phone.

Symbian-Guru points out the silliness that F-Secure is who announced the exploit, seeing as how they offer an ‘anti-virus’ application for S60 phones, priced ridiculously at $60 for an annual license. As The Guru puts it, ‘You’d be more likely to drop your phone into a puddle of water, or a beer, than have to worry about this exploit.’

Gcal

I’m sure, like me, most of you use Google Calendar to keep up with your busy schedules. Luckily, Google has a mobile-optimized version of its Calendar service that works great on the Nokia E71, but what if you need something more? Enter Gcal, a free java application that was developed by Jappit.

Gcal

Gcal works great on the Nokia E71, and allows you to easily view your Google Calendars. The real selling point, though, is the way it handles multiple calendars with ease. You can choose to either view all events across your calendars on a specific day, or you can select specific calendars that you do and do not want to see. You can also search through your calendar entries for a specific event, which could obviously come in handy.

One of my favorite features of Gcal is the mapping feature. If a calendar event has a location attached to it, you can view that location on a map. My only complaint is that you can’t really do anything with the map, other than view it. It would be cool if you could somehow send that location to Google Maps Mobile on your phone.

You can download Gcal v1.1 here for free.

[via AllAboutSymbian]

P.S. - You’ll notice I’ve got the Symbian-Guru Events calendar loaded. Ricky keeps this updated decently with mobile/Nokia-related events around the world. You can check it out here. It helps me keep up with things a little better.

The Nokia Beta Labs has updated the Nokia Conversations application with official support for newer handsets, such as our beloved E71. Nokia Conversations integrates with the Contacts application to bring threaded messaging, which means that messages sent between you and someone else are displayed like an IM conversation, making it much easier to follow along.

Nokia Conversations

Thanks to the row of shortcut keys on the E71, you can easily set this to overtake the default messaging notification, if you wanted to, and access it by simply pressing the Messaging key on your E71! You can also use the steps we showed you previously to set Conversation as the default contacts view. The application can be set to track conversations with anyone, or only with people in your addressbook (this makes it so you don’t have to see notification SMS, if you have any setup). It will also show the person’s thumbnail image, if you have one set.

Nokia Conversations

Now, pay attention, because the setup is quite involved (it is, afterall, a Beta Labs product).

1. You’ll need to install the latest Nokia Internet Services Support Package (note that you need to install this to your phone memory - NOT the memory card).

2. Now, go back to your Application Manager, and uninstall the Nokia Contacts Service Support Package if it shows up (it was not present in mine, but you should check anyways).

3. Now, install the Phonebook Extension Manager to your phone.

4. Finally, install the Conversation application.

You should now have a Conversations icon in your Application folder. You can also access the application by opening your contacts and pressing the d-pad left and then click to open the small submenu at the top of your screen. Way easy, and a great way to manage your inbox.

SmartConnect

In the Download! application on your Nokia E71, you’ll likely find an application called SmartConnect. This is a brilliant application that Nokia has hooked us E71 owners up with for free that makes it easy to setup Access Point priority groups! However, the installation is a bit tricky, so here’s what to do:

First up, you want to go into your Application Manager, options, settings, and make sure the ‘online certificate checking’ is set to ‘on’. This will allow the SmartConnect application to check to verify that you have an E71 and that you should get the app for free. This is a very important step - if you don’t allow it to check for a license, the application will install, but whenever you try to use the access point, you’ll get a nasty message that it’s not licensed.

Now, after the installation, you’ll be prompted to reboot your phone, and then you can setup your access points. This is especially cool if you have multiple WiFi networks (work, home, etc), as you can give them a priority, followed by your cellular data connection, if they’re not found. You can name your new SmartConnect access point anything you’d like, and it will show up as an access point to all of your applications.

In real life, when you go to use that access point, say in the browser, the SmartConnect application will try the different access points that you have configured, in the order you’ve placed them. That means, it can try all of your WiFi hotspots before automatically falling back to cellular, without needing you to prompt it repeatedly! Brilliant.

NOTE: If you installed the application and are still having the ‘No License’ issue, you need to uninstall the application, and then open your File Browser. Navigate to the drive that you installed the application to (either phone memory or your memory card) and find the ‘Other’ folder. Inside, there should be a ‘Birdstep’ folder - delete that. Now, reboot your phone, go into the Download! app, click options - refresh content. Make sure that you’ve enabled online certificate checking, and then you can reinstall SmartConnect from your Download! app, and it should automatically ask if it can get online to verify your certificate.

Enjoy the new simplified access point feature, now!

I know I’m a bit late to this party, but I figured you may not have seen this. Google updated its Google Maps Mobile application recently, with the native S60 client getting Street View support! Yeah, that’s right, not only can you save landmarks from Google Maps Mobile and open them in Nokia Maps (and vice versa), you can now also get Google Street View content right there on your Nokia E71! The landscape display makes this a truly awesome experience, too.

Google Maps Mobile with StreetView

In the screenshot above, you can see that it gives you a nearly-eye-level view of the surroundings, and also in the bottom right corner, there’s a small graphic that gives you an idea as to what direction you’re facing and where you are on the street. Currently,  Street View for mobiles is only really available in the U.S., though there are some reports that France is showing up, as well, which is rather cool.

Now all we need is voice-guided turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps Mobile and we can kiss Nokia Maps goodbye! You can download Google Maps Mobile by pointing your phone’s browser to http://www.google.com/gmm. Also, note that this uses quite a bit of data, so you really should be on an unlimited package if you plan to use Google Maps Mobile.

I had a secret ninja scoping out Nokia World 2008 last week in Barcelona, looking for any hot E71-related news, and it turns out, I wasn’t disappointed! There on the expo floor, Nokia was showing off two new color schemes for our QWERTY-equipped sexiness, an all black (with black chrome accents) and a flashy red color scheme, with silver chrome accents.

I had my ninja snap a few photos, and he was able to hook up with Dave Weinstein from Gizmag.com to get a photo of the red version. We’ve confirmed that Nokia intends to launch these new color schemes soon, though it wasn’t 100% clear whether either would be made available in the NAM version.

Both the red and the black versions come with their own custom themes, to match the new external color scheme, which is quite nice. Let’s hope these new color schemes hit the market real soon.

Red E71 Photo courtesy Dave @ Gizmag.com

Quite a few business users of the Nokia E71 have likely wondered why there isn’t an official Skype client available, and I’ve often wondered the same thing. That’s been solved, however, thanks to the Skype Mobile team, who have just announced that the Nokia E71 (among other phones) have been added to the compatible list for the java-based Skype Lite application.

Skype Lite is, again, a java app, which means that it has limited capabilities on your S60-powered E71. However, it works, which is the key. For Skype IM, you can use either WiFi or a 3G data connection, to chat with any of your Skype contacts while on the go. Voice, however, is *not* carried over WiFi or 3G, instead using a callback feature over an existing voice network. That means that while you can use Skype Lite to chat with your contacts without a voice package, you will not be able to call them using this application, unless you have an active voice plan on your E71.

It’s certainly a frustrating limitation, but the ability to chat with your contacts is definitely worth downloading Skype Lite.

You can download Skype Lite here.

The Euro version of the Nokia E71 recieved a firmware update a few weeks ago, bringing the device up to v110.07.127, but at that time, the NAM version, with US 3G, was left out in the cold. I’m pleased to let you know, however, that the E71-2 NAM has now received this firmware update, through Nokia’s Software Updater application.

The new firmware is the same version that the Euro one received, which also tells us that the changelog is going to be the same. There are new versions of Nokia Email, Nokia Maps, and Mail 4 Exchange, as well as a few bugfixes here and there.

It should be noted that this new firmware eliminates the ability for you to ‘hack’ your phone, using the process we described earlier here at E71Blog.com. If you’re using MagicKey, you may want to hold off for a bit, or look into Smartphoneware’s Tracker application. Also, the Nokia E71 does *not* have UDP (User Data Preservation), so it’s suggested that you backup any important information before applying the update.

You can download NSU here.