Turn your phone into a flashlight: BrightLight now for all modern versions of Symbian

Lost in the darkness? BrightLight turns the camera flash led of your mobile phone into a torch.

There's a version for touchscreen phones which sort of works on non-touch phones, and now there's a real working version for Symbian S60 3rd ed. too.

BrightLight works on many phones, but not on all. For example, it works on my Nokia N78 but not on my Nokia 6120 Classic. It's compatible with Nokia N79 and some N95s, but BrightLight doesn't seem to work on most N95 version/firmware combinations. There's only way to find out if BrightLight works on your phone: try it.

Warning: Keeping the light on for too long may damage the led on some phones. Use at your own risk. I'm not responsible for what you do with your phone.

• BrightLight v1.01 for Symbian S60 5th ed. (touchscreen) and v1.0 for Symbian S60 3rd ed. (non-touch) on Mobile Castle
• Brightlight v1.0 for Symbian S60 3rd ed. (non-touch) at Ziddu

Light Control learned to blink, Theme Scheduler learned new languages, Profile Scheduler and Key Lock Clock killed bugs

Light Control

Light Control gives you much more control over the light settings of your phone than Symbian's own display settings menu.

Lost in the dark? Light Control can turn the camera flash into a flashlight on some phones. If that doesn't work on your phone, Light Control can still turn your phone into a torch by lighting up the screen to full brightness in different colors. And if you're really lost, Light Control can make your phone blink SOS in morse code.

Light Control won't show itself in the Symbian task manager if you send it to the background, so close it from the Options menu if you don't want it to keep running.

The latest update fixes a startup bug (that used to bite the Nokia N78), and you can make the light blink too.

Light Control is unsigned. You can check if Symbian's Open Signed Online will sign it for you, or sign it yourself, or hack your phone so you can install unsigned programs without having to worry about signing programs.

• Light Control v1.36 on Mobile Castle (the original Light Control homepage is in chinese)
• if you only need a flashlight, try BrightLight


Theme Scheduler and Profile Scheduler

Theme Scheduler and Profile Scheduler automate changing the looks and sounds of your phone.

Theme Scheduler changes the theme of your mobile phone on schedule. It can schedule the background image of your active standby screen too. Theme Scheduler can also link themes to your current active profile, so that your phone changes theme when you change profile. This can be useful if you often switch between silent, offline, and loud profiles, because then the selected theme tells you what type of profile is active.

The latest edition is available in 6 languages: english, deutsch, español, suomi, thai and català.

Profile Scheduler is similar to Theme Scheduler. This program automatically switches profiles on your phone, so you'll never forget to set your phone on silent mode for your weekly business meeting, or put it on ultraloud when you go out.

The latest version of Profile Scheduler lets you enable/disable individual schedules, fixes a lot of bugs, and it speaks english, deutsch, español, suomi, thai and català.

Theme Scheduler and Profile Scheduler come in two versions: signed and unsigned. The unsigned versions are free, but you'll have to run them through the Symbian Signed bureaucracy before you can install 'em on your phone, or sign 'em with your own certificate, or hack your phone to break free from the claws of Symbian Signed.

Publisher IDs cost money, so the signed versions are bundled with adtronic to cover the cost. Adtronic is a horribly intrusive application that pollutes your phone with advertisements (even when Theme Scheduler or Profile Scheduler is not running!), so better get the unsigned version of Theme Scheduler and Profile Scheduler. Signing the program or hacking your phone takes a bit of extra work, but allowing adtronic to infect your phone is much, much, much worse.

• Theme Scheduler by Jukka Silvennoinen
• themes to feed to Theme Scheduler
• Profile Scheduler by Jukka Silvennoinen


Key Lock Clock

Key Lock Clock by DrJukka displays a clock on your screen when you lock the keypad. This is especially useful on 60 3rd ed. Feature Pack 2 phones without a built-in "set clock as screensaver" option. Key Lock Clock lets you choose your own clock font, and you can set the light timeout period.

The latest update fixes a bug that plagued the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Key Lock Clock is still in alpha testing, and it is unsigned. You can run it through the Symbian Signed madness, or sign it with your own certificate, or hack your phone to break free from the claws of Symbian Signed.

• Key Lock Clock

New Nokia Photo Browser is faster, SilentPhoto may silence your camera, cam idle activity patch extends camera timeout to 10 minutes

Nokia Photo Browser

Symbian's built-in photo viewer is not a good picture browser, especially if you have a Nokia with the horrible "carousel" photo viewer. But Resco Photo Viewer is expensive and free alternatives Panda Image Browser and To The Point lack many features.

Nokia Photo Browser from Nokia Beta Labs is better than Symbian's built-in photo viewer, but the picture viewer from Resco is much better.

Nokia Photo Browser displays your pictures in a grid through which you can scroll with all sorts of 3D effects and other eye candy. It does face recognition too, but only on high contrast frontal shots, not on photos en profil.

The main flaw of Nokia Photo Browser was the long time it needed to generate thumbnail preview images: upon first launch the program needed ages to make thumbnail pictures. Thumbnail preview generation in the new version of Nokia Photo Browser is much, much, much faster than in the previous edition.

Other flaws of Nokia Photo Browser remain unrepaired. When you've scrolled to the last image of your collection, scrolling further will not take you back to the first picture. And "Image Info" still doesn't display Exif data, but only the file name and the date the picture was shot. The user interface is in landscape mode, without an option to turn it into portrait view.

For every picture on your phone Nokia Photo Browser generates three preview images which together take 50 kb or even more. If you have many pictures on your built-in phone memory or memory card, the previews can make you run out of storage space. When you uninstall Nokia Photo Browser it leaves the preview images behind in a jungle of hidden folders. To reclaim your storage space you need to launch a file manager like Y-Browser, X-plore, or Active File and delete all folders called _PAlbTN. Nokia's built-in file manager will tell you that those folders are empty, but they're not.

• Nokia Photo Browser


SilentPhoto

SilentPhoto runs in the background and automatically puts your phone in "silent mode" when you launch the camera. When you switch the camera off, your phone goes back to the previous (non-silent) mode.

Silent mode often suppresses the annoying shutter sound of your phone camera. But beware: with some Nokia product codes (a sort of region codes) your camera makes noise even if your phone is in silent mode. Fortunately there are many other ways to make your camera quiet, so if SilentPhoto doesn't work on your phone you can silence your camera anyway.

• SilentPhoto on Symbian Freak (links to file farm ziddu)
• SilentPhoto on Mobile Castle (with direct download link)
• the camera sound label with many methods to mke your camera silent


cam idle activity patch

Switch on your phone camera, wait for the opportunity to shoot that perfect shot...

...and miss it because your phone camera has gone into standby mode!

The camera of your Nokia will go to standby mode if it's not used for one minute. In standby mode pushing the camera button will not shoot apicture, but only gets your camera out of standby, and then you have to push the button again to make a picture. By then you may have lost the chance to make that once-in-a-lifetime picture.

But if you have hacked your phone and installed ROMPatcher, you can run a ROMPatcher patch that keeps your phone camera active for 10 minutes instead of one.

This patch only works on phones that use the camera application CamMojave.exe, like the Nokia N78, N82, N95, N96, 6220 Classic. It does NOT work on phones with z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe, like the Nokia 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator, N73, N95, E51, E66, E71.

• cam idle activity patch on Symbian Freak (for members only)
• cam idle activity patch (for everybody)

Silent camera: no hacking required with CenRep101F8809

If your phone won't let you switch off its annoying camera shutter sound, there are a couple of different methods to make your camera quiet anyway. Unfortunately they all require that you hack your phone first.

But there's a camera silencing method that works without hacking. CenRep101F8809 has been floating around on different mobile phone forums for a while, and it works on phones that have the file 101F8809.txt in the folder c:\private\10202be9 on your phone's internal memory.

The CenRep101F8809 method works on the Nokia 6110 Navigator, 6120 Classic, N73, N81, N82, N95, N95 8GB, E51, E66, and E71.

It won't work on newer phones like the N78, N79, or N85, because they use a different camera program. To switch off the camera sound on these phones you need to hack Symbian first and then use this ROMPatcher patch.

If the CenRep101F8809 method should work on your phone but doesn't, disable the warning tones in your silent profile and restart your phone. Now the camera sound should not sound in silent mode.

CenRep101F8809 needs to signed before you can install it, but it does not require a "strong" certificate. Any certificate will do, and you can even use Open Signed Online.

• CenRep101F8809
• CenRep101F8809 direct download (leonapapa.i.googlepages.com/CenRep101F8809.sis)

• check the camera sound label for other methods to silence your camera

Nokia Magnifier: bigger is not always better

If you have a pretty good camera with autofocus on your phone, you can use it as a magnifier with Nokia Magnifier.


Nokia Magnifier starts your camera and autofocusses without your finger on the capture button. You can "stabilize" the image (which reduces the capture frequency but doesn't stabilise anything), invert colors, increase contrast, and shoot a picture of whatever you're magnifying. You can zoom in and out with the navigation button, but not with the volume rocker/zoom button combo.

But macro shooting and Nokia's cameras don't mix well. For a sharp image you have to keep the camera at a sufficiently large distance, which reduces the magnifying effect by a significant amount. And Nokia Magnifier is useless under normal indoor reading light conditions. You'll need to turn the lights on to full or wait for daylight.

The latest version of Nokia Magnifier is more stable than the first release. The buggy method to check the camera cover position was fixed by simply removing the check. All the other shortcomings remain, so if you really need to read the small print you're better off with a real magnifying glass.

• Nokia Magnifier

Change or remove your camera shutter sounds with SoundCam by alcon3gro

New camera phones won't let you switch off that annoying camera shutter sound if you have a firmware version for a region that includes a country where noisy cameras are legally required. Of course you can use cCam to take pictures in silence, but this gives you way less options than the native camera application, and cCam doesn't shoot video.

But since Symbian has been hacked there are other ways to make your phone camera shutter shut up.

The SoundCam patch for ROMPatcher by alcon3gro lets you change all four camera sounds on phones that run CamMojave.exe, like the Nokia N78, N82, N95, N96, 6220 Classic. You can use any sound you like, including "empty" sound files to make your phone stay quiet when you shoot pictures.

This patch works on phones with the camera application z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe, like the Nokia N78, N82, N95, N96, 6220 Classic.

It does NOT work on phones with z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe, like the Nokia 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator, N73, N95, E51, E66, E71. For these phones try one of the alternative methods such as this one.

• SoundCamalcon3gro on Symbian Freak (login/signup required)
• SoundCamalcon3gro (modified) (open for everyone)
• check the camera sound label for more methods to change or remove your phone camera shutter sound

Change your camera shutter sound

If you want to silence your mobile phone camera, your options are:

- ROMPatcher method for older phones (without feature pack) like the Nokia 5500
- The 101F8809.txt method for phones with the camera application z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe, like the Nokia 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator, N73, N95, E66, E71
- ROMPatcher method for newer phones with the camera application z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe, like the Nokia N78, N82, N95, 6220 Classic.

But what if you want to change your camera sound instead of silencing it?

If your phone uses the camera application z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe (for example, Nokia N78, N82, N95, 6220 Classic) you can use a ROMPatcher patch to change the sound.

What you need:

- A phone that uses the camera application z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe (for example, Nokia N78, N82, N95, 6220 Classic)
- Your phone must be hacked
- ROMPatcher has to be installed
- A sound clip in .wav format, no longer than 1 second, called CamMojaveCapture3.wav, which you need to store in C:/system/Sounds/Digital/CamMojaveCapture3.wav
- This ROMPatcher patch.

Put the ROMPatcher patch in E:\Patches on your phone, save your sound clip as C:/system/Sounds/Digital/CamMojaveCapture3.wav (you have to make the Sounds and Digital folders yourself it they are not there yet), open ROMPatcher to activate the Change Camera Sound patch, and set your camera to use capture sound 3.

• ROMPatcher patch to change your camera sound
• ROMPatcher
• How to hack Symbian
• check the camera sound label for ways to silence your phone camera


This post was copied without referring to the source by the copycats at Daily Mobile.

HandWave by Samir: wave your hand instead of pushing buttons

HandWave uses the front camera of your phone to detect movement and simulate pushing the navigation key. You can use it to control the volume of your music player, flip through your pictures, etc.

You can set pixel sensibility (make it more sensitive if it's dark) and image sensibility (reduce if you're far away from your phone, increase if you're closer).

HandWave is "free," but you have to "donate" money for a download link. There's no trial version, so you'll need to pay to be a beta tester, and there's no refund if the program doesn't work on your phone. But you can download a really free trial version at Mobile Castle.

HandWave is unsigned, so you'll need to sign it with your own certificate, pass it through Open Signed Online, or hack your phone to avoid the Symbian Signed madness.

• HandWave by Samir at AikonLab (free, but only if you donate money)
• HandWave beta 1 (v 0.1) at Mobile Castle (really free)

Kill camera shutter sound on old Nokias without feature pack 1 or 2

Do you hate that annoying camera shutter sound on your Symbian phone? You're not alone. Fortunately there are ways to shoot pictures without camera noise.

The easiest way: install cCam to make pictures without sound. Unfortunately this program gives you way less options than the native camera application, and cCam doesn't shoot video.

But if you hack Symbian you have more options.

If you have a Nokia N82, N95, or another Nokia that has the file z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe, just hack your phone and use this ROMPatcher method to silence your camera.

If you have a Nokia E66, E71, N82, N95, 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator, or another Nokia with the file z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe, hack your phone and use this method to keep your camera quiet.

But what if you have an older phone like the Nokia 5500 or N73 that doesn't have feature pack 1 or 2? This old version of Symbian is also known as Symbian 9.1 S60 version 3.0. Yes, I know, the Symbian and S60 numbering schemes are totally ridiculous.

For those old phones there's another ROMPatcher method.

Step 1: hack your phone, install ROMPatcher on it, and disable "caps" in the options menu of ROMPatcher. You'll find detailed tutorials on symbianhack.site666.info.

Step 2: Download and install the C before Z patch. Installation instructions are in the text file that comes with the download.

Step 3: Download this camera patch file and use a program like ActiveFile or X-plore to copy it into E:\patches on your memory card.

Step 4: Download these silent sound files and copy them into C:\System\sounds\digital.

Step 5: Open ROMPatcher, select "Patch" in the options menu, and activate the camera patch.


• This tutorial is based on the instructions in the closed modding section of the Symbian Freak forum.

• Check the camera sound label for ways to fight the camera shutter sound.

Kill camera sound: alternative method if ROMPatcher doesn't work

Depending on your firmware version, you may not be able to switch off that annoying camera shutter sound of Nokia's built-in Symbian camera application.

You can install cCam, an alternative camera program without shutter sound, but unfortunately cCam doesn't have many options, and it doesn't shoot video.

Some Nokia cameras are controlled by the file z:sys\bin\CamMojave.exe, and the camera shutter sound on these phones can be silenced by a ROMPatcher plugin.

But what about other Nokia's where the camera is controlled by z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe? If you're lucky, switching on a silent profile will kill the camera shutter sound. If that doesn't work:

Step 1:
Check that your phone has z:\sys\bin\camcorder.exe, not z:sys\bin\CamMojave.exe.

Step 2:
Make a backup copy of the file z:\private\10202be9\101F8809.txt

Step 3:
Make another copy of the file z:\private\10202be9\101F8809.txt and open it in Notepad on a PC. Other text editors may also work. Do NOT use LightNotepad or the built-in text editor of X-plore, because these programs save the edited file in a wrong encoding.

Step 4:
Change
0x7 int 1 0 cap_rd=alwayspass cap_wr=alwaysfail
into
0x7 int 0 0 cap_rd=alwayspass cap_wr=alwaysfail
(all you need to do is change a "1" into a "0")
and save the edited file.

Step 5:
Copy the edited file to c:\private\10202be9\101F8809.txt

Step 6:
Reboot your phone.

Now when you switch to a silent profile, the camera should be silent too. On some phones, any profile with the warning tones switched off may do the job.

You'll need to hack your phone and use a Symbian file manager like ActiveFile, X-plore, SExplorer, FExplorer, or Y-Browser to put 101F8809.txt into the c:\private\10202be9 folder.

This trick works on the Nokia E66, E71, N73, N82, N95, the Nokia 6120 Classic, and the Nokia 6110 Navigator. It probably works on many other Nokia smartphones too.

This tutorial is based on the instructions in the closed modding section of the Symbian Freak forum.


This post was copied without referring to the source by the copycats at iPmart.

Silent camera: Turn off camera sound on hacked Symbian phones

New camera phones won't let you switch off that annoying camera shutter sound. This lets all the girls on the nude beach know you're playing paparazzi, scares the birds away when you try to shoot them with your camera out in the woods, and it's extremely annoying in classrooms, theatres, concert halls, museums, etc.

You can install cCam to make pictures without sound, but this program gives you way less options than the native camera application, and cCam doesn't shoot video.

But now that Symbian has been hacked you can make the built-in camera app quiet with a ROMPatcher add-on.

This add-on works on the Nokia N78, N82, N95, 6220 Classic, and most (all?) Nokias that have the file z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe. It does NOT work on the Nokia 6120 Classic, E51, or any other phone that does not have z:Sys\Bin\CamMojave.exe. It doesn't work on old phones from before feature pack 1 either.

• Patch to make your camera shut up direct download link
• ROMPatcher (required to use the camera patch)
• This patch is discussed in the closed modding section of the Symbian Freak forum.

• alternative method for phones without CamMojave.exe
• alternative method for old S60 3rd ed. phones from before feature pack 1

• Check the camera sound label for ways to fight the camera shutter sound.