Gmail

There are lots of features which are different in the new Outlook from Office 2010 than Outlook 2007 which makes it even more desirable to use Outlook for your Gmail.

Having said that, now lets see How to Setup Gmail IMAP in Outlook 2010?

Before you can start using Gmail IMAP in Outlook, we need to enable IMAP in Gmail settings.

In Gmail, go to Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP –> Make sure Enable IMAP is checked and click on Save Changes if you made any.

If you are starting the Microsoft outlook 2010 for the first time, you will be seeing the following startup screen, just click Next and choose Yes in the next screen where they ask would you like to configure an email account?

Note: If you already have another email account or if you have chosen No in the earlier case and has already gone through the initial outlook startup settings before, follow this screenshot else continue to the next one.

Click the Office button on the top left corner and go to the Office Backstage. Under Info –> Account Information –> Click Account Settings and Click on Add Account.

On the Add New Account screen, just choose Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next.

Choose Internet E-mail, connect to POP or IMAP server to send and receive e-mail messages and click Next.

Here give the User information, enter your Name, your full email address including @gmail.com or your @custom-mail.com.

Under Server information,

Account Type – IMAP

Incoming mail server – imap.gmail.com

Outgoing mail server (SMTP) – smtp.gmail.com

Also enter the logon information, enter your user name in full and enter the password.

NOTE: Now don’t click Next yet, click on More settings above it.

In the Internet email settings, go to Advanced Tab to change the server port numbers.

Change Incoming server (IMAP) to 993 and use SSL as the encrypted connection.

Change outgoing server (SMTP) to 587 and use TLS as the encrypted connection.

Now go to Outgoing server tab and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication and choose Use same settings as my incoming mail server.

Now you should be taken back to the Add new account screen, click on Test Account Settings and see if everything works without any errors. If there are any errors go back to all the settings and recheck if you have entered correctly.

Click Ok and Finish.

Now you will be taken to the main Outlook window and on the left sidebar a new set of folders will be created to synchronize with the Gmail account. It will also include Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, Trash and all other mails synchronized.

Note: If you have a huge Gmail account already, then it will take sometime to download all your email contents from the web server.

Setting up the Sent Items Folder

When you send a mail for the first time, it will ask you where to store the sent mails. Make sure you DO NOT SET the sent mail from Gmail. When you send a mail through outlook, it goes to the gmail server and it saves the sent mails automatically to the sent mail folder. Now if you try to save it again in the sent mail, it will create duplicate copies of the sent mails. So use the Local Folder. See my other post on Choosing the Sent Items Folder while using Gmail in Outlook

Setting up the Deleted Items Folder

In gmail, you can either archive a mail or delete a mail. When you archive a mail, they are removed from the Inbox but they still remain in All Mails folder but when you delete they are moved to the trash mail folder and eventually deleted permanently after 30 days.

Likewise, you can set the action to move the mails to trash folder when you delete them.

If you want to archive a mail but not delete it, I usually have a folder called arhive and move the mails there so that my inbox remains clean and concise.

Folders and Labels

Outlook Folders are equivalent of labels in gmail. If you add a mail to two labels it will be present in both the folders.

Also read How you can manage Gmail better in Outlook and also reduce Gmail memory space in outlook.

Related Posts:

1. How to setup desktop alert or email notification for Gmail or IMAP accounts in Outlook 2007?
2. How to Solve when two copies of Sent Mail are Saved while using Gmail and Outlook?
3. Tips to Reduce Gmail Memory Space and its Better Management in Outlook
4. How to change or move the location of Gmail pst file in Outlook 2007?
5. How to Create (.pst) New Data Files and Folders in Outlook 2007?

Guide to Bioscrypt Access Manager

Software Download: In case you have upgraded your system from Vista to Windows 7 or from 32-bit to 64-bit, you may have to download the software again.

Bioscrypt Verisoft Access Manager Download sp35640.exe (This version is used in HP laptops and from HP. I have tested this both Vista and Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit)

Registering Credentials or Entering login id and Password Information

Go to Start –> All Programs –> Verisoft –> My Identity to open the Verisoft Access Manager.

If you have not registered your fingerprint data or the password for Verisoft Access Manager, click on Register Credentials on the left sidebar under My Identity. Click on the Fingerprints or Password to register the credentials (See image below). Just use the finger print reader as suggested to register the finger prints.

Click the Settings and Options to change the settings of Single Sign On and other general options.

Here you can use the verisoft access manager to login to Windows, advise to register credentials on logon, suggest to backup identity after changes and etc.

Under Single Sign On, you can change the settings to automatically detect the login page so that it can enter the login information and also set it to automatically record the user credentials or ask confirmation before recording credentials.

Saving Login Information and Using them

When you visit a webpage where you have to enter the login information and if you haven’t saved any login information before, enter those details and you will be presented with a wizard to save those details.

When you visit a page where you have to enter a login information and if you have already saved login information then you will be presented with the VeriSoft Logon Wizard and just swipe your finger on the finger print reader or enter the verisoft access manger password.

How to Backup the Identity Elements, Login Information and Fingerprint Data?

Go to My Identity page and click on Backup Identity.

You will be presented with Backup Identity Wizard. Choose all the information you would like to backup and click Next.

Enter the File location where you will like to save the backup data and also enter the Pass-phrase. Note: This is very important to remember, if you forget you may not be able to restore it. The backup details will be stored in the .osf format.

How to Restore the Identity Elements, Login Information and Fingerprint Data?

Go to My Identity, click on More… and click on Restore Identity. Here you can also Clear Identity for this account.

Browse the backup information in .osf format and enter the pass-phrase.

Let us know if you have used the Verisoft Access Manager for maintaining your passwords and login information and fingerprint reader. What other alternatives do you use or suggest?

Related Posts:

1. How to Backup Data in Windows XP and Vista?
2. How to Backup Important Mails?
3. Backup Personal Folders in Outlook 2007 – Addin
4. Free Give Away of Professional Backup Software – Backup Platinum
5. Free GiveAway of Backup Platinum – Winners

Gogo DVD to 3gp converter is one of the very easy tool to do this and the best of all its free!

First lets see some of the features which are great with this freeware:

• High Speed ripping from DVD to 3gp format.
• High quality video to view in mobile phone.
• Split the file and rip only the part you want.
• Select target subtitle and audio track.
• Preview the video while ripping.
• Status of ripping progress.
• One can select the source frame rate to PAL or NTSC.
• It has precise CODEC settings – input and output settings with the required bit rate and frame rate settings.
• One can include subtitles and original colors.
• AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) supported.

Here you can view the available Input Settings in the program

And the output settings for DVD to 3gp converter

Download Gogo DVD to 3gp Converter

Related Posts:

1. How to Make VLC Player to Work in Vista?
2. Free Alternative Way to Convert Office Docs to PDF Format Using Google Docs
3. 12 Must Have Futuristic Extensions for Windows Vista in a Single Package
4. How to Create a Mosaic Picture using all your Photo Collection for Free as a Valentine Gift?
5. How to Sync Data, Files or Folders between Windows Vista and USB drive or External Drive for Free?

Have you ever had so much of data in your Excel and wondered which  Chart would be the best fit? Now you can use Chart Advisor from Microsoft Office Labs to choose the best fit of chart to represent the data you have.

How to use Chart Advisor in Excel 2007 and its features?

Go to Insert –> Chart Advisor under Office Labs.

Make sure the cursor is in one of the cell where the data is available. It will choose all the data, analyze and present the suitable chart along with other choices.

Here in this example, I tried with the Month and their expenses, Chart Advisor gave the best fit of the Chart and other charts as well. As usual you can hover over the other charts to preview it.

Here I gave expenses for two years and analyzed it. The main projected chart was a bar chart and it also gave other line charts, Bar Charts, Area charts etc.

You can also filter the data after the chart is being prepared using the Filter Data options. If its a text, you can use the check box to choose and if its numeric then you can use options like greater than, less than or equal to etc.

You can also use the options under Modify Chart to remove the columns of data from the chart etc.

You can download Microsoft Chart Advisor from Office Labs.

Related Posts:

1. How to do calculations with Live Data from the Web in Excel 2007?
2. How to Change a Chart in MS Excel from Landscape Format to Portrait?
3. How to Create Excel Chart With 2 Y-axis or X-axis?
4. Advanced Feature Add-In to Get Live Data from Web in Excel 2007
5. How to Select Every nth Row in Excel?

This Motorola S9 headset is one of the best A2DP Bluetooth headset (A2DP – Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) that are available now in the market. Connecting this with my Nokia N95 was a very easy task (I also tried connecting with other Sony Ericsson phone, it was also very simple and straight forward). But connecting with my Vista laptop took me a while to figure it out.

The coolest Option lets to connect both Vista and Phone to the same headset at the same time:

Here is my biggest reason why I wanted this Bluetooth headset to set both with my phone and vista laptop. Imagine you are watching a movie or listening to songs from your laptop using this headset, when you get a call in your phone, the movie or song automatically pauses, you take the call using the headset and after you are done with the call, the movie or song automatically resumes. So here you have a headset which is connected with both phone and vista computer at the same time.

Drivers for Bluetooth in Vista:

Many advised to change the Bluetooth drivers that came by default with Vista saying it doesn’t support A2DP. But I just managed to get it to work without changing my Bluetooth drivers as I had my HP Bluetooth Module driver from Broadcom.

Before I proceed these are the Bluetooth drivers that are in my laptop currently.

Microsoft Bluetooth Enumerator – 6.0.6001.18064 – Microsoft

Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network) – 6.0.6001.18000 – Microsoft

HP Bluetooth Module – 5.1.2535.0 – Broadcom

Bluetooth Hands-free Audio – 6.0.1.3700 – Broadcom

Bluetooth Stereo Audio – 6.0.1.3700 – Broadcom

So here is how to connect A2DP Bluetooth headset with Vista:

1. Make sure Bluetooth is active in your computer. Click the Vista Start button and type Bluetooth in the Search box. From the results in top select Bluetooth Devices under Programs. (Note: If Bluetooth Devices is not listed then it means you computer does not have Bluetooth)

2. From the Options tab, make sure all the options are checked.

• Allow Bluetooth devices to find this computer
• Allow Bluetooth devices to connect to this computer
• Alert me when Bluetooth device wants to connect

Also if you prefer select options like Show the Bluetooth icon in the notifications area.

3. Now turn on the Bluetooth headset. Click the Devices tab in the Bluetooth Devices window and click Add.

4. In the Add Bluetooth Device Wizard check My device is set up and ready to be found and click Next.

5. It will search for all the nearby turned on Bluetooth devices and it will list all the devices including Bluetooth headset. Choose the headset and click Next.

6. Choose a Passkey in the next window for security purposes. Usually the device may come with some documented security code (For example, Motorola S9 HD Bluetooth Headset has the Passkey 0000)

7. Now it will connect and install the drivers needed.

8. In the next window click Finish.

Now even if the Bluetooth headset is connected, you may not be able to hear any music from the headset.

So here is the tweak you need to do to make it work. Go to Bluetooth Devices and select the headset under Audio Devices and click the Properties at the bottom.

Select the services tab and make sure you have Headset checked, this is what is responsible for A2DP stereo connections. Check all necessary and click OK.

Now go to Audio tab in the Bluetooth Devices and make sure Bluetooth Stereo Audio says its connected. If not select and click Connect at the bottom.

Even now you may not be able to listen through your Bluetooth headset using A2DP.

So, Go to Start –> Control Panel –> Hardware and Sound –> Sound –> Manage audio devices. Now under Playback select Bluetooth Stereo Audio and select Set Default.

Some Points to be Noted:

1. Now you should be able to hear the music in both speakers using stereo mode. If not try closing the players or browsers and start them again.

2. Make sure you don’t play anything while changing any options that I had mentioned above. It may cause the program not to respond or crash.

3. If you are absolutely sure that you have done all these steps, try restarting the system.

Related Posts:

1. How to share one Internet connection with another computer using Vista?
2. What to do when your computer monitor goes blank or frozen?
3. Setting the Start Menu Power Button to Shut Down in Vista
4. How to Backup Data in Windows XP and Vista?
5. How to change Double Click to Single Click Mouse Selection in Vista and Windows 7? – Readers Question

Where were bookmarks saved before?

In Firefox 2, the bookmarks were stored in bookmarks.html file under C: Users –> <User Name> –> AppData –> Roaming –> Mozilla –> Firefox –> Profiles –> (some random characters.default ex 2xd8htj.default) –> Bookmarks.html

Even though you find this file in Firefox 3, you may find that it doesn’t have the latest bookmarks you have added in Firefox. You may find only the imported bookmarks in that file. That’s because  Firefox 3 bookmarks are not stored in the same way it was stored before. (Note: You can tweak Firefox 3 to save bookmarks in bookmarks.html also)

Where are bookmarks saved in Firefox 3 now?

It stores both the bookmarks and the history as the database with the help of SQLite. This is the reason why Firefox 3 is able to add tags to the bookmarks and the awesomebar is able to list the suggestions as per most visited links. This also enable Firefox 3 to handle these requests very fast. SQLite database bookmark system was added since Firefox 3 Alpha 5 – Mozilla Development Center.

So in the same place where you found bookmarks.html, you will find places.sqlite and this is the database which handles all the Firefox 3 bookmarks.

So what is JSON and what has to do with Bookmarks?

JSON is JavaScript Object Notation which is a data-interchange format. In the same folder where you found places.sqlite, you will find a folder called bookmarkbackups which has backups of Firefox 3 bookmarks. In case you lose your database or it gets corrupted, you can import these files through Bookmarks –> Organize Bookmarks –> Import and Backup –> Import. So this just serves as your backup and this is not where primarily the Firefox 3 bookmarks are stored.

So now how to view bookmarks in places.sqlite?

The best way is to install the SQLite Manager addon which helps to view all the 11 tables that are present in the bookmark database. This includes table for history, favicons, keywords, bookmarks root etc.

Once you install the addon, click Connect Database and browse to select places.sqlite and you can view all the bookmarks in the table moz_bookmarks. If you prefer to do it this way, you can also manually add, edit or delete bookmarks through this table.

Related Posts:

1. How to Auto Export Firefox 3 bookmarks to bookmarks.html?
2. How To Make Firefox Look Like Internet Explorer
3. How to browse in Firefox 3 without Leaving a Trace? – Stealther
4. How to use Firefox as Windows Explorer or File Manager?
5. Creating and Handling Different Profiles in Firefox

Without further due, the winners of the Full Version of the Professional Backup Software, Backup Platinum are:

The winners are chosen for portraying their demand and where they would like to use this software.

1) K-IntheHouse – To backup all the files from his Web design business which he does from home.

2) Haris – To backup school projects and assignments.

3) Alpesh Nakar – To backup data from work laptop and desktop.

Congratulations to the winners of Backup Platinum.

If you still have not downloaded a copy of it to try it out, you may download it here.

Download Backup

Stay tuned for the future giveaway at LyteByte exclusively for LyteByte readers.

Related Posts:

1. Free Give Away of Professional Backup Software – Backup Platinum
2. Backup Personal Folders in Outlook 2007 – Addin
3. How to Sync Data, Files or Folders between Windows Vista and USB drive or External Drive for Free?
4. How to Backup Data in Windows XP and Vista?
5. The Best of Last Month from Lyte Byte – May 08

It is so good and looked so futuristic that even many thought this software is a feature of Windows 7!  See the Youtube Video which made to the digg frontpage.

Here are the list of features that it has currently and many more are yet to come. Each one is fully customizable and you can add or remove extensions that you don’t want. Future updates will be available in the Extensions updater to download and install.

Note: Extension for Windows is currently in Private Beta and its planned to be released as public beta next month (June,15).

1. Image Processing Extension:

Use it convert image formats, resize or rotate images. It even helps in removing noise from pictures. Just right click the Image file -> Extensions and under Image tools find options to convert or resize. When you click Resize/Convert, it also allows to Denoise and apply effects like Smooth, Sharp, Auto Color, Auto Contrast, Auto Brightness etc.

2. Document Converter Extension:

Convert document formats like DOC, DOCX, PDF, HTML, XML, RTF, TXT for free. To convert just right click the document file and click the Document Converter Extension to guide you to select to which format it should be converted.

3. Screen Capture Extension:

Its nothing but a free high quality screen casting extension. You can take screenshots of the Full Screen, Current Window, or a Particular Window or even sections within a Window. It allows to save these files in a clipboard, in a folder, or send to the email client or Printer.

It also allows to take high quality video animation of the screen in the same way you take the screenshot. It saves the file in WMV or AVI format along with the audio input through the inbuilt Microphone or through any audio input.

4. PDF Printer Extension:

It literally converts any printable file to PDF Format. So this not only allows to print text documents but also other files like Excel or PowerPoint etc. Its the ultimate PDF converter for free.

5. Disk Analyzer Extension:

Analyzes available disk space as an overall disk or any folder. Also assists in disk cleanup. There is a cleanup link next to drive for easy access and also a tools link which direct to Defragmentation, Error Checking and Backup. Also you can easily sort by largest files or folder to find which is occupying large amount of space.

(Pic: Overall view of different drives)

(Pic: Volume and Size of files inside a Folder)

6. Explorer Extension:

Takes Windows Explorer to the next level. This extension manages directory and file browsers with the ability to save folders and configurations.

You can have two Windows Explorer side by side to compare files and each explorer can have multiple tabs where you can store different folders. You can also save this settings in the form of a main tab so that you can view this mode later on.

7. File Compare Extension:

Used to compare text files such as text documents, HTML and program source codes.

It will compare two files and you can choose options whether to compare very strictly with Case changes, White Spaces and Empty lines.

On comparing, it will highlight the difference and will list the characters that are equal, modified, deleted or inserted at the bottom.

8. Search and Replace Extension:

It allows to search files and mails and to replace text in any files. It gives a wide selection criteria like File Type, Date modified, Containing text, Case Sensitive, Whole Word, Size, Tags etc.

You can either Windows Search indexing or Google desktop if you have installed Google Desktop.

9. Compression Extension:

Use it to compress, extract or convert files between various archive formats. To name a few it supports ZIP, RAR, TGZ, JAR, CAR etc. Just right click a compressed to access this extension and use it like a regular a compression software.

10. Shortcuts Manager Extension:

It helps to manage keyboard Shortcut Keys to launch any application, open files or folders. It even lets to override system shortcuts. If you don’t know what a particular shortcut does, you can refer here and maybe even learn something new.

11. Virtual Drive Extension:

It allows to save and emulate CD-ROMS, DVDs, and hard disks such as ISO files without changing physical media. It also supports secure drive encryption.

12. FTP Client Extension:

It gives an integrated access to FTP and SFTP Servers from Windows Explorer. In Lyte Byte, we have earlier discussed about how we can set up FTP within Windows Explorer but this gives a very easy access to set up and use FTP.

To setup new FTP, go to FTP folder under Computer and right click -> Extensions -> Add New FTP Location.

Bonus Extension

Task Manager Extension:

It gives an enhanced version of Windows Task Manager.

All the extensions can be easily managed in its own Extensions Updater and you can choose to enable and disable individual extensions.

Read more about Extension for Windows, Extensoft and also top 10 reasons to use Extensions for Windows.

Related Posts:

1. How to Show and Hide File Extensions in Windows?
2. How to use Firefox as Windows Explorer or File Manager?
3. How to change Double Click to Single Click Mouse Selection in Vista and Windows 7? – Readers Question
4. How to view Hidden Files and Folders in Windows?
5. How to get a tabbed Windows Explorer or File Manager?

As taking a backup periodically is so crucial, its important to have some good backup software which will automate all the backup procedures either in external hard drive, USB, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, FTP, LAN etc. To know more about the importance of backup you can read my series of posts on doing a backup in Windows XP and Vista, backup the blog, backup important mails and in Outlook.

Backup Platinum is one of the good professional backup software and they are offering a free give away of 3 full version licenses of Professional Backup Platinum to Lyte Byte readers. Each license is priced at a one time payment of $67 and all that you have to do is drop a comment on this post to be eligible for consideration of random selection.

Features of Backup Platinum:

Here are some key features of backup platinum which tells why its better than many of its counterpart.

Range of support from CD to Blu Ray: Backup Platinum offers a wide range of external backup mode from CDR, CDRW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, BD-R or BD-RE. Blu Ray disks have become the modern storage media as they offer about 50Gb storage in a regular disk. You can also use backup platinum as the burning software to write the media. Also large size files and backup can be split into different disks seamlessly.

Use it as a Sync Software with External Disk, LAN and FTP: You can also use Backup Platinum as the synchronizing software to sync data with either LAN or FTP. It also supports secure FTP using SSL.

Secure with ZIP or 128-bit Blowfish Encryption: Even when you are sending data with an unsecure FTP, the data can be protected with a password protected ZIP or even much secure 128-bit Blowfish Encryption or you can do both! It also helps to create ZIP files on the fly and creates self-extracting executable files.

Backup of Open Files: Many important files might be used continuously and its hard to backup these files with a regular backup methods. But Backup Platinum uses Volume Shadow Copy Services to backup all important files and its completely restorable without disturbing the working of the system.

Other notable features:

• Flexible and yet powerful scheduler
• Run in service mode in all windows
• Command line interface
• Backup registry keys
• Run backup on logon/logoff
• MD4/MD5 Password Authentication
• Email Notifications about backup
• Create logs of backups

It has so much more and you can read it from Backup Platinum features.

Here are some of the process screen shots with Backup Platinum

You can either setup a Backup or Synchronization

Different items that can be backed up apart from folders, files and registry keys.

Backup to a CD, DVD or Blu-Ray Disc

Backup to an external hard disk or Backup Folder in your computer.

Synchronizing files, folders and different data formats between different storage medium.

Set Email Notifications about backup.

Whether you are running a small business of your own or just having your personal data, this software would be of great use to make sure all your data is safe. Many good backup software comes with a monthly price tag with online storage, but this comes with just a one time fee of $67.

Just drop a comment if you would like to participate in the free give away. We already have three licenses for the professional edition. In the mean time, you can download the 30-day trial of full version. To increase your chances of winning mention how or where you would use this software. Winners would be declared next week same time.

Download Backup Platinum

Update: Winner have been announced.

Related Posts:

1. Free GiveAway of Backup Platinum – Winners
2. How to Backup Data in Windows XP and Vista?
3. Backup Personal Folders in Outlook 2007 – Addin
4. How to Sync Data, Files or Folders between Windows Vista and USB drive or External Drive for Free?
5. Microsoft DreamSpark – Free Professional Development and Design Tools Software for Students

So far the experience was good. I have AT&T connection with unlimited MediaNet which has made the experience even better with 3G.

Price Range of Nokia N95 8GB US Edition

The price range is around $700 and the initial quoted price in Nokia webpage was $799. Dell had initial offer for $511 + Tax which comes to around $600 but it lasted only for first 250 customers and I missed it. Finally the next good deal I could get was from JR.Com and I got it for $650 with Tax.

Here is the review on my experience with Nokia N95-4 8GB

Initial setup with the Network (AT&T)

The initial setup was very simple. As soon as I put my 3G SIM card from AT&T and switched on, the setting wizard automatically setup the parameters for SMS, AT&T MMS, AT&T Media Net and AT&T Internet. Incase if one cancels to do the initial setup or change the service provider, you can access the Initial Setup Wizard from Menu -> Tools -> Utilities -> Setting Wizard. This will take care of the rest. This is very handy as otherwise you have to enter all the details manually and which is very tedious.

Data Networking.

One thing I liked about the Internet access from N95 through ATT is that it switched from 2G networks and 3G networks seamlessly. When the network is crowded or fluctuating, the data access moved seamlessly from GPRS (General Pocket Radio Service) to EGPRS (Enhanced GPRS) or EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) to 3G or 3.5G without deterring any user web experience.

2G Network – GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network – HSDPA 850 / 1900 – US version (High Speed Downlink Packet Access)

When I tested the speed using DSL Reports Mobile Speed Test, it gave 150 – 160 KBPS when I was browsing through EDGE. And an amazing speed of up to 723 KBPS while browsing through 3G or 3.5G.

At home, it easily connected to the Wireless LAN and the browsing speed was even better and good. I got around 1300 KBPS when browsing in my home wireless network. N95 comes with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g.

Other networking features like USB, UPnP and Bluetooth were also handy. I usually sent the downloaded applications to my phone through Bluetooth and it was stored in the message folder.

Call Quality

The incoming call quality was very good but it was too responsive to the surrounding noise. The receiver at the other end always complained about the surrounding noise.

camera

The 5 MP (2592 x 1944 pixels) camera in Nokia N95 with Carl Zeiss optics is one of the features that made to consider buying this phone and I was not disappointed. The Auto mode in the phone suited most of the photos I took but there were significant difference when I choose the category manually. Here are two pictures, one was taken in auto mode (Left Pic) and another one in Landscape mode (Right Pic).

The general categories that are available are Auto, User defined, Close-up mode, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night, Night Portrait.

Sports mode was also very good and accurate enough to capture fast moving objects for a 5MP camera.

Also other features like auto-focus, self timer, sequence mode makes this one of the best digital camera phone. If you are a professional photographer, features like Color Tone, View Finder Grid, White Balance, Exposure Compensation, Sharpness, Contrast, Light Sensitivity makes N95 Camera even better.

Leaf Close Up Shot by N95-4 8GB

One thing I found about the flash is, I had to turn off before taking pictures of glossy surface as the reflection of the flash was highly prominent.

Other pictures taken by my Nokia N95 in Flickr

The video capture is at the rate of 30fps which was good enough to capture even moving objects with good clarity.

Here is an example of the video of moving objects that I took with my Nokia N95 8GB. Obviously, the quality was much higher when I took and YouTube reduced the quality.

Video of Moving Objects Taken By Nokia N95-4 8GB

GPS

Another best feature in N95 8GB was the GPS which now comes with Assisted GPS (A-GPS). Also N95-4 8GB came with 6 months free voice turn by turn navigation. Nokia maps were good but it takes a little while to find and lock the initial position. I downloaded Google Maps with GPS and it was able to lock the initial position faster than Nokia Maps. The accuracy was also really great, when the car was over the railway track while crossing, it showed exactly that the car was over the track!

Audio

The audio quality was really good as well the radio receiving capability (though not all radio stations were received good). I believe the audio can be even better with a higher end headphones like Shure, Bose or Ultimate Ears which has noise canceling features. The headphone that came with N95 was really good indoors but in outdoors I had to keep the volume really high. But I should say that even when I kept the phone in full volume, it was not unpleasant.

Video

The replay of the video was good and even the streaming videos from YouTube and other sites were really good. Also the audio-video sync was perfect. The video playback in the landscape mode was amazing to watch long videos.

Applications

Since Nokia N95 has Symbian, it comes with the advantage of having lots of applications. Also the new field of applications that have started to come out are with the Accelerometer. To name a few accelerometer applications for N95, Nokmote, RotateMe, ShakeSMS, FlipSilent, Rock N Scroll.

Memory – Mass and Phone

Phone memory has 133 MB and Mass memory has 8 GB (Actual usable memory – 7.49 GB). For some applications like Yahoo! Go 3.0 requires that you install them on phone memory. When I first installed it in Mass Memory, it was very slow. So its better to install all the frequently used applications in phone memory.

Battery

Though N95 8GB has new 1200mAH Li-ion battery, it does not long last if you are using all through the day. It also consumes more if you are using applications like GPS, Accelerometer, or Camera. The first two days when I had the phone when I was literally using the phone the whole day (I was almost using all the features), the battery ran out before I could get back home. Now even when I use phone for couple of hours for calling along with music and other features, it longs till I go to sleep. But anyway one has to charge it everyday.

Keypad

The keys are very tightly packed and if you are looking forward to type long messages and mails through this phone then it may be little tough.

Slider

The two way slider is a different perspective from other phones but its still wobbly and little loose as pointed out by many earlier N95 users.

PC Suite, Sync & Firmware Update

Unfortunately, though Nokia PC suite works, Nokia software updater still doesn’t support N95-4 8GB version. The firmware versions of Europe edition and North American edition differs and there are no updates yet for North American editions.

Here is the firmware version for my Nokia N95-4 8GB

Use *#0000# to find the Nokia firmware version
V 1.2.011
28/01/08
RM-421
Nokia N95 (A6.01)

Since both the edition numbers totally vary there are no way to verify if the firmware for N95-4 8GB has the updated features from European edition. But the features like automatic rotation from Portrait to Landscape has been introduced in the new firmware update in European edition but its still not available in N95-4 American Edition.

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