But first, how to get New PC Studio (NPS) and where? Sure, you could use the CD that came with the phone. But have in mind that the older versions of New PC Studio (yes, there is a joke about an old new software) don’t always download fresh updates! I tried to use my NPS version 1.3 something and it reported that there are no updates for my phone. After upgrading to 1.4 something, the update was waiting for me.

Important: always download the latest version of Samsung New PC Studio in order to be able to download the latest firmware.

You can download the latest version of NPS from official site at http://www.samsungmobile.co.uk/support/softwaremanuals/softwareNpsUpdate.do

Beware that if you select your phone (in this case Galaxy) you won’t necessarily get the latest version of NPS. The best way to get the latest version is just to continue downloading without selecting the phone model. At the time of writing the latest version of NPS seems to be New_PC_Studio_1.4.0.IL2.exe and can be downloaded directly from here. It’s wise to check other (download) sites for the latest version, for example Softpedia.

After you download and install NPS you can connect your phone to the USB port. The program should start automatically and after it loads you should click the Update button in the lower part of the screen. A new window opens with two tabs: one for updating the NPS program itself (the default tab) and one for updating the device (firmware). First see if there are any updates of the NPS (that never worked for me, even where there actually was an update – I always get a “The latest version is already installed” message) and always install the latest version. Second, see if there are any updates of your phone’s firmware. Switch to ‘Update device’ tab, select your i7500 from the list and refresh the display. If you’re lucky, the message won’t read “You have the latest version installed, there is no need to update”. What you need is “The device requires an update” text! For my phone and settings, the latest firmware version for i7500 I could download was I7500XXII7. Note that the version will differ from your phone’s settings and your CSC version, which defines your country and carrier (I am in Slovenia and I have I7500MOTIJ1).

After finding a fresh update just click on the Update button to start updating. The phone should be fully charged and the update process took less than five minutes with my phone. After the firmware was updates the phone was restarted, all the settings stayed intact and I could use the new firmware right away.

I hope to see fresh firmware release soon, as well as the new versions of Android operating systems for my phone – Android 2.1 for Samsung Galaxy i7500 would be nice.

As with Buzz for Android and G0ogle Earth for Android Gesture Search made the same mistake: it’s available for Android 2.0 or higher. I own Android 1.5 Samsung Galaxy i7500 so I can’t use this software. Again, grrr. Sometimes it makes me sad that my three months new phone is actually old.

Since Google has graduated several lab features to GMail I am missing on a feature. I used to be able to type “unr” in the GMail search box and the autocomplete feature of GMail would suggest the “is:unread” option. I’d select it and see all the unread mail in my Inbox.

Well, since the graduation this does not work any more. If I type “unr” now, all I get is “unr – search mail” option. Also, when I type “unread” and press Enter key for search, the mails are searched for actual appearance of the text “unread”.

I’m sure this feature was here before and I liked it and used all the time. It simplified the process of finding unread mails in my Inbox which is how I use my GMail.

If you’re a fan of bookmarks, you can bookmark the URL for the search results page of your GMail that shows only the unread messages:

http://mail.google.com/mail/#search/is%3Aunread

Use this link for GMail for Apps:

https://mail.google.com/a/DOMAINNAME/#search/is%3Aunread

However, I still miss a link or button in GMail to show only the unread messages quick.

I decided to search for another tool on the web. I wanted it to be free (as freeware author I try to use as much free software as possible), so I took a little more time for research. I found a few tools that claimed to be UTF-8 compatible, but none of them was free. I even downloaded and installed Multiple search in files, but have soon found out that it only searches in files but doesn’t replace the text…. And without replacement it was no use for me, so I unistalled it soon.

I know that developer tools like Eclipse have these features buit in, so I remembered of my freeware developer tool for writing and editing PHP, PSPad. It has some great features, it supports UTF-8 (that’s the reason I’ve chosen it in the first place), and it’s free. Maybe it has search and replace in files as well, was my thought.

The option was really there: just go to main menu -> Search -> Search / Replace in files… and fill in the fields! You can even choose the character encoding for the search, and UTF-8 is supported.

It looks like free software won again!

It looked great, and Android was supported, so I navigated to http://m.google.com/earth with my mobile browser. Again, like less than a month ago with Google Buzz, I was disappointed. Instead of a download link I got a message, that my device is not supported. All I could do was close the browser and continue my life without Google Earth on my mobile.

I run Android 1.5 and it really looks to me that this is an outdated version of the software. I know that Android 2.1 is already out, but hey – I bought my phone a few months ago and it shouldn’t get deprecated by Google so fast.

I still hope Google will make an updated version of Earth for ‘older’ Android phones like they did with Buzz and make it available with limited features.

Yes, I know it’s a crazy idea, but you can actually install Mihov Image Resizer to your digital camera and use it from there! You do need a computer, but you don’t need install permissions, so using one in the hotel lobby or in the cyber cafe works just fine!

One of the great advantages is that Mihov Image Resizer takes only 370 kb of space when installed, so it won’t take too much space on your memeory card. Actually, 370 kb is probably less than a third of a digital photo you’ll take with your camera!

If you are already on your way right now than it’s the best way to download a zip archive of the executable files (no need to install them) and unzip (extract) them to any folder on your memory card. The best way is to create a new folder on the root folder. You can run the program directly from your memory card by running Resizer.exe and don’t have to install anything!

I hope this little tip will help you send your photos to your family and friends faster, or to cut down your upload times if uploading to social networks like Facebook, MySpace or even Picasa Web.

The actual link to start using Buzz says “Continue on an unsupported device”. I tried it and I haven’t discovered any broken features on my Samsung Galaxy i7500 Android 1.5 phone.

This was quick and I have to congratulate Google for a quick reaction. They have also updated some private features that users have been complaining about so I hope they have the version for Google Apps ready soon.

However… (there is always a however)

I use Gmail through my Google Apps account and guess what? Google Apps account are not (yet?) upgraded to include Google Buzz. I have read some answers from their Help page that they should get it in some months. Still, this means that I can’t use it through my personal mail nor my business mail. I could use it in my Gmail mail, but that’s not my primary mail and I don’t really use it.

Another way of using Google Buzz would be through my mobile phone. As I wrote before I have Samsung Galaxy i7500 Android phone that runs Android version 1.5. Guess what? Google Buzz supports only phones with Android version 1.6 with limited features and Android 2.0 or 2.1 with full features. Which means that I can’t use Google Buzz on my mobile, either. So if I enter mobile Buzz address all I get is a list of supported (and partly) supported phones. Mine not on the list, of course.

I am getting a lot of question about PayPal here in Slovenia. Our country is not for long on the supported list of countries and people aren’t used to use PayPal. Well, if I count the questions I get, there’s more people involving. And they should. As said before, paying is easy, and so’s the other side of that: getting paid. Getting paid by PayPal is a very interesting option: the same advantages go here. The (international) users are familiar with Paypal, are not afraid to use it and… it’s simple to use. All in favor of businesses who want to sell more.

But in Slovenia getting the money out of PayPal can still be hard. Here you can get the money only by paying it out on your card and only two card types are supported: one is Visa and the other is MasterCard debit card (or a ‘debit card with a MasterCard logo’). Visa is pretty common here, but MasterCard comes only as credit card as far as I know. So the only option to get the money out of PayPal is to get a Visa card from one of the banks and link it to your PayPal account. The money withdrawn from PayPal (minus 2 EUR fee, of course) gets to the account in three days. It can be withdrawn from the bank and the process is finished. One funny thing though: on the monthly statement from Visa all purchases have a positive number (and are subtracted from the account total), and the PayPal transaction has a negative number (because it is added to the account total).