Nokia 600, 700, 701 and Symbian Belle Now Official

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has just made official three new handsets running under the Symbian operating system, namely the Nokia 600, 700, and 701. 

The new mobile phones were unveiled along with the latest version of Nokia's mobile operating system, namely Symbian Belle. 

The new OS flavor brings along a nice range of new features when compared to the previous releases of the platform, such as 6 homescreens, with the possibility to easily set up a new one, or a status bar aimed at offering the information that users are seeking without having to look for it. 

Other features of the new platform would include easy sharing of photos, Live widgets in five different sizes, and single-tap NFC sharing and pairing capability, to easily share contacts, videos and images with compatible devices. 

The Nokia 700 will arrive on the market as the smallest smartphone from the company, at only 110 x 50.7 x 9.7 mm and weighing 96 grams. The handset is said to be the most compact monoblock smartphone in the world. 

The phone's specifications list includes a 3.2 inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, along with a fast 1GHz application processor, and 2GB of internal memory, though a microSD memory card slot enables the expansion of the available storage space by up to 32GB. 

On the back, the new device sports a 5-megapixel photo snapper with LED flash and support for video recording. This should prove the most eco-friendly smartphone from Nokia, it seems. 

Nokia 701 will arrive on shelves with a design and specs that resemble the Nokia C7. It will feature a 1GHz processor, along with an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back with video recording capabilities. 

It will also come with a front-facing camera for video calling, 8GB of internal memory, and with a microSD memory card slot with support for up to 32GB of additional storage space. 

As for the Nokia 600, it will arrive on shelves as the most affordable handset from the three, while also being the loudest smartphone from Nokia at 106 Phons (a measurement of loudness levels, defined here).

The specs list of this mobile phone includes 1 GHz processor, a 5MP camera with full focus and LED flash, 2GB of internal memory (microSD card slot too), and a powerful external loudspeaker. The mobile phone can offer up to 60 hours of music playback time, the mobile phone maker announced. 

During the launch event, Nokia did not offer specific info on when the new handsets might arrive on the market. Apparently, the prices for these devices will be $260 for the Nokia 600, $390 for the Nokia 700, and $420 for the 701.

The Symbian Belle update will arrive on Symbian^3 smartphones starting with the fourth quarter of the year.

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Don’t Hold Your Breath over Windows 8 Copy Jobs Completion Time Estimates Improvements

Microsoft detailed some aspects of the evolution of file management in Windows 8, and Alex Simons, director of program management with the Windows engineering team, revealed that the company has not wasted too much time working to improve one part of the copy jobs. 

Essentially, end users should not hold their breath over any enhancements to the mechanism designed to estimate just how much time it will take copy actions to complete in the next major iteration of Windows. 

Simons noted that the software giant is bracing itself for inquiries related to the work, or lack thereof, done to boost the accuracy at which Windows Explorer in Windows 8 will report just how much time is left for a copy to finalize. 

“Rather than invest a lot of time coming up with a low confidence estimate that would be only slightly improved over the current one, we focused on presenting the information we were confident about in a useful and compelling way. This makes the most reliable information we have available to you so you can make more informed decisions,” he stated. 

As users can see from the two screenshots included with this article, Windows Explorer has evolved to emphasize the source and destination folders of a copy job, the items being copied, as well as the progress in percentages. 

Customers will need to push the More Details button in order to receive additional information about a specific copy job, including the time that Windows estimates it will take for the action to complete. 

“Estimating the time remaining to complete a copy is nearly impossible to do with any precision because there are many unpredictable and uncontrollable variables involved – for instance, how much network bandwidth will be available for the length of the copy job? Will your anti-virus software spin up and start scanning files? Will another application need to access the hard drive? Will the user start another copy job?” Simons explained.

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Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn United in Google+ Layout - Gooce+ 0.72.6

Social networking websites are quite the buzz of the Internet nowadays. There are multiple services to choose from, but Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the blooming Google+ have grabbed the attention of the whole planet. Gooce+ is very far from having the number of adepts any of these websites have, but it managed to unite all four of them into a single web page for easier access to the news served through these portals. 

Gooce+ is not a desktop application, but a browser extension designed to cohabitate only with Mozilla Firefox, which can be downloaded from here, and Google Chrome, which can be installed directly from Chrome web store.

If you are a Firefox user you should already know that you have to restart the web browser for the extension to install. At the opposite end, Chrome users benefit from a seamless installation procedure that does not require disrupting Internet navigation.

As soon as you got it into the browser Gooce+ is ready to do its job. There are no true settings to tinker with, but the options for Firefox and Chrome are slightly different, though its main functionality remains the same in both cases.

With Firefox, in which case the button does not show in the interface, you have the possibility to turn on automatic updating of the extension. Also, you are given the possibility to open searches in a new tab (the result of a query in the Firefox’s search bar is opened in a new tab). There is also the choice to set the search engine on browser restart, but we never got to meaning of this function.

In the case of Chrome, the only possibility included by the developer is that of hiding Gooce+ button in Google’s browser. Other than this there are the regular options for any Chrome extension, specifically enabling its use in incognito mode. In Firefox the extension will work regardless if you are in private browsing mode or not.

Uniting the four platforms in a single interface sounds pretty interesting, as most users would think that you have full access to the features and functions of each of the socialization services. However, with Gooce things are a bit different. All the extension does is show the news stream in your accounts.

So the main, and only functionality of this browser plugin is reading the news feed in Facebook or view the Twitter and LinkedIn stream.

Obviously, given the privacy and security measures enforced for each of the platforms you have to grant the extension access to information. As such, upon signing into each service you’ll have to deal with the permission screen.

You will be presented all the nooks and crannies of your account it has access to, which is the standard for any application. Just as an example, in Twitter will be able to read the tweets from your timeline, see who you follow, post tweets for you or update your profile. At the opposite end, direct messages remain private, just like your Twitter password.

In Facebook, the liberties for Gooce are also the standard ones. This means access to basic profile information, posting on your wall, reading news feed posts and access to your friend’s information.

As far as integration in the Google+ layout goes, this is pretty much seamless, since the plugin extends the number of the buttons in the header bar. The only hint that the Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pieces are not natural to the environment is the fact that they do not get colored at mouse over, making them look somewhat inert.

On the other hand, accessing the news streams for the additional services is not as seamless as one may think. Whenever we moved to the flow of information of a different service we’d first get a look at Google+’s stream and then get redirected to what we wanted to see.

The set of options as far as the news feeds are concerned is limited and in the case of Twitter inexistent altogether; but Gooce makes for a nice way to view information posted by your friends, people you follow or connections.

Download extension here

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Nokia N9 Coming Soon to UK via Mobile Fun

Nokia N9, the first and only MeeGo-based mobile phone from Nokia, is expected to become available for purchase in the UK in the not-too-distant future, a retailer in the country has just announced. 

The guys over at Mobile Fun have confirmed last week that they were planning on bringing the Nokia N9 smartphone to the UK market, and they said that this should happen in the near future. 

“Here at Mobile Fun, we’re happy to say that we will be offering the handset, unlocked and sim free, in the very near future,” the retailer notes in a blog post. 

The Nokia N9 was unveiled to the world a few months ago with a large 3.9" AMOLED screen and an all touch design, as well as with the MeeGo platform on board, but the UK was not among the countries listed as expected to receive the device. 

However, the retailer already lists the Nokia N9 on its website, and those interested in the device can head over to make pre-orders for it. 

Although the release date for the mobile phone is not known at the moment, we do know the price tag the SIM free Nokia N9 should feature when available, namely £519.95, VAT included. 

“Nokia N9 is so easy to use it doesn't need any menu buttons. In any app, swiping from any edge takes you home – so you can move easily between your activities,” the retailer notes. 

“The hardware and software design complement each other beautifully – the curved edges of the glass help make the swipe motion smooth and effortless.”

Nokia might not be planning the direct marketing of Nokia N9 on the UK market, but it seems that enthusiasts will still be able to purchase the device. 

Those who would like to reserve a MeeGo-based Nokia N9 before it becomes available in the UK should head over to Mobile Fun here today.

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Clean the Windows Context Menu - Context Menu Editor 1.0

Dealing with a crowded context menu is unpleasant and the possibilities to solve this problem aren’t that many. The software category aimed at this kind of situation has yet to meet a few outstanding additions, but some of the existing ones are still reliable. This is where Context Menu Editor fits in, a small utility that cleans up your context menu from unwanted items.

A messy context menu is just the worst and anyone who’s held on to their Windows installation for more than a couple of months can subscribe to that. The more software you install on your system, the more the context menu items start piling up, making it harder to even spot a certain shortcut, when there are so many of them claiming a piece of your right-click menu. Now, if you’re an advanced user and you can allow yourself to tackle the Windows registry, the big fuss isn’t even worth mentioning. On the other hand, if you’re in the beginner camp, playing around with the system settings is not advisable and it isn’t as comfortable as a dedicated piece of software that can handle this matter for you. 

Context Menu Editor is the simplest approach I came across while desperately searching for a quick method to get rid of these annoying shortcuts. Not only does it allow you to clean up the file and folder context menus, but it also grants you access to the Internet Explorer right-click menu and allows you to choose whatever it is that you want to show up in them. 

Since it’s free of charge, why not give it a shot? It installs in a few clicks and doesn’t claim any special conditions to be run, so even owners of lesser configurations should be able to use it just fine. 

Simplicity is what the developer had in mind when he designed this app and this is reflected in ease of use and modest looks. The interface of the program is the first evidence of that, claiming your attention in a non-intrusive way, not with visual incentives, but by means of functionality. It’s not cool looking, but it aims for quick understanding of its features and thus, benefits all the user categories in the audience.

The main and only window of Context Menu Editor is divided into several areas, but they’re organized enough so as to not give you the impression of crowdedness. The first field is the one that lets you choose which context menu you wish to tweak: the one belonging to files and folders or the one linked to Internet Explorer. 

Depending on your selection, the application will display all the items belonging to that specific menu and just next to these listings you’ve got a section with a short item description (as provided by the company that issued the software to which it belongs), the location of the shell extension and a few details related to the company, file version and also, product name and version. In some cases, these fields would be empty, but this is most probably due to the companies that hold the copyright for the software applications in question. 

When you decide it’s time to remove a context menu item, all you need to do is select it and press the ‘Delete From Menu’ button, at which point a notification window will be displayed, warning you about the consequences of the deletion. Without a doubt (and we checked), the removal is permanent, at least for the most part of the menu items, so choose really carefully which of them you want out.

Even though it claims to clean all the shortcuts produced by various software, we found that to be somewhat untrue. In some cases, the application fails to even list items present in the context menu. Two quick examples supporting this theory are VLC and Winamp, which were not recognized by the application, but were nonetheless present in the context menu of the system. 

The deletion process it performs appears to be flawed as well, at least in some cases. For the most part of the context menu items, it did its job nicely, but it appeared to encounter some issues while dealing with some important software packs, such as WinRar or 7-zip. The problem with it is that it only cleans the file context menu and fails to do the same with folder items (even though it removes that menu’s listing from its main window). Even though this is not always the case (it performed impeccable when faced with context menu items belonging to antivirus software, for instance), it's nevertheless a downside that doesn't work in anyone's favor.

On the bright side, the effect of the deletion is immediate. It won’t require you to perform a system restart or any other operation for that matter. Items will vanish from the context menu as soon as you hit the ‘Delete button’ and they will be gone forever, which brings us to the issue of a backup feature, one that Context Menu Editor does not provide at this point. 

Bottom line, Context Menu Editor does a great job at tweaking the context menu of files and a lesser job at cleaning the one belonging to folders. As for the IE menu, we encountered no problems during our tests.

Download here

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Windows 8 USB 3.0 Support Should Be Backported to Windows 7 via SP2

As Microsoft announced USB 3.0 support in Windows 8, I don’t think I was the only one thinking: “But what about Windows 7?”

The promise from Microsoft is that all over 10 billion USB devices will work with USB 3.0 when connected to Windows 8 computers. 

Backwards compatibility covers compatibility with current full, low, and high speed devices down to the plugs, revealed Dennis Flanagan, the Director of Program Management for the Devices and Networking group. 

“Perhaps the most important aspect of USB 3.0 is the expectation that customers have of USB: it’s just USB3 so it should just work, right? Each and every USB device, low, full, high, and SuperSpeed, has to work in Windows 8. That's our focus while also delivering the most robust and reliable USB stack,” Flanagan stated. 

At the same time, users will undoubtedly want to plug USB 3.0 devices into machines running Windows 7 and earlier, and have the technologies work seamlessly together. 

One simple solution is for the software giant to backport USB 3.0 support to Windows 7 via Service Pack 2 (SP2). Since there are no upcoming service packs expected for Windows XP and Windows Vista, these two platforms might never get to fully play nice with USB 3.0. 

But considering the fact that Windows 7 and Windows 8 are closely related compared to older releases of Windows, backporting USB 2.0 support seems doable. 

This especially since the Redmond company can use the second upgrade for Windows 7 as the delivery method of the evolution of USB support. 

Microsoft is currently hard at work building Windows 7 SP2 in parallel with Windows 8. There have no details shared with the public on Windows 7 SP2, especially as more and more information on Windows 8 is revealed. 

Still, I have no doubt that USB 3.0 support is on the wish lists of many Windows 7 users, even more so now that it’s coming to Windows 8. 

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Retro Illustrations Kit

Retro Illustrations Kit

25 JPG | 190 MB

Download links:

Wupload

Part1

Part2

FileServe

Part1

Part2

Filesonic

Part1

Part2

Uploadstation

Part1

Part2

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Nokia to Launch New Symbian Phones in Two Days

With Symbian Anna already being made available for download for handsets launched on the market with the Symbian^3 OS on board, it was only a matter of time before Nokia made new announcements regarding the platform. 

Of course, Symbian is on its way to the graveyard, but there still are a wide range of enthusiasts who would gladly purchase a new Nokia handset running under the platform, as long as it is usable enough. 

And since Symbian Anna reportedly added some more usability into the mix, the handset vendor is expected to bring to shelves new devices that would run under the new OS flavor in an attempt to slow down its downfall. 

Something new related to Symbian should be unveiled in only a few days, and chances are that new handsets will come to shelves soon. 

The company has posted on its Facebook account a counter that points at something new on Symbian being set to become official in a little over 40 hours. 

This is in line with some of the latest reported on the matter that suggested that Nokia might be set to launch a number of no less than three Symbian-based device before the end of this week.

Nokia 600, 700 and 701 have been recently rumored to be on their way to the market with the Symbian platform on board, and it seems that Nokia might be finally getting ready to make themn official.

However, this is only a supposition, and there are also those who suggest that the handset vendor might go official with the next flavor of Symbian as soon as Wednesday. 

Dubbed Symbian Bell, the new OS version should bring even more enhancements into the mix, when compared to what Symbian Anna packed in over Symbian^3.

It would not come too much as a surprise if Nokia indeed launched a new flavor of the OS, one with more enhancements included for all users. The same as Anna, the next platform release would arrive on shelves on new devices, and we might safely bet on the unveiling of new phones as well, that's for sure.

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Windows 8 BUILD Agenda Still Unrevealed 3 Weeks Ahead of the Event

Microsoft will open registration for BUILD, its upcoming Windows 8-centric event, in just three weeks, but so far it’s still impossible for participants to tell what they’ll be registering for. 

The BUILD conference has already been completely sold out on just the promise that Windows 8 will be its star attraction. 

With the event scheduled to start on September 13th, the Redmond company has yet to provide any actual details about what exactly it will provide participants, beyond the first deep insight into Windows 8, and how the next iteration of Windows will change the world. 

The Agenda page of the BUILD Windows site continues to feature only general details, with the opening keynote scheduled for September 13 between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM, but no additional info beyond that. 

There’s also no telling just when Microsoft plans to share details about BUILD with the public. So far, the only update to BUILD was the fact that the software giant has cut all pre-sessions, citing the need to focus on the sessions instead of spreading resources around. 

There’s a lot of excitement building around BUILD, with users expecting the Redmond company to share not just Windows 8 details but some bits as well. 

While promising that a pre-release development milestone of Windows 8 will be easy to access and not a secret, Microsoft hasn’t revealed whether it will offer early adopters a pre-Beta Build or the full Beta release. 

I don’t expect the company to offer any info in this regard until it will actually announce the availability of Windows 8 bits for testers. 

Still, Microsoft needs to update the BUILD Windows website since I’m sure that participants will want to organize their schedule in accordance to the sessions presented at the conference, even if this will mean that some new Windows 8 details will be revealed to the public.

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Windows 7 SP2 to Deal with Intel Core and Xeon CPUs Reliability Issues

The second upgrade for Windows 7 will address reliability problems that customers running the RTM and SP1 versions of the OS have experienced in some scenarios on machines running Intel Core and Xeon CPUs. 

According to Microsoft, the issues are limited to a small number of users, the reason why the company has not released an update to all customers. 

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and RTM as well as Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM and SP1 are affected by reliability glitches, the software giant said, but only when the platforms are paired with older releases of Intel processors, such as the chips belonging to the Core and Xeon families launched in 2006 and 2008. 

“These issues are not common. These issues might affect processors that meet all the following conditions:

Designated as a Intel Xeon or Intel Core family processor that is based on the "Penryn" or "Merom" codenamed processors.

Has the Family, Model, and Stepping of family designations of 6, or a Model designation of 15, of 22, of 23, or of 29,” Microsoft explained. 

The software giant indicates that Windows 7 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP2 will contain a fix for the reliability problems that customers with Intel Core and Xeon CPUs have been experiencing. 

For the time being however, the Redmond company has made available a hotfix designed to deal with the issue. 

KB 2493989 offers what Microsoft refers to as a microcode update for Intel processors. “This update improves the reliability of x64-based versions of Windows that uses certain Intel processors. This update fixes an issue in which the operating system might function incorrectly,” the company noted. 

Despite being referred to as an update, the release is actually a hotfix and is only designed to repair reliability glitches and nothing more. 

Customers running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 should only deploy the KB 2493989 hotfix if they’re also leveraging Intel Xeon or Intel Core processors and have come across issues impacting reliability. 

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM Build 7601.17514.101119-1850 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM are available for download on below link.

ISO

x86 - exe

x64 - exe

IA64

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