In the not too distant future robot overlords rule the Earth. The only surviving race, aside of from some monstrous creatures, are rabbits living deep beneath the Earth’s crust. This is the premise of Breakdesign’s addictive adventure and puzzle game known as World of Rabbit.

Customize your own rabbit, I chose an uneven eyed one with a bow in her ears, and venture above ground to a world that looks as if it came out of a Tim Burton movie. With three parts to each level, your rabbit will be a very busy animal with all the running, dancing and puzzles it will be doing.

The first part of each level consists of a trail three bunnies wide. It’s your job to guide your rabbit through the trail by tapping the up or down arrows while picking up the many carrots strewn about. Tap just the screen and your rabbit will leap over obstacles, such as mounds and spiders, in the way. If you do happen to hit one your rabbit will not only lose momentum, but it will take some damage as well.

Upon reaching the end of the trail fairly unscathed you rabbit will be pitted against a slew of baddies, spiders being the first, and must dance excessively to beat them. Tap each baddie, the bigger they are the more taps they need, which will cause your rabbit to dance and slay each monster. But be quick, more will come at you as the timer continues to tick away. If you’re lucky you may even have some missiles to help you out of a pinch.

Finally, after making it so far, possibly even avoiding a death by spider, it’s time to solve a puzzle portraying the level you’ve just finished. This is definitely the easiest portion of the game, and a great reprieve from constantly tapping away at your screen.

As odd as I thought this game was, I kept finding myself wanting to go back to it. Even when I continued to die by massive spiders I couldn’t help but keep playing, determined to reach the next stage of the game.

The best part though? You don’t have to play alone! By playing online you can make other rabbit friends and sync up your scores to see how well you are doing in the rabbit revolution.

This short video from the developers at Breakdesign show the game in action:

World of Rabbit is available in the Ovi Store  for free, so bunny hop on over to download it. The game is available for Nokia Symbian OS S60 5.0 phones, as well as new Symbian smartphones like the Nokia N8.

And, there is a free World of Rabbit theme for Nokia Series 40 phones.

There is more information on the World of Rabbit microsite, and on their Facebook page.

While I enjoy visiting foreign countries, I don’t enjoy converting foreign currencies. Is that cup of coffee cheaper than it is at home – or a royal rip-off? Even when I can remember the exchange rate, I still worry. Because rates change constantly, how can I be sure I am not calculating prices with a tragically out-of-date rate?

Xchanger can help. It is a free mobile app, a currency calculator for Nokia advanced Symbian smartphones. According to publisher Titus Soft, Xchanger can calculate the latest exchange rates for more than 150 currencies, including nearly every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

At its most basic, Xchanger supplies straightforward, up-to-the-minute exchange rates: 1 euro equals how many U.S. dollars as of right now? But Xchanger can also convert any value you select. That lovely dress in a Tokyo boutique costs 58,000 Japanese yen — now how much is that in Australian dollars?

Xchanger also provides exchange rates for three precious metals: gold, silver, and platinum. Are you a big-time investor? Then just set the number of ounces you wish to purchase, select the currency you wish to use, and let Xchanger do the rest.

Xchanger doesn’t have a formal start screen. Launch the app, and you are presented with a list of exchange rates:

You may have noticed that all the currencies have been converted into U.S. dollars. That’s because I have set U.S. dollars as my default currency. But you can set any currency as your default. To do this, select Options from the lower left corner. Up pops the Options menu:

Next, select Settings > Conversion > Default currency. A scrolling list of currencies appears, in alphabetic order. Select your currency and press OK. That is done!

Once you are in a foreign country and shopping, you will probably want to enter specific prices in the local currency, then see how much that is in your own currency. For example, you come across a jacket in a Paris department store that costs 350 euros. Is that très cher or bon marché? To find out, fire up Xchanger, then tap on the euros entry.

Next, you need to change that 1 euro setting to 350. So tap Options > Conversion > Edit. That brings up the ‘enter amount’ form shown here:

As you can see, I have entered 350. Next, I tap OK. When I return to the main list, the exchange rate is automatically updated. At the current exchange rate, that 350 euros comes to $497.70 (USD):

Xchanger also has a series of icons. Double-tap and entry, and the icons will appear along the left edge of the screen. But the icons are nonstandard. That made them confusing, at least the first time I saw them:

But the icons are useful. For example, the single red X icon deletes an entry. The blue and green arrows pointing left and right interchange the currencies in a single entry. And the red and green triangles pointing up and down give you the history of a particular two-currency exchange rate. For example, over the last few days, has the dollar gained on the euro, or lost? Here’s a look at a sample history screen; the green triangles indicate days when the U.S. dollar gained on the euro:

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to figure out how the icons work, mainly because Xchanger lacks a Help screen. So you will have to experiment a bit, then remember what you discovered. But I did find this video, courtesy of NokiaN8Blog.info, which shows some of Xchanger’s icons in action:

Xchanger is available now on Ovi Store. The current release, v1.24, runs on Nokia advanced Symbian touchscreen smartphones. While Xchanger is free, it requires an open Internet connection, so local data charges could apply. Then again, you could use Xchanger to convert those charges into another currency…preferably one with fewer zeroes!

Forget your fantasies of a jet car. With JetEx from JETI you get to fly a jet truck. Simple one-button control combines with good physics and fun levels for a great diversion.

JetEx is available as a free (ad-sponsored) or paid (ad-free) experience for Nokia smartphones with touch interfaces. I tested the paid version on my N8.

The gameplay is conceptually simple. Start the game and your JetEx delivery truck begins rolling along road segments suspended in the sky. Soon your road segment ends and another one appears a short distance ahead. Touch anywhere on the screen to fire your flight rocket, gain altitude, and come to rest on the next road segment, which will also end. Repeat until you deliver the box or run out of fuel.

Use your jet engine to reach the next road segment.

There’s a good physics engine behind this Qt-based game, which allows for some deceptively subtle tactics once you get the hang of it. For example, after the first level or two you realize you need to conserve fuel by flying as little as possible. That makes it tempting to just “run off” the end of the roadway and fly later. If you do, though, you’ll tilt forward because the front of your truck starts falling while your rear wheels are still on the road. To stay level, apply a little “puff” of thrust just before take-off.

A little puff before the cliff keeps your truck level.

Sometimes, though, you might actually want to use that tilt in your favor. The direction of thrust of your engine depends on how your truck is oriented.

Tilt your truck to use jet thrust to fly forward.

Before you get too crazy, though, remember the point is to deliver the package. And like many a delivery driver, it seems like you forgot to secure your load. Bounce the truck too much and you’ll lose your cargo.

Out of fuel is the least of your worries when you're upside down with lost cargo!

JetEx is a fun diversion for your children during those long summer drives or for you as you wait in airport lines. It’s easy to learn, offers enough realism to allow you some strategic alternatives, and each level takes only a minute or two to play. And with a free (ad-sponsored) or paid ($0.99 USD ad-free) experience it’s hard to resist.

Scandit is a bar code scanning app that uses the camera function of the Nokia N8 and other phones to give you quick comparison for on-the-spot shopping. It lets you create custom lists of types of items and save them for later comparisons, in case you are not quite at the buy-now point for a given item. Scandit is made by Zurich-based Mirasense, which maintains a wide-ranging database of scanned items, and links to current prices on those items. Whether or not the items you scan can be found in the Scandit databases may be a function of where you are located and at what stores you shop.

I loaded this free app onto my Nokia N8 and took it for a spin at my local grocery store. When I got to the cereal isle, I started scanning. First, though, I created a list called Cereals so that I had a good place to store my scans for that type of item. On the bottom row of the screen below, the middle icon is My Lists. I clicked on that, and then on the plus sign to add a list, and typed in “Cereals”.

Now I was ready to scan. I clicked on the Scan icon in the lower left of the screen, and it fired up my camera function. As you can see in the screen below, the app asks you to align the bar code into the white rectangle that it displays, so that it can start its bar code reading.

Once the bar code is within the white rectangle, the app recognizes it so quickly that I barely had time to capture a screen snap.

Once it recognizes the bar code, it fills in the icon, tells you the price range at other retailers, and lets you add it to a list of your choice using the Add to List button. In this case, the higher prices at $17 were there because Amazon.com and others sell 5-box units rather than ship single boxes, so it actually represented a lower per-box price. I added the item to my Cereals list, and also checked on what other stores might be carrying it.

As the screen below shows, the comparative prices are from stores listed in the Mirasense database, and your locality might have different vendors than the ones listed below.

For example, I was shopping in San Francisco, California, at a major grocery chain called Safeway, which was not listed in the Mirasense comparison. Safeway is large enough to have its own store-branded cereals in an organic line called Eating Right, and when I scanned one of those cereal boxes, I got the screen below indicating that the product was unknown to the Scandit database. As the Scandit database expands, more and more of these items will be incorporated, but it is a good thing to keep in mind while comparing local prices.

For  a product that Scandit does recognize, it can carry the process through all the way to an online purchase. Below, for example, I had scanned an Irish oatmeal box in one store, and could buy it at a totally different online store even while I was still standing in the first store.

The Scandit app also is designed to have links to Facebook and Twitter that allow you to share a particular bargain that you may have found with friends. However, at this writing in early July, the app says that the addition of that function is still a few weeks away.

Overall, I found this app to be handy for comparison shopping of nationally-known brands. When its database is built out farther and when the Share function is fully implemented, I think it could be a truly impressive app.

Scandit is available for free in Nokia’s Ovi Store.  It works with the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, the Nokia C7, and the Nokia C7 Astound.

If you enjoy chatting like I do, then IM+ All-in-One Messenger by Shape Services is the app to use. The application allows you to connect to your preferred chat messengers simultaneously or you can specifically choose from the list of chat client services. The free version which I currently use on my Nokia C7 offers seven popular Social Network services: Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo.

Like any other Instant Message application, it requires connecting to the Internet. It is easy to sign into your account and you do not have to repeatedly type in your login information.

With the IM+ you can have multiple conversations at the same time, hide offline contacts, view online buddies and you are alerted with a ringtone when a buddy comes online. You have the option to set your status as “available” or “away”. Alternatively, you can customize your status message, sort your contacts by groups or nicknames and enable or disable the group(s) of your choice.

There are aspects of the application that are worth mentioning such as the avatar option which allows you to disable avatars for a better view of all your contacts, while the zoom enables you to choose from three options (small, medium and large) of how you want your contacts displayed. Another nice touch of this app is the search selection which allows for direct search of your friends instead of having to scroll through your contact list.

Your chat session can also be saved and you can add or delete contacts at your will.

During your conversation, your response from that of your counterpart is differentiated by color, so you never get confused during the process. In the event of a lost connection or a phone lock, you will get a missed message notification once reconnected.

It’s also worthy to note that you are able to view links from this application; although once clicked, you will be directed away from the app.

Despite the cool attractions that this application offers, it lags in a few areas. There is a short delay in real time responses in comparison to when chatting using a PC. On rare occasions, the screen freezes then boots you off. Additionally, it saps out the battery life when left on for long and I could really do without the Ads that are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Another issue that I noticed with this app is that it doesn’t automatically log you off even when you have logged on elsewhere.

To sum up, IM+ is a handy app that truly mimics your typical chat client and offers a lot of decent features just like a regular chat messenger. Although there are few glitches, it is a good mobile app that saves RAM, helps you stay connected on several chat platforms especially on the go and it is not too shabby since it is free. So, if chatting is of great importance to you then IM+ is a useful and user-friendly application to use.

IM+ All-in-One Messenger is free to download from Nokia’s Store. A Pro version of the app is also available.

Rah Digga’s Straight Spittin is a battle rap app that allows you to user your Nokia N8 to rap battle anyone in the world, whether they are on Symbian devices or a variety of mobile platforms. The app is named after the well-known American rapper Rah Digga, one of hip-hop’s most skilled MCs. The key weapons in battle rap are rhymes and your imagination. There are thousands of battle rappers out there in the digital world, and this app brings them together on the screen of your device. The app was the first place winner in AT&T’s Open Call contest at CTIA 2011.

I took the app for a spin on my Nokia N8. As a long time Berkeley and San Francisco slam poet I had seen a number of MC battles on stage, but this was the first time that I had stepped into the MC ring myself. In the back of my mind was the question of how I would find an E-rated battle rap, but the bottom line is that raps are as varied as the people doing the rapping so I plunged ahead.

The first step was establishing my ID and password on the Straight Spittin site, which can be done directly from the Nokia N8. When I actually went to rap battle for the first time, I had to answer at least five questions to become battle-ready. These are questions that ask for your favorite team, favorite food, biggest fear, what kind of car you have, your current job, favorite movie, and others. I will note here that, while you must supply answers to at least five of these questions, remember that your answers are for your battle persona, not necessarily yourself personally. My battle persona, for example, is a hedge fund manager who drives a Porsche. When opponents do battle, they can see each other’s handles, locations, and the answers to the five questions.

The Main screen of the app looks like the screen below, and has major sections for Battle, What’s Good, Pics, Rehearsal, Replay and Voting.

That last one, Voting, is what makes the battle rap world go around. After you listen to someone else’s battles, the app gives you the opportunity to vote on the winner and loser of the battle. Other people also vote on your battles, and out of these votes come the gold and platinum rappers, with everyone else sorted into the category of “Unsigned Hype”.

The What’s Good section is a forum for rappers. In that section you can see comments that others have made about rappers, including yourself, and post comments that add to their comments.

In the lower bar on  the screen is the Menu button (triangle).

In the screen above, the Menu button has been clicked, revealing the Audio Settings function. This is extremely important, as it lets you adjust your playback volume.

When you are below the main screen, the Back button (always in the upper left) brings you back up one level from any plunge into the section and detail screens.

Clicking on the Rehearse section, I went in to practice my rap. No rap is complete without a beat, and it is in that section that I selected the beat. The app gives you such beats as Backwoodz Break, Backwoodz Grimez, Keep It Coming, and Bury the Bastards.

Once I selected a beat, the app wanted to know how many bars (8, 16, or 24) should be in the battle rap.

The convention is that the first 4 bars are left without words so as to establish the beat, so an 8-bar rap would really only contain 4 bars of words, and a 16-bar rap would only contain 12 bars of words. Not everyone out there adheres to this convention, however. The rehearsal section lets you listen to your recording of the rehearsal, but when I clicked the button to Save to SD card, I got a message about the soon-to-be-available paid app, MC Pro, which will implement this function.

Actually, you don’t have to have your own battles at all. If you want, you can just listen to other people’s battles. Touching the Replay section you get the screen below, which lets you listen to battles by location, artist name, the most popular battles, or your own battles. If you click on the voting section, you can also cast your vote on the winners and losers of the battles you hear.

I, however, wanted to battle. I clicked on the Battle button, chose the Freestyle format over Written, and saw the screen below.

Realizing my place as a novice in the MC world, I clicked on Unsigned Hype to find an opponent. I selected my beat, the number of bars, and chose between the one- or two-rebuttal format. The next thing I knew, the screen below came up and I had been challenged by a rapper out of Omaha, Nebraska. I accepted the challenge, and the rest is history.

How did the battle come out? Well, like I said, this is an E-rated blog, so I’ll have to let you dig into the Replay database to listen to the details yourself.

I can see why this app won the AT&T Open Call contest at CTIA 2011. Appalachian Apps has put out an excellent first effort in establishing a mobile platform for would-be battle rappers across the world. The developers are hard at work on a couple of updates to this Qt-based application, including an ability to buy Premium beats to customize one’s rap ($3.49 each) and a paid version, MC Pro version, which would enable the storing of rehearsals to the device’s SD card.

Rah Digga’s Straight Spittin can be downloaded for free in Ovi Store.

It can happen to anyone: You’re out with friends and the conversation turns to a particular song, perhaps one from long ago or one that has been on the radio just recently. Everyone starts to sing it, but …

Or maybe you’re on your own and you find yourself thinking about that special someone and they remind you of a certain song and …

And for some reason, nobody, and certainly not you, can remember the lyrics to the song in question, the words that are … aghh, they’re right there, on the tip of your tongue! What was it that Tom Tom Club sang in “Genius of Love”? What cities was David Byrne of Talking Heads thinking of escaping to in “Life During Wartime”? How did that Beatles song go, “Drive My Car”?

OK, we’ll admit, with pre-Jurassic titles like those, we’re seriously dating ourselves. (The Beatles, we should point out to younger readers, were a band, somewhat famous, in which Paul McCartney played, before Wings.) But you get the idea: At certain moments in life, song lyrics are simply the most important thing there is, absotively and posilutely necessary to get right, right now.

Which is why, evidently, a company called musiXmatch, based in Bologna, Italy, has produced an app for Nokia smartphones called, simply, Lyrics. With this app on your phone – it’s available on Ovi Store at no charge – you can gain more or less instant access to a searchable database of some 5 million – 5,000,000! – popular song lyrics, all in a variety of European languages.

Five million is a big number, and we haven’t had time to count, much less explore, so many sets of lyrics, but so far, our pseudo-scientific testing shows the musiXmatch database to be quite comprehensive. Not only does it show the lyrics for The Beatles, The Beastie Boys, and The English Beat – all big names in the musical pantheon of our long-ago youth – it has the words to Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and even “Forget You,” by Cee-Lo Green, complete with this gem of rhyming brand names:

Yeah, I’m sorry, I can’t afford a Ferrari

But that don’t mean I can’t get you there.

I guess he’s an Xbox and I’m more Atari,

But the way you play your game ain’t fair.

According to musiXmatch, quoting Google, since 2004, “lyrics” has been the most searched-for term on the Web, more popular than even “sex,” “dating,“ or “love.” And that’s the case not only in the U.S., the firm says, but in the U.K., Germany, Japan, and France, too, though we suspect some different spellings may be involved.

As for the Lyrics app itself, we can say this: It has a slick design, it works well, it does what it’s supposed to, we recommend it.

Looks: The app has a quite sexy feel, its menus – there are but three: Charts, My Music, and Search – sliding silky smooth across our N8’s touchscreen in response to a swipe of our finger. Clearly, some thought has gone into this app’s look and feel. Also, many songs’ lyrics are illustrated with cover art – a pleasing touch, we found, even if the art is mini-thumbnail size. Likewise, the app provides short biographies of many musical artists, often with photographs.

Lyrics: There’s a whole lot of them, though we can’t be sure there’s a full 5 million. In any case, we’re impressed with the fact that for songs released in more than one version – say, one for adults and another for children – Lyrics lists both sets of words. What’s slightly annoying is that if you look up an old standard, such as “Autumn Leaves,” the app shows a list of 20, 30, who knows how many recordings, each by a different artist and each, we suspect, with exactly the same words. One would suffice, of course, though would disrupt this app’s ability to send customers to the Ovi music store.

You can search for lyrics by the title of songs or the name of a band. You can enter a partial title, but beware, too unspecific a search and you’ll be presented  with a long, long list of song titles to scan through. Unfortunately, you cannot search the lyrics themselves for specific words, which means that if you don’t remember the name of that song still echoing in your brain years after it left the airwaves, you won’t find it here. (On the other hand, a good search engine like Google or Bing will no doubt help you in this regard.)

MusiXmatch states that the lyrics in its database are fully licensed. That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that every lyric it lists is perfectly correct. For some reason, online collections of lyrics are notoriously rife with mistakes. And this one is no different. When we used this app to look up that long-ago Tom Tom Club hit “Genius of Love,” we found the word dimension misspelled as “dimention.”

Sometimes, of course, the words in lyrics are anybody’s guess. Nobody – perhaps not even the singer herself – knows what the correct words are. And seriously, what would be the fun of a perfect listing of every song’s words? Think how many devoted listening sessions and great barroom discussions that would obviate. (“Judy in the skies,” or “Judy in disguise”?) Entire Web sites are devoted to this topic.

To its credit, the Lyrics app takes itself seriously enough to solicit comments about its database. Upon searching for a song, music fans can use a set of buttons to tell musiXmatch that the lyrics shown are not by the selected artist, that the lyrics seem to contain “strange characters” or scrambled words, or that its verses are contain too many lines of text.

When you’ve finally found the lyrics you’re seeking, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to buy a recording of the song at the Ovi music store. And Lyrics makes it easy to go do that, as for many songs it offers one-button access to the appropriate page within Ovi. (To make a purchase, of course, you’ll need to have signed up for the right Ovi account.)

There’s more: Lyrics automatically scans the music files you may have stored in your Nokia phone, listing them in a separate menu. It also shows a menu of songs currently enjoying popularity, though specifically which chart it’s tuned to, we can’t tell.

MusiXmatch – a witty outfit, in every way; check out its home page graphics and its jobs page – has done the Nokia community well with this Lyrics app. Clearly, the price is right, and the content it provides such easy, comprehensive access to is absolutely vital, no matter how old a teenager you happen to be.

Lyrics is free to download from Nokia’s Store.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a Desi? If so, you probably already know about Desi Hits!, an entertaining website for fans of Bollywood movies, Bhangra music, and other aspects of pop culture from the Indian subcontinent.

If not, then it might help to know that ‘Desi’ refers to anyone from the India region, including Bangladesh and Pakistan, who typically lives abroad. Bollywood refers to the India-based producers of outrageously gaudy and delightful musical movies. And Bhangra is a kind of pop music based on folk music and dances from the Punjabi region.

Now Desi Hits Inc., the New York-based company behind the Desi Hits! website, has added a mobile app to its offerings for Nokia phones. The new app, simply called Desi Hits!, runs on selected Nokia advanced touchscreen phones. The app lets you view news, photos, and videos, and listen to radio programs, all centered on Bollywood, Bhangra, and what the app calls Urban Desi.

Using the app is a breeze. First, you select a main category: videos, photos, radio, or news. This brings you to a category screen. For example, here’s the Videos screen:

Each category screen, in turn, has four buttons across the top: All, Bollywood, Bhangra, and Urban Desi. ‘All’ is the default, so if that’s what you want, simply select an item from the thumbnail list. Or, to select a subcategory, tap one, and the list is adjusted.

Select an item from the list, and it appears. For example, here’s the sequence for Photos. First you see the master list:

Tap on a thumbnail to see the larger version of any photo. For example, here is a recent photo of Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan:

Tap Home, and you return to the main menu. Tap Back, and you return to the preceding screen.

Next, the News category delivers a list of light news stories about actors, singers and the like. Here’s a look at the main News menu:

And here’s an individual news story:

Any screen can also be viewed in landscape mode:

The Videos and Radio sections of the app deliver the multimedia fun. The Videos are mostly interviews with celebrities, both from the Desi world and without. For instance, here’s a screen capture from a video interview with Lady Gaga, who is not a Desi last time I looked:

The Radio section mainly features two programs: the Arun and P Show, which features music tracks and interviews with musicians, singers and actors, and the Bhangra Vibes show. Here’s a look at the Radio menu and then the screen that appears after I selected an individual radio program:

Overall, the Desi Hits! app is easy to use, and navigation is intuitive. That is thanks in part to a User Experience (UX) consultation recently provided by Nokia experts. Desi Hits Inc. wanted to ensure that the app would be as intuitive and easy to use as possible. So the company submitted a prototype of its mobile app to Nokia UX consultants. They, in turn, applied a series of mobile-usability heuristics to identify the prototype app’s strengths and weaknesses. To learn more about Desi Hits! and its Nokia UX consultation, see this Nokia Developer case study.

In my own tests on a Nokia N8 phone, I too found Desi Hits! easy to use. But I had a few quibbles of my own. For one, on the category pages, the subcategory buttons (All, Bollywood, Bhangra, and Urban Desi) were sometimes unresponsive. I often had to tap those buttons several times before they would ‘take’.

Another small issue: one can exit only from the Home screen. So if you want to exit from, say, a radio program, you have to first stop the program, then tap the Home once or the Back button twice, and finally tap Exit. An easy fix would be to add an Exit button to all the ‘inside’ screens.

Also, during my tests, the Desi Hits! video and radio broadcasts were sometimes unresponsive. One day, I could barely get either videos or radio programs to load or play. But the very next day, I found both the radio programs and the videos loaded within mere seconds and then played flawlessly. On a third day of testing, about half the videos I tried hung, while the other half played smoothly. So was the problem with Desi Hits!, my Internet provider, or something else? As they say, your mileage may vary.

Desi Hits! is available in Ovi Store, and it is free to download.

Ever been, say, stuck in a meeting and a call comes through to your mobile phone and you see on Caller ID that it’s from someone important – a friend, your spouse, the boss, your business partner – and you really really need to take the call but it’s just not polite or convenient to do so right at that moment?

You could just let the phone ring – silently, of course – until your caller was offered a chance to leave a message. Or, you could turn to Quietalk, an app that’s designed to help out in exactly this situation. Developed by Telekonnectors Ltd., an Indian firm, it’s available in Ovi Store at no charge.

In a nutshell, Quietalk would not only enable you to answer the call silently, it would enable you to communicate with your caller silently, as well – and not via standard SMS-based texting but over the regular phone call that your caller placed to you. You could choose either to send them one of several dozen previously prepared messages – “I’m in a meeting right now, will call you as soon as possible,” for instance – or, you could (discreetly, of course) type in a new message. Either way, though, your caller would actually hear your message on his or her phone, not simply view it as text on their phone’s screen.

Here’s how it works:

Quietalk is able to record, as audio files, anything you’d like to store as a message for later use: “I’ll be home for dinner at 6pm,” or “I’m working late tonight,” or “I love you, darling, more than there are stars in the universe.” You get the idea. And then, when someone calls and you’d like them to hear one of these pre-recorded messages, you just select one on your touchscreen and Quietalk will play it over the current phone connection – in sparkling, high-fidelity audio, no less.

And if you need to type out a new message? In that case, Quietalk takes your text, entered the usual way, via the touchscreen keyboard, and uses Nokia’s built-in text-to-speech technology to speak your message in a synthesized voice.

We tried it, and it works. You can launch Quietalk and keep it hidden from view until a call comes in. When you want to activate the app, you need only touch the small red icon that it keeps up at the top of your screen. You’ll be shown a list of pre-recorded audio messages, any of which can be played by touching its triangular “play” button.

It’s easy to record messages by speaking into the phone. It’s not clear exactly how many audio messages Quietalk can keep on hand, but more than a handful, with each one having a unique name to identify it.

To have text messages read to your caller, you just tap on the TypeTalk button at the bottom of the Quietalk home screen. That makes visible a red field into which you can type your text. Once you’re done entering text, it gets stored in a list of messages, with maximum capacity of 40 entries. Any of them can be called into action by selecting it and touching the “Say” button.

In case you’re wondering, when Quietalk is delivering either kind of message to a caller, your phone remains muted. That way, there’s less chance of any audio interference.

The version of Quietalk we tried out came with U.S. and Canadian versions of its text-to-speech function, but it’s possible to download additional languages from Nokia’s Web site. For the two English-language selections, there are default male and female voices to choose from plus another one called Jane. Evidently, different language packages include different voices.

Finally, you can configure Quietalk to load automatically when you switch on your phone. That could be helpful, we imagine, for those who often find themselves in meetings, for example, and wouldn’t want to have to find Quietalk at the moment it’s needed. As mentioned, when loaded and hidden, the app is unobtrusive yet easily pulled into action via its small red icon, which remains visible no matter which screen you’re looking at (see screensnap above).

And that’s about all there is to say about Quietalk, a simple app that does what it’s designed to do quite efficiently. Unfortunately – or quite fortunately, depending on how you look at it – we don’t have a lot of meetings to attend, so we’re not sure how the app works in the heat of battle. But we invite you to try it out and tell us how it has helped you communicate on the QT, as it were.

(Speaking of which, before installing this app, you do need to load Nokia’s Qt software framework into your phone, an easy if somewhat sizeable – and entirely free – download. You’ve probably got that code on your phone already, but if not, you’ll want to download it via a fast WiFi Internet connection, not over your slower, metered cellular network.)

Quietalk is free to download from Store.

Too busy to type 140 characters? Blaving, a mobile app now in beta, turns your Nokia phone into a kind of social-media Dictaphone. Blaving and your phone record your short (two minutes or less) message, then transmit the sound file to the social network of your choice. You can also search for and listen to the short sound files of other people.

Blaving runs on Nokia S60 phones, both the newer touchscreen models and several older phones. I tested the app on a Nokia N8, an advanced touchscreen phone. So if you are using a non-touchscreen phone, where I say ‘tap’, you will instead need to press one of your phone’s keys.

Launch Blaving, and you view the app’s main screen:

The six icons across the top of the screen are your main navigators. The first icon, earphones, brings you to the latest posts. That’s the view shown above.

The second, a microphone, is where you record. Select the icon, and the main record screen appears:

Now it is the icons along the bottom that you use. To record a short message (in Blavspeak, a ‘blav’), select Record, which is the red dot, the first icon on the left. Then begin speaking. The screen counts down the seconds; above, you can see that I am 4 seconds into a recording.

To stop recording before Blaving’s 2-minute limit, select the Stop (middle) button. To hear your message before posting, select Play, the second icon from the right.

To post your blav, select Publish; it is the white arrow on a green background, all the way to the right. You will be prompted to give your post a title. You will also have the option to add tags, separated by commas. In the next shot, I am naming my test post ‘test’. Very creative, no?

It is easiest to post your blav within Blaving itself. But you can also share your audio posts on the web, via email, or on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Also, when you return to the latest posts screen, you will see your post listed on top (as mine is below):

You can also check out the Blaving voice posts of others by returning to the main screen and tapping the Popular button (little speaker, third from the right). You will come to a page that lists recent posts and shows the speakers’ thumbnails:

Options galore are available from Blaving’s popup menu, which you activate by tapping the Menu command at the bottom-right corner. As you can see below, some of the commands are similar to those in Twitter and other social networking apps: reply, like/dislike, etc.

You also have a few other options, including a way to set the app’s language; Blaving’s publisher, PMovil, is based in South America, so the options are English, Spanish, and Portuguese. In fact, most of the posts on Blaving I found were in Spanish.

Blaving also operates an accompanying website. I found using the site easier for certain changes. For example, adding a headshot photograph to your Blaving profile via the phone can be slow and tedious. But using the Blaving site, I was able to add my headshot easily and quickly.

Overall, Blaving works well and is easy to use. One exception is Favourites (indicated by the star icon); I was unable to make this work. Also, most of the commands are far too small for a touchscreen. That is especially true on the pop-up menu; because its 12 commands are so small and so close to one another, tapping the wrong command is quite easy, and I did so often. In this case, bigger would definitely be better.

To see Blaving in action, check out the app’s YouTube Channel page. Dozens of videos are on tap, mostly in either Spanish or Brazilian Portuguese. But there is one video in English showing Blaving on an older, non-touchscreen Nokia phone:

Blaving is available on Ovi Store, and it is free. The app requires an open Internet connection, so additional data charges may apply. Talk to you soon — on Blaving!

OK, I’m a chess expert, so it stands to reason that I should also be good at Chinese Chess, otherwise known as Xiang Qi, right? Uh, not really, at least not in the beginning. In fact, some of the strategies of pawn advancement that are common to western chess can be downright detrimental in Chinese Chess. For one thing, there is no promotion of a pawn when it gets to the extreme other side of the board as there is in western chess. Most of the pieces have somewhat different movements than their western counterparts, and there is even one piece that doesn’t exist in the western game.

All of that being said, Chinese Chess Pro V by ZingMagic brings this extremely popular eastern game to western eyes on the Nokia N8 as well as Symbian OS, S60 5.0 devices. ZingMagic has put the user interface in English (and 16 other languages), and even giving the option of viewing westernized pieces instead of Chinese characters.

Like ZingMagic’s western chess products, the app gives you the option of playing against the computer, or against another human. This is determined at the beginning of the game under Options. It brings up the screen below, where I have chosen for the second player to be another human instead of a computer. Note that I could have also chosen to play the opposite color (black moves first in Chinese Chess, the opposite of western chess.)

You may wish to build up some confidence in your play by running off a number of human-vs-computer games. Again the Options button allows you to choose the computer’s level of play, from Beginner to Expert, and the time controls, which can range from one second per move to games of 180 minutes.

The beginning position of the game is shown on the screen below. Notice that there are pieces that look like the rooks, knights, bishops  and kings found in western chess sets. Instead of a queen, each king is surrounded by two ministers whose icons vaguely resemble an elephant’s head. The pieces shown on the top row are, from the left, a rook, knight, counselor, minister, and king (general).  Two rows down from them are the cannons, a new type of piece, and in front of them the pawns (or foot soldiers).

The large X on each side of the board is the Imperial palace, and both the movements of both the king and his counselors are restricted to be within the palace. The rooks move just like western rooks, but the knights are not allowed to jump over pieces like their western counterparts. The counselors and ministers move diagonally like western bishops, with the restriction that a counselor may only move one point diagonally and the minister can move exactly two points diagonally.

The cannon moves horizontally and vertically like a rook, but it may only capture a piece by first jumping over an intervening piece of either color.

Whereas western pawns move only vertically, yet capture diagonally, the Chinese pawns have different rules. The Chinese pawn may only move a single point forward, and captures forward, not diagonally. Also, once a pawn has crossed the Yellow River in the middle of the board, it may then also move horizontally.

If you have any questions about the piece movement during a game, just click on the question mark icon after you have selected a piece. As the screen below shows, the app then gives you hints (the grey squares) as to where the selected piece can move on the board.

As with western chess, there are millions of strategy combinations in the game. One of the basic elements, king protection, is shown in the screen below. Notice in the screen below that a red minister and counselor have moved out in front of the king to protect him from the invading cannon.

YouTube also has a few good videos on how to play the game. Danny Burbol offers lessons that are split into two parts:

There is also a video showing sample gameplay with English subtitles at:

Chinese Chess Pro V is available in Ovi Store for $2.99 (USD). This version is available for Symbian OS, S60 5.0 devices such as the Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, with a version for the Nokia’s new Symbian phones, like the Nokia N8 available soon at that same link. A free version (with advertising) for all of these devices is availablem, too.

Red Bull TV, the concept defines itself. It is extreme sports action of all kinds, with some interviews and crib tours thrown in for good measure. You name it, it’s there, from wave catching to Shaun White’s half-pipe skating, from BMX riding, break dancing, and a little bit of outwitting  a crocodile, to a long list of other wow moments. There are live broadcasts, but I found that the video library was the place where I could best choose the kind of action that I wanted to see.

I tried it out on my Nokia N8 touch screen. I checked out the live program first, and saw a screen like the one below. This one had cliff diving.

Basically, picture an event similar to the Olympic 10 meter diving competition with the same kind of judging, except that it is held in an exotic location and the height is more than 100 meters. Take a look at the shot below to get an idea of how the heights that they are talking about translate into the real world.

I did manage to catch some of the dive in a still snap, but it doesn’t convey the richness of the motion that a complete video of the dive can present.

After viewing a video, you are also given the opportunity to rate the video from one to five stars. Clicking the star icon in the lower right brings up the screen below. The collective ratings of the viewers then helps to guide others toward the better videos.

Back to the main section of the app, when you click on the Videos tab, you see the screen below. Notice that Red Bull has put the Latest Additions, Best Rated and Most Popular videos as options on the top. Below that, there is an astounding array of categories, with an entry for ‘ball sports’ leading to the more conventional sports topics like European football, American football, baseball, and basketball.

One of the key features of Red Bull TV is that when you find a great action video, you can share it with friends via e-mail. In the screen below, for example, the envelope icon in the lower right portion of the screen let me send the link to both my own email address and to some of my friends who still cannot believe that the San Francisco Giants actually won the World Series last year. The video clip analyzes the pitching delivery of two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Linececum, popularly known by his baseball nickname, “The Freak”.

Clicking on the More tab, one can also access m.redbull.tv, which leads to a magazine-like presentation of videos arranged as the Pick of the Day, Sports, Culture, Events, Teams & Athletes, and a category called Holy S*** that features some unbelievable events.

On this particular day, for example, the latter category led to Ron Fischer’s  achievement of the first-ever night-time navigation of the Rheinfall waterfall in Switzerland. He painted a flourescent arrow on his kayak so that it could be traced easily by a helicopter camera at night, and he also wore a helmet-cam to record the experience.  You really have to see the video in order to get the full experience, and you can view it at the link below:

http://d.m.redbull.com/media/525862_amr_qcif.3gp

The video not only shows the sports action, but also Red Bull TV’s realization that the audience for MTV-like coverage of happening music is nearly the same demographic as that for extreme sports. Accordingly, Red Bull TV features interviews with rap stars, head-banging music stars, and a number of other upcoming music mavens. The Ron Fischer kayaking video, for example, plays over a sound track of a song about collateral damage, an appropriate theme for the feat.

Red Bull TV is a great celebration of youth, energy, athleticism and passion in the form of captured videos. It is quite possible that these factors, rather than concentrated caffeine, taurine or glucuronolactone, are the real enablers of these amazing sporting feats.

Red Bull TV is available for free in Ovi Store.

NockIt allows you to use your Nokia touch-enabled device (either new  Symbian device or S60 5.0 device) for blackboard-style writing and drawing, and to share your creations with others. You can write, sketch and erase, and there are an unlimited number of pages.

Did I say blackboard? Well, actually, it’s the greenboard look from the 70s and 80s, rather than the actual blackboard look from the 60s and before. I tried the Qt-based NockIt on my Nokia N8 and the first thing I did was scrawl up a grocery list, as shown below.

Now, I have full-sized man fingers and no patience for caligraphy, so I found that about four or five items was about as much as I could get onto one screen. Fortunately a long grocery list could be put on as many screens as I needed just by clicking on the new page icon in the upper right of the screen. I should note that had I been using a stylus as I would have with my Nokia N97 or Nokia XPressMusic 5800 devices, then I would have gotten a much finer line and greater control, and could have put more information on one screen. One scrolls among the screens using the left and right arrows at the bottom of the screen.

The nice thing about making out the grocery list on NockIt was that I didn’t actually have to go to the store to get the items. My wife was already at the store, and I just sent her the list by clicking on the icon in the upper left of the screen.  Below is a screen showing the dropdown choices  that one gets by clicking on the icon in the upper left. This screen was not actually the transmission of the grocery list, but of a notification to my friends of a foosball tournament that I was organizing for next Wednesday night.

As you can see from the drop-down list, there is also the option to delete the entire page as well. If I had just wanted to erase part of my scribbling, then I would use the top middle icon, the eraser icon. It actually is a toggle switch between eraser and pencil functions as you need to draw more or erase more.

When I clicked on the Share option, the screen below appeared, offering me the options of sending the screen via message, e-mail, or Bluetooth. If you have Pixelpipe set up on your device, that option will also appear in the list of choices.  I sent the grocery list via SMS, and the foosball tourney notification via e-mail to a listserv of foosball fanatics that I know.

When you are in close proximity to someone with a Bluetooth-enabled device, you can also pass critical information, such as your phone number, to them in a discreet manner.

Just to show you that people with more drawing skills than myself actually can create drawings on a NockIt screen, I include the screen below.

One other usage that my wife and I found for NockIt was in a crowded room social situation. We used NockIt as a messaging scratch pad, passing notes back and forth to each other like a couple of school kids. Some people just never grow up.

NockIt is available for free in Ovi Store.

More information about the app is available from the LineFarmer website.

Adding in an e-mail account to your device is a pretty straight-forward process. Open up your mail application > new account > edit settings > etc. The end result is a relatively bland, HTML lacking interface that works but is not all that pretty. Enter Pixelpipe to the rescue with one of their latest creations: Gmail Apps Browser.

Gmail Apps Browser is a Qt-based application that brings the HTML5 enhanced UI for popular Gmail services to Nokia’s new Symbian devices with our custom QtWebkit browser for Gmail services. You can access your Gmail & Google Calendar, Tasks & Buzz from a convenient dashboard. How cool is that? The screen shots speak for themselves:

Default Inbox View

Individual Message View

As you can see, the e-mail renders flawlessly in comparison to what you would see on your laptop/desktop. In addition, you get full access to all your folders and filters:

Folders and Filters

Pretty cool, eh? I really love the integration to other features of Gmail such as the Calendar, Tasks, and Buzz. Although I don’t really use those other three services personally, however it is nice to know that they are there.

Application: Main Menu

The only thing that I feel is missing from this application would be integration with Gmail’s instant messaging service GTalk. If this was included, then for me this application would be 100% flawless. Nonetheless, great stuff as always from the folks at Pixelpipe.

Gmail Apps Browser can be downloaded for Free in Nokia’s Ovi Store!

News and headlines are a daily part of my routine. I need to see the latest updates and changes taking place in the world around me, and I want to have it fast, and from a source that I trust. Whether reading news online, catching up from TV, or listening to NPR on the radio during my drive in the morning, the latest stories are a regular part of my day. And now, competing for my attention – and succeeding, I might add  – is a handy mobile source for news and video in the form of the new CNN App for Nokia that just arrived in Ovi Store today. (I had a sneak peak at the app, and it was hard to resist sharing stories with the app’s built-in social media tools before the app was officially available!).

For anyone that craves the latest news and information, this new Qt-based app is an easy choice. It covers a broad range of categories and regions of the world, and includes both written stories, like you would see on their website, as well as short video segments that load quickly and are visually quite impressive on the Nokia E7 when viewed in landscape mode.

When you first start the app, you are presented with headlines for “Top Stories” – the 10 most recent are displayed. Click on any of the headlines to view the full story on your device.(Note, I have re-sized the screenshots a bit smaller here, so they will display easily on this page – but expect news in full-color glory on your Nokia E7.)

Across the top of the app you will see the category options for news you can view, which is based first on geography/region, and then also by topic, including: Business, Sports, Entertainment, Tech and Travel. Of course, my fingers went right for the Tech news. The headline below certainly caught my eye …

If you want to share a news story with friends, there are several options, which were just a click away. You can share stories you see via SMS, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter – the latter two choices launch your web browser to activate, but that only takes a moment or two.

As you read through news stories, you can toggle back and forth between portrait and landscape mode, as you prefer. And, when you are reading a story, you scroll down to view all of the text. If you pan to the left or right while reading a story, the next item available within that section will be displayed. Across the bottom of the app, you will notice a small blue dot highlighted to show you where you are within the current list of stories for that section.

When you want to see video of recent news – click the Video link along the bottom row of navigation within the app to see recent items that have been on the air. And, even better – if there is the word “Live” on top of the Video icon, you will have the chance to watch live, streaming video of news as it happens – this app does require an active internet connection for use, but in the case of certain events, seeing the news as it happens, might be worthwhile. For instance, this morning, I was able to watch live reporting of the Queen’s historic visit to Ireland. Yesterday, I watched recorded video of the space shuttle Endeavour taking off on its final mission.

Another interesting feature of this app – and now a regular part of what CNN is doing – is the iReport feature, where you can see work submitted by your average news consumer – folks like you and me, and not from professional journalists. This is user-generated content, and it provides a platform for anyone to contribute. According to CNN, in their announcement about the app: “Users can also browse iReport’s latest ‘international assignments,’ asking the community to weigh in on various news stories.”

If you happen to see something newsworthy – and have photo or video from that moment recorded on your mobile device, you are just a few clicks away from sharing it with CNN, and the app takes you through the simple steps to submit your own iReports.

Overall, this app is right in line with what I would expect from CNN – it is comprehensive, easy to use and understand, and chock full of details.

The CNN App for Nokia is currently exclusive for use on the Nokia E7, and is free to download from Ovi Store (excluding Japan). According to the announcement made by CNN today, the app will be available in the coming weeks for the Nokia N8, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6-01, with wider availability to be announced later. We’ll let you know as soon as find out more about availability on other Nokia devices.

I have been using LinkedIn for years. Longer than my use of other social networking services like Facebook and Twitter. For purposes of work-related, professional networking, it is my first stop online – I check it at least once a day. So, when I heard that a free LinkedIn mobile app for use on Nokia’s new Symbian devices was available, I was of course eager to try it out. I have been using it on my Nokia E7, and for quick needs over the course of the day, this app is just right. There are some additional features and functions that I would like to see added in, but we’ll get to those in a bit.

For starters, have a look at this quick video by Rafe Blandford from All About Symbian, where he  shows the new LinkedIn app on the Nokia C7:

As you will see, this new Qt-based app is very smooth, and responsive – and the options are laid out clearly, so you will not have any trouble diving right in and getting started. I would say the app assumes some familiarity with the LinkedIn service – if you are not already a member, you can sign up/register online, for free (paid versions of the service are also available, but that choice is up to you).

When you first start the mobile app, you will see a log-in screen, which should be a one-time thing.

I would point out, however, that the Updates function in the app did seem to require – not everytime – that I log-out and then log back in to refresh the display.

Once you do log-in, you will see a clearly labeled home screen, with several options, including: Updates, Inbox, Invitations, Connections, Reconnect and Search.

Most of these choices are really quite self-explanatory. You will also see a link to your personal LinkedIn profile across the bottom of the screen (in case you’ve forgotten what you wrote about yourself!).

This profile page has a quick link to your Connections, as well as links within your profile to any website you may have listed, and of course displays your most recent status update, too.

To see what others are doing, click the Updates icon to see the most recent posts from your connections. When you do, you will notice a little drop-down arrow to the right of each update – click on that arrow, and you will have the option commenting on that update, “liking” it with a virtual thumbs up, sending a message to the person who posted the update, or sharing that update with other connections of yours in a message.

Now, one small nit to point out about the status updates – often times we will include links, or short bit.ly style links with our posts to one another – makes sense, right? You can’t click on any of these links when using the app – they come up as just text. I would think this could be fixed relatively easily, and will keep my fingers crossed that it is coming soon.

When you browse your Connections – like you can begin to see below – the list is clearly labeled, in alphabetical order. This is good, and makes sense – but if you have a lot of connections – and expect that you will before too long! – this can be a cumbersome means to view contact information. (Below we have a small portion of my contacts in the “B” part of the alphabet – by last name.)

You can search within the app, but this is also an alphabetical-only process – it covers everything, so make sure you have some idea of what you are looking for to try to narrow down the results. This is one of those items that I would love to see enhanced so it more closely mimics the search function of the LinkedIn website – there you can search by people, jobs, companies, groups (which are like communities of interest), status updates, answers (people help each other by answering questions posted online), and even your LinkedIn inbox.

One of the things you will come to appreciate within the app is the ability to share personal updates, which is a breeze, especially when using the built-in keyboard on a device like the Nokia E7. (I should also point out that the app toggles easily between portrait and landscape mode, as you need it.) You have up to 700 characters in LinkedIn but also have the option to post that update to your personal Twitter account, if you have the two services connected to one another. You can set the “visibility” of your updates so either only your personal connections can see them, or anyone on LinkedIn can view them – I usually pick the latter (I don’t have anything to hide).

So, yes, above you can see one of my small gripes with this app – there is no access to the Groups functionality within the app, which is too bad. I am actively participating in and contributing to a few different groups these days on LinkedIn, and being able to see the latest updates to those Groups from my Nokia device would be a huge help.

The new LinkedIn app is free to download from Ovi Store.

How do you conduct your professional social networking activities? Are you on LinkedIn, or using a different service? And, do you update by app? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

When I was in college, I spent countless hours playing brick-breaking games on my PC. I love them because they test your motor skills and basic strategy skills. Now, imagine my happiness when I got to try BriX – an advanced brick-breaking game where you get to play with four dimensions – length, width, height – and time. I have been playing BriX on my N8 and I love the variations and the depth of game play.

Brix was developed by Ladislav Týč, a developer from Czech Republic. Apart from the amazing BriX game, Ladislav has developed several other interesting apps for Nokia devices. As an introduction to our review, here is a video of BriX in action:

BriX can be played in two modes – ‘Free’ and ‘Career’. In the ‘Free’ mode you play randomly generated levels without any implications of failures. The ‘Free’ game mode has six game options namely ‘Classical’, ‘PCC’, ‘TimeAttack’, ‘Tetris’, ‘Single Color’ and ‘All’.  You start to experience the 3D effects of the application right from the application menu. The menu options appear to pop up creating a 3D experience.

If you are in a mood for a challenge, you should try the ‘Career’ mode. In the ‘Career’ mode, you can unlock newer levels by successfully completing basic levels.

The basic goal of the game is to destroy as many bricks as possible using the bouncing ball and the moving pad. You also have to ensure that the ball remains in the bounds of the game. Now, the similarity with other brick breaking games ends there. In BriX, you have to deal with 3-dimensional bricks and if you destroy a brick, all it’s adjoining bricks of the same color get destroyed. If you don’t destroy these bricks fast enough, they pile on top of each other and you lose!  Also, you can pause and go back and forth in time. So, if you lose your ball, you get one chance to go back in time and correct your error. Most important, the entire game area can move in three dimensions!

You can perform time navigation by clicking the rewind icon on the bottom left corner of the screen. You can also add additional balls to the game play by clicking the plus icon on the right top corner of the screen. You can stop time by clicking on the icon on the top left corner of the screen.

As I played this game, I discovered many interesting game variations such as several different types of bonuses. Bonuses come to you in the form of different colored balls. You can catch a bonus by aligning your pad to meet the approaching ball.  There are three types of bonuses – Positive (Green ball – worth 100 points), Neutral (Amber ball – worth 250 points) and Negative (Red ball – worth 500 points).In the image below, you can see multiple bonus balls.

Some examples of bonuses are: Freeze – A negative bonus that will disable your pad control. Rainbow – A positive bonus that will randomly change colors of the bricks. Fast Ball – A neutral bonus that will accelerate all the balls in the game. The bonus is valid for a short time and it’s active state is indicated by a status ball of the appropriate color at the bottom portion of the screen.Sometimes, the visual effects in the game may slow down the game. You can customize and disable specific kinds of visual effects (such as glare, background, and reflections) by going to the ‘Options’ menu on the home screen.

Overall, BriX is a very interesting and intricate game filled with challenges. If you love brick-breaking games, you will enjoy the unlimited possibilities of game play in this application. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s go and destroy some bricks!

BriX is available for free in Ovi store. If you need help with mastering some challenges, make sure you check out some how-to videos here.

Have you ever found yourself carrying USB thumb drives or maybe even using your Nokia N8 internal or external storage as a portable hard drive to carry files between your home and office? Do you e-mail files to yourself to access from another computer? Do you worry about hard drive crashes or loss of your vital data on your phone or computer? Would you like to access files on your computer while out and about with your phone? Would you like to upload photos taken with your N8 right to a folder on your family’s computer back home? If these types of file-sharing and back-up functions interest you, then you should check out the Symbian version of SugarSync for your Nokia smartphone.

SugarSync for Symbian OS, S60 5.0 devices first launched in August 2010 and came to the S60 3.X devices and Nokia’s new Symbian devices in February 2011. I have tried out many different cloud syncing and backup solutions, including Dropbox, Zumodrive, and SkyDrive, and it was clear to me that SugarSync was the best because of its cross-platform functionality, generous free 5GB accounts, and more (check out other compelling reasons on this comparison page). You can find SugarSync in Ovi Store for free as a 452 kb download.

Installation and Setup

After downloading the application from the Ovi Store and installing it on your Nokia smartphone, select the SugarSync icon and launch the app. The first screen you will see is the login/sign up screen. If you do not yet have a free 5GB SugarSync account, then select the Sign Up Free button. You will be taken to a sign up screen where you will need to enter your e-mail address and password twice and then choose the Sign Up Free button.

If you already have a SugarSync account then you can simply enter your e-mail address and password to login.

You will then see the main SugarSync interface with three main tabbed screens for Files, Photos, and Shared. SugarSync folders appear at the top with your devices listed in a section below. If you just installed the app on your Nokia device and haven’t connected via a PC or Mac then you likely will only see your phone in the devices section.

If you haven’t already, install the free SugarSync desktop client on your PC or Mac and choose files and folders that you wish to backup or sync to the cloud for access later. You can also choose to share folders with other people and a fun thing to do is to share a photo album with family or friends that you upload as you travel around so they can see your photos soon after you capture them.

Usage experiences

SugarSync is available on other platforms and some of those apps are a bit more advanced with support for streaming music from the cloud to your smartphone. All files accessed remotely from your Nokia smartphone are downloaded to your phone rather than streamed or opened up in a viewer remotely. When you download files that are in a supported format, such as Word or MP3, then the applicable application opens when the download is complete.

You can also upload files to your SugarSync cloud storage directory, they appear in the Web Archive folder in SugarSync and then you can share them out from that folder. The Web Archive directory is a backup only drive where you place files to access later.

It is easy to select from the different devices you have synced to SugarSync and then browse through the synced folders to get the files, photos, and music that you wish to enjoy.

You can upload photos you have taken with the “Upload Local File” option, but there is also an option to take a picture within the SugarSync app to upload that to the Mobile Uploads folder rather than the Web Archive. This is a good idea if you share your Mobile Uploads folder with family because as soon as you upload the photo and they sync their device with the directory they will see your new photo. The problem is the include photo capture functionality requires you to use an on-screen button to capture the photo while the device’s physical button is not used. After taking the photo you can choose to upload the photo. I don’t know if they can ever get it working where you can use the native photo capture utility, but if they did get it working then I would use it even more. I like the way you can now have photos taken with an Android device uploaded automatically after you take them and hope this feature eventually comes to Symbian as well.

I find it comforting to know I can always get access to my synced files or post a file to the cloud for safe keeping with my Nokia N8 and SugarSync. You can actually access SugarSync from within your preferred web browser too and control your SugarSync account from within the browser. IMHO, the dedicated application offers a faster and more optimal experience and since it is free there is no reason not to load it up on all of your Nokia devices.

Overall final thoughts

As a person who uses many devices, having the ability to be able to access and upload files to a central repository is refreshing and comforting. I no longer have to worry about where I placed an important file as long as it is synced to SugarSync I know I can access it from anywhere, including right from my phone. With 5GB of storage available for free there is no reason everyone shouldn’t at least give this a try. If you need more storage, then you can check out their pricing options that I am sure you will agree are also very reasonable.

SugarSync is free to download from Ovi Store.

About the Guest Blogger

Matthew Miller started using mobile devices in 1997 and has owned hundreds of PDAs and smartphones. He currently writes the Nokia Experts website and the ZDNet Smartphones & Cell Phones blog. He can be found on Twitter @palmsolo.

The new social networking app called Flowd is tailored for music lovers, and you can customize the way you use the app so that it is a perfect fit for your needs. And by music lovers I mean, well, I didn’t see any symphony orchestras on the artist list, but I did see literally hundreds of contemporary musicians and bands, from Shizzle to Adam Day. So, if your idea of the perfect Friday night is getting together with friends in the mosh pit of your favorite band, this app is aimed straight at you.

Simply put, here’s what is in it: There is a means of following any or all of your favorite bands, including finding the events relating to a given band, as well as the flow of commentary from the artists themselves. That’s one end of it. The other end is your social networking with your friends, commenting on the events, posting messages that are read by the artists as well as your friends, and easily posting pictures that you take at the events and elsewhere. The third part of the app is geo-location, giving you a map showing where an event is being held, the ability to add your own events to the map, and to find local points of interest that are not far from you. Did I mention a Facebook posting interface built into the app? Well, I should have.

But before I get too far, let’s take a moment to watch this interview with the team from Digia that developed the Flowd app using the Qt SDK 1.1. As you will hear, Digia was able to develop this app in about six weeks, which included learning how to use Qt Quick from scratch:

I checked out Flowd on my Nokia N8, and overall found it quite easy to setup and use. The first thing that it does is let you hook u