Where are you from?

The Nokia E63 is starting to fade in my area of the world but some parts are still embracing Nokia's basic but extremely efficient Nokia E63 in their day to day life. The successors of the E63 have largely carried on many traditional features that made this handset a favourite amongst fans such as the torch, the great keyboard and the QWERTY keyboard. So if you are still using the E63, we want to know where you are from in the world and get an idea where the E63 lives on!

How to get Google Calendar on N9 cranking

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

Nokia N9 tips and tricks

The Nokia N9 is here and we've just started another Tips and Tricks blog for it. Packed with a new Meego operating system and a fresh user interface, this phone is about to make heads turn and usher the way in to a new generation of Nokia phones (ironically, this is probably the last of the Meego devices though). There are initial thoughts on the N9, tips about connecting your N9 to PC, pros and cons of Nokia Maps on N9 and more about unlocking your N9 potential. Check it out here!

The new Nokia N9

Photo taken by the Nokia N9 in Perth, Australia
(click to enlarge)

Why people keep stopping by

We've had this blog up for over two years and have received hundreds of thousands of hits because this is one of the best places you will find Nokia E63 tips on the internet. It is not the most glamorous phone Nokia has created but people all fall in love with the simplicity and reliability of the phone. We dared to compare the Nokia E63 with its older brother the Nokia E71 here, checked out its battery life and examined how to use predictive text to speed up sms and email messaging. We played with a GPS bluetooth receiver with the E63 to make it GPS compatible and got to know some of our blog visitors here.

We watched the price of the E63 drop and cracked the E63 screen only months after getting the phone. All this happened in 2009 and by December that year, there was talk of the next big thing, the Nokia E72. We'll talk about our 2010 posts later and whilst they may be old, many of the posts are still very much useful for those still hanging on to their E63. Hey in some countries, you may have only JUST purchased a brand new E63 and wanted to find out how to unlock it from your provider!

Nokia N9 - Meego Coming Soon

The Nokia N9 is coming out very soon around the world. There was supposed to be a product demonstration to be held tomorrow but that has been cancelled. We will bring you more about this exciting meego device as soon as we get our hands on it!

Edit: Due to unforeseen circumstances, Nokia cancelled the product demonstration of the Nokia N9 and as a result we are still to have a look at the Nokia N9.

What's the worst bug in the Nokia E63?

I have had the Nokia E63 for quite a long time now and in that time I seem to have heard more bugs with the Nokia E71 than I have about the E63. For example, people have complained that the vibration on the E71 sometimes works intermittently. Also, some people have said the battery would not charge. Some calls would drop out completely with the E71 without warning. So have you had any strange behaviour coming from your Nokia E63?

ACMA cracks down on Vodafone Optus and Telstra

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has had enough being called a toothless tiger and has taken a big bite into the Australian telecommunications industry. After completing a rather lengthy review of the industry, they concluded that there were major problems with how often consumers were being fleeced by the telcos. Issues such as overcharging unsuspecting customers with data or call charges also known as bill shock have been addressed in a number of recommendations. These recommendations include: 

• Better complaints management—all providers must have a standard complaintshandling process that meets good practice standards and includes timeframes for dealing with a complaint.
• Tools to monitor usage and expenditure—all providers must offer a way to help customers track how many calls they make and how much data they download during a billing period, to help reduce the risk of bill shock. 
• Comparisons between providers—industry will be asked to provide more information on how good their customer care is, particularly how quickly they resolve their customers’ enquiries.
• Clearer pricing information in advertisements—all providers must clearly disclose pricing information in their advertisements in a way that will make it easier for consumers to compare plans.
• Better information about plans—all providers must give customers a simple, standard explanation of what is included in a plan, how bills are calculated and what other essential information they need to know about the plan (similar to a ‘product disclosure statement’)

The industry will be given the next 12 months to voluntarily introduce these measures before the remaining intransigent telcos will be dragged into the reforms by the ACMA next year. Should be interesting to see how the industry changes from this. 

Thoughts on the Nokia C7 (Astound in the US)

People sometimes ask why we like Nokia so much and the Nokia C7, Nokia's slimmest ever phone, is typical of the answer that we often give. The phone is an unpretentious device with a characteristic reliability that we expect from the Finnish giant. The gorilla glass screen is tough as you can get, with a recent demonstration showing how the phone copes after being driven over by a four tonne bus.



Back to the features that would make this phone a pleasant device to have by your side: The FM transmitter enables you to share your music or your phone call over a FM frequency so that you can utilise your car stereo in your conversations or listen to music. The camera boasts 8MP full focus with HD video recording. The C7 continues Nokia's march into the touch screen market but is priced at the lower end of the smartphone spectrum. The operating system is responsive and the on-screen keyboard works well, even better with Swype installed.

As always, Navigation is free with the C7 and with Vodafone Australia, you can get free apps included in your plan as well. The phone comes with 8GB disk space with the MicroSD port allowing up to 32GB more space. Bluetooth is now at the new 3.0 standard and the headphones jack is also the standard 3.5mm, allowing to use your favourite headphones with the device.

The built in Email application performed reasonably well, but I found that downloading only headers was quite frustratrating as the network took quite a while to download the emails, however this may be more of 3's problem than Nokia's. As the device uses the new Symbian^3 OS, we await the update to the new updates which will amongst other things, include a better web browser.

The battery lasted just over a day which is quite standard with many other phones, but this is with emails being checked every 5 minutes and about an hour of talk time in total.

How the C7 can be better than the Nokia N8 and E7
One final feature which you don't often hear mentioned is the active noise cancellation which utilises a microphone on the other side of the phone to pick up sounds that should be cancelled out of the conversation whilst you are talking to someone. That's pretty cool because I don't think the N8 or E7 has this.

Also I should mention that the C7 has its own dedicated call buttons which means that when using Google Search and Google Maps, you will be able to hold the call button and make VOICE searches! Now that's something you can't do with a N8 or E7 either!

So for those that prefer the above features, the Nokia C7 looks like your kind of phone. Be warned QWERTY users such as our loyal E63 users, the C7 will take some getting used to. Otherwise you may have to wait for the upcoming Nokia E6.

Top 10 Countries Nokia E63 users

You may be interested in where the readers of MyE63 are mostly coming from. Here are some latest statistics in the past week of where you are all from. Leave a comment and tell us about yourself, what you do and where you come from. 

India 787

Australia 614

United Kingdom 265

United States 253

Philippines 162

Indonesia 90

Canada 70

South Africa 70

Brazil 68

New Zealand 63

Unlocking the Nokia C7

In a few weeks time we will be reviewing the Nokia C7 here at MyE63. If you have been thinking of an upgrade but the Nokia N8 and E7 do not fit your budget, the Nokia C7 is a very worthy contender.

Lost your Nokia E63 User Manual?

Quite often, especially for mobile phones, we need the user guide when we the user guide is not around. Here is a link to the Nokia E63 user manual.

For other tips and tricks using your E63, have a look around this blog. If there is a burning question that you have managed to figure out yourself, send an email to mye65@gmail.com and we'll have it posted up soon. :) I only just got my Nokia E63 less than a week ago so we are all learning together.

How to Remotely lock your mobile phone via SMS

I've decided to bring forward this post as I think this is one of the best features that the Nokia E63 has which most people will not know about.

Thanks Anonymous reader, who made the observation that many people do not realize that the Nokia phones allow you to remotely lock your phone via SMS. Yeah! It can be done..

Actually, we mentioned it in the Nokia E65 blog (www.mye65.blogspot.com) but just to make life easier, we've reposted it here. So, why remote locking? You are at a shopping centre toilet and after you have done your business, you walk away. 15 minutes later you realize you left your phone in the toilets! When you get back, its gone. What do you do?

There is an option in the phone called Remote Lock (under Tools - Settings - General - Security - Phone and SIM card - Allow remote Lock)

Enabling this will allow you to SMS your mobile number with a predefined "code". When your phone receives this SMS, it LOCKS and stops people from using your phone, they cannot call but can still receive calls. You will need to put in an unlock code to use the phone again. Since the phone still allows you to call up your mobile, maybe you can call your number (assuming the sim card is still in there) and negotiate with the thief to have your phone returned to you.

WP7 on Nokia - what do you think?

It's been almost a week since Nokia and Microsoft announced a strategic alliance and much has been said by bloggers around the world about this change. We've posted our thoughts on MyE72: Today we wake to a New Nokia but we would like to know what you think of Nokia's latest venture into the Gates of Microsoft?