Since I use my phone for everything, I like to customize it. So far here is the list of all the applications I am using. I won’t be needing anything beyond these I guess. Most of these applications are freeware.

1) Opera Mini – Although Webkit is inbuilt but Opera Mini is still better & faster then Webkit & most importantly it saves lots of bandwidth & money when using over Pay-per-KB usage model usually available with Indian GSM Carriers. When I need to browser websites with a desktop like experience I use Opera 10. I use the Official GMail App for checking my GMail, and also the inbuilt mail client to check mails when I need to download attachment, send attachment etc.

2) For text chatting I use Slick & for Video Chat or Voice Chat over Skype & Google Talk I use Fring

3) For personal expanse management I use Best Expanse. It costs $12.

4) For downloading torrent files in the phone itself over Wi-Fi I am using SymTorrent.

5) I found a great application called WordMobi for managing WordPress blogs. I can write new posts, moderate comments, Delete comments, & reply to comments. It lacks the best UI out there but better then visiting the Dashboard using the inbuilt browser which is very small for this task.

Word Mobi & some other applications require the Python Runtime for Symbian S60, however, installing Python runtime on Nokia N79 is tricky so I recommend either using the inbuilt Nokia App update to download the latest version or downloading Python runtime 1.9.6 fixed or above from Maemo Garage. Keep in mind that all python applications should be installed on the same storage  where the runtime is installed.

6) Although I convert videos to native H.264 AVC based MP4 file before copying to phone, I still have CorePlayer installed in case I have a DivX encoded video to play.

7) Since I was having trouble installing unsigned applications, I installed SignSis & registered at symbiansigned.com to get my own certificate & published ID for my phone’s IMEI. Now I can sign any application in my phone itself, for my phone only.

8 ) The file manager of Symbian OS is good enough for my needs but I have also installed Y-Browser, just in case I need it.

9) For task manager, I use Handy Taskman. It’s quite good & simple & takes over when you press the Symbian menu key for some time. It costs $15.

10) Since N79 already has inbuilt search, I use it to search for information anywhere I am either on GPRS or Wi-Fi. It support searching on multiple search engines but I prefer to use Google.

11) To upload images & videos to Facebook & Twitter, I use Furtiv. It allows me to upload from the inbuilt Share online app of Nokia

12) I use Screenshots for Symbian to capture screen shots of my Mobile phone’s screen. Its quite simple & easy to use. Just start it & press the camera key for sometime & it takes a picture & saves it in memory card under a folder by the name screenshots.

13) For watching YouTube videos I use the official YouTube app for Symbian OS which can be downloaded by going to m.google.com from your Nokia phone’s inbuilt browser.

14) If you want to use a picture with your contact which you will see when they call or you call then use Full screen caller.

You need to have good resolution pictures of all your contact if you want to use them. The screen resolution of N79 is 240X320 so ideal size which I have found for the picture is 120X160 pixel. Convert your contact’s picture to this dimension then use Nokia Ovi suite to attach the pic to a contact. On the next sync, all the contacts in your phone will have the pic associated.

15) When it comes to video conversion I use MediaShow Espresso on my PC to convert video with the following settings…

Video size = Keep the aspect ratio same, but reduce the size to 320X240. 16:9 Videos look contracted when converted to 4:3.

Video bit rate should be 384 kbps, H.264 AVC, keep the frame rate as original.

Audio = 128 kbps MP4 unless the source is having lower bit rate.

16) For Music sync, I simply use Windows Media Player 11 which automatically syncs the song to the phone when connected in Media transfer mode.

17) Using Vectir 2.0 beta I am able control my PC over a Bluetooth connection & control Windows Media Player, Media centre, Desktop etc. There is no need to buy a Media Centre remote now.

18) There is a great handy software called JoikuSpot Premium using which we can connect a PC to 3G internet of a Mobile phone. JoikuSpot turns your phone to a secure mobile WLAN HotSpot. No need for USB dongles, cables or Bluetooth. The light version is pretty much useless so premium is all you should buy if this is what you need. However, if you have Nokia ovi Suite, you can also tether the connection.

When Vista was released, till Service Pack 1 it was plagued by many problem specially the now in-famous File copy bug but after Service Pack 1 & then SP2 this all changed. Vista is not a slow snail now & is infect a fast cheetah. Windows 7 is all what Windows Vista was not, even in my usage I can say that Windows 7 is Vista fixed. One thing I can say is that in Windows 7, feature 1, 2, 3 & 4 work fine.

Now, no operating system is good by default. You have to make it work the way you want it to work. With Linux we get all customisations we can imagine of but this usually in a complex manner. Linux does gives lots of possibilities & they are slowly but surely gaining momentum. Mac OS X by default is made to discourage customisation. All Mac should look same as El Jobso wants, you cannot run a Mac your way, you can run it the way Apple wants you to use it.

Windows is a hybrid here. It lets you mould your OS the way you want, & also makes it not so tough to customize it. In my experience you can customize Windows about 90% to make it look & work like something completely different.

In the leadership of Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft started to listen what customers wanted from Windows instead of making what Microsoft wants. Microsoft has recently started the Ad campaign with catch phrase “I am a PC & Windows 7 was my idea”. Its actually true, Windows 7 is a the idea of a user, its his OS  running on his PC so shouldn’t it run the way the  user wants… well, Windows 7 does that fine.

The way I use Windows 7 is to use as much default application as possible as neither they bloat the system nor they create confusion. I customised my installation of Windows 7 the following way which includes some of the applications I use & the way I configured the PC.

Note : In case you are installing Windows 7 on a Netbook or something with a CD Drive, then you can use Windows 7 USB – DVD Download Tool

User Interface Customisation

The first thing I do after installing Windows is to customize the look & feel the way I want. he default UI & UX of Windows 7 is already good due to which you don’t require much customization but still I changed some themes, sound pack etc. This is how my typical Windows 7 desktop looks like.

The visual style I am using is called Soft7. I like dark coloured themes on my OS so this with a custom Window Glass colour of black does the trick. To change the default Visual Style on Windows you need a patched uxtheme.dll which was the usual case with Windows XP & Vista but thanks to the efforts of the guys at uxstyle.com, you no longer have to do this. Just download the application & after installation it will run in the background letting you install custom unsigned themes with ease. In case you don’t like it, just disable or uninstall it.

If you still like to patch the uxtheme.dll in Windows 7, you can download Universal uxtheme patcher from here.

To add something to any application as a jumplist item, just drag it to the apps icon in taskbar.

Browser

I use Firefox as my primary browser on Windows 7 due to the sheer level of customisation it provides with extensions. IE 8 is good, but Firefox is faster for me although it is indeed a big memory hog.

Mozilla is changing the way Firefox looks & behaves for Windows 7 with Firefox 4 but you can get most of it right now too using an amazing theme called Strata40 from SpewBoy. Now this is one reason to stick to Firefox despite of its shortcomings as a software. This is how my Firefox 3.6 beta 1 looks like, because this is the first version of Firefox which provides support for Aero Peak. Firefox 3.7 beta supports jumplists too but right now its not stable for my use at least.

Entertainment

Windows Media player in Vista was actually better then the one in Windows 7 as far as UI is concerned. The previous glass themed Media Player looked way better then the current all blue version. Microsoft did something wrong here as it even changed the ability to change colour of WMP12.

Applications

In the year 2009, no one is using Operating systems anymore, we use applications. When you open your system, you start using the applications you use & not the OS due to which OS is completely transparent. This is why no matter what OS you use, Whether it is Linux or Mac OS or Windows, everything works fine for you if you know how to use it properly.

Windows Live Essential

Windows 7 comes without any Mail client or chatting application unlike Vista which used to come with Windows Mail & Windows Live messenger. This is actually good as this way Microsoft is giving users an option to either install Windows Live Essential suite or whatever else they like. The OS is less bloated now. My primary mail client is Windows Live Mail desktop & I use Windows Live Writer for my blogging needs. I don’t use Windows Live messenger though as Digsby does the work fine for me. You can download other apps included if you like Windows Live photo gallery or Movie Maker too.

Picture & Image Editing

For managing pictures & editing photographs I use ACDSee Pro 3. Its has been my favourite picture manager & editor for years as it does all I need from pictures taken from my digicam or Nokia N79 just fine. Photoshop isn’t required for these basic tasks now. ACDSee even supports uploading directly to Flickr. The dark black theme matches the way I like an app to look like too.

Although for home users, even this is not required. They will be happy with Windows Live Picture Viewer which now supports integration with image sharing services.

Media Playback & management

For all my Media needs, I use Windows Media player as now it even supports playing mp4 files automatically. Though I still install Windows7 Codec Pack by Shark 007 to play any & all media files I can find.

WMP12 also syncs with my Nokia N79 by default so I don’t even need any PC suite software to transfer music. When copying a video or Audio file, WMP12 automatically converts the file in suitable format so that my Nokia N79 can play the video or Audio just fine.

When I am watching a movie or just want to listen to music while lying on my couch, I use Windows Media Centre 7 which I can control using my Nokia N79 & Vectir. No need to even buy a Media centre remote. In case you still want buy a proper Media Centre remote then you can either buy a Hauppage or LeadTek WinFast T.V Tuner card or Remote 300 from Genius Peripherals which is now becoming a known brand in Indian Market.

It received some facelift in the new version which is welcome. It supports integration with SkyTV, netflix which I wish was available in India too.

Communication

For communicating with friends, I no longer use multiple chat clients such as Yahoo Messenger or Google talk, instead just one client to rule them all, Digsby. It provides integration with Yahoo, Google talk, Windows Live, Facebook & twitter. It even notifies me of any new Email on supported networks. In case a friend of mine is offline, I can even Email him from Digsby itself.

To make Digsby look native to Windows 7, it now includes a theme called Windows 7 by default but its for the buddy list only. To make the message window look native to Windows 7, you can use a theme called 7 for Digsby. It doesn’t support aero peak yet which is a very required feature considering just one button shown in taskbar for many chat windows by default. A fix is to use tabbed window for conversations

PDF

The de-facto document sharing format out there. I prefer to use original Acrobat Reader 9 to read PDFs & Bullzip PDF printer to print whatever I want as a PDF file.

For my Nokia N79

Although I don’t use it much, for syncing my E-Mail or SMS or contact lists with Windows 7’s inbuilt contact feature or Outlook, I use Nokia Ovi Suite. Its a completely new suite from Nokia replacing there old Nokia PC Suite. It now supports integration with Nokia Maps, Nokia Music store etc & you can also sync your phone with Outlook using Ovi Suite. I did a small review few months back when Ovi suite was in beta. Since its made in Qt, it will soon be available for Mac & Linux too.

Too bad Device Stage isn’t supporting Nokia N79 as Nokia has not released any update for Device stage yet.

I also use ImageExpo in case I need to show the screen of my Nokia N79 on my PC or have to give presentation etc. You can read its small review I did sometime back. Keep in mind this requires Java runtime to be installed.

Widgets

I was and I am still using Yahoo! Widgets as I am just too used to it. The inbuilt gadgets are good but don’t have some gadgets that I need so I use Yahoo widgets.

One thing to notice is that Windows 7 comes with an inbuilt sticky notes application but its not a gadget which is what I wanted.

Download Management

For torrents, nothing beats µTorrent on Windows. Its a very tiny torrent client which starts & stays in the notification area & you don’t even need to see it. I don’t minimize it to notification area though as I just minimize it to the taskbar. Support for jumplists to pause & stop or resume downloads is requested though.

For other downloads, I have switched to Free Download Manager. It does its work without nagging me in anyway. I do hope that it also starts to support jump lists for common tasks such as pause, resume & stop.

Code editing

I use Notepad++ for all my code editing needs. Its good for editing & writing code for HTML, C#, CSS & a lot more. What I like about it is its tabbed interface & since Aero peak is available, multi tab preview just like IE 8 or Firefox 3.6 is most likely to come soon.

Maintenance

Windows 7 does the maintenance work for you automatically, but in case you want to do it, you can use CCleaner. For even more optimisations, you can use TuneUp utilities 2009 or Tweak7 for customising parts of the OS like hiding a drive in explorer etc.

Reading Comics

If you are like me & into comics, try ComicRack. Its like a real life rack of comics where you can add a folder to watch will have all your comic books & you read what you like. What I like about ComicRack is that its really fast even for high resolution images & created using WPF.

Libraries

Libraries are a new feature of Windows 7, using which you can see the content of many folders at one folder. It is the next version of Smart folders found in Vista where you can save your searches as folders & use them like any other folder.

Sync between devices & my Lenovo R61

Since I also have a Lenovo R61 laptop, I frequently have to transfer & sync files between my laptop & desktop. If its a big file like a video or many songs then I simply use a Flash drive to transfer files, but Windows 7 is also helping me to create a sync profile between the desktop & laptop due to which I can also share multiple small files automatically. I just shared a folder in both my computers with same folder name & it even works over Bluetooth personal area network.

One thing I would like to mention is Windows Live Skydrive & the new SkyDrive Explorer software. Using this I have my SkyDrive folders available through my Windows Explorer just like any other folder using which I can easily add or remove files.

CD Burning

I tried using CD Burner XP Pro & Nero 9 lite, but couldn’t find a reason to use these software at all. So now for burning I use …

1) WMP 12 for burning Audio CDs

2) Windows 7’s inbuilt Data disk burner for burning simple Data CD or DVD

3) PowerArchiver for burning ISO CD images.

There are many other pro lever applications I use but they are beyond the scope of a normal desktop user for which this post was written.

Now, Windows 7 was just released & its new but its something people are already familiar with due to Vista’s look & feel. There are many other applications available for Windows so the best way is to try few things & see what works best for you. This post was made just to get you started & as time passes, I will be updating this post.

Although now I use a Nokia N79 which has a good Webkit based browser which does provides desktop like browsing, it is still slower then Opera mini in terms of shear speed & data usage when using on a pay-per-kb model of most Indian GPRS plans.

I have used Opera mini since version 2 & have always liked its rendering speed & font rendering. For a mobile phone’s screen, the fonts are amazingly good. At the server side, Opera is using there own Presto rendering engine with Opera Mini 5, means the page is first rendered on the server of Opera with there latest browser engine then the page’s snapshot is compressed & sent over the air to your phone & what you see on your phone is an optimized version of the same page. You can either see the web page in desktop edition or a more optimized edition for mobile phone’s screen, due to Opera’s Small screen rendering technology first seen in Opera 7 for desktop. Opera indeed has been the pioneer in the field of browser innovation by giving features like tabbed browsing, speed dial, Opera Turbo & Small screen rendering, but they are behind in desktop browser usage.

I do hate Opera for all the “IE 8 is evil” fiasco but for browsing on a mobile phone, even I agree that the current version of IE is bad compared to Opera Mini/Mobile. Opera just rocks when it comes to embedded & device specific browsers. Opera is about to release Opera Mini 5 whose beta version is available for testing. There is only much which you can do with a browser on a mobile phone, but opera just upped it by giving features which are also in there Desktop browser.

With Opera Mini 5, Opera made the UI a lot more user friendly on touch screen mobile phones. Since 90% of the manufacturers are releasing new mobile phones in mostly touch screen form factor, the old Menu based layout of Opera mini 4.2 is not suitable. Opera has revamped the UI completely, yet making sure it adapts according to whether you are using a Touch Screen phone or a Keypad phone.

Below is the screenshot in which the UI is shown on a conventional phone on the left & a touch screen phone on the right with multiple tabs open. Navigation gets sometime used to, but once you get the habit, its quite easy to use. Since the future of mobile phones is touch screen phones only, whether you like it or not, its time to get used to the UI & UX of big buttons instead of Menus.

To make browsing even better on such a small package, Opera mini 5 also brings Inline text editing which lets the user edit the text in the same field instead of opening a new window for entering text. But here is the thing. This inline editing is for those using a qwerty keypad based phone like Nokia E65 or HTC Touch Pro 2, but the old method of a new window for text editing is also there for those of us using conventional phones like Nokia N79 which can use T9 to type.

However, Opera Link, ability to use a custom search engine & the RSS reader are not there in Opera Mini 5 yet, but it is scheduled to be released with the final version. RSS Is the primary task for which I use Opera Mini in my phone so exclusion of RSS is highly unlikely as that is also a feature many users use, cos on a mobile phone.. I have yet to see a better RSS reader then this.

One thing which we conventional phone users with keypad have over the touch screen users, is that our application can have shortcut keys which touch screen cannot. But then again, they have touch screen input which works better for browsing websites in my experience. Opera Mini 5 is actually making me use shortcut keys more & more for all tasks like #+5 for opening the bookmark menu, *+number to open that particular speed dial bookmark etc. It actually fast. There is a thread on Opera forum regarding tips for using the new version

The settings menu is also changed & made finger friendly.

The best part, Opera Mini 5 now has password manager & inline text selection, which come handy. Since this version has tabbed browsing, long pressing on a link gives you the option to open it in a new tab. Be warned that the current performance with multiple tabs is slow, so even I don’t open more then 3 tabs on my Nokia N79. I hope with the final version, the performance is further increased.

Opera indeed has a much better product in the mobile browser space then the competition. Even iPhone is no where near, cos Opera Mini is still faster then iPhone & now the UI actually  beats iPhone’s Safari UI hands down.

Opera should rather use there resources on making the desktop browser better then suing Microsoft for IE 8 inclusion in Windows & open the browser for 3rd party extensions like Firefox or Google Chrome, if they want to succeed. They have been very very innovating in the browser space but the only reason many people don’t use it is due to lack of 3rd party application & extension integration. Its good that Opera software gives an EMail client, Torrent downloader etc in there browser itself in a very efficiently programmed software, but the general user today knows that he can extend the capability of his Firefox or Google Chrome or Internet Explorer 8 browser using extension but not in Opera, is what stops many of us users from switching full time to Opera.

You can download beta version of Opera Mini 5 by going to http://m.opera.com/next using your phone’s inbuilt browser. This is the recommended way as you also get to chose signed version which remove the continues nagging when using an unsigned JAVA application on a mobile phone due to security reasons.

* Images curtosy of wapreviews.com & intomobile.com

For chatting, I use Nimbuzz now instead of Slick. Slick is also good, but to send a message I have to press the “0” Key 3 times as the default enter key for some reason doesn’t work. Besides, the web backend based Nimbuzz allows me to send & receive files from my Mobile phone to other users over Google Talk or Yahoo!. But chatting on a Mobile phone is not the best experience due to a small keyboard instead of a full fledged keyboard of a Computer. Due to this I was looking for something which show the screen of my Nokia N79 on my PC so that I can control the phone from my PC, this way I can chat using the PC keyboard which is quite fast to type on compared to the Mobile phone’s keypad.

The search is finally over. I found the perfect application for this purpose, Digia ImageExpo. Its a Java based software which installs with its own Java runtime in your PC. After the desktop counterpart’s installation you need to install the companion software on your Phone running Symbian OS 9.2 or later or Symbian UIQ OS. I installed the SIS file on my Nokia N79 & tried to connect over USB cable as well as Bluetooth, it connected fine & in an instant & I was able to see the screen of my Phone on my PC.

As seen in the screenshot, I can click on the virtual keypad which will click the button on the phone too doing some action as associated. The biggest benefit for me with ImageExpo is while chatting. Now I don’t have to rely on phone’s keypad for chatting anymore. It also maps the keys of your phone to keyboard like the F3 keys becomes the Symbian menu key, Backspace becomes Clear key etc.

This is how I use ImageExpo, in what I call “Work mode” as the rest of the real estate is not required much while working. If your phone has an accelerometer & the display rotates while rotating the phone, then the screen on ImageExpo also rotates.

This is one application which I recommend to anyone who needs to share there phone’s screen.

Recently Nokia released Nokia OVI Suite beta 2.0. This time it is made using Qt Framework due to which it is very slim is size compared to over 200 MB for WPF based Nokia Ovi suite 1.0. Lets not talk about Nokia PC Suite 7.x as UI wise it was garbage. Though it was pretty fast & used to do everything fine. Development in Qt also gives Nokia the ability to port Ovi Suite to Linux & Mac OS. Since Nokia is a device vendor, the best way for them to make money & capture market share is to make there product available on all OS.

Sony Ericsson released SE File Manager & then Media Manager which bought a nice UI & experience. Nokia just one upped them with Ovi Suite 2.0. Things are clearly laid out in the new Ovi Suite.

The home tab has everything you will usually need. It shows a glance at all your contacts, SMS, Pictures & Music on the device. You can also connect the phone to internet for using GPRS/3G on your PC using this Ovi Suite. Nokia is touting Ovi suite as the only connectivity application you will ever need & they are not wrong. It can even update the phone’s firmware, applications from Nokia etc.

I don’t use Outlook anymore but it even supports syncing your contacts & notes, calendars with Outlook or some other colander. You can add contacts using Ovi Suite & it will sync it with the Phone next time when you sync it. I disabled automatic sync because then it takes time to get usable after starting.

Keep in mind that Ovi Suite has 2 contact lists. One is of your phone which can be seen after clicking the small arrow below the contact list which will then open the contact list of your Phone. What I did was to make changes to my contact list in my Computer once, then connected the phone via bluetooth & copied all the contacts to the Phone by dragging & dropping on the phone’s list.

SMS is in the form of threaded SMS. Now I am someone who cleans his Sent items folder so its of no use for me. But for those who don’t, its actually good. You can also make smart filters which will sort SMS they way you define. Not just that, you can see SMS by Contacts or a list of all SMS. It also shows the SMS saved in the “My Folder” of SMS application. Though I prefer the old PC suite way in which it used to show SMS saved in folders inside “My Folder” in a tree view. I am filing a bug, hope Nokia is able to incorporate that feature.

You can also use Ovi Suite to sync your Music, but I prefer Windows Media Player for that which automatically converts music to WMA & my Phone as well as PC are in Sync. For some reason Ovi suite doesn’t converts songs, it just copies them as they are.

If you have Ovi Suite connected to your phone via Bluetooth then it shows a notification when there is a new SMS or Call in the system tray too.

From what it seems, Nokia is trying to bring an experience unrivaled by any other Phone manufacturer. They now have there own music store too which makes sense as people are using more & more there phones for there music needs as well as video. Having an all in one Suite like Ovi Suite can make the N Series phones just more user friendly. You can download Ovi Suite 2.0 from Nokia Labs