In research group, I am collaborating in a project that intends to test some libraries on the Nokia 770/N880. As a first step, I wrote a little tutorial to install the Maemo development environment, based on the official tutorial.

Nokia have just released a new Internet Table. This time it is called N800. The hardware has been improved. It has now 128 MB RAM and 256 MB flash ROM (to store the filesystem). The memory card system has been switched from RS-MCC to SD cards, which are quite cheaper, and it now has two card slots. Memory cards may be up to 2 GB. Among the new features, we find also a web cam, with a resolution of 640×480. It is apparently intended to make “video” calls using Google Talk, although this is something that should be confirmed as soon as the new lucky owners of the gadget test it. The rest of features are the same than in the 770 (wifi, bluetooth and so on).

Gizmo is offering free calls to landline and mobile phones to certain destinations (only landline lines for some of them). All the calls to these lines will be for free, although they can limit the length of every call.

The only condition is that both persons have to be Gizmo users, and they have to add their landline and mobile numbers to their profile. So if you add your mobile and/or landline numbers, you are in one of the free destinations, your contact add their numbers as well and he is also in a free destination, both of you will be able to call to any of the numbers for free.

It is a bit limited, because they do not allow to call to any number, but is better than nothing.

I have just flashed my Nokia 770 with the new Internet Tablet OS 2006 Edition. It is still a beta version, this is, it may contain errors. However, at a first look, it looks pretty stable.

Last weeks I have been very busy, and I have not written too much in this blog. In the next three months it is possible I have good news about the 770. Until then, I will try to keep updated this blog with my progress in the porting of wxPython. I am trying also to port ZSNES, because my brother wanted it to play some SNES games on his 770. I am having problems with the macro assembler. It seems it can not to assemble the macros for other architecture but x86. Anyway, I have not taken a very deep look at it.

By the way, the title of this post comes from one of the funniest books I have ever read.

I have been testing how to use a digital certificate with the Nokia 770. First of all, go and get a free digital certificate. After creating a client certificate, download and import it using the Certificate Manager in the Control Panel:

Set the Trust options to everything, so you will be able to use the certificate both with the browser and the e-mail application.

I first tested the browser, and I could not identify with the certificate. I only obtained a Unable to complete secure transaction:

I tested the same certificate with Mozilla Firefox in GNU/Linux, and it worked without problems; so it seems the browser can not work properly with user certificates.

Then I tried the e-mail application. I created a new message, and set up the Digitally sign option:

When sending the message, a pop up appears and asks you for the certificate password:

Then I checked that the message can be correctly read when downloaded using the same e-mail application:

So the conclusions are clear. Certificates are not properly supported in the web browser (it is a known and reported bug), and correctly supported in the e-mail application.

I am working in the port of wxWidgets and wxPython to the Maemo platform.

My last try did not manage to get a proper look and feel in the Maemo environment. But this time I copied the files from /usr/share/themes from my Nokia 770 to the scratchbox environment on my computer (just click here if you are wondering what the hell is a scratchbox), and added this to .gtkrc-2.0 to my home directory

include '/usr/share/themes/default/gtk-2.0/gtkrc'

After that, without recompiling the libraries, all the applications got the Hildon look and feel, as the following screenshots evidence:

The Minimal sample (wxWidgets)

A sample showing the wxGrid widget (wxWidgets)

The menubar is not yet integrated with the Hildon look and feel (wxWidgets)

A sample showing some buttons and a tooltip (wxPython)

The different kind of buttons available in wxWidgets (wxPython)

As the GNU/Linux version of wxWidgets is developed with GTK, it seems that the applications are very well integrated. For example, they are responsing to maximize to full screen events (with the hardware button). There are still some minor issues, as the menu bar, which is a window placed over the main window. Instead, it should use the Hildon functions for menu bars. Also the virtual keyboard annonyingly appears each time you click in the bottom part of the screen. I don’t know yet why.

So I think as soon I have a couple of days, I will manage to port these libraries to Maemo. And so applications will be to able to be developed in C++ and Python for the Nokia 770.

I just managed to run succesfully wxPython on Maemo, the development environment for Nokia 770.

I downloaded the sources, and followed these instructions, with two minor exceptions:

I used these configure options for wxWidgets:

../configure --without-opengl --disable-debug --enable-sound --with-gtk --enable-unicode

and these options for setup.py for wxPython:

python2.3 setup.py build_ext --inplace UNICODE=1 BUILD_GLCANVAS=0 BUILD_STC=0 BUILD_GIZMOS=0 BUILD_ANIMATE=0

This is the look and feel of wxPython running on Maemo

The look and feel is still a bit ugly, because I did not make any change to the original code. I will try to hildonize wxWidgets. I hope it won’t be too dificult.