Month: July 2008

Adding Multi Keyboard Layout support in WINCE

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In desktop Windows, you can add additional native language support, which enables you to toggle and choose different keyboard layouts real time, to enter text in different language.In  Windows CE, you can install more than one keyboard layout, but you can only use one layout until you modify the registry and soft-reset your phone to activate a different layout.

There’s a way to access all the installed keyboard layouts, without having to perform registry hack and soft-reset the phone. However, it is application-dependent to add this support. And no prize for guessing that Microsoft default applications are not designed to support multi-keyboard either. Continue reading →

Notif Blinker … blinks to your attention

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Following the Bluetooth notification hack that I did few years ago for my previous iPAQ 6965, I created another “hack” last week to overcome the notification deficiency in my new Samsung i780. Well not exactly a hack, more like a workaround to keep the LED blinking when the phone attempts to get into sleep mode. Continue reading →

Blink Blink with power

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Yes I’m bored again, and my head was spinning with some new ideas over the weekend, on how to enhance the usability of my recent new found toy.

crystal_128_energy.png

Sometimes, you wonder if Microsoft really knows what they are doing when they build their version of mobile phone platform.  Case in point; They created the LED notification ability so that users can still be alerted on missed events such as unread SMS or missed call after a period of time (from 5 minutes to indefinitely), and yet the LED stops blinking 1 minute after the event happens.

Thinking that I could overcome this “shortcoming” easily with a little utility, I realized it is not as easy as it appears to be.

Continue reading →

中文输入法 for QWERTY phones

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Every time I get a new Windows Mobile phone, I have to hunt for a Chinese input solution that supports qwerty keyboard properly. I have trying to find a workable solution for my i780, and while A4, PlumSIP and GuoBi can be installed and used on my device, but they introduce some ‘side effects’ that makes me look elsewhere for better solution.

I did some web research and finally came to a conclusion that I can make use of some DLL files that I believe originated from Microsoft. Packaged them with proper registry settings, I can now finally type both Chinese and English text using my qwerty keyboard. The only issue is the symbol input button has become invalid, at least for now, but that’s not a big deal for me.

Continue reading →