Its time again for me to release another theme and here it is. The Picnic theme is based off of a winterboard theme I feel in love with a few years ago. Kids and woman will love it but even alot of guys will like it to. It uses very bright and loud colors, and every single part of the theme is customized. If you see any bugs like normal I ask you to let me know. In the next release it will have a full set of icons for alot of apps. Some screenshots below more on http://www.andrewblck.com
I’ve been working on a maemo-org for the n900 for a few weeks now and after a lot of hard work trying to get around the Theme Maker bugs I have learned how to make themes not use the Theme Maker. This is my first theme made in this way and I really wish I would have learned how to do this years ago.
My maemo-org theme uses the same colors as maemo-org so you if like the colors of the site then you will love this theme. I’ve also used some of the Buuf icons since I think they fit well with the colors. I would love any comments you have on theme or icons. Icons are subject to change if I come up with something better.
The theme is now in extras-testing ready to be tested. After you test it please vote or here. I need 10 thumbs up to move it into extras. I’m taking ideas for my next theme but please PM me and do not post theme ideas to this thread.
Extras-Devel Warning: Please read Site Disclaimer!!!!!
I love Midori on Mer and have used it on Diablo in the past but Midori for Fremantle is great. It has many of the missing features from Maemo Browser. Why wait for Nokia to add Portrait view when Midori has it already. Unlike how some of programs for the N900 do it the screen rotates when you rotate the the phone not just because you closed it. This is great because I often only keep my keyboard out when I’m actively typing and I might not want to be in portrait mode just because it is closed. The change from Landscape to Portrait is very fast taking only a second or so. Midori also has a basic build in dashboard that you can set favorites to. I would love to see something more like Tears where it keeps favorites, most viewed, and search on the dashboard in tabs, but any dashboard will good.
One thing that has really bugged me about Maemo Browser is the fact that i ave not been able to change my user agent yet so can view certain iPhone formatted websites. Sites like m.espn.com for the iPhone works great on the N900, and has a lot more features then the regular mobile version but require a iPhone user agent to view it. Midori lets you change your user agent in just a few clicks in the preferences menu. You have several user agents to choice from and it makes switching real easy.
Tabs are another thing we have yet to seen in Maemo Browser that are a great feature, the tabs are small but you really don’t want to wait to much space making them any bigger. There are check boxes under the menu that allow you to turn off images, scripts, and plugins with just 1 click. There is a press and hold menu that allow you to view source enter and exit full screen and many other features. Just reminder once in full screen only way back out is holding on for menu.
If your looking for a browser with more features then Maemo Browser then Midori is the way to go. I have don’t enough tests to compare speed but it feels a little faster but that could just be me hoping so. Screenshots below.
Well the real reason I use a screen protector is because my wife always reminds me when I get a new toy that it needs and and not to scratch it like I do everything I own. I was late putting on on my n810 which is why it carry’s many battle wounds from dropping it, putting it in my pocket with keys and even a bad stylus. After the n810 I started putting protectors on everything. When I got my n900 I really didn’t want a protector I wanted nice clear look of my screen. I know the nice die cut protectors will give that look as well but me custom cutting on my self will not give me the look I like.
I gave about a week after getting my n900, I figure that I should want to protect a device that qgil shipped to me personally. The first one I cut was to small so I cut a new one and it fit just fine just had one bubble I can live with. Then the scratches started I was so happy I had my protector on. I have ranked up a dozen or so scratches and was considering putting a new protector on later this week when it happened. While doing some painting today at work my wife called I pulled my n900 out of my belt clip case and hit Answer with my thumb it wasn’t until I got off the phone that I noticed the huge glob of paint on the screen. I’m so happy it was on a screen protector and not the screen. I didn’t manage to get a little dot on top near power button that was easily removed. I would be so disappointed if I had ruined my phone. Just remember it doesn’t matter is the screen is easier to scratch or if its isn’t scratches are not the only thing that can go wrong. Also Protector your Screens!
The other day I was dreading having to get photos of everyone of my contacts so I can have nice pictures of everyone instead of the standard no image icon. I forgot to get my photos off my old phone so I would have to take photos of everyone again. I really hated doing that, I remembered seeing a post on t.m.o a week or two ago about using Facebook profile photos, since most of my friends use Facebook this would work great for me.
I found the post very easily using the new power search on t.m.o. It uses a Google custom search to search the entire maemo.org domain. More on that in another post maybe, like I said I found it real quick and it seems there are several people working on ways I decided to try out Hermes since it sounded like what I wanted to do and the developer of it said it worked great.
Hermes is one of those applications that just works and works well. You just open it up tell it where to get your contact photos from Facebook or Twitter. Facebook has to open a web page for you to authorize Hermes to use it. I’m not sure how Twitter authorizes since I haven’t tried it.
Once you have you details in you tell it to Retrieve your contacts info and it goes and and searchs for the missing information. It will automatticly link some of your contacts with the Facebook/Twitter contacts using personal information, the ones it doesn’t auto link up you can go in and mannually tell Hermes which Phone contact is which Facebook contact. I had to do that with my wife’s Facebook contact, its no real big issue and I would rather manually select who was who then have it putting the wrong information in. That is really all there is to it your done. You can go back later and Refresh the contacts information in case some stuff changes. I really recommend this application if you use Facebook or Twitter.
I know Mastory has been reviewed by Reggie to day but I decided to review it today also. I decided the best way to review it would be to do my review using my N900 and Mastory. The overall look has improved from older versions thanks to some new icons from Joshua.maverick on t.m.o. When first setting it up I had a little trouble because I did not have a option on my blog setup to allow remote publishing. When I failed to connect to my blog I checked the log and not only did it contain what my problem was but it contained how to fix it.
The overall look for buttons and the menu are very simple and very easy to understand. something that some applications don’t manage to do. I find that my first use of Mastory to be very nice and I can see myself writting most of my Blog posts from it on my N900. If you have a blog of your own I suggest you download it as soon as you can.
Mer/Maemo.org had a table at the Florida Linux Show in Orlando this year and thinks could not have gone better. Both I and GeneralAntilles were both there talking to people at the table. GeneralAntilles did a great job of talking to people about not only what Maemo.org and the Nokia tablets are but what Mer is. I would say that we had 10o to 200 people stop by our table, some wanting to talk about a device they have or a device they want. There was a lot of people also who had never heard of Mer or Maemo who wanted to find out what it was. Of course we got lots of questions like Can Mer be ported to [Enter Device Name Here], a lot of the time the answer was no not yet but several people who are interested in getting Mer running on there device have stopped by #Mer ready to start working on a port to there device.
The Linux show was an over all success for both the show and for Mer in my option. There was a lot of good speakers including my self at the show and tons of people to come listen to what we had to say. The staff at FLS could not have been nicer. They made sure everything we needed was taken care of. I do have a few suggestions for them about the location of there show. There was no good place to get food the only real option at lunch was a $10 Turkey Sandwich/Chips/ and soda. I also never found anywhere else to get another soda. By the end of my day I was hungry and thirsty. In the future I hope they have better food options even if its just a guy there selling hot dogs and sodas.
I was happy to see at least one person from Maemo.org there that wasn’t involved in the Mer/Maemo Table. Jeff Jackowski was there taking photo of the show and off my talk. Once he gets those posted to him Flicker Account I’ll make sure to add a link to them here. There were lots of N8×0 devices there and lots of people commented that they had a 770 in a drawer somewhere. I think Nokia needs to find a way to pull people who had a 770 but lost interested back into the community. Several people said they would try to being there 770/N8×0 back to life with Mer.
The only thing I wish could have been better was my talk on What Mer is. I’ll be posting the slides I used along with a post about my talk later. If anyone has any questions about my time at FLS please let me know.
