The company ZTE has been making a lot of the Next G Telstra handsets and quite a lot of their value for money handsets. Handsets like the F series (f152,f156 etc) and the popular T6. They are generally well featured and most people seem quite happy with them.

There is one interesting feature that the ZTE handsets have and that’s the USB/Power connection. It’s the same across all the models so far! This is cool, because chargers, earphones, usb cables and car kit connections are all common, so if you upgrade to a new ZTE your accessories are still useable.

For those that wisely have hands free car kits this can be a big bonus. The only downside with the car kits is that the cradles change with the different handset models.  You can buy cradles on their own from ZTE which is heaps cheaper than buying a whole new kit or as I discovered it’s a five minute job to mod the cradle to fit different model ZTE phones.

Here’s my guide for modding a ZTE F150 car kit (ck150) to fit a ZTE Telstra T6

If it’s already installed, take the cradle out of the car. Remove the six Phillips head screws from the back of the cradle.

Once the screws are removed the cradle simply pulls apart, with a front and back piece.

Looking inside the back piece,  you can see an aerial wire which comes in the bottom and runs up to the top, the aerial fitting is actually in the wrong position for a T6 so lets take it out for now..

Removing the aerial wire is easy, simply undo the single screw on the small circuit board them remove the aerial wire.

Now the centre wire, which is the connection to the handset, needs to come out the side as shown in the picture below. A hole needs to be made for the cable to come out, so, put a mark on the housing where the cable comes out like in the picture below. Once you have placed a mark remove the wires.

Simply click the housing back together and drill a hole where you marked earlier. I used a 7/32 drill bit and made the hole right on the join of the two housings. If you haven’t got a drill you could probably just file a half moon in either side of the housing….

Now put the wires back in and screw that little circuit board back down, then hold the cable in the new hole you made and screw the housing back together.

And thats it! As you can see the T6 fits perfectly into the cradle and the connecter fits just like it should.

Most of the candy bar shaped ZTE phones will fit this cradle quite snugly, as the T6 does. For some ZTE models the cable will need to come out the other side of the housing.
You now have quality hands free!

But what about the aerial, you ask! If you got this far I think you get the idea. The cradles are fairly simplistic and easy to mod, for the aerial a little glue and another drill hole is needed that’s all probably, but I just want the hands free to stop getting expensive tickets! If you want a guide for aerial I’ll add one, just let me know in the comments section.

Enjoy!

Sometimes it’s hard to find the tone you want or maybe you want to make your own and be absolutely unique. If you’re musically talented it can be a great way to show off your skills and have some fun mixing up funky beats. So how is it done?

First of all you need to have a phone that can connect to your PC either via USB, infared or bluetooth etc. so you can get your creation on to your phone. The next thing is to know which type of audio formats your phone accepts. Most recent phones are mp3 or WAV capable and if so you shouldn’t have any dramas.

After that of course what you need to do is make your ringtone. And there is a few ways to go about it. You can download software for your computer especially designed to convert audio files into ringtone files aka the converter or tap out your own funky beat on a composer.

Ringtone Composers

RingoPhone:

Ringophone composer is a free ringtone composer which you can compose ringtones by simply playing them using the virtual piano. Download at Softpedia

DJ ToneXpress The Ringtone Creator:

lets you make unlimited customized real music ringtones from MP3, WMA, AAC/MP4, WAV files & Audio CDs plus post your created ringtones on your blog with their player so your friends can hear them. The 3 step Ringtone Creation Wizard guides you through music selection, ringtone editing and upload to phone. Download at downloadatoz

Ringtone Converters

A123 Mobile Ringtone Converter:

A mobile ring creator from almost all kinds of Audio and Video media file, including AVI, WMV, MPEG, MP4, ASF, VOB, 3GP, iPhone, MOV, FLV video and MP3, AAC, AC3, AMR, M4A, OGG, WAV audio format. You can convert to MP3, AAC, AC3, AMR, M4A, OGG and WAV audio in batch mode. The most important is you can split your favorite music from long movie and save it as your mobile ring. Download at:Cnet

MP3 Ringtone Maker:

Converts most of the audio files (MP3, WMA, WAV) to the most of the popular ringtone formats which can be played on mobile phones - MP3 and AMR. Download at downloadatoz

The Nokia Young Creatives Challenge is part of the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France where 20 teams of young film buffs exercised their film making skills in a 48 hour shoot out!

The 20 teams of two members each who were given the same creative brief and 48 hours to shoot, edit, and produce a 30 second spot – all on the Nokia N93i cell phone. Apart from being a brilliant display of creative talent it also demonstrates the amazing ability of the N93i with it’s DVD like video quality (perfect for uploading to youtube!).

The topic for the film was Climate Change which the team from Italy have taken the top prize.

To watch the submissions and background on the event visit Nokia - Cannes. Feeling creative? You can also find out at the site how to be apart of next years event. So put your director pants on and get shooting with that N93!