iandouglas.com

A user named Jason Emailed me asking a few questions that I figured I’d answer here on my site:

1. What programs do you see worthwhile installing on the BJ2? I currently have GoogleMaps installed. What about like fizzweather or something like that?

I got a free license for fizzweather when Handango was running their Free App Fridays in 2007 — unfortunately they’ve discontinued the weekly promotion, and I find their applications are too expensive to purchase to see if they even work with the BJ2. Doesn’t anybody make eval-ware or 3-day demo applications any more?

Apps I have installed that I use *all* the time:
GoogleMaps — GPS/traffic data streams while driving around Los Angeles is a HUGE help.
RescoExplorer — having a membership at MoDaCo got me a free copy of this window explorer app which I find more feature-rich than the ‘explorer’ application that ships with WM6.
SmartMilleBourne — my favorite card strategy game
iNigma — just released a new version this week, a super easy way to install apps on your phone
Plaxo — sync’s all of my address books from all of my webmail accounts plus Thunderbird, plus my Google calendars. You must be a paying Plaxo Plus member
Opera Browser — better than IE Mobile
Yahoo Go 2.0 — can’t wait for v3; most-used feature is uploading camera photos directly to my Flickr account.

Apps I have installed that I use occasionally:
CellFire — free coupons
FizzWeather — have it configured for multiple cities to look up weather data, very slick interface
smsTunes — configure it with your telephone area code, then type in a radio frequency like “987″ for 98.7 in Los Angeles, and it will download the lyrics for wichever song is currently playing on that radio station. My wife LOVES this app.
RSS Reader — this shipped with the phone and will actually download podcast enclosures if they’re set up correctly, but the downloads don’t always work, and the interface is clunky.

Apps I have installed that I wished worked:
AdvancedConfig — looks to be a TweakUI application for WM6 smartphones, but it won’t run on the BJ2.

Apps I have on the BJ2 that I’ll likely uninstall at some point:
SpriteBackup — I’ve tinkered with this for on-phone backups, but couldn’t get my phone to sync to my PC’s SpriteBackup application to sync the backups off the phone
CalcConvert — doesn’t run on the Bj2 despite claims that it works on WM6 Standard.
OggSync — not really needed for sync’ing my Google Calendar since Plaxo syncs my calendars already
Palgrino — great multi-IM application, but it’s too easy to accidentally exit the program instead of suspending it to the background, and wouldn’t always connect to the IM services I use (specifically, ICQ)
MS live Search — seems redundant to have an additional GPS/map with Google, or news content that I can get with Yahoo Go v2

2. I would really like to get a nice shell or homescreen and am swimming in circles to find something.

I use the Samsung PopUp home screen because it give sme everything I need on the home screen: 10 icons of last-run programs, access to all of my messaging/Email, voicemail, appointments, MyDocs/microSD (though these don’t actually launch the Explorer app, I wish I could configure these to launch RescoExplorer), and the media player when I don’t have my iRiver H320 or iPod Touch cranking other tunes.

I’ve installed some Home Screen designing software at home, but don’t recall what it’s called. I’ve also seen other home screens given away for free that use paid components like fancy clocks. The components cost ~$5/each but some are a lot more expensive (but more feature rich as well), but I’m not a big fan of paying for stuff for my phone.

3. Where do you suggest downloading files? I’m really not looking to pay like 30 bucks for a program for my cell phone if you know what I mean.

Yeah, I know what you mean… paying for software when you’re used to FOSS (free open source software) feels like something dirty. The only piece of software I *have* purchased, and felt it was well warranted, was Opera Mobile. It’s a kick-butt browser, and I needed an alternative to IE Mobile until Firefox Mobile is released.

For downloading apps, here are the sites I tend to frequent. I recommend subscribing to their RSS feeds so you can get updates from them without having to remember the URLs:
- www.modaco.com
- www.smartphone-freeware.com / www.mobiletopsoft.com (seem to be the same site)
- www.smartphone-freeware.org (different than the .com site)
- www.freewarepocketpc.net