CHome Configurator

Download Page

The folks over at Smartphone: Nuts & Bolts have put together a great app that lets you configure the sliding panels on your Blackjack II running WM6.1. CHome Configurator lets you add, remove and re-order the sliding panels on your homescreen. You can even “Dock” the top item (which I by default the Clock) so it always shows. I really like this because it lets me know the time regardless of the slide i’m on.

CHome Configurator even lets you create new custom sliding panels (thought I haven’t played around long enough with it to figure out how to do this).

For more information on how to configure CHome Configurator, check out this thread in the forums.

This is a excellent program and thrill that the good people at Nuts & Bolts put it together and are letting us all use it for free!

Thanks to pixelsblur and jjnbm for making a note of this app in the forums!

Flexilis

Flexilis Beta Sign-up

Flexilis is like if DashWire and ClamWin (or whatever your favorite anti-virus program may be) had a child. Flexilis is an anti-virus application for your Smartphone, prevents attacks from would-be-hackers,  and back up your phone’s data, which is in turn accessible via a web front-end on flexilis.com.

This is a bit of speculation, but I believe smartphone with data connections are accessible via the internet, so hackers/viruses/malware/etc could try to gain unauthorized access to your device via the internet, im not sure if Flexilis would prevent Bluetooth based attacks, their knowledge base is still very small. Feel free to correct me on this in the comments.

Flexilis allows you to backup: Contacts, Pictures, Documents, Call History, SMS Messages, Audio and Video. I know you can ATLEAST restore Contacts, Pictures and Documents. It looks like I can restore SMS Messages one at a time. I hope as Flexilis matures they’ll augment their “Restore” functionality.

So sign-up for the beta, it looks like a pretty cool application and if they flush out their “restore” functionality they could become a very serious threat to DashWire.

SPBattMet (Battery Meter)

Direct Download (Download Page)

After installing Windows Mobile 6.1 I decided to give Saman’s Smartphone Battery Meter another try. This battery meter puts a very thin battery meter at the very top of the screen. It gives you a really good idea how much batter life you have, much better than the default 4 bar battery meter that is default.

For some reason I didn’t like this battery meter as much when I was running Windows Mobile 6.0 - I think because it made the top icon bar feel too cramped. 

When installing you may be notified that “this program was developed for a previous version of windows”. This is OK, continue installing.

After installing, restart your Blackjack 2.

(The battery bar is kind of hard to see in this picture, it’s much mroe visible on a smartphone screen)

MoDaCo No Data

Direct Download (Download Page)

The good people that brought us the infamous MoDaCo GPS Hack have done it again! They released another incredibly handy utility for all you Blackjack 2 users that don’t have unlimited data.

The MoDaCo No Data Utility allows you easily turn off your data connection so you don’t accidently use (especially while roaming!)

Note: You MUST unlock  your phone with the SDA Application unlocker to use this program — Application unlocking your phone with just the MoDaCo GPS Hack/Application unlocker will not allow No Data to run properly.

No Data installs an easy to use shortcut in your Start Menu named “No Data”. Big thanks to Paul and the gang at MoDaCo for this handy app and thanks to Zak for giving me the heads-up about it!

Base Hue Express

Download

Base Hue Express is a cool little app that lets you easily change your phone’s color scheme on the fly. You can select the Base Hue for the Header and Soft-key bars. It will also change the color of some of the other elements on your phone (scroll bars, menu backgrounds, menu highlights, etc) as well to a matching lighter hue of the color you select.

All in all, Base Hue Express is a convenient app that lets you easily customize your color scheme on the fly (which is great is you don’t like a color scheme that came with a theme you like). I’ve package Base Hue Express up in an easy-to-install/uninstall CAB file — The CAB file will install a shortcut in your Start Menu.

If you decide you want to revert to your theme’s original Default color scheme after using Base Hue Express:

1. Go to Start > Settings > Display > Home Screen
2. Change “Color Scheme” to something other than “Default”
3. Click Done and go back to to the Home screen, you will notice the color scheme will change
4. Go back to Start > Settings > Display > Home Screen
5. Change “Color Scheme” to “Default”
6. Click done and go back to the Home screen, the default color scheme will take effect

LED Alerts

Purchase (or check out the 7 day free trial!)

You know when I pay money for software its gotta be good, and LED Alerts is one of the few programs I’ve shelled out cash for… and it’s worth every penny.

This application notifies you of new Text Messages, E-mails, Voice Mail, Missed Calls and Reminders by blinking your phone’s LED one of 7 different (user defined) colors. Its so unobtrusive, yet so informative.

LED Alerts is the perfect quiet way of letting me know if there is anything on my phone that requires my attention. When i’m at work, I dont like my phone playing a sound whenever I get a text or e-mail, and I don’t like it vibrating to alert me either (vibrating can be loud when the phone is on a hard surface) .. with LED Alerts I turn my phone on silent, set it on my desk and can know if there is anything I need to check on just by glancing at it.

LED Alerts is a brilliant must-have product — I can’t believe its not a built in feature on Windows Mobile 6.

SMS Bubbles

Download

SMS Bubbles is an application that pop up new SMS messages on your start screen as they are received.

May require application unlocking. If you have trouble installing the application because of certificate issues, app unlock your Blackjack2.

Ilium Screen Capture

Download

This lightweight application takes screenshots of your Blackjack 2. I use this application to generate all the Blackjack 2 screen captures on this site.

Screen captures are saved as /My Documents/shotXXX.bmp

Skyfire Beta

Get Skyfire Beta

Skyfire is in OPEN BETA. This means you can register to Skyfire and immediately start using the Skyfire browser. There is no longer a need to use a Beta key to access and download Skyfire.

Woo! I finally got my Skyfire Beta key — its only taken 3 months to get but its finally here.. and boy was it worth the wait. Skyfire is hands-down my favorite (windows) mobile browser. Skyfire takes a desktop web browser and moves it onto a mobile device. It’s similar to the iPhone’s Safari browser which renders web pages true to form and lets you zoom in and out to view different sections of the web page. This is how Skyfire works except the controls are a little more cumbersome when running on a non-touch screen device.

The thing that really amazed me about Skyfire was its ability to keep web pages looking and working just like they do on a desktop web browser. You can play YouTube.com video within the browser, use web sites that rely heavily on AJAX (I can even check MyBlackjack2.com and TheSmartFONE.com’s web stats in Google Analytics in Skyfire - and that is a VERY complex AJAX’d web site.)

Remember that Skyfire is still in beta so the client still has some issues. Since posting they’ve resolved some major issues including connection dropping and allowing users to download files.

Even in beta Skyfire has replaced Opera Mobile as my favorite browser.