Running low on memory with your Smartphone? Well, you’re not alone.  This is one of the most commons problems people seem to have with their device.  So what’s the cause? Well, for whatever reason, Microsoft didn’t put a limit on the maximum size for IE Mobiles cache files. This means that after a little surfing, you’ll start seeing errors about running low on memory.

There are a couple things you can do to minimize this problem.  The first, is to clear your IE Mobile cache files.  Just launch IE Mobile and the push Menu / Options / Memory – then select Temporary Files and press Clear.  You might also want to clear Cookies and History, but they don’t tend to add up to much at all.

Once it’s cleared, I would suggest moving it out of main system memory and onto the storage card. This will allow it to grow and not interfere with the devices day to day operation. To do this create 3 folders on your storage card: \Storage Card\Temp\Temporary Internet Files and \Storage Card\Temp\Cookies and \Storage Card\Temp\History Once you have these created, open your handy-dandy registry editor and browse toHKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and modify the key values to match the new folders you’ve just created.

Another thing you can do is to move the storage of email and attachments out of main memory and on to the storage card. This change involves making changes to the registry, so you’ll want to be extra safe when making this change. First thing you need to do is create a couple folders on your storage card. The first folder should be \Storage Card\Mail\ and the second folder should be\Storage Card\Mail\Attachments\ You can call them whatever you want, but I would recommend using the standard names. Once these are created, you’ll need to edit your registry.  Open your favourite Windows Mobile registry editor and browse to HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\MAPI and create 2 new string values.  The first should be called PropertyPath and should have a value matching the mail folder you created.  The second should be called AttachPath and should have a value matchings the attachments folder you created.  So PropertyPath = \Storage Card\Mail and AttachPath = \Storage Card\Mail\Attachments

It’s too bad that Microsoft couldn’t have better management of IE Mobiles temp files.  If they could keep those under control, then you wouldn’t need to do any of these hacks. I hope these tips help make your Windows Mobile experience more lovable.

The first thing you’ll need to do is find a tool that allow you to set the file permissions on the device. There are a number of tools out there, find one that allows you to toggle the read-only setting of files. If your Windows Mobile 6.5 device is from HTC and is sporting HTC Sense interface, you’ll need to turn that off. If you’re not sure how, check out my post from last week for details.

You need to browse to the Windows folder on your device and locate a file called Titanium_***x***.cpr, where ***x*** is the screen resolution of your device. In the case of the HD2, it’s Titanium_480x800.cpr. Once you’ve located the file, right click and select properties and then disable the read-only setting. Copy the file to your computer and make a backup. Open the file using any text editor you have available to you.

For every row on the Today screen there is an expanded and condensed section – ClockExpanded, ClockCondensed / CalendarExpanded, CalendarCondensed / etc…  The condensed settings are used when the item is not selected, and expanded is used for when you highlight the item.

To make the changes in the images above, I only changed a couple settings. I focused on the condensed sections for each item. Here are the changes I made to the PluginLabel element within the condensed section:

• Added – HorizontalAlignment="Center"
• Reduced font from 18 to 12

Once you’ve made your changes, save the file and copy it back to your device and then reload the template. To do this, I simply select another item as my today screen and OK my way back to the today screen and then browse back into settings / Today and select Windows Default to have it load your new settings. If it doesn’t work, copy your backup file onto the device.

With those 2 simple changes, I gave new life to the Today screen.  The best part, it doesn’t stop with just the today screen. XML powers the lock screen (LS_LockScene_***x***.cpr), the call answer screen (LS_PhoneCallScene_***x***.cpr), alerts (LS_PhoneAlertScene_***x***.cpr), and more. So get hacking! I’m looking forward to seeing what cool and amazing things the community can produce.

The steps below will walk you through removing this animation and there’s even details about what you need to do to display your own graphic. One special note – If you have a Samsung Jack or Propel Pro, you can not remove the startup animation. If you do this, the screen driver fails to load and you can no longer see anything on the device. You can, however, connect to the device using Pocket Controller Pro and reinstate the startup animation and all will be fine again. Again, this is only a problem on the Propel Pro and the Jack. All other devices have not displayed this behaviour.

1) The first thing you need to do is remove the application lock from your device (Windows Mobile Standard or non-touch devices only). To do this, check out my other post about Removing Application Lock.

2) Install some sort of registry editing tool. For on device editing, which is all that would be required in this case, I would recommend PHM’s free registry editor.

3) Run the registry editor and browse to HKLM / System / Startup / 1

4) Here you should find a value by the name of DLL. Highlight the value DLL and press the Menu / Delete to completely remove it. (Samsung Jack and Propel Pro users – do not delete this value!)

5) Browse to HKLM / System /Shutdown / 1 and you should find another value with the name DLL. Highlight and remove this one as well.

At this point, you should no longer have the startup or shutdown animations. You can reboot your phone and test it out. But I’m not done with this hack. Instead of the carriers animation, why not add your own image? Here’s the steps to add your own graphic on startup and shutdown.

6) In the registry editor under HKLM / System / Shutdown or HKLM / System / Startup create a new Value and set the type to be String.

7) Name this new value “Splash” without the quote,s and set the value to be the complete path to your picture. I recommend against putting this picture on the storage card. It should be on the main memory of the device.

Save your new value and back out of the registry editor. Reboot your phone and enjoy the new graphics!

In case your looking for something to replace that image with, here’s a very fancy Mobile Jaw logo in 320×320, 320×240, and 240×320. I just placed the size I need in the My Documents folder and then set the Splash value to “\My Documents\MobileJawSplash320240.png” – without the quotes. Enjoy!

If you have any problems, let me know. Or if you just feel like sharing your success, I would love to hear about it.

First thing is to fire up your favorite registry editor. Your phone doesn’t have one installed, so you’ll have to get one and install it first.  I recommend PHM - it’s good and it’s free. In your registry editor, go to HKLM \ Software \ Microsoft \ Inbox. Create a new key with the name of Settings. Then select that key and create a new String value (you should now be under the new key Settings, that you just created) and set the name as SMSNoSentMsg and the value as 1  Reboot your phone and that’s it.

On the original BlackJack, Samsung used the number option. This made for quick and easy menu selections when combined with an oversized region for the number keys. On the BlackJack II, Samsung changed the number layout to 1 number to 1 key and switched the menu to the letter format. While I’m pretty good with the alphabet and QWERTY layout, I still find it faster and easier to navigate the menu’s using numbers and not letters. Thankfully, there’s a way to switch the layout to reflect your preference.

Break out your registry editor of choice and follow along!

1. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Shell
2. You should see a Value by the name of HasKeyboard. If you don’t see this, switch from KEYS to VALUES and it should display.
3. Change the value data in HasKeyboard to reflect your preference. Setting it to 1 will show letters and setting it to 0 will show numbers.
4. Save your changes and your done. No rebooting required.

The following steps outline how to change the Media Net button.

1. ActiveSync your device with your computer

2. Open File Explorer on your computer and browse to the \Windows folder on your Mobile Device

3. Look for a file by the name “MediaNet”. The file type should indicate “Shortcut”

4. Copy this file to the desktop of your computer

5. Right click on the file and select properties and turn off Read-Only

6. Open Notepad and then open this file from within Notepad (ie: File \ Open \ {Browse to desktop} \ select the MediaNet file.

7. Once the file is open you will see the following line of text:

64#”\Windows\iexplore.exe” http://device.home?:Active_Icon\MediaNet

I’ll take a second and explain what this line of text is all about. The number followed by the hash symbol tells Windows Mobile how many characters to read after the hash. So if it has 1# Windows Mobile would only read the first quote – “

8. To change this button to direct to another website, just change the URL to be the site of your choice and then carefully count out all the characters after the has sign and then change the 64 to match that number. For example, to make it direct to MobileJaw, you would use the following:

48#”\Windows\iexplore.exe” http://www.MobileJaw.com

9. Save the file and then copy it back to your device.

10. Now press the AT&T Media Net button and it should open IE Mobile and start loading MobileJaw (or whatever URL you placed in the file).

The cool thing is that you’re not limited to launching IE Mobile with these keys. You could just as easily map Calculator, SlingBox Mobile, eWallet, or any other application. Just make sure you put the program along with the path, in quotes and count the number of characters after the hash sign carefully!

I did mention that this hack would work for both buttons. To change the functionality of the Media Net button, edit the MediaNet file in the \Windows folder. To change the functionality for the Cingular Video button, you need to edit the CellularVideo file, also found in the Windows folder. It’s the exact same process as described above.

Happy tweaking!

NOTE: If you’re having problems accessing these files then your device may be application locked. Please read my other article for all the information on application lock and detailed steps on how to remove it.

The problem is that there is a limit on the maximum file size for ringtones. I would imagine that this is done to prevent the phone from having to load a 10MB MP3 every time there was an incoming phone call. I can understand that, but at the same time the 307200 bytes just doesn’t seem like enough. Especially since these Cisco ringtones started at 450+KB.

Thankfully the solution isn’t a hard one. Simply modify a registry setting and away you go. Best of all, you don’t have to restart your phone after making this change. Grab your favourite registry editor and you’ll be off and running in no time. For people that like to work from their desktop, I would suggest a tool like SOTI’s Pocket Controller. Otherwise, grab PHM registry editor and you can modify this setting directly from the device.

1. Browse to HKEY_Current_User / ControlPanel / Sounds
2. Under the Sounds key, you should see a value by the name of FileSizeLimit
3. Highlight the FileSizeLimit value and edit it
4. The default Value Data for this value is 307200 – at least that’s what I see on my BlackJack. Change this to a value that better suits your needs. I would recommend a reasonable amount as you don’t want to use all system resources to load up your ringtone. I would think that 807200 would be a reasonable size for most people.
5. Save your changes and you should now be able to select those larger files as your ringtones.