Simplest and free navigation in Moscow

 

The easiest and totally free way to navigate in Moscow is using Yandex Maps. Application is available for WM, Symbian, UIQ and java phones. It is similar to Nokia Maps, you can download map fragments on the go, via GPRS. I used it during my last visit to Moscow and found that it has the best detalization compared to Nokia or TomTom maps. And if you choose to connect via GPRS and update your location data, you will get access to traffic situation too. However, until now there was a catch22 - the people who needs such navigation most, would be ones not willing to use it due to sky-high prices of data roaming. I personally, used Russian SIM for that trip, but it is not something easy to do for a foreigner, or anybody on a short visit. Now, this problem is solved for smartphones (read not for Java phones), because now you can download full Moscow map (60MB streets or 183MB steets+satellite) availablefrom Yandex Mobile Maps website

 

and put it into predefined directory on your phone. Disclaimer! I have not done it yet, but will try soon.

P.S. While at it, provided you get a local SIM, it is also the easiest way to navigate most other largest Russian/Ukrainian cities, currently, 15 cities available: Москвa, Санкт-Петербург, Киев, Екатеринбург, Краснодар, Нижний Новгород, Новосибирск, Одесса, Орел, Ростов, Рязань, Самара, Тула, Уфа, Челябинск, Татарстан, Крым.

How to: run 2 mobile gmail apps on the same phone

Do You have more than one Gmail account and java enabled mobile phone (probably 99% of phones on the market now), and you would like to conveniently access both (or more) accounts without having to logoff/login between them all the time?

There is a simple way to do it, you can have several gmail clients installed on your phone, each configured with different mailbox name and password. On phones that allow more than one java program running at the same time (89% of them do...) you can even keep several mailboxes open.

The only problem that keeps you from doing so, is the fact that most phones will not let you to install more than one instance of any java app. To overcome this, we need to edit java midlet name. While at it, you can also customize application icon, for example, to coincide with your avatar for that mailbox.

Ok, first, we need to get the .jar file, which is the actual body of the program. If you go to gmail.com/app using non-mobile browser, you will not get a download link for your phone model. I used Firefox addon, called " User Agent Switcher" to create simple UA filled with "x" in each field. This tricks google into thinking that we connect from unknown mobile browser and giving us a download link for a generic java app (not optimized for your specific phone). If you want to find app exactly for your phone model, then you need to find your phone's precise UA string. (Google for it?)

Now, download .jad - the java declaration file, from given link.

Use Notepad to open .jad file. It contains path to .jar.

Now, download .jar file. Back it up. Unpack with RAR, 7Zip or any other program that works wth .rar files. Inside, find META-INF\MANIFEST.MF. Change midlet name - this allows to install several identic apps under different names. Then change text after mdlet-1: this will be the name that will appear under icon of installed app. And last, I changed icon to my avatar. For this, save your avatar as 32x32 or 64x64 .png file.

Now, it's time to put the changed manifest back into jar :). You can do it by opening original .jar and drag-n-drop new manifest overwriting the old one. If you changed icon, drop it in the .jar root, nearby or instead of GmailIcon.png.

Now, send your .jar to the phone, install, login, enjoy.

You can switch Firefox back to original UA profile.

Multiple Gmail apps on Nokia

The same .jar files that I prepared for Sony Ericsson couple of weeks ago, also works on my new Nokia 6120 Classic.

Mobile Gmail app, v1.1.1 MIDP - 2nd and 3rd instance

If you have several gmail accounts, and wanted to run several mobile gmail apps on your java enabled mobile phone, you probably ran into trouble when trying to install more than one gmail.jar into your phone. Java doesn't allow multiple instances of the same program on Sony Ericsson phones. I edited program name in java manifesto to circumvent this restriction.

You can find v1.1.1 (generic MIDP2) gmail2 and gmail3 here http://rapidshare.com/files/40491513/gmail23.zip.html

I tested it on SE K610. Please comment how it works for you.