Nokia Pc Suite Offline Installer

[Mahmod Ohner]

NokiaPC suite is a complete package to to play and use all the features of your nokia mobile on your computer, and with every new version of nokia pc suite released there are some new enhancements the new version of nokia pc suite as compared to the old version.

It is a package of window based pc applications especially for the use of nokia mobile phones on windows computer. As per the nokia phone model you can synchronize, backup and transfer music and other files with nokia pc suite, moreover you can install applications, read address book, contacts, transfer other media like pictures, ringtones and video from and to you nokia phone connected with a data cable.

With components like Weather stopping working recently from the Nokia Maps suite in our Symbian smartphones, a very good question to ask yourself is what would happen if Nokia took its map servers offline too? Hopefully they'll be in place until 2016, but you never know, especially with the Microsoft takeover. Which is why I've been investigating how to back up your downloaded offline country maps.

We've had traffic databases scythed, we've seen the Nokia Store about to freeze forever, we've seen Weather drop off a cliff, you have to wonder how long it will be before Nokia's map servers for Symbian get the chop, whether intentionally or because the staff in charge of them are no longer aware of the implications of their disappearance. After all, Nokia has already stopped updating the maps for Symbian, despite the company's Windows Phones getting regular updates.

Now, most of us have already used the built-in Map Loader function to make sure that our own country's roads are offline, but how would you cope if you had to reset or replace your device and the servers were no longer online to allow you to stream or download the maps onto the new installation? It's a chilling thought for such a navigation-strong smartphone OS.

Happily, the map databases are stored in a fairly obvious location that's easy to back up. In the steps that follow (modelled on the Nokia E6), my aim was to grab the maps from most Western Europe countries (totalling around 2.5GB) and back these up onto my Dropbox account - just in case I ever needed them after a device reset and with Nokia's servers offline. Best to be prepared!

1. Use the Map Loader function built into Nokia Maps to install offline maps for every country you're interested in. These will all get installed into a folder system under /cities on your smartphone's mass memory (of which more later):

In this case I was limited by the free mass memory on my E6, but I also didn't want the eventual backup/download to be too unwieldy, so I went for the UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Italy. Total installation time (mainly limited by the downloads) was about half an hour.

Bingo. No maps found. I deleted the new (stub) /cities folder and then renamed the populated folder back to /cities and restarted Maps - all was well and all the offline country maps were now seen again. Phew!

2. Copy the country maps over to a desktop's hard disk. In theory they could all be compressed/archived on the phone, but with 2.5GB to crunch through even the Nokia 808 would take an age.

3. Compress the folder structure to a single manageable file. In theory, you could backup and archive the /cities folder as needed, but it's probably going to be easier to treat them as a single file.

4. Back up this archive wherever's appropriate. In my case, I simply stuck it up on my Dropbox space (email me if you want a share of this particular file, to save you doing the steps above, if you're happy with my country selection).

In the event of something happening to your phone or Symbian install, and if Nokia has turned off the map servers, you're not totally out of luck. Simply copy /cities from one of your backups (obviously de-compressing if you'd archived it, as above) onto the root of your mass memory (E:) and you're done.

When starting Nokia Maps and going into 'Map loader' on the menu, you'll see all the countries neatly pre-installed again. Of course, to save space you probably won't want to keep all of them, so note that long pressing on any country name brings up a menu which includes 'Delete' and you can then remove any you know you won't need.

So, I've done my bit with this short article and creating a (very) basic archive of Western Europe. How about a few readers create themed sets of countries around the world that are relevant to them, put them online somewhere and then email me ? I'm happy to coordinate a directory of Symbian maps sets that may be of future interest to others.

So it happens that I own a Nokia E71 thingie, full keyboard and whatnot, don't ask how I got it, when, where orwhy, and so it happens that I had to travel abroad. This travel entailed driving a car around places I've neverbeen before. In the olden days, real men used maps or asked people for directions. Today, we make living byusing satellite-positioning navigation, a.k.a. GPS.

In this article, for those of you who happen to own a Nokia smartphone, E5X-E9X models, you can use your phoneas a GPS, for free. No need to waste money asking the rental company for one or buying your own piece. Ofcourse, the definition of free here is limited to the fact you did spend money on buying the phone, unless yougot it as a gift or for business reasons.

I will be using my E71 as an example here. The phone has a GPS utility already installed. It has its ownseparate category in the menus. Open the application. Click on Maps. Basically, you're good to go. But wait asecond.

You do not want to start using the software just yet! There are several things you want to do first beforeactivating the GPS. These include configuring the GPS for lowest bandwidth usage abroad, downloading therelevant GPS maps offline, and setting the GPS voice navigation and other properties. Let's do this.

If you let your phone use all its available GPS positioning methods, which include Bluetooth, Assisted,Integrated, and Network based, you may waste tons of your money downloading map updates and other data. Usingyour phone in another country can be extremely costly. You definitely want to avoid this.

The big plus of using only the Integrated GPS is that you will have zero bandwidth cost. The downside is thatyou may need to wait for a minute or two until the GPS recalibrates its position on any use.

Your smart phone has network access, most likely including 3G and Wi-Fi. 3G can be costly and you don't want touse it. Maps can be several hundred MB of data, which might exceed your bandwidth plan. Furthermore, if you'reabroad, every little byte of extra data will cost you a fortune. Instead, you should download maps using Wi-Fi,possibly when connected to your home network, or use the Nokia Ovi Suite software to manage your phone assets.

Nokia Ovi Suite is availableonly for Windows, so this can be a limiting factor to how you can manage your smart phone. On the other hand,you can run the software on a desktop computer, downloading data at virtually no cost. I won't go into detailsas to how you can use the software, we may have a separate article on that one, we will focus on downloadingthe relevant maps and then copying them to our phone.

Then, the next time you sync your phone, you will have the maps copied. To be able to sync data between thephone and the computer, you may need to install additional software on your Nokia. Again, preferably, downloadthe relevant packages using your machine, then transfer them to your phone.

Now, let us briefly deviate from the GPS stuff to an extremely short session on how you can download softwareand install it on your phone. We will need this information later on when I introduce yet another GPS software.

Anyhow, Nokia phones are powered by the Symbian operating system. Not really exciting, except that packages forNokia can be identified by the .sis extension. Download any program you may need. Next, plug in your phone,preferably using a USB cable. When you plugin the phone, you will be asked what method you want to use toconnect the phone.

Choose PC Suite, if you want to use the Ovi Suite. However, for transferring data to your phone, you need theMass storage option. Then, it will become just another flash memory device, like a USB thumb drive.

On your PC, locate the phone and copy the installation packages to one of the folders. Next, on your phone,locate the uploaded packages. You can browse your phone directories using Office > File Manager.

You may need to shuffle between phone and memory card. Locate the right installation package, choose Options> Install. We will discuss this later on. Let the blue-marked package called WAZE.SIS be a hint for now.

After you install any needed software for syncing the maps between the Ovi Suite and your phone, let them sync.Your maps will be uploaded to your phone. Remember that there is some space limitations after all. World mapscan easily add up to hundreds of MB, so make sure you have enough space.

Another tool you may want to consider for the purpose of downloading maps and syncing them to your phone isNokia Maps Loader. This canbe an alternative to the full-blown suite. For more details about connecting your phone on Linux, see mycell phone backup howto.

Here, you can specify your connection method. For abroad, I always use Offline. You can also setup the defaultaccess point and have a roaming warning light up, which can be useful to prevent unnecessary costs.

Here you can specify the voice. I always use the English UK RP female voice. Nothing like a posh Brit to spiceup your blood. You can also setup walk guidance, home location, zoom, reroute due to traffic, time indicator,speed limit warning, and more. There's also traffic info update, but this requires an Internet connection, souse sparingly if at all when abroad. Reroute due to traffic is a similar feature.

This sub-menu lets you choose the transport mode, route selection and what kinds of roads you want to drive.For example, you may only want motorways, but no toll roads or unpaved roads. By default, all options areselected, including ferries, train ferries and tunnels. The default route selection is the fastest route.

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