File Manager, File Picker for Windows Phone 8.1

 

Update: If you create your own folders in your phone using Windows Explorer, the same may not be listed under “Phone folders” service provider. We guess the API what provided by Microsoft restricts the access to a pre-defined list of folders as listed below

  1. Pictures
  2. Music
  3. Videos
  4. documents
  5. downloads
  6. ringtones

Anything other than the listed above, ie, folders created by the phone user will not be listed or available to attach with “Pocket File Manager” app!

 

I recall the furious arguments and personal level attacks over Microsoft tech forums about missing file manager over Windows Phone platform until recent days & joe belfiore during reddit AMA got all excited when one of the participants shot a question about “File manager”

joeredditama

We “heard” about it earlier, through some leaks, didn’t ? Anyway, the official app for the file explorer should be available by the end of May 2014, and the speculations are that, the file explorer will be bundled along with “OneDrive” application. let us wait and see how the implementation is going to happen.

Meanwhile let us assess couple of third party applications what are already available for managing your files (Music/Video/Documents/Downloads) in your phone!

During next few days we will be analyzing

  1. Pocket File Manager(Paid, you can try)
  2. Pocket Explorer(Paid, you can try)

apps which are already available in the Windows Phone store. We already bought Pocket File Manager (PFM as widely called by techies) and had few hands on exercises and very much pleased with the end results.

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We opted to keep the “Warning” (Should it be called as “Quick help”?) appearing each time while the app is restarted

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When the app is initially used, the “Root” has it’s own file system called “Local storage” with few sample folders and files. We will not be digging much into it as our primary aim is to see “what else we could do with the file manager”. The below image shows the couple of “Phone folders” we have added to the app by following instructions. Touch the + button and, you will be provided two options

“add image”(Capitalization standards)? Winking smile

“Add Provider”

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Now you can select a provider from total seven (7) available right now as on while this document is prepared (this list could grow with later versions)

For our exercise we will select “Phone folder” and proceed

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Once the “Phone Folder” selected, you will be provided a windows listing available Phone folders what you can attach with this little wonderful app!

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Now touch the folder name you want to attach with the app and touch the done (tick) button!

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The app may say the folder is empty, just ignore and complete the activity

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Touch the folder name you just attached with the app and wait few seconds…and the file listing starts building up! You can use the refresh button if you think the listing was not done completely (which is almost a never happening case)

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The beauty with such a listing is, you can almost do all file manipulations against the chosen file!

Have a look at the features

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So, if you were eager for a file manager, you may don’t have to wait until May 2014, you can start exploring the possibilities of these applications which will not burn holes in your pockets and start managing your files as you wished until recent days.

 

We hope you enjoyed another quality post from windows7bugs

for windows7bugs

rajesh

WhatsApp Can you live without it? #Windowsphone8

Update: The “last seen”, the innovative feature what “Whatsapp” protected dearly could be turned off, in case if you are using Android or iPhone. Wait, no party yet. As soon as you start typing or reading a message, you are seen as “online” to your contacts (If you want you can still use Whatsapp, else eff yaselp n die) and the catch is turning off the “last seen” is reciprocating! Less said, if you decided nobody should when you were last seen, you will not able to see that last seen time stamp of others either.

for Windows Phone users, the last update for Whatspp over this platform was by early January 2014 and it looks like the users are going to wait a long long time for the latest “feature”. However we have a hack for you! We transferred the SIM to an Android phone, activated the whatsapp account, turned off the “last seen” feature and transferred it back to the Windows Phone 8 device, activated the account from the device and viola! It did the charm! Remember you can’t turn on the “last seen” feature from the Windows Phone yet, hence you will be forced to go through the method explained above.

Windowsphone Whatsapp
Windowsphone Whatsapp

So hooked to WhatsApp? it is one of the fastest, almost free (0.99$) after the first year as claimed and a nitty-gritty app available across all known mobile platforms

Saudi Arabia had “issues” with how WhatsApp handles the privacy, personally I feel  WhatsApp could and should adopt certain privacy policies based on the user requests, which they were adamant NOT to until date. Seems like enabling the ability to let the users turn of the last seen “feature” breaks down their servers…

Ongoing discussions

http://www.ciol.com/ciol/news/174552/is-whatsapp-seen-functionality-getting-trouble

http://www.times.co.sz/entertainment/90491-that-monster-called-%E2%80%98last-seen%E2%80%99-on-whatsapp.html

and Google/Bing for “Whatsapp breaking relations last seen” bring up hundreds of threads discussing how the “last seen” is clearly causing troubles in relationships

 

The major concerns

As soon as someone installs the software, the entire contact lists are uploaded to WhatsApp servers and thus the software figures out who are you contacts to initiate a chat. Thus anyone happened to have your number could start sending you messages day and night, oh yes, puhless don’t forget you can “block” them

Highly controversial “last seen” feature, which is updated by WhatsApp server(s) allowing your contacts to know when the last time you were active over WhatsApp and thus come to conclusion that you didn’t reply/respond to them on time. How it affects me? Well loads. I manage IT department and there are suppliers who are adopting WhatsApp for anything and everything. Recently I started receiving requests for payments, even copies of invoices through WhatsApp with requests to “Please print and submit to your accounts department”. Then comes complaints from contacts who start feeling I am not responding to few of them purposely even when they saw me online? What the heck?

The alternatives?

Obviously, there are other companies who care and listen to user concerns like the above ones listed and tweak the apps to give what the users demand on the privacy domain

Based on personal usage, I have ranked couple of apps like below

  1. Line Messenger (has desktop client): Until date, no other apps I have tried out comes anywhere closer to line messenger while it is all about privacy. Let us have a look at the application from the privacy prespective
    1. On screen password: Yes, the app has a inbuilt password handler, setting up will request a password to be supplied every time when a user tries to open the application
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    3. wp_ss_20140316_0002
    4. Notifications: You can completely disable the notifications or turn off the preview(which is buggy after the latest release for #wp8)
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    6. Decide how one should add you as a friend
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  2. Viber (has desktop client): A long waited app on #wp8 is slowly making sense (minimum to me) with 4.0.1 update, which allows a #wp8 user the following
    1. Allows users to turn off the “Seen” status completely
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    3. Allows you to turn of the “Online” status completely, however the status could be updated only once in 24 hours
  3. Hike: Is an emerging Indian IM, widely used by Indians as it supports free SMS to India, ie, a user can send free SMS to devices which are not having Hike!, ie, to a regular mobile and receive replies against them and it adds up the free SMS left counter! truly sweet and a better business model. From the privacy perspective Hike supports the following
    1. Turn off Last Seen
    2. Turn of Location
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That’s all folks, regardless the counter arguments about what one should not do online, being a bit careful about what app you use in your mobile phone saves loads of troubles in real life scenarios. We hope that you enjoyed another post from us, which is off-topic this time.

regards,

rajesh

Windows Phone 8, Are you ready for it?

 

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Nokia, HTC, Samsung, xyz… all have already jumped in, or jumping into the new so called ecosystem. We are asking YOU, are you ready for it?

I just completed my first 24 hours with my Windows Phone 8 and following were my observations

The good

  1. Amazingly fast, while taking the processor and memory primary bench marking parameters
  2. UI is simple, fluid and there are no seven or eight pages to scroll around, everything is in single place
  3. Live tiles are fun (most probably because they are something new) and resizable to programmed pre-defined sizes (ie, you cannot decide the size for the tile, in short)
  4. Available applications with the market place is neatly combed, organized
  5. Facebook application is a different experience

The bad

  1. Phone functions lacking innovativeness
    1. You have to always scroll up or down to find the call button :), must be a factor with getting “used to” it
    2. There are no provisions for setting up speed dials, ie, you cannot assign a contact to a particular digit with the dial pad and initiate a call, like how you were used with almost all symbian iterations throughout these years
  2. No file browser or file manager
    1. A smartphone without a file manager doesn’t make sense. with whooping 16GB to 32GB storage, you are crippled unless you can connect your phone to a compatible computer and go through what you have in the storage
    2. You don’t have any idea, what happened to the file you just transferred to the phone using bluetooth, if you are really concerned, get the phone connected to the computer, start searching for it.
    3. You cannot attach anything other than photos with your emails, funny, ridiculous and a senseless approach when you waited such long time for a Windows phone, hoping you are going to take it on a trip, replacing your laptop/tablet devices
  3. Notification area limitations
    1. There is no dedicated notification area for Windows phone 8, if you want to see the status, you must drag down from the top of the screen, another childish senseless approach. Exactly like how MS has decided that start button is not necessary for end users.
    2. Once the device is locked, there are no notifications available anywhere, you are staring at a blank, truly blank screen
  4. Communication limitations
    1. Windows phone 8 by default fail to retrieve the GPRS/MMS settings for many carriers around the world. User must install a software from apps store to have a workaround. link and the funniest part is, if you try to search for the application, you are not going to find it. So, you have to type in the link as exactly from your phone browser to locate it.
    2. Wireless settings does not allow the user to specify IPV4 settings, another pretty cumbersome approach, especially in corporate environments.

We invite your valued observations now. Do you have comments? please post them here

 

regards,

admin