Just got your hands on the cool new HTC Touch Pro (a notch up, in many cases, to the HTC Mogul)? Well, if you are cruising the web, you will come across many sites that tell you (or at the very least, suggest to you) which “Applications” are must have for your phone. Here, however, I am going to give you my list–which is more on a hardware side of things.

I try to accessorize my devices to the best of their abilities, hence the list should (hopefully) reflect that. So, without further adieu, here goes:

1. Screen Protector– I, personally, am not a huge fan of protecting just the screen. I want the whole she-bang plus the kitchen sink! So I opted to get FULL BODY COVERAGE of invisibleSHIELD from zagg. This would ensure that I do not scratch the back-side and also that it is in good shape when I do decide to sell it ($24.95 originally, but paid $19.96… w/ Free Shipping after applying coupon code).
2. A good holster– I am not too crazy about the holster that came with my Touch. It’s Velcro, and it’s stiff as hell. So I did some research and got me a clear/transparent  snap on hard skin holster case ($8.99 w/ Free Shipping).
3. Memory– Touch Pro comes with a 1GB microSD card. However, if you make heavy use of your device (i.e., use it as an MP3 player, or have other media that are space-hungry) then you need to upgrade yourself to a better storage option. I would personally recommend the 16GB microSDHC cards. However, these cards run anywhere from $45 - $80. So if this is too expensive, just get the 8GB one, which should cost you between $22 - $30 w/ Shipping.
4. Bluetooth headset– Your phone experience would not be truely complete until you buy a damn bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headset will allow you to do hands-free communication. So it’s quite essential.
5. And lastly, an Extended battery. Some extended batteries add as much as upto 50% more juice. So, just like a Bluetooth headset, it’s quite essential–especially if you are a heavy user. One name that kept coming up whilst I was doing some research on this was: Seidio Innocell 2000mAh Extended Battery. So, do some research/price hunting, and you should be able to get this for as low as $54.95 (at the Touch Depot, HTC Depot, and WMExperts Store)

UPDATE — 03/01/09:

Let me provide you with some useful links for current deals on the aforementioned item(s). I will update this list as I see more deals on any of the 5 mentioned accessories (provided: (1) Deal didn’t expired already & (2) Deal is for real). Also note: I have no affiliation with any of the sites listed below (other than, being a customer in some cases–as I might have bought an item listed below). That being said, some deals that might interest you, are:

• For Memory– Today, I came across a deal on Buy.com, which featured a 16GB microSDHC memory card w/ adapter for a mere $38.97 w/ Free Shipping! This is a good price because generally, you get 16 GB (as mentioned above) for around $45 - $80. One Caveat: This particular memory card is a Class 2. Meaning, it will be just fine if Music is as high (in terms of performance) you are planning on going. However, if you also plan on running movies off of it, it will be bad in terms of performance. If playing movies is that much more important for you, get the Class 4 (which would be quire expensive, might I add).
• For Bluetooth headset– Today, as well, I came across a deal for a bluetooth headset: BlueAnt X3 for only $26.69 + $4.61 S/H at Amazon.com.  Each place had different over-all rating for this product. However, over 130 people had rated this one at approx. 3.5 / 5 stars. Come on, now! You and I both know, you get what you pay for. However, what drove me to pull the trigger on this particular device was the fact that it was “guranteed” to work on my Touch Pro. Such peace of mind, coupled with the price was the deal-maker for me. That being said, if this particular design is not your cup-of-tea, please visit WireFly.com’s page, which lists all the bluetooth devices that are guranteed to work with your Touch Pro.

Hope this list helped you out and you now have a good idea of what to get for your brand new Touch

-RushiKumar

Assumptions:
Before we begin, it is assumed here, that you have the HTC Touch Pro (and not the “Fuze”), and your carrier is Sprint. I have not tested this method with any other HTC model (or any other Windows Mobile running phone, for that matter), neither have I tested this with any other carrier.

Introduction:

If you are wondering how to get wireless access for your laptop/computer, and you have HTC Touch Pro, you have come to the right place! Here, I will show you exact steps you need to take in order to score some Wi-Fi!

What you will need:

1. HTC Touch Pro (duh!)

2. Laptop/Computer (duh! duh!)

3. PHM RegEdit

First off, if you do not already have the aforementioned Registry Editor, please navigate to the provided URL and download it. (On that page, there should be a download link, click on it, read and agree to the “License Agreement” and then select “Pocket PC 2002,2003 (ARM/PXA)” from the drop-down list. Finally, select “Download” button.) Once you have downloaded the file, transfer it to your Touch Pro and install it.

Assuming you have downloaded the CAB file successfully, follow the steps below:

• Open up the “PHM RegEdit” (Go To:   Start–>Programs–>PHM RegEdit)
• Navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\InternetSharing\”
  - Select/Click on “Extension”
  - Delete text that appears under “Value data” (it should be: “isext.dll“)
• Next, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Comm\InternetSharing\Settings\”
  - Select/Click on “ForceCellConnection”
  - Change text that appears under “Value data” to “Sprint” (by default, this text should read: “Phone as Modem“)
• Close the PHM RegEdit
• Finally, open up Internet Sharing application (Go To:   Start–>Programs–>Internet Sharing) and select “Connect”.

There you have it! your Laptop/Computer should start to recognize the newly formed connection and you should be good to go!

If you were wondering, YES. I did do the above steps, and my speed test results were, surprisingly, GREAT. If you would like to know more about my own experience, please visit my blog entry: “Tethering for some Wireless access”

Other ways include: Using PDAnet and WMWifiRouter (but still need to make the above Reg. Tweaks).

Credits:
I originally found the solution at the following place — http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/htc-touch-pro/119459-tethering-internet-connection-sharing-pro-your-pc.html (Author: Marty). Therefore, as this is not an “original” solution, the credits go to Marty.

Hope this helps!

You downloaded the cool eye-candy app called BeeJive for your Windows Mobile phone, Transferred it over, Installed it, and the first thing it asked was to activate, to which you said yes (You cannot use the App if you have not “activated” it). However, instead of being activated, it gave you the following error:

Could not activate beejive. Unable to get key…

Yes? Well, then, follow the following steps and you are almost sure to get the app off and running.

First, make sure that you have Wi-Fi available to you at the current location you are at. Then, follow the following steps–

• Go to Start –> Settings
• Select the “Connections” tab
• Select “Wi-Fi”
• Select the desired Wi-Fi network. “Configure Wireless Networks” window will show up.
• Keep the information unchanged in the window that appears, then hit “Next”
• On this screen, Provide the Network Key (if needed). Then select “Next”
• Finally, select “Finish”

Give your phone some time to connect to the Wi-Fi. Once your phone has successfully connected, go to BeeJiveIM and select “Menu” and then select “Advanced” and then “Get Key”.

That should do it. Please let me know if this didn’t work for you.

I have personally done this and the phone that was utilized was: HTC Touch Pro (CDMA/Sprint).

-RushiKumar

CSharp has always fascinated me… If you know me, you know at least this much about me (and and the love (infatuation?) I have for this particular language). It is no surprise: when I first took up programming, I readily fell in love with Visual Basic, taught myself the basics, and done my very first big-time project in that language. C#, being the same type in terms of RAD, was my next love of the life. So, in order to gain proficiency (or at least some knowledge), I started my first project in it (details soon, check out CodingRush.com).

Along the way, I came across the richtextbox (RTB); this control does not “Auto-Scroll” by default, so in case you want to do something like a log window, your end-user will have to manually scroll to the end, in order to check out the latest log/notice etc. So I was looking for a way to achieve this and found the following:

Right after you add any text to your RTB, add the following two lines–

In the above sample code, rtbLog refers to the name of the richtextbox. SelectionStart, an integer val, gets (or, in our case, it sets) the starting point of text selected in the text box (the length we get by Text.Length). Lastly, we call the ScrollToCaret method, which basically scrolls the contents of the control to the current caret position (basically, it will scroll to the end–same as pressing CTRL+END).

Also note: if you are doing a LOT of scrolling, its not a very good idea to do those two lines every time. So you can make a method and call that method instead. Something like the following:

Hope this helps,
-RushiKumar

Want to have custom ringtones for your iPhones? Tried all methods and failed? want a clear & concise solution? Well, then, you have come to the right place! Just follow the step-by-step guide below, and you will be converting your favorite songs into ringtones in a matter of minutes (5-10 minutes, tops–depending on the media you converting from).

1. In iTunes, select the file you want to turn into a ringtone & right click on it, and select “Convert to AAC”
   1. Wait for it to finish the conversion process
2. Right click on the converted file and select “Get Info”.
3. Specify the “Start Time” and “End Time”, bearing in mind that the ringtone cannot exceed 30 Seconds.
   1. Depending on which version of iTunes you have, the placement of these two input boxes may differ… just navigate different tabs until you see a place where you can specify the aforementioned input parameters
4. Right click on the AAC file again (same file you right-clicked in Step 2) and turn it into AAC again.
5. Right click on the newly created AAC file and copy it.
   1. Minimize everything, go to the desktop, and right click and select “Paste”.
6. Rename the EXTENTION (characters that appear after the “.”) FROM m4a to m4r
   1. r in m4r stands for ringtones
7. Lastly, drag the file into the ringtones folder of your iTunes and Sync it with your iPhone!

Please note: This method is not tested for older (or 1^st gen. iPhones). Furthermore, the author takes no responsibilities for what you do to your iPhones, as a result of these steps. Use the step-by-step at your own risk. Also, synchronizing your iPhone with an empty library has caused many users to lose their collection on their devices; so as a general Rule of Thumb, ALWAYS be in the habit of backing up your device!

Hope this has helped you! -RushiKumar

At my workplace, I am given a project that’s written in ColdFusion, and I need to convert it to PHP, using Oracle as the back-end. While converting one of the files, I came across a very good (mind engaging) puzzle, which was to this effect:
The page needs to have 5 drop-down select boxes, and each drop-down menu should be populated with a list of “items” gathered/fetched from the Database.

Now, if you are a dirty/lazy coder, you can just go-ahead and loop over an fetched array 5 times, creating 5 select boxes each time, however, a smarter solution would be to “reuse” the code!

So, non-lazy coder that I am (:p), I came up with the following solution:

However, no matter how good it looked in my mind when I first thought of this, in the end (after writing and subsequently running the code), I found out that it did the first drop-down list just fine, but for the next 4, it crapped out, giving me the ORA-01002 error. I kept banging my head to the desk (semi-literally), and then it hit me! (no… not the desk; the desk hit me when I semi-literally banged my head against it to begin with).

So, in case you are trying to achieve something similar to mine, and keep getting the very annoying error:

Warning: oci_fetch_array() [function.oci-fetch-array]: ORA-01002: fetch out of sequence in /some/path/filename.php on line 81

Just do the following:
Execute the resource statement within the for-loop. In other words, right after the for statement: insert the following statement on the 2nd line in the code above

Hopefully, this has helped.

-RushiKumar

Basics/Background:

Here you are… with your latest and greatest plugin that you have labored after so hard, all completed and ready for it’s day in glory. However, how do you get the word out? Sure, you can advertise it and, hope that someday, someone will google for something that is relevant to your plugin, and google will take the user to your plugin. However, what if you want to make an immediate impact? Best way: Have your plugin be listed in the Wordpress Plugins Database. This is the best and easiest way for you to gain some exposure for your plugin.

However, you will need to jump through couple of hoops in order to have your plugin appear inside the Plugins Database.

What You Need To Do:

Step 1. Create an account on WordPress
Step 2. Once Registered and Logged in, go to this link, and submit a request for adding your plugin to the Plugins Database. This is the most time consuming step… so go, and have some coffee, watch some TV (or better yet, go to Digg and read an article or two). Upon successful setup of your account, Wordpress will shoot out an email to you, letting you know that all’s well and that you can go ahead and upload your plugin to the SVN. (You will basically get an email similar to the one below:)

Email you get, once WordPress has successfully setup your account

Now the interesting bit comes into play. If you have never dealt with SVN before, this could get a bit tricky. However, fear not… This is exactly the reason why this guide was written

Download RapidSVN Client

Step 2. Downloading an SVN client: If you do not already have an SVN client, you will need one. I am using RapidSVN. However, if you are unsure of which to pick (or want some alternatives/choices), please go to this page.

Select the RapidSVN-0.9.6.exe file

Adding a Repository

Step 3. Once installed, fireup RapidSVN. Right click on Bookmarks, and select: “Add Existing Repository…”

Step 4. Now, enter the URL that was given to you in your confirmation email. In my case, I was given the following: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/content-icons/. Again, URL will be found in the email that WordPress sent you, when you submitted the SVN Account Setup request.

Step 5. Next, double click the URL you just entered, which will be displayed under “Bookmarks”. RapidSVN will try and connect to the repository now.

Step 6. Double-click the “trunk” folder.

Step 7. Now, click on Repository (on the Toolbar Menu) [Shortcut Key: CTRL+I]. The “Repository URL” should already be filled for you. For the “Path” field, click the “…” button to navigate to the folder that has your plugin (keep the rest of the options unchanged). Once the directory is selected, click the OK button. RapidSVN will ask for your username and password credentials. Enter the relevent information and click OK. That’s it! You have just UPLOADED your latest/first (of, hopefully, many to come) plugin to the WordPress Plugins Directory. Below is a snapshot of our final results!

Final SnapShot of what you should see

I hope this step-by-step was helpful to you. Please provide feedback/critique to this post in the comments section below, so that I can better write the next time. Thank you!!

Hope this has helped you!

-RushiKumar

Hello and welcome all!

In this Guide, I will show you how you can develop plugins for the brand-spankin’-new latest version of WordPress 2.7.

What are we going to develop?
     A Plugin, that will add “Topic Icons” inside the content of each post.

Hasn’t this already been done before?
     Yes… yes it has been. It’s called “WP Post Icon” and you can find that plugin here at Linewbie’s WordPress Plugins Page

Then why re-invent the wheel?

• To have it compatible with WordPress 2.7.
• For added functionality.
• For learning to make plugins (you gotta start somewhere!)

So, let’s begin!

Step 0. Bare-Minimum Plugin Skeleton

In this step, we will cover the following:

• 1. Creating Commented Info Block
• 2. Creating Commented License Block

First, create a blank PHP file, name it content-icons.php, with the following content:

Please make sure that there are no blank spaces before: <?php and after ?>. If there are any spaces, the WordPress will break, complaining that headers have already been sent.

Now, create a folder (preferably with the same name: content-icons) and place the newly-created php file inside it.

Next, upload the folder into the plugins directory:

Go to the admin area, and select “Plugins” menu option. Once there, you should see the following:

The comment block reflects what shows up in the plugins admin area

As you can see from the above snapshot, what we wrote for the comment block reflects here, in the Plugins Admin Area.

So, with our ‘bare-minimum’ skeleton out of the way, let’s make this functional, by adding key functionalities!

This should be a common knowledge for all wordpress users, or so I feel like that. Everyone wants to have “pretty” links for their blogs/sites as oppose to the ugly ones.

A quick description of what I am talking about (Permalinks):
In case you didn’t already know (it could be that you just started with WordPress), WordPress gives you an option to have your links be re-written from:
http://www.yoursite.com/?p=123 to
http://www.yoursite.com/2009/01/06/sample-post/ or
http://www.yoursite.com/2009/01/sample-post/ or
http://www.yoursite.com/archives/123

OR,

you could custom write the re-write rule.

So, I didn’t like any of the given options, and so I re-wrote mine as follows:
“/%category%/%postname% ”

Noticed anything wierd?

After having my settings saved, I moved on to other things… completely oblivious to the effect this setting had. As it turned out, when I tried to access my posts tonight, I encountered the 404 errors. After couple of minutes of head scratching, it hit me…

“This must be due to the Permalinks settings”

I checked and saw that it was indeed the Permalinks settings that was causing this problem. The glitch was that there was an extra space at the VERY end of the re-write rule…

So, here’s the lesson to be learned:

Make sure you don’t have any spaces after the re-write rule.

So… you got your wordpress all pimped out with great plugins that are available from the wordpress db. One of the most useful plugins to have is the “Category Icons Plugin“. One (main) reason why you would want to have this plugin, is to show ‘graphically’ what category your post/article/note/blog (or whatever you wanna call it) belongs to.

One of the most overlooked feature of this Plugin, is the option of having multiple category icons. This how-to is geared towards that feature. So, what if you wanted to modify your Category Icons Plugin such that it showed Trails (i.e., breadcrumb)?

In this quick how-to, I will show you how you can modify/hack this plugin that will allow you to show trails.

First of all, lets briefly talk about:
Why you would want to have such a feature?
…because,

• (1) Simply having multiple category icons before the post title kinda dosen’t make sense… it’s just an indicator of (graphically) how many categories your post belongs to.
• (2) By having such bread crumb, you are making a reference of how the post originates.

To give an example, consider this particular post. At the top, you will see the title preceded by two category icons: how-to & wordpress. The image in between these two icons is the trail. With the help of such visual representation, it should become clear(er)* that this particular post is a how-to on/for the wordpress category. *(provided you are familiar with what category each icon indicates)

So, without further adieu, here’s how you go about achieving this:

• First, get an image the represents a trail (I am using an arrow).
• Next, open up category_icons.php file.

Find (it should be on line 211):

$cat_icons .= $p['prefix'].$urlbegin.’<img ‘;

and replace it with the following block (make sure you change the code that is in bold):

if($i>0){
$cat_icons .= $p['prefix'].$urlbegin.’<img src=”‘.trailingslashit(get_option(’siteurl’)).PLUGINDIR.’/category-icons/images/IMAGE-FILE-NAME.EXT” alt=”–>” title=”–>” /><img ‘;
}else{
$cat_icons .= $p['prefix'].$urlbegin.’<img ‘;
}
• Lastly, just save and upload the changed file and you should have a visual ‘trail’ (bread crumb) in the title of each post.

Results:

Before applying this hack

After you apply the hack

Hack at work, with more than two icons