Wiki articles you're missing out on

My last article in this series discussed the Maemo-specific packaging features that often seem to fall by the wayside when developers are packaging for the platform. For this second installment, I'm going to focus on information slightly more relevant to regular users—interesting and, perhaps, overlooked articles in the wiki.

Ad blocking

With resource-limited devices like ours, ads can severely affect the quality of the browsing experience, and ad blocking is a simple way to avoid the difficulties that advertisement-filled websites can offer up. It's a topic not often discussed, so information can be hard to find, but this article covers all of the relevant options for ad blocking (along with their pros and cons), and walks you through implementing whichever you choose.

Extras

Many tablet users haven't caught on to the change in direction that has occurred over the last year for Maemo and its repositories. Gone are the days where one had to seek out a dozen different small repositories in order to get the software you wanted. Although we're not all of the way there yet, Extras is the place to go for almost all of your software needs, and is the only repository most users will need. This article tells you everything you need to know about the repository and its use.

Root access

Root access is a frequent issue for users new to the Maemo platform, as its acquisition and use is somewhat different from that of desktop Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Debian. This article tells you everything you need to know about why you might need root access and how to get it.

Updating the tablet firmware

Though the days of flashing-only upgrades are gone, in favor of SSU, some users may still find reason to flash. This article covers the steps necessary to flash your tablet on any platform by any of several methods.

Uploading to Extras

The days of scores of repositories are waning. Extras is now the place to get software for Maemo, which makes the lives of both developers and users easier, and greatly improves the user-experience for Maemo. This article covers everything developers and packagers need to know to get their packages into Extras and into the hands of users.

USB host mode

Having access to a USB interface for the tablet opens up a lot of doors—keyboards, mice, memory card readers, hard drives. With USB host mode you can connect these to your tablet. This article covers everything you need to know to enable and use USB host mode.

Wifi Power Saving Mode

Wifi PSM is a powerful feature that is generally not understood by most tablet users. It is a large part of what gives the tablets such great battery life, but also a source of many networking woes. This article explains what Wifi PSM does and some of the possible pitfalls of its use and how to work around them.