I Help Stupid People » Mobile

Installing a New Theme on a Windows Smart Phone

Paul Anderson — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 13:24:49 +0000

So you just got your new slick smart phone but it has your carrier’s graphics plastered all over the screen. Well along with the ever important job of picking your new ring tone it’s time for you to personalize the overall look and feel of the screen. The easiest way is to start with a quick search for “free wm themes” and then start browsing through some of the sites until you find one you like. A windows mobile theme is not much more than a typical XML file that basically tells the phone what colors and fonts to use.

Ok, so you’ve found the perfect theme for your phone now what do you do with that .tsk file? Well the first step is to connect your phone to your PC. Now you need to open ActiveSync if it isn’t already open. You’ll want to click the Explore button in the ActiveSync (see screenshot).

Once you have clicked to explore you phone you’ll want to browse into the “My Documents” folder and paste the .tsk theme file into this directory. Now that you have the them on your phone the only thing left to do is activate the theme. You’ll want to grab your phone and go to the settings and click on the “Today Screen”. Once you have this pulled up you should see a list of available themes. Choose the one you just installed and you’re all set.

DVD to Mobile

dm — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:00:06 +0000

Cant get enough of your favorite DVD? Want to take it with you on the go? Have a video playing cell phone, ipod, or handy dandy video playing something or other? We’ll I’m going to help you get your movie from DVD to your mobile device. There are several ways of doing so, some cost money some don’t. If your like me you want the way that “don’t” even if a takes an extra step or two.

Here is what you need:

DVD

DVD-rom

DvdShrink

Pocketdivxencoder

Step 1: Rip the movie with dvdshrink

- Pop in your disk and open dvdshrink, then click open disk and wait for it to load

- Select the re-author tab from the toolbar and dbl click the “main movie” so it shows in the left pane.

- now click on your main movie on the left, and in the right pane you see a drop down box, select custom ratio and use the slider to shrink. (for mobile i make it as small as possible and then next program i make it even smaller)

- click backup and the location to save the .vob files to.

Step 2: Further Compression

- open your pocketdivxencoder (a pop-up will appear and i just select the pc/crt monitor)

- now we need to choose the file to encode, so browse out to where you saved your .vob files and select the .vob1

- then select the output destination

- now its time for some trial and error i usually drop the audio quality to 4-5 then drop the video quality till my file is around 650mb (now when this converts the actual file should be around 525-550mb even though we had it at 650)

tada! Now if you video player does not play .avi you might need a different encoder or use a converter on the .avi file to a format your player will read.

How to Copy & Paste on a Palm Treo

Paul Anderson — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:45:53 +0000

There are a couple of different methods to accomplish this task, depending on how you use your Treo one will probably be more user friendly than the other. I personally get mad when I have to use the stylus so I always look for the keypad shortcuts.To copy & paste using the stylus, you first highlight the text you want to copy then you press your menu button and tap on edit then finally tap on copy. To paste you just place the cursor where you want the text and do the same steps only this time click on paste.

If you notice on your menu items there is a little upward slanting line and usually a letter. This is telling you what the shortcut is for that task. For instance copy is /C to use the shortcuts you will press the menu button and then the letter corresponding to the shortcut you want to use. So to copy paste you would hit menu C and then menu P to paste the copied text.

You can use this technique for any shortcut. Enjoy.

Editor Note: This applies to all Treo’s using the Palm OS.

Treo Touchscreen Not Working

Paul Anderson — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:41:09 +0000

The touch screen, in my opinion, is what sets the Treo apart from other phones like the Blackberry. I would feel completely lost without it so here are a few tips that I have gathered to help you get your touch screen up an running again.If the Treo’s screen is not working at all no matter where you touch then chances are something is pressing on the screen already, most likely your screen protector. Make sure that your screen protector is not pushed under the edges of the case and the screen; this will sometimes apply constant pressure to the screen causing it to not respond when you touch it. When you apply the screen protector you want to be sure and leave a small gap between the screens frame and the screen protector.

If the Treo is responding when you touch the screen, but seems to be opening the wrong applications or clicking on the wrong area of the screen all you probably need to do is realign the touch screen. Realigning the touch screen is a very simple process and you can accomplish this by going to your Preferences -> Touch Screen and then follow the instructions on the screen. Remember to be very accurate when touching the screen to realign or you will experience the same problem you are trying to fix.

Hopefully one of the above solutions has helped you to resolve your Treo’s dead touch screen; however, if all else fails the 5 way directional pad on the phone is easily the second best feature and with a little bit of training on your thumbs part you can quickly navigate the Treo without pulling the stylus out of the holder. I have found that most avid Treo owners actually tend to prefer the 5 direction pad over the stylus.