The SmartFONE » Applications

Yahoo! Go 3.0

david — Sun, 04 May 2008 11:00:23 +0000

Yahoo! Go 3.0

Yahoo! Go 3.0 Beta is now available for the Blackjack 2 …and it looks amazing.

Yahoo! Go 3.0 has an incredibly sleek interface and is light years ahead of the competition as a mobile dashboard.

If you are a Yahoo! user this is a MUST have. If you haven’t decided on your Web Application company of choice (Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft) and are a heavy mobile user, definitely check this out!

If you’re in the Yahoo! camp, then this application is for you. It is a dashboard that give you quick access to all your favorite Yahoo! applications including: Yahoo! Mail, Flickr, Yahoo! Maps, Finance/Stocks, Weather and much more. You can also install third-party widgets for things like eBay, MySpace and MTV News that you can download from within Yahoo!Go 3.0 Beta (goto the Settings page) or from the Yahoo! mobile Web site.

Yahoo!Go makes me wish i liked the rest of their products!

I was unable to follow the download Hyperlink in the SMS Message using Opera Mobile – I had to open the link in PocketIE.

Thanks to David Hersh for tipping me off that Yahoo!Go is available for the Samsung Blackjack 2.

MSN Direct

david — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:28:42 +0000

MSN Direct

Download

Microsoft has released a Home Screen add-on called MSN Direct that displays News, Weather and Stocks in a bubble on your home screen. Selecting any of the sections will launch a full screen application with which you can browser Weather forecasts, Various new items, and Stock indices.

There are links to Microsoft services (or ads? call them what you will) injected into the home screen menu.

MSN Direct is not available as a stand-alone application, it can only be run from the Home screen using the MSN Direct Theme, which I find annoying.

If you are using a non-fixed height Home screen Theme (like any of the themes on this site) this is a decent plug-in, though it takes up a little too much screen real-estate for my liking.

Caution: Before installing this theme, make sure you are using a non-fixed width theme. When installed MSN Direct will inject itself into your current theme directly below the Date/Time lines.

DOOM

david — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:15:34 +0000

DOOM

Download

Doom, now available for the Blackjack 2. Download it. Now.

This is an updated version of DOOM for the Blackjack 2 that lets you Strafe and Save your game!!!

The CAB includes the shareware WAD for DOOM 1 but you can download any DOOM 1 or DOOM 2 WAD file and copy it into C:\Program Files\DOOM

Note: you can only have 1 WAD file in your DOOM directory at a time. I suggest moving the WAD files you aren’t using to C:\Program Files\DOOM\WADs.

Check out the MyBlackjack2 Forums and the MoDaCo forums for more info on the game. Big Thanks to SPV3d (i think?) for the port and thanks to macatron for giving me the heads up about it!

You can download the previously posted RCX port of DOOM here (it doesn’t support strafing or saving).

Courtesy of macotran, here are the control:

Fire Weapon: *
Select Weapons: Number Keys
Open Doors: Space Bar
Strafe Left/Right: Left and Right soft keys (by the jog wheel)
Open the Menu: Backup Key (by right soft key)
Quit Game from Menu: Select Quit and then press 9 (instead of Y)

Mobile Reversi (Othello)

david — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:10:32 +0000

Mobile Reversi (Othello)

Download

Mobile Reversi is a very rudimentary port of the game Othello. The objective of this classic strategy game is to finish the game with the greatest number of pieces on the board. You can flip your opponent’s (the computer) pieces by positioning your pieces around their pieces. (Check out Wikipedia’s page for full instructions on how to play)

I’ve been a fan of Othello/Reversi for quite some time now and was thrilled to find a version for my phone. My one gripe is the computer plays it’s hand so quickly its hard to figure out which move it made (you can see the effects of the move, but its hard to see where the new piece was placed). Anyhow – a great strategy game that will undoubtedly waste many hours of your life (but in a good way).

“My Score” is the computer’s score, “Your Score” is your score. … and oh yeah, there is one difficulty setting: Hard

Kevtris 2.0

david — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:40:25 +0000

Kevtris 2.0

Download Page

Kevtris is an incredibly well executed FREE Tetris clone for the Blackjack 2.

Kevtris’ features include:

Easy, Medium or Hard game play options
Classic Tetris, Wacky Blocks, Slider, and Wack Slider games (the last 3 variations on the Classic Tetris game)
(Optional, you can play in offline-mode) Online high scores (see where you rank compared to other Kevtris players)

Pocket SNES (Super Nintendo Emulator)

david — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:00:11 +0000

Pocket SNES (Super Nintendo Emulator)

Download

Super Nintendo Emulation has arrived. Pocket SNES is a great Super Nintendo Emulator for the Blackjack 2. The graphics are superb, as to be expected, and it plays pretty well. The one thing I’m getting used to is the 4 button key placement (A, B, X, Y) .. i haven’t found the perfect key mapping to allow me to easily hold down multiple buttons at once.

The CAB file installs a PocketSNES shortcut in Start > Games.

When you start PocketSNES the first time, go to Options > Keys… and define you’re all your keys, especially the “Menu” key. (I was unable to figure out what the default “Menu” key mapping was after I entered the game)

To download SNES Roms visit RomNation or Google “SNES Roms Download”.

Note: You will not be able to download ROMs directly to your smartphone using PocketIE (Mobile Internet Explorer). PocketIE supports very few mime-types/file extensions for download and ROM files aren’t included. I suggest using Opera Mobile to download the ROM files directly to you Smartphone, or download them to your computer and copy them over to your Smartphone using ActiveSync/Bluetooth/etc.

If you have are having problems installing and using the PocketSNES emulator, checkout this YouTube video.

Performance suggestions:

Display Settings: Portrait Landscape
Display Settings: Select “Auto Frame Skip”
Display Settings: Set “Frame Skip” to “4″
Sound Options: Don’t enable sound

If you want sound, make sure: Settings > Sounds > Other Sounds > Wheel Key sound > On (Thanks to shoemup for the tip!)

Disclaimer: Please verify the legality of any ROM file you download – some ROMs may be legal to download, others may not be.

PicoDrive (Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Emulator)

david — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:00:55 +0000

PicoDrive (Sega Genesis/MegaDrive Emulator)

Download

PicoDrive is a great open source Sega Genesis/MegaDrive emulator. With PicoDrive you can play your favorite Sega games like Sonic, Alterted Beast and Splatterhouse! The graphics are very nice and the game play is pretty smooth. Some ROMs may not work 100% with PicoDrive, but there’s only one way to find out.

I suggest turning off the Sound because on some games to prevent buggy behavior.

The CAB file installs a PocketSNES shortcut in Start > Games.

You can download Sega ROMs from RomNation, RomWorld, or just Google the term “Sega Roms”. I suggest making a special folder on your Storage Card or in /My Documents/ that contains all your Sega ROM files.

Disclaimer: Please verify the legality of any ROM file you download – some ROMs may be legal to download, others may not be.

SPVMan (Pacman clone)

david — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:00:05 +0000

SPVMan (Pacman clone)

Download

SPVMan is a great Pacman clone for the Blackjack 2 — I don’t think much else needs to be said about it. I’ve created a CAB installer that installs the game along with a SPVMan shortcut in Start > Games.

It’s a pretty fun game – great for killing a couple minutes here and there.

Controls

D-Pad Moves
Back soft-key exits
I don’t know if suspending/saving games is possible

Pocket NES (Nintendo)

david — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:53:34 +0000

Pocket NES (Nintendo)

Download

What’s better than DOOM on your Blackjack 2? Why, all your favorite Nintendo games! Pocket NES is a Nintendo emulator for Smartphones.

To install Pocket NES, download and install the CAB file.
Copy your favorite ROM files (Google “Nintendo ROMs download”, or check out RomNation.net) to your Blackjack 2.
If you have a storage card I suggest making a Folder on it and copy all your ROMs into it.
Launch PocketNester
1. Open Start > Games > PocketNester
2. Select File > Open Rom > Browse to the locate of your ROM files on your Device/Storage card
- OR -
1. Open the File Explorer application on your Blackjack 2 (Start > Applications > File Explorer) and navigate to the folder containing your ROM files.
2. Select the ROM file of the Nintendo game you would like to play and press the D-Pad select button.
Presto – Nintendo on your Smartphone. Life doesn’t get much better.

I apologize for the screen shot, I had to use my digital camera – my screen capture software wouldn’t work with it. The colors are much better in real life.

Here are a couple tips to get you started:

By default, hit “S” to pull up the Pocket NES menus.
To get back to the game from the Pocket NES menus, go to File > Resume.
By default, the controls are:
- D-PAD moves (up, down, left, right)
- “O” is Button A
- “P” is Button B
- “G” is Select
- “H” is Start
You can change the controls by:
1. Hitting “S” to get to the Pocket NES menus
2. Selecting “Options”
3. Selecting “Controllers”
4. Assign new key values for the different NES controls.

Disclaimer: Please verify the legality of any ROM file you download – some ROMs may be legal to download, others may not be.

BeeJive

david — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:45:34 +0000

BeeJive

Download Page (Beta)

BeeJive (sometime’s refered to as JiveTalk) has made a pretty slick mobile instant messanging client for the Windows Mobile 6+. It supports a wide variety of chat protocols and sports a easy to use interface that works well even on smaller screens (like the Blackjack II’s). I’ve replaced Palringo with BeeJive.. They’re very similar applications but BeeJive makes alittle better use of the screen real estate and I like how it notifies of new instant messages/updates to instant message conversations in the background.

BeeJive is currently FREE for Windows Mobile 6.x because its in beta — if/when BeeJive costs money I will most definitely switch back to Palringo.

BeeJive supports:

AIM / iChat
MSN / Windows Live
Yahoo!
GoogleTalk
ICQ
Jabber
MySpace

Much like Palringo (and most other mobile instant messanger clients) this application is a battery hog and will probably cut your battery life in half if leave it running in the background … So make sure to exit the program when you’re done using it!