PC File Manager for Symbian Devices
Epocware just released an app that should have come with my phone in the first place, a Windows based file explorer to browse the files on Symbian phones. It's perfect. Simple, but insanely useful:
PC File Manager software for Nokia 7650/3650 gives you a possibility to manage files on your phone from your PC.
Install PC File Manager for Nokia 7650 / 3650 on your PC. Connect your phone with the PC (the appropriate PC Suite must be installed) and start PC File Manager. To start PC File Manager click the Windows Start button, point to Programs, and click File Manager icon in Epocware folder.
Then you can manage the files and folders on the phone from your PC in a standard way. You can:
- Browse files and folders.
- Cut, copy, paste files and folders.
- Rename and delete files and folders.
- Create new files and folders.
- View properties of drives, folders, and files.
With PC File Manager you can also copy files between your phone and the drives and folders on your PC.
In fact, you can use PC File Manager to perform most of the same tasks with the files on your phone as you can with files on the PC. Use the normal Windows techniques (drag and drop, right-clicking, etc.) to work with the files on your phone.
Very cool. Now I can go through and see what's on my phone, clean out some of the cruft that's been left behind already by installs/uninstalls (every byte counts in 4 megs of RAM) and as I'm doing development it's going to be great to use to test what's going on with my apps - both J2ME and native apps. I'm using it now and there's no delay or lag while browsing (who says Bluetooth is slow?) - it's just like my phone is physically attached to my computer, even though it's over in the corner getting charged up. Awesome.
The amazing thing is that I didn't have to install anything on the phone. This capability is built in! I only had to connect to the device via Bluetooth and I was able to access my whole "drive" on the phone. Symbian devices, for those that don't know, have a file system similar to Windows with a c:\ drive for RAM and a z:\ drive for ROM. This seems like a massive security hole, but I did tell my phone that my computer was "authorized", which I now understand means "full access". So I guess the real fault is simply that the security isn't fine grained enough. It seems a hell of a lot nicer to have access where you "share" out a folder like in Windows... However this opens a lot of possibilities for apps. If I can figure out how it's done of course.
Maybe I better start going through the code of Bemused. ;-)
-Russ