Transfer Files to/from N9 via WIFI

Sometimes you want to transfer files to and from your phone but you don't have the data cable / charger handy and bluetooth is too slow. There is another way of transferring files to and from your computer and it also shows why you need to change the default password on your Nokia N9.

Here's a nice "how to" for transferring files between your computer and your Nokia N9 using a simple FTP program on your computer.

Nokia Suite 3.3.49 doesn't work with N9

OK some of you may be getting very excited about the new Nokia Suite 3.3.49 in Betalabs. However, just tried it out and it does not work with the Nokia N9. Back to Nokia Link again...

Enable Zoom in Video Mode

The camera on the N9 works pretty well and the zoom is pretty good however when it comes to videos, the ability to zoom in whilst recording has been strangely omitted by the developers. Good thing we have people on the internet who know how to make things happen. Firstly, you need to enable developer mode (Settings> Security> Developer Mode) if you haven't already done so. then download this file camera.conf and copy it to your phone's root directory (eg E:\ ). 

Open Terminal and enable root access by typing :

• devel-su 
• password : rootme
• Copy the downloaded file in the etc directory:
• cp /home/user/MyDocs/camera.conf /etc/camera.conf
• Restart the device.

It ‘can zoom both with the top bar like the pictures, both with the volume buttons.

To remove this tweak just delete the file by repeating the procedure from step 2 to step 5 and just type this command:

rm /etc/camera.conf

9 Things I Hate About You

Just like a friendship that has gone for a long time, you start to notice the idiosynchracies of your friend and after a while those interesting features become downright annoying. For many of you, the LAFS you had with the N9 is starting to turn to a blog post like this one where we list 9 things that immediately come to mind about the N9 that we wish were not... here they are and feel free to join in on the comments

1. Accidentally pressing the volume to zero
2. Not being able to move the cursor easily through a series of words in a sentence
3. Trying to move the slider in the music / video player
4. Flaky internet connection / Refusing to connect to a call 
5. Camera that could have been an auto-focus rather than a full focus 
6. Not enough apps
7. Dialler cannot find contacts in the address book  
8. No easy way of connecting to Ovi Suite
9. Maps / Drive has been two steps back from our Symbian days 

Forgot to add one more thing which has really driven me nuts recently - needing to enter my passwords in for all of my "accounts" every time I turn off the phone! So what things would you like to see gone in your N9?

Optimising Network Mode

I am not sure whether this is a particularly typical experience for N9  users but I have found getting a lock on reception with the phone particularly frustrating. I decided to tinker with an area which I normally ignore when optimising my phone and that is in the Settings -> Mobile Network. 

In these settings, you are able to change the Network Selection to be Automatic or Manual. When this is changed to Manual, you are given a choice of which network you want to choose. I have left this Automatic but if you want to avoid roaming, I guess you can lock it to, say, Vodafone if you are an Australian 3 customer, to avoid roaming to Telstra for data. 

The Network Mode seems to be where I have had a little breakthrough. I changed the setting from "Dual" to "3G" as "GSM" is much slower than 3G from what I understand. The impact seems to have been that I am hardly ever getting no signal when I am trying to call someone. I am not sure whether this is because of this change in settings, but time will tell. It seems that the N9 seems to struggle with deciding at times between whether to make the call 3G or GSM and when you are ringing someone, the phone sits in silence for about 10 seconds and says "could not connect - Redial??"

Let me know what your thoughts are and if this has helped you, leave a comment below. Would love to get some verification from another user. 

Can't Connect to Twitter Returns

I am not sure why but I got this twitter problem again suddenly. Last time this happened, I solved the problem by following the instructions below. 

• Activate “Developer mode” by going to: Settings > Security > Developer mode. It’s OFF by default. Turn it ON.
• After having it activated, you will find a “Terminal” app button under application menu.
• Open it and you need to execute these commands (one command per line):
• gconftool --recursive-unset /system/http_proxy
• gconftool --recursive-unset /system/proxy
• gconftool --recursive-unset /system/osso

I vaguely remember someone mentioning that there is another way of solving this twitter problem without nuking your connection settings. Please leave a comment if you have some ideas. Otherwise, for those that can't connect to twitter, this is the best solution we currently know.

How to get MSN Messenger working

If you are wanting to get some instant messengers working such as MSN and ICQ, it's not going to be easy but there is a way. Here is the easier way thanks to guest poster Michael.

First of all, download these three files straight on the device;

• LibPurple
• Telepathy-Haze
• IM-Providers-Additional

1. Open terminal, and gain root access using devel-su with rootme as password unless changed.
2. Enter cd /home/user/MyDocs/Downloads
3. Enter ; dpkg -i libpurple0_*.deb
4. dpkg -i telepathy-haze_*.deb
5. dpkg -i im-providers-additional-0.2.deb
6. Restart the device
7. If successful, you should have the various IM providers in the Accounts app.

Note: Enter lines 3 – 5 separate as they need to be done individually in that order. Also, if icons in Accounts stuff up, just restart device again. Continued icon corruption can supposedly be fixed by replacing icons in /usr/share/themes/blanco/icons/

Create the account like you normally would in the Accounts app, and, as usual, use Availability to go online.

This way of installing the IM includes the service not only in the Accounts app, but in the contact cards of those you merge.

If you need help, put it in the comments below, or send Michael a tweet

Get Google Docs Working on N9

As many of you will know, it is quite frustrating using the Nokia N9 with Google Docs. For spreadsheets, you will only be able to see one column at a time. One workaround is to change the address that you use to get to Google Docs -
https://docs.google.com/?overridemobile=false#home

Try it out

Backup/Restore Bookmarks Go Green

I tried the restore feature for the N9 the other day using the Nokia Link to bring back my phone stuff from two weeks ago. Everything seemed to work very well but the icons for all my internet bookmarks had a blank green squircle icon instead of the usual "preview" of the website.

To fix this, all you need to do is open up the bookmark and go to "ADD TO HOME SCREEN" once again. The preview of the website will appear once again and life can go on.

Sync Google Calendar with N9

This Harmattan build supports multiple Mail for Exchange and multiple CalDAV accounts. For Google Calendar:

• Go to Accounts > Add accounts > CalDAV
• Username should be your full Google Calendar username (e.g. jbloggs@gmail.com) and password.
• The URL is:
  • For your primary calendar: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/
  • For other calendars: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/uuid@group.calendar.google.com/
  • For some users, the primary calendar will only work with, supposing your e-mail is jbloggs@gmail.com: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/jbloggs@gmail.com/

The uuid can be found on the calendar settings page within Google Calendar, and is a long string of characters & numbers.
The trailing slashes are crucial for Google.

• The primary calendar claimed to sync, but no events showed up. So I deleted the CalDAV entry for my primary calendar and set up Mail for Exchange:
  • Username is your full Google Calendar username and password
  • Server: m.google.com
• I synced my primary calendar using the syntax of the second URL (with my Google login email instead of uuid@google) and it worked great. YMMV.

• Note: for me the sync button only worked once you go back out after creating the entry, and then back into it again.

This information was taken from Meego.com