FreeFSWP turns your standby screen wallpaper full screen, KeyLockClock shows the time when you lock your keypad

FreeFSWP

Symbian's own wallpaper option won't display the top and bottom part of your image on your standby screen, but FreeFSWP by junnikokuki shows the full picture everywhere. It replaces your theme background with any image of your choice. On your standby screen, in the menu, in folders, and in every application that uses your theme image as background.

Version 1.01.1 fixes a wallpaper selection bug that bit some phones.

FreeFSWP only works on Symbian S60 3rd edition phones with feature pack 1 or older. This includes popular phones like the Nokia N82 and N95. It doesn't work on feature pack 2 phones like the Nokia N79 or S60 th ed. phones like the Nokia 5800XM. The program needs to be signed before you can install it, unless you've hacked your phone to get rid of the Symbian Signed madness.

The latest version is not yet available on the english part of the official site, but you can already get it from Mobile Castle.

• FreeFSWP on junnikokuki's site
• FreeFSWP 1.01.1 on Mobile Castle


KeyLockClock

KeyLockClock by DrJukka displays a clock on your screen when you lock the keypad. You can choose your own clock font and set the light timeout period.

• KeyLockClock

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VoIP and chat program Nimbuzz fixes Facebook chat name display bug

VoIP and chat program Nimbuzz fixes Facebook chat name display bug

Chat and VoIP program Nimbuzz connects to Skype, standard SIP VoIP, GoogleTalk, Jabber, MSN (Windows Live), Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Twitter, Gadu-Gadu, Facebook, MySpace, orkut, and Hyves. It does Twitter too.

The latest edition fixes some Nokia N97 specific issues, and kills a very annoying Facebook bug which used to bite many phones: many Facebook chat contacts were displayed as numbers, but now Nimbuzz shows the correct names.

• Nimbuzz

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eBuddy: new colors, old ads

Mobile Java multi-network chat program eBuddy connects to MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ, and Facebook chat.

The latest edition uses less data, logs you in faster, fixes some annoying bugs (custom messages work again, no more double Yahoo entries), and it lets you choose the color of the user interface.

Unfortunately eBuddy displays a big ugly advertisement in your contacts list, and it can't send files or voice messages. You're better off with Nimbuzz, fring, Talkonaut, Palringo, or Slick. eBuddy is no longer a suitable choice for phones that run on Symbian 9.x.

eBuddy wants you to do an on the fly install from your phone browser, but you don't need to put up with that. Just select your phone brand and model from the dropdown boxes on get.ebuddy.com, download the jad file, and open it with a text editor to read the location of the corresponding jar file. Or download the jar and jad files from Mobile Castle.

• eBuddy
• eBuddy v1.4 on Mobile Castle
• check the instant messaging label for better chat programs

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Jbak TaskMan

Jbak TaskMan

There's yet another test version of Jbak TaskMan. This program shows the running tasks on your phone, including hidden tasks that won't show up in Symbian's built-in task manager. Jbak TaskMan also displays memory status, disk usage, and detailed task info. When the program is running, long-pressing the menu button launches Jbak TaskMan instead of Symbian's built-in task manager.

The new test version fixes a few bugs, lets you set the font size in pixels, and the menus appear faster. And now Jbak TaskMan has a flashlight too. When you activate it, your screen turns bright white, but BrightLight and Light Control are better at turning your phone into a torch.

Jbak TaskMan v1.00 R16 is not available from Jbak's own site, but if you want to test it you can get it from Mobile Castle.

• Jbak TaskMan site (latest full version and some test versions)
• Jbak TaskMan v1.00 R16 (test version, unsigned) at Mobile Castle

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Talkonaut fixes bugs but forgets Skype, fring twitters faster, Nokia Messaging plays with Facebook, Fake Messages reads your phone book

Still no Skype and Facebook in Talkonaut

Instant messenger and VoIP client Talkonaut talks to Jabber (including Google Talk), ICQ, MSN, AIM, and Yahoo. And it lets you call using almost every VoIP service that uses the SIP protocol.

The latest update fixes some very minor bugs, but the main Talkonaut flaw remains: Talkonaut doesn't work with Skype. It doesn't work with Facebook Chat either.

On the bright side, Talkonaut lets you store multiple SIP VoIP settings, which competing programs Nimbuzz and fring still do not.

• Talkonaut


Faster Twitter for fring

VoIP client and multi-network instant messenger fring connects you to Skype and standard SIP VoIP, GoogleTalk, MSN (Windows Live), ICQ, Yahoo, AIM, Twitter, and social networking sites like Facebook and orkut. Fring is also a GMail notifier, last.fm radio player, Facebook tool, Twitter application, and it includes Wi-Fi hotspot finder WeFi.

The latest fring version adds support for the Nokia E52 and E72, fixes some connection bugs, and Twitter on fring is faster now.

• fring

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Symbian task manager KillMe kills bugs

Symbian S60 task manager KillMe groups the processes (including the hidden ones) that run on your mobile phone according to whether your phone really needs them to keep running.

KillMe is the easiest way to close programs that can't be killed from Symbian's built-in task manager. If a program gets stuck and won't quit, KillMe will make it go away. You can also use KillMe to close non-essential processes to free some memory if you're running low.

The latest KillMe update kills a few bugs.

KillMe doesn't have its own website in english yet, but you can get KillMe in english at Mobile Castle. You'll need to sign the program or hack your phone to install unsigned programs.

If you try to install the new version of KillMe on top of an older version and your phone pops up an "update error," uninstall the old version and try again.

• KillMe v1.36 at MediaFire

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Useless for Symbian: The Ultimate File Explorer and File browser

When you call your application The Ultimate File Explorer the users of your program will have very high expectations. The author promises a lot: "This is the last file manager that you will ever need! The Ultimate File Explorer contains all the essential features that you will ever need in a file manager."

But The Ultimate File Explorer fails on every promise. It's coded in mobile Java, so it starts up horribly slow. Even worse, your phone pops up security warnings each and every time you open a folder, file, or navigate back to where you came from. Some mobile Java programs let you switch off those warnings in Symbian's application manager, but for The Ultimate File Explorer "ask every time" is the best you can get, which makes this file manager useless on all but the oldest phones. Even if you click "yes" on all the warnings, that doesn't mean The Ultimate File Explorer will manage to open all your own, unlocked, supposedly accessible folders. Folders like E:\images and E:\music on my memory card should open easily, but The Ultimate File Explorer chokes on just about everything on my memory card. I tried it on two different phones with two different memory cards, so it's safe to state that the problem is with The Ultimate File Explorer, not with my phones or memory cards.

Another attempt at an alternative file manager is the Python program File browser Modded by Caominh171. This doesn't suffer from the security issues that bite mobile Java programs. Unfortunately the program failed to open on my phones, even though I installed them on the same drive as the latest official release of Python. So I couldn't test if File browser Modded by Caominh171 really opens system folders, RAR archives, and WMV movies as promised by the author.

Until something better comes along, I'll keep managing the files on my phones with ActiveFile and X-plore. These programs are far from perfect, but they're a million times better than The Ultimate File Explorer and File browser Modded by Caominh171.

• The Ultimate File Explorer
• File browser v1.00 Modded by Caominh171

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Fake Messages talks to your phone book

If nobody sends you an SMS, why not send some to yourself? Fake Messages by Jukka Silvennoinen does just that. Receiving a fake SMS at the right time may be your escape ticket out of a boring meeting (sorry boss, gotta go, girlfriend just told me house is on fire).




The user interface of Fake Messages is now available in 17 languages.



The message entry box of Fake Messages doesn't support T9 predictive text, and the program only fakes incoming SMSs. If you want to fake outgoing messages as well, try the fake SMS feature of ActiveFile.



The unsigned version of Fake Messages is free, but you'll have to run it through Symbian Signed before you can install it on your phone, or sign it with your own certificate, or hack your phone to break free from Symbian Signed.



The signed version is comes bundled with adtronic. Adtronic is an intrusive piece of adware that pops up advertisements when you receive calls and messages, so better get the unsigned version. Signing the program or hacking your phone takes a bit of time and effort, but allowing adtronic to pollute your phone is much worse.


Fake Messages

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Skyfire web browser somewhat faster and easier to use

The latest edition of proxy-based mobile phone web browser Skyfire for Symbian launches a bit faster, lets you click links without zooming in, zooms smoother, and when you send the program to the background it disconnects to save battery power.



Skyfire still doesn't support T9 predictive text input, in-page links, and scrolling through inline frames. And it won't fit web pages to the width of your phone screen the way browsers like Opera Mini and UCWEB do. And compared to other mobile phone web browsers Skyfire is still horribly slow.



So why would you use such a horrible browser? To watch video! Skyfire plays YouTube movies and other video that no other mobile phone web browser will play. Skyfire is not the browser of choice for text and pictures, but it's a good idea to keep a copy on your phone for watching web video that other browsers won't show, because Bolt is not ready for the job yet.



• Skyfire

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TTPod – Mobile Music Player n TTPod Skins

TTPod for symbian is a freeware mobile music player with many features such as skin support, set playback, equalizer, lyrics, sleep mode, alarm clock and many other functions, operation simple and powerful.



TTPod 3.40 update:



1. The replacement of a new process UID (S60V3 versions can co-exist with the old version);

2. The replacement of the new icon (S60V3);

3. To change the page structure, and equalizer options page on the left menu;

4. Equalizer optimized to improve the effectiveness of regulation;

5. Increase the soft decoding MP3 audio support (S60V3);

6. To increase the independence and composition of the two EQ-conditioning mode;

7. To support the preservation and EQ to add a separate document to facilitate the sharing;

8. Optimize the effect of visual display to increase the full-screen shortcut keys (long press the * key by default);

9. Increase the desktop and mini-player show the lyrics visualization adjustment;

10. Increase the Bluetooth Send (S60V3);

11. Increase the sleep shutdown mode (S60V3);

12. To increase their full-keyboard phone keyboard mapping support;

13. Increase in the background to return to shortcut keys;

14. Increase the page switching effects;

15. Increase the key dynamic effects;

16. To support the skin menu transparent;

17. Increase the dial-button control panel, user-friendly key to switch songs around.



TTPod 3.40 S60 2nd Edition




• PowerMP3 v1.14 at Mobile Castle



Older versions of PowerMP3:



• PowerMP3 v1.13 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.11 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.10 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.09 at Ziddu

• PowerMP3 v1.08 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.07 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.06 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 v1.05 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 beta 2 at Mobile Castle

• PowerMP3 beta 2 at Mobifactor

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