Blogger is faster and provides better gadgets than WordPress. Blogger is also powered by Google.

I’m planning to transfer the blogs here to my new blog address.

Again, the new blog address is http://flamark-mobile.blogspot.com

I thought the unit was malfunctioning already, but how could that be? The unit is relatively new. I checked all the running applications on the unit. I discovered an interesting relation.  I found out that if the camera application is enabled and you suddenly switched to the Home Screen without exiting the camera application, the Torch cannot be activated.

I tried repeating my observation. And yes, the culprit was the camera application. Therefore, to solve the problem, you must exit the camera application always if you plan to use the Torch.

I thought I have fixed the problem. I did. However, I discovered a new problem:

Whenever I access the Installations folder from the Menu, I can see the installed programs on my memory card. I can click them but they will not open. Yet I can open installed programs on the internal memory. So I decided to perform some troubleshooting steps.

I turned off my Nokia E63 unit and restarted the unit. I went to the Installations folder. To my suprise, the icons are gone–only for the programs that are installed on the memory card. I went to Tools >> Memory and the card is corrupted.

I removed the card and reinserted it. I checked the Installations folder and the icons are back, but still I cannot click or open the icons.

I turned off the unit again. To my surprise, the icons are missing again and the card is corrupted! I searched the net for answers. I called Nokia’s hotline. Posted questions at the discussion boards. However, I got no answers. I got responses but no clear solutions.

So what I did is I returned to the store where I bought my unit. They remove the memory card on my unit and put it on another E63.  We discovered that the card is password protected! I wonder how that happened. I do not remember any instance that I have put a password on the card. It must have been the Device Lock/Remote Lock feature. It randomly put a password! Unfortunately, I do not even see on my unit that the card has a password!

So what the store is they replaced the memory card. The old card was returned to them and reformatted and kept. Everything seems to be okay now.

I bought my unit from FoneStyle at Cyberzone, SM North. They sell their E63 at a cheap price. They provide excellent customer service and support as well. The units are NTC’s approved moreover.

 I checked the contents of the package which contains the following:
~ Nokia E63 unit
~ 1GB microSD memory card
~ charger
~ headphones
~ user manuals

Next, I checked the authenticity of the unit. I saw the Nokia holographic logo on the battery. I saw the IMEI serial number inside the unit and compared it with the IMEI via *#06#. They matched.  I also saw the NTC certification label inside the unit.

I contacted by phone the Nokia hotline (on Dec 16, 2008 because of a memory corrupted problem) and asked why their store at Cyberzone doesn’t have the E63 yet. The agent told me that third party dealers and Nokia stores have different delivery dates.  The agent asked the IMEI of my unit. She verified and concluded that my unit is valid (I was then advised to bring my unit to the Nokia Care Center at Cyberzone). The unit is not fake.  It’s original and it’s made from Finland.

Probably, I may be one of those fortunate people who got this E63 after the official release date (Dec 11, 2008).  Cyberzone got their E63 on Dec 13, 2008 which is also the day that I bought mine. I paid cash, however.

Usage review:
Let’s start with the weaknessess:

1. The camera in the unit is mediocre. It’s not bad but not also the best. The camera tends to perform bad at indoors where lighting is insufficient. The pictures tend to produce greeny, grainy spots on the image. However, sufficiently lighted indoors such as work office tends to produce good and acceptable images.  Outdoor shots look even better but only when there is sun. When it’s dark, the greeny, grainy spots tend to appear again.  Oddly, I discovered that if you put the quality on Normal mode and resolution at 640×480 the pictures tend to produce less greeny, grainy spots than on High mode and maximum resolution. Zoom the pictures at 100% and you will see the difference.

2. Media player is too simplistic. The included player is basic. You cannot add themes. Modifying the playlist is tedious. There is also no Visualization. However, when it comes to playing quality, the sounds are excellent.

3. No stopwatch application! I was wondering why there is no bundled stopwatch application. This is supposed to be a productivity, business fitted unit. If there’s one thing that matters most to business, that would be time (besides money of course).

4. Radio player needs a microphone to play. Why in the world it needs a microphone first to activate the radio player? Why can’t it be directly activated? So here’s what I did, I looked for an old microphone. Took out it’s jack and use that as a switch. So I can use the loudspeakers on the unit to play the radio without the annoying cables from the microphone.

5. No USB cable included on the package. This could be a negative depending if you like to transfer files. In my case, I’m fond of transferring files back and forth from the unit to my computer. It’s tedious to remove the card and insert it on a memory card reader and back to the unit. 

However, for all those weaknessess and cons, I must say that the E63 is good and an excellent purchase. Here are the strengths that I found on the unit:

1. They keyboard is easy to use. I haven’t use an E71 yet but comparing the keyboard spacing, I must say the E63 is much, much better.

2. The Video recorder captures good quality movies. Surprisingly, the built-in camera takes mediocre photos but it does an excellent job when it comes to recording movies. Usually, it’s the opposite.

3. The interface and the OS are quick and responsive. No hanging application. No slowdowns yet.

4. Messaging is easy (though I still need to set-up the MMS on this unit. Apparently, Globe doesn’t have a predefined set-up for the E63 yet, though it’s exactly similar with the E71).

5. Voice call quality is clear though I find that the unit seems to heat faster than normal (or maybe that is normal?)

6. Many people think that the unit looks cheap because it’s made of plastic but actually if you hold the unit, it doesn’t feel like plastic. It feels very much metallic. It doesn’t feel cheap.

http://discussions.nokia-asia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=hardware&message.id=12286&query.id=329980#M12286

http://discussions.nokia-asia.com/discussions/board/message?board.id=communicators&message.id=32107&query.id=329980#M32107
I had this same problem. My memory card suddenly getting corrupted, but I managed to solve it. I believe the source of the problem is the Remote Lock and the Device Lock of the unit. I have an E63 unit (same as E71).

The problem started after I enabled the Device Lock and Remote Lock of my E63 unit. After a couple of hours, I tried to manage my apps in the memory card. To my surprise, it’s corrupted! I didn’t panic because I believe I could retrieve the files with my PC. But when I inserted my memory card to a memory reader into my PC, the card is unreadable. I had a feeling that the card is really corrupted. But how? I just got this unit almost a day ago. I didn’t do anything odd. I’m an OOP-Design Patterns oriented programmer so I’m not newbie when it comes to best practices.

As I searched the web, I found that there are cases too that had this same exact problem. And their guess is also the Device Lock.

So what I did is I disable the Remote Lock and the Device Lock. I checked my memory card and it’s still corrupted!

So, I turn off my unit and turn it on again, it’s still corrupted!

I removed the memory card while the unit is on (Make sure you use the remove memory card feature of your unit!!!) and then reinserted the card, and it worked.

In summary, to solve this memory corrupted problem: try disabling the Remote Lock and Device Lock. To disable the Device Lock, revert the password to “12345″ (Do not type the quotes). Remove the memory card (Use the remove memory card feature of your unit!!!). Re-insert card and problem fixed.

What you need is the Music.prx plugin for your PSP. You can get the Music.prx  plugin for cfw4.01 at this location: http://dl.qj.net/Media-Apps/pg/12/fid/23529/catid/140

However, there’s a major problem after installing the plugin. It doesn’t let you play music! Duh! How ironic. It seems that the music  player is always paused.

How do you fix this? It turns out that all you need to do is modify the music.conf file.

Here’s what you need to do:
1. Open the music.conf file.

2. Search the line DIR = ms0:/PSP/MUSIC/ #must end with a slash
and change the line to DIR = ms0:/MUSIC/ #must end with a slash

3. Save the changes.

So what happened? The music path on the configuration file points to a non-existing folder ms0:/PSP/MUSIC/ . If  you check the default music path of your PSP, it’s ms0:/MUSIC/

The most common question with NesterJ is where to put the ROMS. If you browse the net and googled for information about this, you’ll get nowhere. There is no clear answer written in plain English. So I decided to perform my own experiment.

It turns out all you need to do is delete a file that came pre-packaged with NesterJ.  This file is the configuration file inside the NesterJ directory. It ends with the extension “.cfg”. The name of this file is “NESTERJ.CFG”. If you delete this file, NesterJ will automatically recreate this file when you run the emulator on your PSP. The new configuration file will reflect the current folder where NesterJ resides. Then it should be able to find your ROMS.

Here’s a quick background of my PSP unit:
Firmware: custom 4.01 M-33
Color: Piano Black
NesterJ version: NesterJ 1.1-RM-V1.0

Here are the steps on how to setup your NesterJ correctly:
1. Download NesterJ .
Get the file at QJ.NET PSP Updates:  http://dl.qj.net/Unofficial-NesterJ-NES-Emulator-1.11-RM-V1.0-updat-PSP-Homebrew-Applications/pg/12/fid/14324/catid/151

2. Extract NesterJ on it’s own folder (for example, “NesterJFolder”)

3. Open the newly created, extracted folder and open the sub-folder NESTERJ_1_11_RM

4. Inside the NESTERJ_1_11_RM folder, find the NESTERJ.CFG file and delete this file.

5. Transfer the NESTERJ_1_11_RM folder to your Memory Stick. Place the folder inside the PSP/GAME4XX

6. Place all your favorite NES ROMS inside the NESTERJ_1_11_RM folder.

7. Turn on your PSP and run the NesterJ emulator. The program should be able to see the ROMS now.