The Cellphone Meets the PC

Many cellphones have features that can be readily enhanced and managed using a PC. You can use your PC to manage your phone’s the address book, send SMSs, synchronize other data, download ring tones, create and update logos, pictures, and more. There are two ways to connect a handset to a PC: through the IR port or a data cable. Not all handsets have an IR port, but data cables are available at your local cellphone accessories shop. Let’s look at some software to manage features and data on a

cellphone. 

Phone-manager software



Of the many phone-manager software, Oxygen Phone Manager for Nokia phones is a feature-rich one. This works with all of Nokia’s 3x to 8x series of handsets. Communicating with the handset over the IR port, it lets you read, edit and store your phone book, speed dial from a PC, synchronize (import and export) data with Microsoft Outlook, Lotus Notes or even CSV files. It also allows you to manage your handset’s calendar/scheduler. You can edit, browse, sort or filter these entries. For WAP-enabled cellphones, it can also manage your bookmarks. 

Chose your color Cellphones come with default light colors (normally fluorescent green). They use small LEDs to illuminate the keypad as well as the display screen. LEDs come in many colors and are electronic components that connect onto a circuit board. To change the color of the lights on your handset, you have to change the LEDs. With a little soldering and de-soldering, an electronic hobbyist can accomplish the job with ease.  But, proceed at your own risk! Unscrew the cover from the handset. Remove the keypad from the circuit board to locate the LEDs for keypad illumination. Locating the display screen illumination LEDs is a little tricky as it involves unscrewing the LCD display from the circuit board. To remove the existing LEDs, heat one side of the LED with a soldering iron and apply a little pressure on the underside using a paper pin. Once one leg is freed, you can hold it with tweezers and de-solder the other leg too. Heat away any stray solder spatter on the contacts and solder the new (different color) LEDs in place. Take care to change the complete set of LEDs for the handset otherwise they may not work. Alternatively, you may find a small-time guy doing this job in your local cellphone market (like the Gaffaar market in Delhi).

An SMS manager lets you send text, pictures, ring tones and logos, receive SMS and organize SMS folders. It has a built-in logo editor to edit caller group logos. It also has a ring-tone editor to enter ring tones (using a Midi-port-connected keyboard) and manage your ring tones. The program works under all flavors of Windows OS.

A trial version of the software is available at www.download. com and for more details you can refer to

www.oxygensoftware.com

Ring-tone software



Iguana Ring is a freeware that lets you convert any MIDI file into the RTTTL format (the format that Nokia phones use for ring tones). Once converted, you can upload it to your cellphone using a data cable or SMS it through an SMS website. Free download is available at

www.astratta.com/download_accessori_telefonia.htm

Ring tone Converter V3.3 is an enhanced tool that can take RTTTL format and convert RTTTL codes into Nokia’s ring tone composer format (binary format). It can also convert RTTL format into key presses. Typing in the key sequence in the ring-tone composer on your handset creates tones. Ring tones can also be played back on your PC before uploading them.

These formats can also be saved to a text file for future use. Free download of this software is available at

www.convertyourtone.com

Logo manager



Logo Manager for Nokia phones is a powerful logo editor and even has a built-in quick ring tone editor for the RTTTL format. This allows you to create and edit logos that you would like to upload on your handset. It can use BMP files as input and displays them on a virtual screen which looks like your cellphone’s LCD. It has tools like quick shapes, lines and text for making your own logos. For uploading the created logos on your cellphone, it supports direct cable and infrared connection.

The software can be downloaded from www.1st-free ringtones4nokia. com/zips/logomanagerguide.zip

You’ll find many of these software on our next month’s CD.

Ashish Sharma