Visser Labs

Monday, February 25, 2008

Sony Ericsson. Wheres your head at?

Sony Ericsson has released a suite of new babies, real gems that I’m truly drooling over, but have the Sony Ericsson development team forgotten what got them onto the industry pedestal they are now firmly on? (more…)

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

ANZ M-Banking Fails on Sony Ericsson P1i

ANZ M-Banking on the Sony Ericsson P1iANZ have recently launched M-Banking, ANZ Mobile Phone Banking, giving bank customers secure, instant access to account information.

This is big news for Friday spenders who can now be notified when their scheduled salary goes in and when to hit the nightlife.

ANZ Mobile Phone Banking has been launched in two flavours, a secure Java application named M-Banking - which is set for continued development as ANZ’s standard mobile platform – and it’s handicapped sibling TXT Banking, a handshake of cryptic SMS’s to gain basic account information.

This is great news for mobile users, except the Sony Ericsson P1i, who are presented with “Download Failed. I’m sorry, but your phone does not support M-Banking” when downloading the M-Banking application. In the meantime Sony Ericsson P1i users can register for TXT Banking to access critical banking information.

I hope ANZ get onto solving this issue very soon as I’m confident this message will be appearing on other mobile devices. Are you an ANZ customer? What are your thoughts on ANZ M-Banking? More importantly how long will it remain free?

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Smooth Video Playback on the Sony Ericcson P1i

Time to confess, we’ve all done it. Copied a video that plays fine on the computer yet shutters, skips and pops as soon as it hits your Sony Ericsson P1i. There is a fix. (more…)

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Big Business Rewards Customer Feedback

Dominos AustraliaDominos Australia continue to set industry examples by rewarding unsolicited customer feedback. Usually a critical raised-eyebrow or “k thx bye” is deserved, making Dominos gesture push way beyond any customer expectation. (more…)

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Sony Ericsson P1i FAQ Launches

The latest Features release Sony Ericsson P1i FAQ is now online. If you have any questions about the Sony Ericsson P1i – from loading music onto your mobile to building UIQ themes – this is the place to ask. Drop in a request that you’d like answered, even the simplest questions will be seen to.

In addition, the home page now features a rotating FAQ Questions & Answer, maybe it’ll be the answer you’re looking for. An RSS feed of FAQ questions will be available shortly… stay tuned.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Integrating Reinvigorate into Wordpress

Why the Reinvigorate for Wordpress plugin – available from Reinvigorate – doesn’t work is beyond me! Making a hard-coded fix isn’t, and as an added bonus it doesn’t distort your statistics by filtering out Administrators browsing the site. (more…)

Wireless Winamp with the Sony Ericsson P1i

Wireless Winamp on the Sony Ericsson P1iThe Sony Ericsson P1i is equip with 801.11b wireless network support, so you can browse the internet, check your e-mails and update your feeds – without using a paid 3G or GPRS mobile connection – simply by connecting to established home and office wireless networks.

Keeping this feature in mind I wanted to control my Winamp music library throughout the house, hell, if I’m in the mood for some background trip-hop instead of sassy jazz I walk to my computer no longer! Here’s how I did it and you can too…

Requirements

First things first, you need the following for this to work:

  • Sony Ericsson P1i (or other wifi-enabled device that supports mobile web-surfing)
  • A home/office wireless LAN (Local Area Network) that supports 801.11b connections
  • A Windows XP/Vista machine accessible from the wireless network
  • Winamp (works up to the latest release, Winamp 5.52)
  • Winamp Web Interface (WAWI 7.5.13) plugin for Winamp
  • Sample music library

Install Winamp Web Interface

Start by downloading the Winamp Web Interface (WAWI) plugin for Winamp from WAWI: Winamp Web Interface. At the time of writing the latest plugin could be downloaded at Wawi 7.5.13 (109k). Please visit the Wawi site for updated releases.

Install the WAWI plugin for Winamp

  1. Visit the WAWI website at http://www.flippet.org/wawi/
  2. From the left-menu under Files download Wawi (hat-icon)
  3. Install the downloaded plugin
  4. Close Winamp

Configure Winamp for WAWI

Now that our plugin has been installed let’s configure WAWI for this computer. WAWI supports user profiles and permissions, so you can give yourself god-mode rights while restricting your brothers and sisters to only playing songs. It’s all covered below.

  1. Open Winamp
  2. Open Winamp Preferences through the right-click menu under Options > Preferences… Ctrl+P
  3. Open the General Purpose page within Plug-ins
  4. Select Winamp Web Interface Plugin v.7.5.13 (gen_httpSrv.dll)
  5. Press Configure selected plug-in to open Winamp Web Interface Config
  6. Open the Server tab
  7. Change Port: to 8080 (this prevents any conflicts with other software using HTTP Port 80)
  8. Open the Users tab
  9. Create a new Super-user by filling in User and Password (eg. michael, password)
  10. Check all boxes to allow all permission for this user
  11. Press Add/Update to finalise this user
  12. Open the Music Collection tab
  13. Fill Root Directory with the directory of your music library (eg. D:\music\)
  14. Fill Playlist Directory with the directory of your music playlists (eg. D:\music\playlists\)
  15. Update Loadable Filetypes to include your default music file extensions (eg. mp3 wav m3u url ogg)
  16. Open the Web Page tab
  17. Ensure No Frames is selected
  18. Update Web Page Title (eg. Sony Ericsson P1i Winamp Remote)
  19. Press Apply to save changes
  20. Press OK to close Winamp Web Interface Config

That’s WAWI all ready to go. If you got stuck or have any questions please ask below.

Connecting to your wireless network (WLAN)

  1. Turn on your Sony Ericsson P1i
  2. Open WLAN
  3. From the More selection menu choose Enable WLAN
  4. Select your WLAN from the list of detected networks
  5. Press Connect (enter your WEP/WPA key if prompted)

You are now connected to the chosen WLAN. Almost there!

Opening a WAWI connection

WAWI works just like a website, the only difference being it sends requests to Winamp on our behalf.

  1. Turn on your Sony Ericsson P1i
  2. Open Web
  3. From the More selection menu choose Go to web page (1)
  4. Fill in the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the machine where you installed WAWI followed by Port 8080 (eg. http://10.1.1.5:8080)
  5. When prompted enter your WAWI User and Password (eg. michael, password)

That’s it. WAWI for Winamp is now running!

Change the volume of your music as it’s playing, add and delete songs in your playlist through Playlists and Music Collection, all from your couch, bedroom, use your imagination! Massive shouts go out to Phil Himsworth for developing Winamp Web Interface (WAWI), without his efforts none of this would have been possible.

Vibrating Selection keys on the Sony Ericsson P1i

Switch on the Sony Ericsson P1i vibrating Selection keys option so that every time you press on the bottom-bar buttons (Calls – Select – More) the phone goes into the motions and vibrates. It makes using your phone fun! (more…)