Wikipedia: Looking Ahead

Looking at the *overwhelming* response the Symbian Wikipedia Project's gotten, I was thinking along the lines of working on a new and improved version of the encyclopedia having a greater number of articles.

However, as amazing as that sounds, there are many restrictions littered along the way. For instance, popular Nokia phones like the N73, N80, N93i and E61i all have an upper limit of 2GB when it comes to memory card size. The N95 (along with the newly-released N81), is currently amongst the few that support upto 4GB.

And therein lies the dilemma. The actual English Wikipedia, with tonnes and tonnes of articles, can certainly not fit in such a small space. However, as done previously, a selection of articles can.

Currently, I was working on doubling the capacity of the article count in the Symbian Wikipedia to somewhere around 5000. Size will definitely remain an issue for future releases though.

Which is why I figured it's best to ask what you, the readers, have to say on this i.e. how much space on the memory card do you think should be reserved for an encyclopedia? Do drop a line or two. Your inputs are invaluable!

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Having iSilo Trouble?

It has come to my notice that some of you are having trouble with the Symbian Wikipedia on iSilo. Given that it isn't the most intuitive ebook reader on the planet, this doesn't come as a surprise. Anyway, here's a short step-by-step guide, complete with illustrations, that's sure to help you out.

Special Notes:

First up, please ensure you've installed iSilo to your memory card. Now send the Wiki.pdb file to your phone via bluetooth or via cable using Nokia PC Suite. In this example, I've placed it in e:\documents

Using iSilo:

• When you run iSilo, you may come across this screen
  
  
  
  
• Using your phone joystick/navipad, navigate to the tab on the extreme right (i.e. by pressing the right arrow a couple of times)
  
  
  
  
• Using your phone keypad, press the "c" key a couple of times until you get to this screen
  
  
  
  
• Now click on "e:Storage Card" and navigate to the folder where you've placed your file. For instance, in e:\documents
  
  
  
  

And there you have it! As always, if you have any queries or comments, feel free to write in :)

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Wikipedia: Finally Available!

Hey guys, if you've tried the demo version of the Wikipedia Encyclopedia I posted earlier, I'm sure many of you must've been eagerly awaiting the latest release of the Symbian Wikipedia. Well, without further ado...Wikipedia is *finally* available for download (for free, ofcourse) on your S60 smartphone! But before you scroll below to download it, I'd like to mention a few things about this release.

Requirements:

• WinRAR (to uncompress the files). The trial version is available here.
• iSilo (installed on smartphone). The trial version is available here for all S60 devices.

Key features:

• Approximately 2050 full-length articles, and over 3.5 million words (equivalent to a 4,000+ page book in text alone)
• Storage Card & Phone Memory Compatibility
• Keyword Search
• Adjustable font sizes and styles
• Cross Reference Links - tap on a link to easily go to the related article
• An easy-to-use alphabetical index for all articles
• Compatibility with ALL S60 devices, from the Nokia 7650 to the N95 :)

Special Notes:

I've split the file into 6 "dial-up-friendly" parts. Please note that you need all 6 parts to extract the file. Once you've downloaded all the parts, simply double-click "Wiki 06.part1.rar" and specify "series-sixty.blogspot.com" (without the quotes) as the password.

Then just click "Extract to" to extract it on your hard drive. You can later send it to your phone via the Nokia PC Suite or beam it via Bluetooth.

Screenshots:






Download Links:

- As a single file

Parts 01-06

- As a single file (mirror)

Parts 01-06

- As multiple files

Part 01
Part 02
Part 03
Part 04
Part 05
Part 06

Password: series-sixty.blogspot.com

Hope you guys enjoy this release! I'm sure you will, since this has really taken up a LOT of time and effort. As always, I'm open to any comments :)

UPDATE: New download links added!

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Wikipedia: An Update

Hope I haven't kept you guys waiting for long. Anyway, I'm terribly sorry for not posting earlier. After a few hiccups along the way, the good news is that I'll finally be releasing the iSilox version of the Wikipedia soon. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out an appropriate size for resizing images etc, so I've decided to exclude them for now and release a text-only version. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on that :)

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Wikipedia comes to Series 60!

Guess the title says it all for this one...well, the truth is I've been wanting to get a handy encyclopedia for quite some time now for my phone.

Most of us are familiar with Wikipedia -- it's one of the best free resources available online. There's already a Plucker version available but that's only meant for Palm devices and has a small selection of encyclopedia articles, so Series 60 users are out of luck there. There's also a Tome Raider version but the usual incompatibility woes persist and it isn't exactly small-sized.

Sadly, there hasn't been anything worthwhile in this regard for S60 users. However, all that will soon change. Recently I decided to do something about this problem, and starting from today, you can find a small Wikipedia sample for download on my blog for your S60 phone! :)

Fortunately, I managed to find an amazing resource in the Wikipedia CD Selection -- an assortment of carefully chosen articles suitable for print, CD and DVD. Although it is by no means Wikipedia in all its entirety, it still is a very handy reference that deserves a place in everyone's pocket.

Here are some screenshots:



P.S The download below is just a demo as I'm still working on converting the whole thing. The current version is set to expire at the end of this month and currently has 400+ articles of the index S. Also, note that this is just a text-based version of Wikipedia -- without any images etc to keep the size down, as I want it to be used on old and new devices alike. Lastly, you need to have iSilo (an excellent ebook reader) installed on your phone. You can get the trial version of iSilo here for all S60 devices.

I'll eventually be posting the entire selection of articles soon in iSilo format. Keep reading!

DOWNLOAD WIKIPEDIA V 0.5

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Time-Lapse Photography on the N73!

Yup, you read that correctly. In case you're not familiar with the term, time-lapse photography involves the manipulation of time to speed up processes.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye -- such as the motion of clouds in the sky, the opening of flowers or the growing of plants, people commuting, everyday traffic in the city or even an ice cube melting -- become very pronounced.

Although time-lapse cinematographers use sophisticated (and often expensive) equipment, S60 users can now do the same at no added cost! Infact, all that you need is a simple Python script for your phone, and ofcourse, some sort of a mounting system if you're going to capture moving pictures at any rate slower than the standard 24 frames per second.

Credit goes to Anteater @ the Foozia Blog for developing a Python script for the N80 -- although it is incompatible with the N73. Hence, I decided to play with it a bit and voila! Click here to download! Before running, create a new folder called 'timelapse' in e:\Python

Once you set this up and run the script, it'll ask for a project name, followed by the number of images that should be taken along with the time delay. Other parameters include image size (0.3MPix to 1.3MPix), flash mode, exposure mode and white balance. When its done snapping, you'll get a prompt on the screen. You can later use QuickTime or a GIF Editor to make your own movies. Enjoy!

P.S You need to have Python installed on your phone first. In case you're not familiar with that, follow the steps below:

• Download the Python for S60 interpreter application and the script shell for your phone from here



• For the N73, the files you need to get are named as follows: PythonForS60_1_4_0_3rdEd.sis and PythonScriptShell_1_4_0_3rdEd.sis



• Send these to your phone and install Python, followed by the Script Shell to your memory card.



• Send any python script (*.py) to e:\Python



• Next, run Python from the Menu and select the script you want to run.

UPDATE: This script also works with the E90.

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