Win a Resco News License by Talking about Your Needs

If you’re wondering whether or not Resco News can fulfill your RSS-related needs, if you’ve read my comprehensive review of this application, or if you’re simply trialing it by comparing its features with those of its rivals, you can win a free Resco News license by talking about the features you want to see incorporated into its future releases. What has prevented you from switching to Resco News? What doesn’t allow it to compete with its siblings? Is it user-friendly or complicated? Does it display something which turns you down? Use the “Comments” section of this article to send your opinion, criticism and feature requests.

Three Resco News licenses are up for grabs – courtesy of Resco, and the deadline is Friday, July 18^th. You can also send your feature requests in separate comments as you continue working with the application over the 14-day trial. The winners will be announced on Tuesday, July 22^nd. This is a good deal, isn’t it?

Enhance Your RSS Experience with Resco News

If you are into reading RSS feeds on your S60 handsets, you might have already set up the built-in Nokia RSS Reader to manage your important feeds. You might also have set up Google Reader to help you read your feed updates online. As a free application, Nokia RSS Reader does a good job of handling RSS feeds at a relatively basic level, and as a free service, Google Reader offers an enhanced model of accessing RSS feeds provided that you keep visiting the Google Reader page.

Personally speaking, I’m a big fan of the built-in Nokia RSS Reader and recommend it to those who want to get their feet wet without focusing on the so-called bells and whistles of other options. However, if you want to go up the RSS ladder, Resco News is what you need. You should pay $11.95 for this boosted experience, but it’s worth every penny. Resco News is such a feature-rich application that it’s managed to supplant the built-in RSS Reader on my N82.

What is Resco News?

To start with a conventional definition, Resco News is an RSS reader that provides access to the information which can be found on the Web in the form of RSS feeds. But the power of Resco News resides in its ability to organize feeds into both default and user-defined tabs, categorize RSS feeds – called “channels”, display RSS items – called “headlines” – in plain text or as HTML with active hyperlinks, export RSS items to HTML, update and remove headlines automatically, import/export channels from/to OPML files, open articles in one’s preferred web browser, and so on. It is compatible with various flavors of RSS, ATOM, and OPML, and can also download podcasts.

Getting started

You can trial Resco News for 14 days without any limitations. Use this URL to download Resco News for S60 V7 and V8 handsets, and use this URL to get the S60 3^rd Edition release. I’ve used Resco News for S60 3^rd Edition handsets, V1.24, to prepare this review.

When installed, Resco News can be found in the Applications folder. The moment you start it, Resco News greets you with some tips about RSS feeds and how to best utilize the application. If you want more tips, press “Key 2″ for help. Selecting “OK” moves you to the next window which allows you to select the place where RSS headlines and articles are to be stored. The next window helps you subscribe to one or more RSS categories based on your interests. These pre-defined categories are:

• News,
• Tech,
• Politics,
• Business, Markets, Law,
• Sports,
• Other, Science,
• Blogs.

Each category contains a number of RSS feeds and you can later subscribe to each item individually, unsubscribe from each feed or remove the categories altogether. Needless to say, you can opt to select none of these categories.

Knowing the interface a bit better

Resco News has three inalterable tab sheets:

• Channels,
• Subscribed,
• Bookmarks.

The application remembers your position, so if you exit Resco News and start it later, you’ll land on the tab sheet which had the focus upon exit. The “Channels” tab sheet displays all RSS categories and their belonging feeds. User-created RSS feeds which belong to no categories also appear here. BTW, the application uses the term “channel” to refer to RSS feeds and “headline” to refer to RSS articles. Anyhow, you can create RSS categories and RSS feeds here or reorganize everything which belongs to this tab. If you’ve selected one or more RSS categories upon installing Resco News, you can view their RSS feeds by expanding each category. The number of subcategories and channels gets displayed in brackets after each category name. Basically, pressing “Select” on each category expands it as if it were the parent in a tree view. As each category gets expanded, you can press “Down” to move among its RSS feeds. You can subscribe to your desired feed by pressing “Key 1″ and selecting the “Subscribe” menu item. All subscribed feeds appear in the “Subscribed” tab. Also, the “Channels” tab sheet has a special category called “Web resources” that stores web links instead of RSS feeds. It maintains the list of web sites that contain the links to RSS feeds

Having finished viewing RSS feeds belonging to a category, you can either move on to other categories or press “Select” on the expanded RSS category to collapse it. Let’s see which options Resco News offers if we press “Key 1″ on a category in the “Channels” tab:

• New, submenu:
  • Channel,
  • Dynamic channel,
  • Category,
  • Subcategory,
  • Search.
• Expand/Collapse, submenu:
  • Expand,
  • Expand all,
  • Collapse all.
• Add to tab,
• Edit, submenu:
  • Properties,
  • Delete [c],
  • Move.
• Send,
• Tools, submenu:
  • Import,
  • Export,
  • Export all.
• Tabs, submenu:
  • Add,
  • Go to [5].
• Settings, submenu:
  • Display,
  • Update,
  • Articles,
  • Connections.
• Help, submenu:
  • Help,
  • About Resco News,
  • Memory info.
• Exit.

“Key 1″ displays fewer menu items if pressed on an RSS feed, and the options you see as a result of pressing “Key 1″ largely depends on both the focused tab sheet and the focused item inside a tab.

The “Bookmarks” tab sheet displays all headlines which have been bookmarked by the user. When a headline is open, you can press star “*” to add it to the Bookmarks tab. Note that removing a bookmark deletes that article permanently.

With so many RSS categories and feeds it might be difficult to keep track of the needed category or reach the category in question, you might wonder. Resco News can work with indefinite user-defined tabs, so you can create several tabs for related feed categories, create your RSS categories and feeds in the Channels tab sheet and move them to the desired tab. Removing items from user-defined tabs doesn’t delete them from the Channels tab. User tabs can be easily added, renamed or removed via the “Tabs” submenu, accessible from each focused user tab.

Let’s see Resco News in action

Creating a feed

Imagine you want to add a new RSS feed. Move to the Channels tab and do the following:

1. Go to the Channels tab.
2. Press “Key 1″, move to the “New” submenu and select “Channel”.
3. A window opens which allows you to modify various pieces of information related to the feed you’re creating. As you finish working with a control, press “Down” to move to the next.
4. The first control is a text box which accepts the feed title and the second is a text box which accepts the feed URL. In my opinion, typing the URL is the most difficult step in creating a feed, but if the URL has been copied to the clipboard it gets pasted here automatically.
5. The rest of the controls allow you to adjust the update period, article maintenance and article formatting. If you don’t modify any of these settings, they obey the default Resco News settings, accessible from the Settings submenu. When you’re done, press “Key 1″ to select “OK”.

You can opt to subscribe to the newly created feed and then move it to whatever user tab you want. It’s worth mentioning that you should subscribe to or unsubscribe from all feeds in the Channels tab, but the Subscriptions tab can also be used to unsubscribe from feeds.

RSS modification

Move to the feed you’ve created and subscribed to, press “Key 1″ and select “Add to tab”. If you’ve created user tabs, you can copy the feed to one of them now. Moreover, the newly created feed can be edited, deleted or moved up/down in a tab via the “Edit” submenu.

Updating a feed and reading headlines

To update a feed, move to it in a tab other than the “Channels” tab, press “Key 1″, move to the “Update” submenu and select “Channel [1]“. You can press “1″ to do the same. Your feed gets updated and the number of “read”/”unread” items – or headlines – appears in brackets in front of the feed name. Press “Select” on the feed name to expand it, move to the headline you want and press “Select” on it. This way the headline text which might or might not be in HTML gets displayed. Here pressing “Key 1″ offers the following options:

• Read full story [2],
• Download images,
• Add bookmark [*],
• Set as unread [#],
• Copy, submenu:
  • URL,
  • Title,
  • Description.
• Encoding, submenu:
  • *(contains a wide range of encoding options.)*
• Font size, submenu:
  • Small,
  • Normal – selected,
  • Large.
• Send,
• Tools, submenu:
  • Export.
• Settings, submenu:
  • Display,
  • Update,
  • Articles,
  • Connection.
• Help, submenu:
  • Help,
  • About Resco News,
  • Memory info.
• Exit.

Your options are numerous: you can open the full article via your preferred web browser by pressing “2″, set the headline as a bookmark (*), set it as read/unread (#), copy it to the clipboard, send it to others, modify its font size, click its URLs, and so forth. Like categories and channels, headlines can be deleted.

A word about settings

Resco News offers a wide range of settings via the “settings” submenu. You can learn about their functions by consulting the comprehensive on-device help. In passing, however, pay attention to the settings found in both “Update” and “Articles” tab sheets to determine how often feeds are to be updated and how read headlines are to be treated.

Conclusions

Resco News is by far the most advanced and the most user-friendly S60 RSS reader I’ve seen. Its user tabs, flexible categories, bookmarks, intuitive expand/collapse, inclusive help and multifarious options make it a must-have for everyone. These upsides aside, the fact that you have to type the feed URL or copy it to clipboard to create a feed is a serious annoyance. Future releases of Resco News should become capable of adding feeds via the built-in S60 web browser. This means if you come across a web page which has an RSS feed, selecting the “Subscribe” option should bring up Resco News rather than the built-in Nokia RSS Reader. I know that RSS feeds can be imported from OPML files without a hitch, but when you’re browsing the web on your handset you can’t easily create an OPML file for the page which has one or more feeds. Moreover, Resco News should be enhanced so that it can optionally run as a service in the background in order to display the availability of new updates via a pop-up message. To mention a bug, on my N82 the “Send” feature is problematic in that the “Mail to” option always wants to create new email accounts in spite of the fact that I already have several email accounts.

Finally, I have to congratulate Resco for having developed such a mature product which promises regular updates as well. Any chance of having a new application called “Resco mail”?

Notes for Symbian screen reader users

1. Resco News is compatible with Nuance TALKS. However, as with the built-in Nokia RSS Reader the headline text cannot be read without opening the article via the web browser. Fortunately, TALKS “Object Viewer” can capture the window text via an unidentified object – this is not the case with Nokia RSS Reader. In addition, the headline text can be copied to the clipboard and pasted elsewhere.
2. Resco News makes use of a number of icons to indicate the read/unread status of headlines, the expand/collapse status of categories, the subscribe status of feeds, etc. I’ve labeled more than 10 icons via TALKS “Graphics Labeler”, so if you want to use them let me know in the “Comments” section and I’ll send them to your email address.

LightNotepad V1.58 Released

The small, popular and accessible text editor for S60 3^rd Edition handsets, LightNotepad, was updated to V1.58 yesterday. This free application which gets frequent updates is a must-have for those who want to read and edit text documents on their handsets, and I’m bold enough to claim that LightNotepad easily surpasses its Windows counterpart as far as reading-related features are concerned. This release provides the following new features and bug fixes:

• Short cuts Ctrl+E = Find and Ctrl+O Open.
• Remember settings on exit (Screen size and orientation, Zoom, and WordWrap).
• Ask at start-up to load last used file, and remember cursor position.
• Bug fix; Remember file name, while recovering file from abnormal program termination.
• Install same language as phone is. (English, Finnish, Spanish, Italian.).

This is the direct download URL for those who want to get the update without visiting the developer’s web site. If you like LightNotepad, consider donating some money to the guy who’s behind this and other free Symbian applications by going to the program page.

Python for S60 V1.4.4 Released

The popular SourceForge Symbian application, Python for S60, was just updated to V1.4.4. If you have Python-based applications on your handset, don’t hesitate to install this update. Technical enhancements in this release are:

• PC Suite synchronized contact field types broken.
• E32.start_service() crashes pys60 1.4.2.
• Unread(sms_id) returns 32.
• Calendar can’t see appointments on last day of a month.
• Audio.say won’t say äö.
• Print in _internalsocketobject.
• PyS60 1.4.0 text drawing fails on Image with tuple.
• Select_access_point() and access_points() bug.
• Custom font drawing doesn’t work with Image.
• Error import socket because of e32socket error.

Python-based projects are important because the applications they provide have been accessible so far.

Posting to Mobile Space from the N82 via Scribe

I’m posting this article via Scribe which is an S60 WordPress plug-in. I’ll later review this fantastic application.

The Nuts and Bolts of Nokia N78 Taken from a Trusty Source

You’ve probably read various N78 reviews on the web, and I’m not going to weary you with such a review now. However, most of what you read below originates from the message my friend, Stephen Giggar, sent me. Steve’s nickname is “doctor phone, and he’s also sent a good number of comments to my blog posts.

What to like about the N78

1. Being able to turn on the speaking of voice alerts for battery information. Uses the Nokia voice.
2. Being able to turn off the beep when you plug in a headset.
3. When assigning shortcut keys, the list is in Alphabetical order.
4. The App. Manager has changed in that when you first go into it, it asks what you want to see. You can say show me all the Installed Apps or show me the files to be installed.
5. The Speakers are about the same as what is on the N73 and N95 as far as volume is concerned.
6. The startup time of the N78 is very close to the N82 when you turn it on. Two or Three seconds different.
7. The SIM card slides into the phone the same way as the N73. Easy to remove as well.
8. Using the built-in file manager, when you first go into it you can arrow to the memory you want to read and see how much is free without having to select anything. You use the Up and Down arrow to go to the memory you want.
9. When sending software to the phone to be installed, the process has become very fast with the transfer. High Speed USB 2.0 and not Full speed USB 2.0.
10. The battery is easy for a person to remove if they do not have any finger nails after you get the back off.
11. The built-in email client has a setting which allows users to define what the “Clear” key should do when it’s pressed to delete emails. It can be set to “Always ask”, “Device only”, and “Device and server”.

What to Dislike about the N78

1. When the light goes out; You must press a key to wake up the phone and then press the key you want even if the screen saver hasn’t come on.
2. The phone responds slower than the N73 and other phones even if you had already opened a program (like Log).
3. The Menu always shows up in the “Task manager”.
4. “Show open task” is in all of the options for menu items. Would need to get use to that. That is the same as pressing and holding the menu key for about 1 second.
5. Battery cover takes the whole back of the phone. So you have to remove the whole back to take the battery out. You also have to make sure that you have it lined up correctly or you could break it while putting it back. Also it doesn’t feel like it would hold up if you need to swap batteries a lot.
6. The bar-like keypad keys might generate initial headaches. The N78 keypad is quite similar to that of the N81.

Code Factory Provides Trial Licenses via Its Web Site

If you want to give Code Factory’s Symbian products a try before making a purchasing decision, you can now obtain a trial license for your handset without having to contact a dealer. Just go to this page, fill out the form by providing the required pieces of information such as product serial number, device brand and model, email address and full name, hit the Submit button and the 30-day trial license will be sent to your email address. This form can generate trial licenses for Mobile Speak, Mobile Magnifier and Mobile Color Recognizer.

Nokia N78 OTA Firmware V11.043 Released

This “over-the-air” (OTA) software release will not be available through the Nokia Software Updater application, but is available directly through your Nokia N78. The release includes improved stability with Bluetooth (headsets and car kits) and music (playback over a long time and content refresh). This release also includes optimized Camera performance and Naviscroll sensitivity improvements.

Technology innovations mean the size of this “over-the-air” update is approximately 2 MB. To get this software through your Nokia N78, click Menu > Tools > Utilities > Device Manager. Select Options > Check for updates and follow the on-screen prompts. Remember that you can also use Wi-Fi to download the update.

Symbian Foundation Anatomized: Was It Predictable?

Admittedly, today has been one of the most eventful days I’ve had ever since I started this blog. Let’s recap what we heard today.

1. Nokia wants to buy out all the shares in Symbian LTD that it does not already own. This means Nokia will purchase 52% of Symbian LTD shares with an estimated €264 million sum.
2. Nokia is taking this step to help with the establishment of a new alliance called Symbian Foundation.
3. Influential companies and operators like Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO have accepted the foundation’s membership.
4. Membership of the foundation will be open to all organizations with an annual membership fee of US $1,500.
5. The new foundation will be born in early 2009 after Nokia’s acquisition of Symbian LTD is complete.
6. Symbian, S60, UIQ and MOAP Mobile operating systems will be combined into an open-sourced platform within two years.
7. The first handsets using this platform will most likely appear on the market in 2010.

Is such an alliance necessary?

The Symbian platform has been the most successful mobile operating system ever manufactured. In 2007, Symbian-powered smartphones represented almost 7% of all handset sales, and mobile devices based on Symbian currently account for 60% of the converged mobile device segment. Much of this eye-catching success can be attributed to Nokia and its world-renowned handsets. However, it is evident that the use of Symbian variants with handsets manufactured by other companies cannot be called a true achievement. On the one hand, other mobile operating systems such as Apple iPhone and MS Windows Mobile are threatening the dominance of Symbian. On the other, the open-source Android platform supported by Open Handset Alliance
– a venture initiated by Google – will power many handsets starting at the end of 2008. Now take into account the fact that companies like Motorola and Sony Ericsson have been experiencing noticeable slumps with Nokia’s ever-increasing lead. That is, while the popularity of the S60 platform – as a Symbian offspring – has been on the rise, its sibling, UIQ, hasn’t been enjoying the same degree of fortune among handset manufacturers and application developers. Consequently, the establishment of Symbian Foundation is a natural step toward being engaged in the fight which has been put up by mobile OS developers. And why not do it with an aura of respect for open-source application development and distribution?

What comes next?

No one knows for sure how this new foundation would conduct business. Even the name of this so-called consolidated platform isn’t known. One point is obvious: all handset manufacturers which are involved in the establishment of Symbian Foundation will continue using their dedicated mobile platforms until the common operating system emerges in 2010. More interestingly, many companies are members of both Open Handset Alliance and Symbian Foundation, so it remains to be seen how this binary membership affects their policies in the future. Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Broadcom, LG, Texas Instruments and so on are committed to both initiatives, and this might affect the Symbian/Android clash. Whatever the consequences, I’m dead sure consumers will benefit from the expanding number of mobile operating systems as time passes by, and Symbian will most probably remain a major player in the field. Any thoughts or comments?

Nokia to Purchase the Rest of Symbian LTD

NOKIA PRESS RELEASE June 24, 2008

Nokia to acquire Symbian Limited to enable evolution of the leading open mobile platform

Visionary move embraces openness and accelerates innovation

Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced it has launched a cash offer to acquire all of the shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own, at a price of EUR 3.647 per share. The net cash outlay from Nokia to purchase the approximately 52% of Symbian Limited shares it does not already own will be approximately EUR 264 million.

Nokia has received irrevocable undertakings from Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (publ), Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. and Siemens International Holding BV to accept the offer, representing approximately 91% of the Symbian shares subject to the offer. Nokia also expects Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to accept the offer.

The acquisition is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced today by Nokia, together with ATT, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. More information about the planned foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org .

“This is a significant milestone in our software strategy” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia. “Symbian is already the leading open platform for mobile devices. Through this acquisition and the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, it will undisputedly be the most attractive platform for mobile innovation. This will drive the development of new and compelling, web-enabled applications to delight a new generation of consumers.”

“The wide support for this initiative, uniting the industry around the Symbian platform, reflects the strong gravitational pull it has for application developers and other ecosystem players. We will drive efficient, open innovation by unifying the platform and simplifying the software supply chain, leveraging our experience from mobile devices. Nokia is strongly positioned to realize the benefits of open innovation, as well as accelerating time to market, enabling us to meet and exceed consumer expectations for leading converged devices and experiences”, Kallasvuo continued.

Symbian Limited is the software company that develops and licenses Symbian OS, the market-leading open operating system for mobile devices. User interfaces designed for Symbian OS include S60 from Nokia, MOAP (S) for the 3G network and UIQ, designed by UIQ Technology, a joint venture between Motorola and Sony Ericsson. A privately-owned company established in 1998, Symbian has its headquarters in London, UK and other offices in the United Kingdom, United States and Asia (Bangalore, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo).

“Ten years ago, Symbian was established by far sighted players to offer an advanced open operating system and software skills to the whole mobile industry”, said Nigel Clifford, CEO of Symbian. “Our vision is to become the most widely used software platform on the planet and indeed today Symbian OS leads its market by any measure. Today’s announcement is a bold new step to achieve that vision by embracing a complete and proven platform, offered in an open way, designed to stimulate innovation, which is at the heart of everything we do.”

Mobile devices based on Symbian OS account for 60% of the converged mobile device segment (source: Canalys, 12 months to Q1 2008). Symbian OS represented approximately 7% of all mobile device sales in 2007, up from 5% in 2006 (source: Strategy Analytics). To date, more than 200 million Symbian OS based phones have been shipped, over 235 models, from 8 vendors and on more than 250 mobile networks around the world. More than 4 million developers are engaged in producing applications for Symbian devices.

Nokia expects the acquisition to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2008 and is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. On a reported basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009, approximately breakeven in 2010, and accretive in 2011. On a cash basis, Nokia expects the transaction to be dilutive in 2009 and accretive in 2010 and 2011. After the closing, all Symbian employees will become Nokia employees.