Skyfire rocks

If you haven't heard of it yet, Skyfire is a free web browser that renders websites as they would appear on a computer, and through their server-side technology they are able to do a lot of things most other web browsers today can't, including enabling Flash on websites (letting you play videos directly on sites), allowing zooming into sections of a website, etc.

I've found that while Skyfire isn't a replacement for PIE (Pocket Internet Explorer) which comes with the phone, it is extremely useful to have both alternatives. Skyfire is great at rendering websites as you'd see them on a computer which is useful for media-rich, flash-heavy, and other websites that require you to be able to view dispersed content or interact with the page. On the other hand, text heavy websites such as Wikipedia pages and Google searches tend to be viewed quicker and easier in PIE.

While Skyfire is a fantastic product at the right price (free), it does have a downside besides being clunky on text-heavy sites as I mentioned above. The battery definitely drains quickly when using it. This wouldn't be a big deal if you charge your phone frequently, but it is very noticable when you're out and use the browser to look something up. As could be expected, using it on video and Flash sites (especially something like Hulu or YouTube) will run the battery down pretty quick. You can probably get just under a handful of hours when using Skyfire constantly. Hopefully this will be something that continues to improve as newer versions of the software are released.

Unlocking and editing registry entries

I realized I've mentioned making registry edits and never mentioned a couple of utilities that make doing that possible. There's a HTC Unlock utility which unlocks your phone to allow edits (though I think you might not need to use this if you're on Sprint). And then PHM Registry Editor is an excellent free registry editor you can use on your phone to make changes.

Chome Configurator for 6.1 Sliding Panels

Someone's already created an awesome application to configure the sliding panels on the Windows Mobile 6.1 homescreen...apparently by starting to work on it with the 6.1 emulator in the SDK since the phones with 6.1 weren't out yet.

Get Chome Configurator here.

The app is incredible, though a little confusing at first. It basically lets you create new panels and edit some of the existing ones. You can add pages that can launch applications, launch websites, dial contacts, etc. It also lets you associate an icon with each of those activities and comes with a dozen or so that may be useful. (You can easily add your own images...I suggest using 48x48 PNGs with transparency since the tranparency makes it much better and they'll be really small in size).

I used it to create an application panel for launching programs and a web panel for launching my website favorites. I also added some entries into the existing settings panel like my registry editor and the file manager.

To give a quick overview, once you launch the app, the right softkey does most of the work. You can customize an existing panel (though several are locked) or create your own new panel under the Menu->plugin option. Once you have your panel (or an existing one), you basically want to create a new page and then pick a template for the new page. The template makes it a lot easier to fill in the fields on the page as it does nearly all the work for you. You can view existing pages as examples of what goes in the fields.

Chome Configurator is actually making all the changes behind the scenes in the registry...really it's just a nice GUI. You could make the changes yourself if you wanted.

Windows Mobile 6.1 released for the Q9C!

This is a great development for users of the Q9C, as 3 days of Windows Mobile 6.1 has made me quite pleased. You can get the update from Motorola since Sprint doesn't seem to be doing it yet (or at least some techs don't know about it) and it's pretty painless to do. I recommend doing the update using the "Via Your Computer" option since the phone will need to reboot and continue installation. There's already a rundown of the new features by Microsoft:

• Instant messaging-like texting
• Improved Internet browsing
• Simpler e-mail and Bluetooth setup
• New Home screen interface
• New Getting Started Center
• Security enhancements
• Easier Wi-Fi connection
• More personal choice

Of those, I've found some great changes. It's nice to have copy/paste functionality in texts, emails, and IE. Texts are now threaded, meaning your conversations get grouped which is much nicer than a linear list of texts where you can't follow a conversation. The phone seems to respond quicker, and I'm pretty certain the battery life has improved. The new Sliding Panels homescreen is really slick and very functional. IE seems to load pages more quickly, lets you zoom in or out on the page, and finally lets you set your homepage without some ugly registry tweak. Most apps from 6.0 still work fine, as do the tweaks.

Bottomline: If you own a Q9C you want this upgrade.

We'll see if I come up with more benefits in the coming days...for one, I've spotted a feature in text messaging that lets you use some predefined messages (you can create your own too) so if you like using a phrase a lot or find yourself sending a "Where you at?"-type text message frequently, it just got even easier.

Wifi via the Spectec MiniSD card

The Q9C says it supports WiFi, though you don't get that functionality right out-of-the-box. You can get an SDIO card that fits in the MiniSD slot to add the functionality, which is useful if you don't have a data plan and want to use the internet or if you are traveling internationally and won't have access to your data plan.

The only company I'm aware of currently selling a MiniSD WiFI card is Spectec, and they're surprisingly reasonably priced. The card most people are getting for this phone is the SDW-822 which supports 802.11b (the card that supports g costs nearly twice as much). There's a "regular" version of the 822 card for around $35, and a "Motorola" version with the same model number for around $45.
I tried to verify with Spectec what the differences were and was essentially told that the Motorola version was required since I had a Motorola phone running WM 6.0. However, the seller got mixed up and sent me the regular version of the card so I decided to try it anyways using the updated WM6.0 driver off their website. It turned out that card worked just fine, and I confirmed with Spectec that there isn't any risk of issues down the road if I got it working right now. Basically they said that the Motorola version was designed for a lower power requirement since older/other versions of the Q didn't supply enough power through the miniSD port.

So you can get the Spectec MiniSD Wifi card, and the regular version will work just fine in the Q9C. I do not know if it will work in other versions like the Motorola Q9M.

Shrink the width of the scrollbar

You can adjust the size of the scrollbars to take up less precious real estate, which is especially beneficial for web browsing. In order to change the size of the scrollbars, you can tweak the registry settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/System/GWE. The relevant values are:

cxVScr: This is the width of the vertical scrollbar on the right side of the screen, in pixels. I changed mine to 3 so it is visible enough without taking up a lot of space.

cyHScr: This is the height of the horizontal scrollbar on the bottom of the screen, in pixels. I also changed this to 3 for the same reason.


The other two values (cyVScr and cxHScr) should also affect the scrollbar sizes in the other directions, though I left them at 0 which I believe causes them to fill the height/width of the screen.

Sprite backup is excellent

I am not a big fan of apps that cost money because there's always more features I'd like to have and it would cost a boatload to pay for every app that improves the Windows Mobile experience. However, in the case of Sprite Backup I'm willing to make an exception.

Sprite Backup is a pretty simple app that lets you create a complete backup of your phone, with apps, contacts, registry settings, and literally everything on your phone getting backed up. The full version will even let you schedule backups and give some more options, but I found the lite version was all I needed since it lets me intiate backups from my computer that get stored on the computer as well as initiate a backup on my phone which can store the backup to a storage card for when you're not in reach of a computer.

It's extremely reassuring knowing that if I install an experimental (or even an established) application and it ends up killing my phone, I can restore it to exactly the configuration it has today. And if I lose my phone or even upgrade to a different Windows Mobile device, I can still recover the things I want again.

Sprint Q9C users getting Windows Mobile 6.1 this summer

Microsoft officially announced Windows Mobile 6.1 today, also releasing the fact that Sprint plans to update all current Windows Mobile 6 phones to 6.1, which is great news. Particularly because 6.1 has truly useful improvements that will make everyday tasks easier.

Major Improvements from 6.0:

• Getting Started Center
  
  • Get help setting up your new phone—from e-mail to a Bluetooth headset, so you can start using it right away.
  
  
• Sliding Panel Home Screen
  
  • The home screen has a whole new look. View notifications and calendar appointments. Go straight to the Getting Started Center and settings. Listen to your favorite music and view your favorite photos.


• Threaded Text Messaging
  
  • When you text with a friend or colleague, the messages are threaded together into a single conversation, so you can view the entire conversation as you type.


• Internet Explorer Mobile Zoom Support
  
  • Zoom in on a Web page to view small text or images.


• Internet Explorer Mobile Page Overview
  
  • View an entire Web page at one time, navigate to a specific segment, and then select that segment for a closer view.


• Cut, Copy, and Paste
  
  • Select and copy text from Web pages in Internet Explorer Mobile. And cut, copy, and paste text in e-mail and messaging.


• Home screen music and photos
  
  • Music can be played/paused and photos can be viewed, all on the homescreen itself

Sprint's press release lists Summer 2008 as the date for updates to existing devices.

Move your Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) Cache to SD

You can get Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) to store your cache, cookies, and history to a storage card instead of to your phone. This is a really good thing because otherwise the cache can grow quite large and slow down the phone unless you clear it out regularly. In order to point PIE to an SD card there's just two steps, but one of them is a registry hack which can be risky if you've never done one before.

First, use File Explorer in ActiveSync or the File Manager on your phone and make 3 folders on your storage card like this:

\Storage Card\ietemp\cache
\Storage Card\ietemp\cookies
\Storage Card\ietemp\history

Also, make sure to clear your current cache, cookies, and history through PIE so you don't leave lingering files on your device.

Then, use a registry editor (you can find one called PHM for free) and go to
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

Edit these values:
Change the Value Data for Cache to \Storage Card\ietemp\cache
Change the Value Data for Cookies to \Storage Card\ietemp\cookies
Change the Value Data for History to \Storage Card\ietemp\history

After that, make sure to restart your phone, and you should be good to go.

View YouTube Videos

It is possible to view YouTube videos off their website without using their mobile site, where the video/audio quality is not as good. You just need to use TCPMP and the FlashVideoBundle to do so, and then it adds a nice context menu when you click on a video on YouTube's site that lets you save the video to your phone as well. You must make sure you're on the regular or classic version of the site, not the mobile one.

TCPMP is also useful in that it plays a lot of different video formats well.

There's an excellent step-by-step that works for Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1, and I think even 5.0 here.