How-to: a physical keyboard for Huawei P8 Lite

Original post in Finnish HERE.

As you may have noticed, I am so tired of the fact that the phone models with a physical keyboard are non-existent. Well, now that we, the power users, just have to deal with it, I decided to make my own keyboard. It's not very expensive (about $25 currently) and I really recommend making this if you're that guy who likes to hear and feel the nice clicks. It's going to be a big, ugly monster if you ask a common slab user, but for us it's actually not bad, even though I'm the one saying this :D

I chose P8 Lite because it has the camera in the corner so that the cover doesn't block the view at all. I have a Samsung Galaxy S5, but the problem for that model is that the camera lens is in the middle so it's not a good option if you like to do photographing.

What you need:
- Dremel or similar small hobby drill
- glue
- a screwdriver

What you'll need to buy:
- an iPhone 6 keyboard cover - $19.62
- Huawei P8 Lite's cover x 2 - $5.50 total
(optional: keyboard stickers for your local layout, I use Scandinavian)


So let's begin. Tear the sticker off from the cover.

Remove the screws and then the phone holder part. In the image below the keyboard part is already fitted to the P8 Lite cover.

Now you can see that the cover is a wee bit taller than the keyboard part, so now it's time to use the Dremel to saw a few millimeter off.

Now fit the iPhone's holder part to the P8 Lite's holder part (not the one you just used the Dremel on) and drill holes to the same places that the iPhone's holder has. Also, remove the aluminium backplate from the P8 Lite's cover.

Clean the drilled holes a bit and modify them so that the screws sink in there nicely. If the screws you removed are too short, there are some longer screws in the keyboard part which you can take out and use. You probably will have to saw them a bit after.

Now take some glue and put a few drops of it in the lower P8 Lite cover.

Then you just fit the keyboard to the lower cover and there you go!

You can use this method for lots of other phones as well.

WhatsApp ending support for S60

It's a sad year. WhatsApp has announced that they will drop the support for marginal operating systems after 2016. Marginal OS's include S60, of course. I've been using WhatsApp on my Nokia E90 for a while now and while it's not fast, it functions well and there's nothing wrong with it.

Now I think it's time to move on... I decided to get myself a cover with a keyboard for my Samsung Galaxy S3. Actually two of them.

Image (c) dhgate.com

Image (c) tinydeal.com

And on top of that I also got myself A Motorola Droid 4 for just 60 €. We'll see how these gadgets manage to do the job in the hands of a long time Communicator user.

Image (c) Androidcentral.com

Too bad the Nordic keyboard layout is missing from all of today's devices, but I think I can draw Ä and Ö characters on the keyboard with a white marker.

BTW. Check out this FB page. It lists comments and yearnings about QWERTY phones.

https://www.facebook.com/qwertyless/

Physical QWERTY phones are wanted!

I just found the Concept-phones.com website which lists imaginary phones found all over the web from different people. Once I found the site, I browsed it enthusiastically, and one of the best devices there is Omar Piela's Lumia Communicator concept. The satellite phone function aside, it's a very nice concept. I went and praised the device on the website and on YouTube.

There's also an iPhone Communicator, which is also quite nice.

Also the Nokia E7 form factor has been an inspiration for at least one QWERTY phone:

http://www.concept-phones.com/nokia/nokia-lumia-960-tablet-runs-windows-rt-adopts-7-inch-display-nokia-e7-form-factor/

Maybe the time for Communicators will come once again: it's clear that people still want them and there is a huge demand of such devices. A lot of business users and the majority of previous power users are fed up with the current devices. Check the comments section of this article, for example.

"I would gladly fork out a nice hunk of change for a high spec android cell with a brilliantly made QWERTY keyboard. As someone who travels frequently and has family and friends scattered all over the world, texting is by far, much cheaper than calling. Hence, I won't buy an android cell if it doesn't have a physical keyboard. Not only is is more accurate but I can type touch with a physical keyboard. This is very handy on the go."

"MAKE A HIGH QUALITY QWERTY KEYBOARD PHONE I'M TIRED OF FULL TOUCH SCREEN PHONES- LG G2 owner."

"With 9 out of the top selling 10 Android apps being games, it seems that those of us who want to use our phones as tools for increasing our efficiency are a minority. Most people use their phones as time wasting devices optimized for playing "irate poultry" and upload pictures of high school drunks to Instagram.
I suspect that's the reason for the lack of qwerty-phones."

The bolded part is the problem. Manufacturers don't care about the power users any more. Phones are made for the masses, the irate poultry that doesn't do anything useful with their phones.

There is no company that makes quality phones for power users any more. It's a sad fact, but hopefully it will change one day.

Blackberry makes QWERTY devices, but the keyboards are ridiculously small and cumbersome to use. Why can't they make a full QWERTY clamshell like the old Nokia 9500, for example?

Meanwhile, all we can do is to keep on believing and use our old QWERTY phones. I'm currently using Nokia E90. It's a nice device, although S60 isn't as good as the old S80. My current dream would be Nokia E90's form factor, and inside there would be Ubuntu Mobile or Android. Like this.

Ubuntu on a Nokia E90 Communicator. That would be nice.

Commander - a new communicator

Five years of silence is broken now.

Symbian is dead, but I still miss communicators, they were the best devices ever. That's why I've been designing my own dream phone, a new communicator which uses Android based UI. Its name is

Commander.

Commander's UI mechanics are exactly the same as the most powerful phone - Nokia 9210 Communicator - had.

Check it out and please let me know what you think!

http://symbioosi.net/commander/index.html

Come and establish a company in Finland... OR NOT!

I've been thinking and weighing some facts about establishing a company here in Finland. Currently the deal goes like this:

- if you make profit, 26% of it goes to taxes (government and municipality)

- you have to carry all the risks on your shoulders

- if you don't make enough profit, neither the government nor the municipality is there to help or support you, you'll have to make it on your own

- you still have to pay the place's rent, the water + eletricity + internet bill and all other expenses

- you'll also have to LIVE with the money you have earned, which sometimes may be negative

Now the government (more specifically the Green League's representative Anni Sinnemäki) is planning on adding the taxes so that instead of paying the good ol' 26%, you'd have to give 47% away of your earnings. And this new 21% must be given from the money you pay yourself to be able to LIVE. And it is taken only from the companies that aren't listed in the stock (i.e. small ones).

So, if you are planning on establishing a company in Finland, I very strongly recommend not to. This is nothing but a tax and bureaucracy paradise. The government has been recommending to establish a company for a long time, but this time it clearly shows that some of them want to add the difficulty of running a company to new levels.

There are going to be lots of quit enterpreneurs if the law passes through and takes effect. If you make profit in Finland, the government and the municipality want some half of it, but if you fail running it, you'll be punished by months without money (normally you'd get the joblessness support ~400 € / month minimum) after declaring bankrupcy. And you'd still have those unpaid expenses in your account. No wonder Finnish people commit suicides so often ;)

My-Symbian.com-vetoomus / My-Symbian.com petition

ceroberts75 My-Symbian.com-foorumilla teki vetoomuksen sivuston puolesta Nokialle luettavaksi, eli kaikki jotka ovat sivuston puolesta, kannattaa kirjoittaa koska Nokian touhussa ei mielestäni ole mitään järkeä kohdella sivustoa kuin roskaa, kaiken sen jälkeen mitä ylläpitäjä on tehnyt Nokian ja Symbianin hyväksi. Kirjoitin itsekin vetoomuksen, mutta kommentistani taisi tulla liian pitkä, koska se ei näy allekirjoituksissa.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/my-symbian/index.html

ceroberts75 on the My-Symbian.com forum created a petition on behalf of My-Symbian.com to be read by Nokia, so everyone who is on the site's side, I ask you to sign the petition because there's really no sense in Nokia's way in which it treats the site and the administrator. Especially after what the site has done for Nokia and Symbian - promoted every Symbian device out there, but Nokia just ignores it. I signed the petition but my comment was probably to large so it doesn't show in the signatures. But here it is.

"This is truly the best Symbian site there is, and I really can't understand why Nokia treats the site like cr*p. Michal is always the last one who gets the review phones (or not at all), like the N900, which were given to 300 people at the Maemo Summit, but there's no unit left for him although he's been constantly asking Nokia for months if he could get one. 

My-Symbian has been on the net before Symbian was even born, and has ALWAYS promoted Nokia's products from the GEOS Communicator times, and has brought thousands of new customers for Nokia and has kept a thousand more as Nokia users. Somehow Nokia doesn't see it and leaves the site out of link lists (like in the case of Nokia Conversations), and the Maemo Marketing Manager doesn't even respond to his e-mails regarding a better N900 review phone than the one Michal had to obtain unofficially, with broken/ missing radio chip!?

Nokia acts very immaturely towards My-Symbian and Michal, and I'd like to hear a reason for this."

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/my-symbian/index.html

My-Symbian.com is in trouble

My-Symbian, aikaisemmin My-Communicator, on maailman vanhin vielä pystyssä oleva Symbiania käsittelevä sivusto. Olen käynyt siellä siitä asti, kun ostin ensimmäisen Nokia 9210:ni, ja siellä on listattuna vieläkin samat kommunikaattorille ladattavat sovellukset, mitä Symbianin alkuaikoina tuli markkinoille ja freewarena jaettavaksi.

Mielestäni sivusto on hyvinkin ansainnut paikkansa parhaana Symbian-käyttöjärjestelmään keskittyvänä sivustona, ja mielestäni admin Michał Jerz on pitänyt varsinkin foorumin todella siistinä bottien ajoittaisesta floodaamisesta huolimatta. Toisin kuin esim. All About Symbianin keskustelupalstalla, ei tuolla ole esim. S80-alafoorumin joukossa esim. iPhone- ja Nokia N81-viestiketjuja. Ymmärtääkseni myös aloitetut ketjut vaativat moderaattorin hyväksynnän, mikä tässä tapauksessa todella ihmetyttää minua. Itse yritin tehdä sinne ketjun yli puoli vuotta sitten uudesta S80-ohjelmastani, E-numeroiden hakuohjelmasta, mutta ketjua ei vieläkään ole hyväksytty(?) iPhone-hypetystä alkaa näemmä olemaan jo niin paljon, että entropian lakien mukaisesti se leviää kaikkialle ympäristöön, tässä tapauksessa AAS-foorumien S80-keskusteluihin.

My-Symbian.comissa ketjua ei edes vaadita hyväksyttäväksi, ja silti sen alafoorumit ovat sinne kuulumattomista aiheista täysin puhtaat. My-Symbian.comissa pyörii myös asiantuntevimmat ihmiset aina Forum Nokian jälkeen, ja itse olen aina löytänyt ratkaisun ongelmaan kuin ongelmaan, koskipa se sitten UIQ-, S60-, S90- tai S80-alustan laitetta. Nykyään foorumilla on käynnissä myös kovat Maemo-keskustelut.

My-Symbian on todella suosittu sivusto; noin vuosi sitten Michałin mukaan tiedonsiirtomäärä oli 6-7 gigatavua PÄIVÄSSÄ (herran jumala!), ja uskon tuon olevan noussut vuodessa mm. Maemo-alueen aktiivisuuden lisääntyessä. Sivuston ylläpitäminen maksaa useita satoja euroja kuukaudessa, eikä esim. Google Ads -klikkailuja ja tukilahjoituksia tule tällä hetkellä läheskään tarpeeksi kattamaan puoliakaan siitä summasta. Ostettujen ohjelmien kautta tulevista provisioista ei kannata edes puhua, sillä erittäin harva käyttäjä ostaa My-Symbianin kautta ohjelmia. Sivusto on juuri tämän takia häviämässä Internetistä parin kuukauden sisään, mikä on TODELLA sääli. Lisäksi mm. Nokia on aina käyttäytynyt My-Symbiania kohtaan todella töykeästi, mm. jättänyt sen pois virallisilta linkkilistoilta, lähettänyt arvosteluja varten prototyyppilaitteita pitkällä viivellä ja useasti vasta monen yhteydenoton jälkeen. Kun ajatellaan, mitä sivusto on tehnyt Nokian maineelle, voidaan todellakin ihmetellä Nokian ylimielistä käyttäytymistä. Michał kirjoittaa arvosteluissaan AINA positiiviseen sävyyn, ja ehkä kerran pari mainitsee sivulauseessa, mitä Nokian kannattaisi tehdä tuotteen parantamiseksi. Silti hän ei ole mitenkään hyökkäävän kritisoiva, ja hän osaa ottaa huomioon että laite todellakin on vasta kehitysasteella.

My-Symbian tarvitsee joka ikisen kynnelle kykenevän lahjoitusta, jotta se voidaan pitää verkossa mahdollisimman pitkään. Varsinkin näinä pimeinä taantuman aikoina serverimaksujen odotetaan nousevan, jolloin sivuston rahallinen ylläpitäminen on yhdelle ihmiselle todella vaikeaa.

Keltainen lahjoitusnappula löytyy foorumilta. Olkaa hyvä ja antakaa jonkinlainen lahjoitussumma hänelle, se auttaa paljon.



My-Symbian, formely known as My-Communicator, is the oldest still running site concerning the Symbian operating system. I've been visiting it since I got my first Nokia 9210, and there are still listed all the apps which were available at the time. Including freeware.

I think the site has deserved its place as the best Symbian site, and I think the admin Michał Jerz has kept the forum clean of the bots' timely flooding attempts. Unlike in the case of All About Symbian forums, My-Symbian doesn't have e.g. threads concerning iPhone and Nokia N81 in its S80 subforum, which is for the Nokia Communicators. As I've understood, if you want to make a new thread on AAS, it must get the moderator's approval, but still the place is flooded with irrelevant threads in wrong subforums. It can't help wondering why my totally relevant thread about my new app for S80, the E number database program, even now hasn't had the moderator's approval, and I left it to be approved there over half a year ago. And as you can see, the iPhone hype is so all over the place that you can actually witness the law of entropy taking place there - the iPhone-related subjects overflow into the places where they don't belong.

In My-Symbian.com the thread doesn't need such approval, and still, miraculously, its subforums are completely clean of any irrelevant subject. I think all the savvy tech people visit that forum the most, right after Forum Nokia which is mainly for the developers. From My-Symbian's HUGE amount of messages I've found a solution always when I've searched for it - whether it was about S80, S90, UIQ or S60. And even if I wouldn't have, there's always the option to take part in the discussion e.g. in the form of a new thread.

My-Symbian is immensely popular site; about a year ago, according to Michał, the site's traffic was 6-7 GB a DAY (crikey!), and I strongly believe those figures have grown during the year because, for one, there's currently a very hot Maemo discussion going on. Keeping the site in the Internet consumes Michał's funds several hundred dollars per month, and I think that's an overwhelming price for one person. And the Google Ads clicks and the site supporter donations don't compensate even half of the costs, which is really a pity. The software sales revenues aren't even worth mentioning. This is why the site is going to be showing 404 in a matter of months. In addition to that, Nokia's attitude towards the site really pisses me off, e.g. it has left My-Symbian out of the link lists, although AAS and a lot of small, never-heard-of sites were added with no problem. My-Symbian has added an amazing value to Nokia's products, and the phone giant treats its longest-lasting supporter this way. Also Michał always writes about the phone reviews in positive tune, with maybe telling about a small flaw in a subordinate clause, still moving on to the positive things. He also takes into account the fact that it's still a prototype and subject to changes, and tells this in his writings. Oh, and guess what Nokia does? They always send the prototypes to Michał late, and usually after multiple contact attempts.

Now My-Symbian needs everyone's support so it can be kept on the Internet for as long as possible. Especially in these economically dark times I can only see the running costs rise, and that's why the site is currently so volatile to simply vanish some day.

The yellow donate button is on the forum. Please donate some amount as it helps him to cover the costs better.