Streaming Real Media and Internet Radio on Nokia N95 8g

There are two ways to access streaming radio over the internet from your N95 8g phone. The simplest method is to download the Internet Radio application for free from Nokia. This player has a large number of preprogrammed stations available, broken down by region and genre, with a fairly useful search function. The really handy thing with this player is the ability to set up manual stations – as long as you know the URl for the stream then setting it up is a doddle.

Nokia Internet Radio

To install:

• Go to Menu -> Download!

• Update the catalogue if required

• Select Applications

• Scroll down to Internet Radio

• Download and Install

NOTE: Streaming media over your data connection will consume a considerable chunk of download allowance if you are on a restricted data package.

The application will now be available under the Applications section under the main menu screen. The downside of using the InternetRadio player is that it doesn’t cater for streaming Real Media formats, this is a pain as there are a lot of mainstream radio stations out there who offer up their streams in the Real media format (files ending in .ram).

Fortunately the N95 comes equipped with RealPlayer, and thus the ability to stream ram files over your data connection (or over wifi) if a connection is available. There are two ways to listen to a Real Player ram stream:

Configure a streaming link:

• Go to Menu -> Gallery

• Scroll down to Streaming Links

• Hit Options -> New Link -> Mass Memory (or phone if prefered)

• Enter a Name for the stream

• Enter the address for the stream (usually starts with rstp://)

• Hit OK

Assuming the stream link details are accurate, and you have a data or wifi connection available, you can now hit the link to stream the radio station (or arbitrary stream) at any time.
This method is a bit time consuming and does require you to go out and find all of the stream details you require. The other alternative is to:

• Fire up your favourite browser (I use Opera mini)

• Head to a site which already contains the links for your favourite radio ram streams

• Click the link to the stream

This should result in RealPlayer firing up and streaming from the specified link.

Below is a list of useful links for BBC streaming radio stations – Please add any other good ones you’re aware of via comments:

BBC Asian Network (West Midlands)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/ran.ram

BBC Radio 1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1.ram

1Xtra BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1x.ram

BBC Radio 2
rtsp://rmlive.bbc.co.uk/bbc-rbs/rmlive/ev7/live24/radio2/live/r2_dsat_g2.ra

BBC Radio 3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r3.ram

BBC Radio 4 (FM)
rtsp://rmlive.bbc.co.uk/bbc-rbs/rmlive/ev7/live24/radio4/live/r4_dsat_g2.ra

BBC Radio 4 (LW)
rtsp://rmlive.bbc.co.uk/bbc-rbs/rmlive/ev7/live24/radio4/live/r4lw_dsat_g2.ra

BBC 5 live
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5l.ram

BBC 5 live sports extra
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r5lsp.ram

BBC 6 Music
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r6.ram

BBC Radio 7
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r7.ram

BBC Radio Sheffield
http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/realmedia/live/localradio/sheffield.ram

BBC World Service
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/meta/tx/nb/live/www15.ram

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Nokia N95 Backup and O2 Bluebook

Nokia N95 8g

I have just spent a very frustrating few hours trying to return my phone to its former glory. I have a Nokia N95 8gig and have been generally happy with the handset for the last year or so, however this evening I wanted to try out the new iPlayer for mobiles service made available from the BBC.

I did some web research and realised that I would need to upgrade my phone to the latest firmware – I’ve not bothered upgrading it since I bought it so this is a new experience for me. Software upgrades can obviously go wrong… as a software professional I’m very well aware of this fact 😉 but I wasn’t too worried about this – the N95 comes with some handy software from Nokia for backing up your whole phone – literally dumping all contacts, messages, images, videos etc off of the handset and onto another device. So before attempting the firmware upgrade I backed up the entire device (takes a while – but could be crucial so I don’t mind waiting).
Right I have the phone backed up, and I have the firmware installer ready to go – there is a warning that the upgrade will wipe the entire phone… but I made a backup right? Ok they’ve gone to the hastle of warning me, so I make another backup – I have two whole phone backups sitting on different drives on my laptop – onwards.
Firmware upgrade runs… takes about 10 minutes…. then the screen goes blank… for a while, but then it came back – Yay! It worked! I now have version 30something of the firmware installed.

This is the point that I remember how annoying the default settings on the N95 are – poor layout and really irritating beeps for every action… but that’s ok – I just need to restore from the backup and I’m done. So I use the handy Nokia PC Suite software, the same one I used to make the backup, and set it going. I wait, and wait a bit more, and a bit more – it takes around 40mins – but eventually it’s done – the phone says it needs to restart – Ok. We’re back in business, the phone comes up and…. er hang on, I have no contacts, or messages, or calendar entries…. Arrrgggghh! My photos are there though, handy.

Long story short, I tried the other backup, I tried the original again, I tried talking to it nicely, I tried shouting… a lot.
Nothing. Arse.

That’s the moment I remember I signed up with the O2 bluebook service a while ago (about a year in fact) – within 10 minutes I’ve logged onto the O2 site, sent the sync software to my phone and grabbed all my contacts back from the web – result! Also all of my text messages are avilable via the site too (if I need to get at them) – great.

So I have my contacts back – well at least as they were a year ago – I’m fairly sure the actual contacts are in the backup file somewhere, which I’ll get around to hacking to bits at some point. Still no calendar entries though…. VERY ANNOYING!

The moral of the story is – Nokia PC Suite backups are crap – O2 Bluebook is great (but you need to sync regularly) – multiple backup technologies are a really good idea – I have no idea when lots of peoples birthdays are anymore.

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