Many of us, including myself, love S60 OSS browser. It is a cool browser that allows us to view web pages in the same way as we view them in our PC. For you who don’t know S60 OSS browser, it is an open source software from Nokia that is shipped with S60 3rd Edition phones.
Nothing is perfect… Using S60 OSS browser may lead to some problems too. Viewing full web pages with GPRS/3G sometimes can be expensive without flat-rate data plan or WiFi connection. As an example, the size of Yahoo!’s home page is about 400 KB!
There is another with RAM usage on S60 OSS browser. The Register has pointed out the fact that S60 OSS browser consumes a lot of RAM. Sometimes, the browser runs out of memory after we view several “heavy” pages.
Is there a way to load web pages faster (and also cheaper) in our S60 OSS browser? One possible way is by using Skweezer. Point out your browser to http://www.skweezer.net/ and then type the URL you want to visit in Sweezer’s home page.
The screenshots below shows the difference of Yahoo!’s home page viewed with standard view and Skweezer. For comparison, the page size from Skweezer, including image, is about 65 KB (see right image). If we compare to the original size, which is 400 KB (see left image), the page size is reduced to 16%!
Left: Without Skweezer - Right: With Skweezer
Bonus Links
Compatible device: S60 3rd, Nokia N-Series, Nokia E-Series.
A couple of months ago, I have featured a nice game from Infinite Dreams, called Sky Force. It is one of the best shooter game for S60 phones. They have just released the next sequel, Sky Force Reloaded, with new levels, new enemies, additional weapons and new music and sound effects.
SKY FORCE Reloaded S60 (3rd Edition)
SKY FORCE Reloaded S60
Bonus Links
Updated (28-Dec-2006): Added a link to Sky Force Reloaded for S60 3rd Edition phones.
Some of you may already hear or use Widsets on your S60 phones to pull interesting information, such as feeds or news. For you who don’t know Widsets, I copy the definition from Widsets web site:
WidSets is a very simple and yet clever little service that brings information that you normally have access to over the Internet, directly to your cell phone. It uses mini-applications called widgets that keep an eye out on updates to websites you normally visit several times a day. This is done through RSS feeds, which push information from these websites directly to your phone, whenever they are updated.
To run Widsets on your S60 phones, you need to register an account at http://www.widsets.com/. After you get an account, you need to download the Widsets application from http://get.widsets.com/. Note that you have to use web browser on your phone to download Widsets application (don’t use PC because it is not supported).
Now you have Widsets application and account. What’s next? You need mini-applications called widgets to pull information for you. There are many widgets available at Widsets web site. Unfortunately, there are only a few useful widgets. There are some widgets that don’t work properly. Some others display too little information, thus they don’t offer additional values. Well, the application is still in beta anyway.
Here, I would like to share some useful and interesting widgets for your S60 phones. So, let’s start with 4 widgets just to give you a feeling how Widsets looks like. I may publish more interesting widgets in the future…
Weather
This widget allows you to get weather forecast for your city. You can get the weather forecast for your city from World Weather.
Flickr
This is one of my favorite widgets. You can enter tags that you want to subscribe. The widgets will monitor Flickr’s database and pull any new images that match your tags. For example, you can enter tags like “nokia, phone”.
Google News
This widget allows you to monitor news for certain topic from various news sites, including BBC, ABC, Reuters, Bloomberg and many more. As an example, you can monitor news about “Nokia” and you will see something like the following pictures.
TechCrunch
Some of you may know TechCrunch, one of the most popular technology blogs out there. Now, you can have the contents on your widgets too.
Update (21-Sep-06): Just a couple of days ago after I posted this blog, a new release of Widsets has been released. The new features are: improved web site navigation, great new widgets, rich contents from blogs and sharing articles/widgets.
Update (03-Oct-06:): Widsets has been officially released. Read their press release here. Congratulations for all Widsets team!
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