Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Sony Ericsson Theme Creator (new)


Make your background red. Turn the graphics purple. Add a picture of your parrot. Then put it on your phone.

It's easy to do with our free Themes Creator which helps you make your mobile screen match your personality. In a few easy steps.

Resize. Zoom. Crop. Fast. The built-in image editor gives you more control.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Series 40 Theme Studio 2.2


I'm a big fan of Nokia Series 40 phones, but the one problem I have with them is that they all look very similar.

If you fancy customizing your phone to stand out from the crowd a bit, you could install a theme for your device. However, those who really dare to be different choose to create their own themes and the Series 40 Theme Studio allows you to do just that.

The Windows-based application - an official Nokia software package - lets you change virtually every part of your display, from the folder icons to the battery indicator. You can tweak colors, change fonts and add custom pictures to set your phone apart from the rest.

The user interface is split into two halves - the left containing a menu of all the things you can change, and the right a live preview window displaying the current state of the theme. The degree you can customize your device really is limited only by your imagination. Actually, it's also limited by your patience because the user interface in the Series 40 Theme Studio isn't very user friendly. The menus are cluttered and poorly-labeled and this program is crying out for drag-and-drop functionality.

If you have the persistence to master the cumbersome interface, you should be able to pull off some cool designs though.

Languages:

English

OS requirements for Series 40 Theme Studio:

  • OS: Java/J2ME

Sony Ericsson Theme Creator


Sony Ericsson Themes Creator 1.80 introduces support for the recently announced W600 Walkman, S600 and Z520 mobile phones. It also adds a convenient theme size indicator and the ability to add author information to your theme files.

By using Themes Creator 1.80 you can take advantage of the powerful customization and personalization features of Sony Ericsson phones and create unique new themes to match various consumer style.


CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Symbian Theme Creator


One of the much vaunted features of Nokia’s Series 60 range of phones is the capability of personalising your handset with custom themes. Just as we’re now encouraged to ‘skin’ desktop applications such as WinAmp media player, so Nokia want us to develop a more personal attachment to our phones by choosing or even creating our own themes. Series 60 Theme Editor is Nokia’s own free tool for creating complete theme packages.

Theme Editor’s installation includes some atypical steps, so it’s important that you don’t rush through the installation. The most problematic step is selecting default editors for bitmaps, vectors and sound files. No guidance is given for this step, and no default editing programs were found on my test system. Without any assistance from the manual, this proved to be a major stumbling block in getting the program to function at all. I’d therefore recommend installing Adobe PhotoShop for Windows prior to attempting to install Theme Editor, as the install program should detect PhotoShop as a default bitmap and vector editor.

At the end of the installation, I was prompted to restart the computer now, or wait and do it myself later. I chose to wait, but the installer immediately started trying to close my computer down. I managed to stop it, but this was an annoying reminder of why you’re always warned to close all other applications before an installation: things can go wrong.

Once up and running, Theme Editor doesn’t really improve much. After a few minutes tinkering with the program’s interface, it becomes clear that this is not an application aimed at users with a basic to intermediate skill level. Creating themes is a time consuming, fiddly and perplexing chore – as is trying to find help in the program’s manual. This is a shame, because Theme Editor is graphically well designed and looks like it could be used to produce some stunning results, if only it weren’t aimed at developers only.

In all, Nokia Series 60 Theme Editor is a disappointingly complex tool really aimed only at developers.

Languages:

English

OS requirements for Series 60 Theme Studio:

  • OS: Symbian OS

Mobile Full Series:

  • Symbian 6 Series 60
  • Symbian 6 Series 60 1.0
  • Symbian 6 Series 60 1.2
  • Symbian 7 Series 60 2.0
  • Symbian 7 Series 60 2.1
  • Symbian 8 Series 60 2.6
  • Symbian 8 Series 60 2.8
  • Symbian 9.1 Series 60 3rd Ed