UTube downloader for YouTube videos, FolderPlay updated, hide your ringtones from your music player

UTube

UTube is a mobile Java application which loads www.s60v2.110mb.com/tube.html into your mobile phone web browser. Through this site you can download YouTube videos to your phone.

You can download YouTube videos in FLV, 3GP, and MP4 format, and you can choose different quality settings too. Keep in mind some formats won't play in RealPlayer. Choose 3GP to be sure it plays in RealPlayer (FLV and MP4 may work, but you may also get sound without video in RealPlayer), or use an alternative player such as CorePlayer.

The interface of the UTube downloader needs to be improved. It doesn't have a built-in YouTube search function, and you have to type or copy/paste the full YouTube video URL into the UTube downloader. Since most Symbian browsers don't let you copy the URL of the current page to the clipboard, this means lots of typing or saving the page as a temporary bookmark to copy the URL.

Videos are downloaded to the standard downloads folder of your phone.

Instead of installing the program you could just as well save the UTube downloader site as a bookmark, since all the program does is launch your browser anyway.

The program is still in beta testing, so lets hope the UTube downloader will improve. A few suggestions:
1) let the downloader capture the currently open YouTube URL from your browser so you don't have to type or copy/paste the URL yourself,
2) let the user choose in which folder the video is to be saved,
3) let the user choose a name for the saved video, because "video.mp4" is not very informative.

• UTube v1.00 beta at Mobile Castle
• UTube downloader page, second UTube downloader page


FolderPlay

The built-in Symbian music player sorts music by tags, but not by folders. Enter FolderPlay. This program looks like a file manager. If you navigate to a folder with music, it will play all songs in that folder. Unfortunately FolderPlay doesn't handle subfolders well: if you play a folder with songs and more songs in subfolders, it will only play the tracks in the first subfolder and ignore the other songs and folders.

FolderPlay plays MP3, WAV, FLAC, APE, AC3, and other files, but not WMA. The latest FolderPlay update also plays mono FLAC and AC3, and Wave List chunks in WAV files.

There are better ways to play music organised by folders. Music Launcher is similar to FolderPlay, but MusicLauncher does it better. PowerMP3 and TTPod sort your music by tags and by folder structure, and there's a folder structure workaround for the built-in Symbian music player.

• FolderPlay v1.1 at Mobile Castle


Hide your ringtones from your music player

Symbian's built-in music player adds all sound files on your phone to its library. This includes your ringtones, and also your voicemails and other recordings if you save them in MP3 or AAC format.

But there's a way to keep unwanted tracks out of your music player library: use a file manager like X-plore, ActiveFile, or Y-Browser to set the attributes of the folder with unwanted tracks to "system" and update your music library. Now your ringtones won't show up in your music player. They will also be hidden from Symbian's File Manager, but they stay visible in the Profiles personalisation screen and the contacts program so you can still change your rintones. If you want to add new ringtones, you'll have to remove the "system" attribute from your ringtones folder first. Don't forget to reapply the "system" attribute, or else your ringtones will reappear in your music player when you update its library.

You can also use PowerMP3 instead of the built-in music player. PowerMP3 makes it easy to exclude ringtones from its music library.

More victims of new Nokia firmware updates: the cat and mouse game continues

In the early days of the HelloCarbide hack, all Nokia phones running on Symbian S60 3rd edition could be hacked. Nokia responded with HelloCarbide-resistant firmware updates, but then came HelloOX and all S60 3rd and 5th ed. Nokias could be opened up again.

But Nokia fights back. After Nokia's hackproof firmware updates for the N96, E51, and E75, the list of phones with HelloOX-proof firmware has grown a bit longer. New victims: Nokia N85, E63, E66, and E71. And if that's not bad enough, the Nokia N86 and N97 can't be hacked at all yet, no matter which firmware version you have.

So think twice before you update your firmware if you want to stay in control of your phone. There were four long months between Nokia's killing of HelloCarbide and the invention of the Y-Drive/Modo hack and the first version of HelloOX, and nobody knows how long it will take to open Nokia's new locks.

More about Symbian hacking and Nokia's counterstrikes:

• list of phones and firmware versions that can be hacked
• the symbian hack label
• overview of all Symbian hacks
• the modding section of the Symbian Freak forum (signup/login required)

YouTube for Symbian mystery update, new versions of KuGou and FolderPlay

YouTube for Symbian

The YouTube movie player for Symbian mobile phones has been updated to version 2.2.6. All new stuff must be under the hood (bugfixes?), because there's nothing new to be seen in the program. You still can't log into your YouTube account (that means no adult movies), the option to erase your search history and other private data is still hidden in the help menu, and on first launch it makes you choose from one of 11 countries, but it still doesn't matter which one you pick from the list.

Google only offers YouTube for Symbian as an on-the-fly installer, but if you want to download the program as a .sis file you can do so from Mobile Castle. This may also help if you can't download the YouTube player because your IP address is not on Google's list of supported countries

• YouTube (official site, on the fly installer, download only works with the default web browser of your phone)
• YouTube v2.2.6 on Mobile Castle (downloadable .sis file for everybody, works with all mobile and non-mobile web browsers)
• MobiTubia, an alternative YouTube player


KuGou

Kugou plays music in mp3, aac, wma, fla, and other audio formats.

KuGou version 2.05 has been translated into english by Chickenz, but the interface shows lots of chinese. Tip: if you don't want KuGou to go online on first launch, hit the right softkey.

The new release is supposed to fix some bugs, allow you to choose from eight skin colors, and have a better "shortcuts help panel." But I couldn't find the skin colors, and the shortcuts panel is not translated and therefore all in chinese.

Some things that didn't change:

- Kugou shows all your songs in a single list without filtering by artist, genre, or other mp3 tags. It can sort your files by artist or title, but that's nowhere near enough if you have hundreds of tracks on your memory card.

- On my phones Kugou couldn't even write the names of the songs in the music list, so they were all displayed as E! instead.

- When I tried to exit Kugou, it said that feature was not supported. I had to shut down Kugou with KillMe.

My advice: forget about KuGou, use PowerMP3 or TTPod instead. Even the built-in music player of your phone is better than KuGou, especially with this folder structure workaround.

• Kugou 2.05 (english version) at Mobile Castle


FolderPlay

Symbian's built-in music player sorts your music by tags, but not by folders. So what do you do if you want to play all tracks in a folder?

You can use FolderPlay. This program looks like a file manager, but if you navigate to a folder with music, it will play all songs in that folder.

Unfortunately FolderPlay doesn't know how to deal with subfolders. If you try to play a folder with songs and more songs in subfolders, it will simply play the tracks in the first subfolder and nothing else.

There are better ways to play music organised by folders. Music Launcher is similar to FolderPlay, but MusicLauncher does it better. PowerMP3 and TTPod sort your music by tags and by folder structure, and there's a folder structure workaround for the built-in Symbian music player.

• FolderPlay at Mobile Castle

Surf and chat: new versions of UCWEB, eBuddy, and Ovi Contacts

UCWEB

There's yet another new beta test version of chinese proxy-based, data compressing mobile web browser UCWEB. The new edition features a few eye candy improvements, and some Wi-Fi connection bugs were ironed out.

Before you rush out to try the latest test version, keep in mind that the official non-beta version of UCWEB is compatible with the patch by jbpseudo which removes the sponsored links from the start page, uses Google search without the limitations of the official program, and adds online synchronisation to the side panel.

• UCWEB 6.7.0.32-800-28-09070119 (beta test version) at Mobile Castle
• UCWEB 6.3 (latest non-beta version)


eBuddy

Mobile Java multi-network chat program eBuddy connects to MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GoogleTalk, ICQ, and Facebook chat. The latest update comes with color themes, faster login, and lower data consumption.

But eBuddy displays an ad on your contacts list, and it can't send files or voice messages. You're better off with Nimbuzz, fring, Talkonaut, Palringo, or Slick.

eBuddy wants you to do an on the fly install from your phone browser, but there's a way around that. Go to get.ebuddy.com, select your phone brand and model from the dropdown boxes, and download the jad file. Then open the jad file with a text editor to read the location of the corresponding jar file, and then download it to your computer. Or head to Mobile Castle to download the jad and jar files in one package.

• eBuddy
• eBuddy v1.3 build 3703 on Mobile Castle
• check the instant messaging label for better chat programs


Ovi Contacts

It used to be Nokia Chat, a good name that describes what the program does. Then it was renamed Contacts on Ovi, and now it's Ovi Contacts. Makes you wonder what Nokia will call this program tomorrow.

Ovi Contacts is not a contact manager but an instant messaging client. Which means that Nokia Messaging is not an instant messenger (it's an email program).

Ovi Contacts is a very limited instant messenger. It only connects to Google Talk and other Jabber-based networks. And you can't just install the program and log into your GoogleTalk account. No way! You'll have to make an Ovi Contacts account first, and then you can use your Ovi account to get into your Google account. I know that doesn't make any sense, but there are more things about Ovi Contacts that don't make sense. You'll appear twice in the contacts lists of your friends, because they'll see your Contacts on Ovi identity in addition to your Google Talk name.

The good news: you can make an Ovi Contacts account with a fake phone number and fake email address if you don't want to hand over your private data to Nokia's marketing department.

If you have Nokia Chat on your phone, you'll have to remove it before you install Ovi Contacts.

But why bother? There are plenty of instant messengers out there that are better than Ovi Contacts. Just try Nimbuzz, fring, Talkonaut, Palringo, or Slick. Even mobile Java messenger eBuddy beats Ovi Contacts hands down.

The latest Ovi Contacts update makes it work on touchscreen phones, so now users of the Nokia 5800XM and Nokia N97 can see for themselves how bad Ovi Contacts is. Ovi Contacts is still in beta testing, so maybe it will become usable sometime in the future.

• Ovi Contacts
• check the instant messaging label for better chat programs