Ovi Maps... Really? Is this the best we can do?

I got caught in a nasty traffic jam tonight just a few miles from home.

Tentative: UX meets Code hackfest in December @ Barcelona

Quim recently started a new thread on Talk.m.o about a tentative meeting for UX experts and Code writers in Barcelona in December (4th to 6th).Follow the thread and, if you are into Maemo as a UX enthusiast or Code writer, do register your interest in there.There is some budget for it and Quim is aiming at gathering around 50 people to it.Please note that nothing is confirmed yet.Based on the

Maemo Image Editor (Alexander Bokovoy@maemopeople)

Marko Mattila has published nice overview of Maemo Image Editor project which is part of Maemo 6 development, opened under Qt-GPLv3-LGPLv2.1 licensing triplet at Maemo Summit 2009. Maemo Image Editor is not an editor application in itself, it is set of libraries to provide basis for mobile image processing. History of editing is preserved and crash recovery is provided as part of image editing infrastructure. The project also aims to allow manipulations of huge images in memory constrained environments, like N900 and future devices.

Preview: FM radio for N900

Hello everybody. N900 release was delayed a bit, but you shouldn’t be upset cause this only means that Nokia cares bout end quality of the product and don’t want to give you half-cooked buggy brick. Meanwhile community developers have more time to polish their existing software (like we’re doing with OMWeather) and even create new one. Community [...]

Nokia Experts N900 meetup on 6 Nov in Tacoma, WA

Maemo Community Hosts Test Marathon for Apps Before Nokia N900 Hits Retail

On October 31st, developers, beta testers, and anyone lucky enough to have a pre-production Nokia N900 are doing a test marathon of applications before the mobile computer hits the shelves. The Maemo community will host the event from 2-7PM to make more apps available for end users. Applications that pass the tests will appear on Maemo Extras.

Liveblogging the NYC Nokia N900 Meetup Using a Nokia N900

The Nokia NYC flagship store is hosting a Nokia N900 meetup and I’ll be liveblogging it… using the Nokia N900. I’ll share live updates and photos while I meet with Nokia reps and fans at the event. It will be different from my previous liveblog because I will not be using a laptop for updates. Come back to this page when the meetup starts at 7:30PM Eastern, October 30th and see if the Nokia N900 can handle the task.

Macuco update: Zoom support and new screenshots!

Hey everyone! Our little web browser specialized for Gmail just got a new feature! Thanks to the patches from Jie, requests from some nice folks on talk.maemo, and one hour on Firebug debugging Gmail code to find out why the hell it didn’t let I zoom fonts, now Macuco has zoom support with hardware keys! Oh, [...]

Maemo Official Applications Bug Jar 2009.44

A Quick Look at Maemo Official Applications in Bugzilla
2009-10-26 through 2009-11-01

maemo.org Extras Bug Jar 2009.44

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2009-10-26 through 2009-11-01

Extras-testing Marathon – Next Saturday

Are you a lucky N900 owner ? Want to help the Maemo Community ? This call is for you.

Ovi Maps... Really? Is this the best we can do?

I got caught in a nasty traffic jam tonight just a few miles from home.

Things I Miss on Maemo

After hacking on Tumbler for a while, I decided to install the Maemo SDK and see how Maemo runs in Xephyr. I have to say it runs nicely and I really like the interface. The three level zooming interface from application overview to window overview to panorama desktop works well for me. The conversations view and IM notifications make it easy to concentrate on what you want to do without being interrupted too much. I’m chatting with a friend via Jabber at this very moment. Running apps in parallel rocks too.

Tentative: UX meets Code hackfest in December @ Barcelona

Quim recently started a new thread on Talk.m.o about a tentative meeting for UX experts and Code writers in Barcelona in December (4th to 6th).Follow the thread and, if you are into Maemo as a UX enthusiast or Code writer, do register your interest in there.There is some budget for it and Quim is aiming at gathering around 50 people to it.Please note that nothing is confirmed yet.Based on the

Maemo offers more freedom than Android

I am not a developer, just an avid user, so I can’t talk from hands-on experience with developing software for mobile platforms, but found this very interesting article that compared several areas of these two Linux-based operating system. It was encouraging to hear that Nokia has kept Maemo fairly open and appears to offer more for the developer. Google Android devices are HOT right now with devices like the Motorola DROID and HTC Hero, but I hope that this type of excitement is generated for the N900 and Maemo. It is a tougher sell in the US where the N900 will cost you $550+, but if T-Mobile can offer this subsidized for half that price then we may see more enthusiasm.

MediaBox finally supports UPnP MediaRenderer Output

The Fremantle version of MediaBox Media Center is coming along nicely. The latest development version (2009.11.1) is now in extras-devel, so if you're brave enough to test out hot fresh unstable stuff directly from extras-devel, you're invited to give it a try (installing just MediaBox from extras-devel should be pretty safe).

The big news with the latest development version is UPnP MediaRenderer support. If you have a compatible (GUPnP-Media-Renderer has been tested to be compatible so far) UPnP MediaRenderer in your network, you can have MediaBox play on that renderer instead of your phone.

If the MediaRenderer supports it, you can even play local files from your phone on it, not only stuff hosted on another UPnP/DLNA server.

Eventually, this cool stuff will be available for N8x0 users, too, of course.

Macuco update: Zoom support and new screenshots!

Hey everyone! Our little web browser specialized for Gmail just got a new feature! Thanks to the patches from Jie, requests from some nice folks on talk.maemo, and one hour on Firebug debugging Gmail code to find out why the hell it didn’t let I zoom fonts, now Macuco has zoom support with hardware keys! Oh, [...]

Maemo Official Applications Bug Jar 2009.44

A Quick Look at Maemo Official Applications in Bugzilla
2009-10-26 through 2009-11-01

Extras-testing Marathon – Next Saturday

Are you a lucky N900 owner ? Want to help the Maemo Community ? This call is for you.

Things I Miss on Maemo

After hacking on Tumbler for a while, I decided to install the Maemo SDK and see how Maemo runs in Xephyr. I have to say it runs nicely and I really like the interface. The three level zooming interface from application overview to window overview to panorama desktop works well for me. The conversations view and IM notifications make it easy to concentrate on what you want to do without being interrupted too much. I’m chatting with a friend via Jabber at this very moment. Running apps in parallel rocks too.

Tentative: UX meets Code hackfest in December @ Barcelona

Quim recently started a new thread on Talk.m.o about a tentative meeting for UX experts and Code writers in Barcelona in December (4th to 6th).Follow the thread and, if you are into Maemo as a UX enthusiast or Code writer, do register your interest in there.There is some budget for it and Quim is aiming at gathering around 50 people to it.Please note that nothing is confirmed yet.Based on the

Testing WordPy 2.0

I’m currently testing WordPy 2.0, a blogging client for the N900 that supports Wordpress, Blogger, and Livejournal.

Nokia N900 Preview of Qik

You probably already know that Qik lets you stream video live from your phone. In case you need a reminder, I met the cofounder, Bhaskar Roy, at the Nokia N900 NYC meetup and asked him to give The Nokia Blog viewers a demo. Take a look.

Packaging Glom for Maemo 5

Maemo offers more freedom than Android

I am not a developer, just an avid user, so I can’t talk from hands-on experience with developing software for mobile platforms, but found this very interesting article that compared several areas of these two Linux-based operating system. It was encouraging to hear that Nokia has kept Maemo fairly open and appears to offer more for the developer. Google Android devices are HOT right now with devices like the Motorola DROID and HTC Hero, but I hope that this type of excitement is generated for the N900 and Maemo. It is a tougher sell in the US where the N900 will cost you $550+, but if T-Mobile can offer this subsidized for half that price then we may see more enthusiasm.

MediaBox finally supports UPnP MediaRenderer Output

The Fremantle version of MediaBox Media Center is coming along nicely. The latest development version (2009.11.1) is now in extras-devel, so if you're brave enough to test out hot fresh unstable stuff directly from extras-devel, you're invited to give it a try (installing just MediaBox from extras-devel should be pretty safe).

The big news with the latest development version is UPnP MediaRenderer support. If you have a compatible (GUPnP-Media-Renderer has been tested to be compatible so far) UPnP MediaRenderer in your network, you can have MediaBox play on that renderer instead of your phone.

If the MediaRenderer supports it, you can even play local files from your phone on it, not only stuff hosted on another UPnP/DLNA server.

Eventually, this cool stuff will be available for N8x0 users, too, of course.

[Score Card] ScoreCard for N900 - first release in Qt

Over a year ago I wrote the same application in Python for N810. It was very slow to start and UI was not very attractive. About 6 months ago, I decided to try creating a Qt application on Fremantle. Just to test if it was possible. Thanks to the Qt4 for Maemo garage project, it was. With some limitations but still possible. The 1st version is very basic but stable. It only requires the GUI Qt library from Qt4 for Maemo project [1]. Since it is 4+ MB, I could not upload it here. Don't know where the latest is located now. I have built it from git [2]. [1] http://qt4.garage.maemo.org/ [2] http://gitorious.org/+qt-maemo-developers/qt/qt-maemo:qt-n900 Enjoy, -sakari

Macuco update: Zoom support and new screenshots!

Hey everyone! Our little web browser specialized for Gmail just got a new feature! Thanks to the patches from Jie, requests from some nice folks on talk.maemo, and one hour on Firebug debugging Gmail code to find out why the hell it didn’t let I zoom fonts, now Macuco has zoom support with hardware keys! Oh, [...]

TouchSearch For Fremantle -- Easily search the web.

One of my favorite Desktop Widgets on my N800 was the "Internet Search" applet. However, I was disappointed to find out that it was being dropped in Fremantle and there would be no official replacement. Since I wanted to learn a little more about programming for Fremantle and something as useful as a Search Widget wasn't available, I decided to tackle both at once.

UX meets Code hackfest in December @ Barcelona: confirmed!

Quim Gil just confirmed the UX hackfest in Barcelona for 4, 5, 6 december: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33719

Nokia N900 meetup in Tacoma, WA tonight

Hopefully you all read about my Nokia N900 meetup in Tacoma, WA tonight. I also dug around my gear closet and found something like six prizes to giveaway to attendees. Sorry, they are not Nokia devices (one Nokia Bluetooth headset actually is included), but there is some cool gear and it is FREE. Nokia just let me know the meetup is live on their N900 meetup site too so check that out and bring a friend tonight.

I will have at least the N900, N810, N800, and N97 to show off, along with some other pretty hot mobile devices. Come on out for some free food and mobile device talk. I’ll post some photos and thoughts after the event so you can all see what you missed

Evas UV Mapping and WebKit-EFL

One of the most requested feature for Evas was rotation and other transformations. These are no more, Rasterman just did generic UV Mapping support, enabling rotation, perspective, 3d-simulation and more.

Packaging Glom for Maemo 5

What would you like to see for ARM based embedded distro’s?

How is the weather in Qt 4.6 ?

Hmm…it looks sunny Take a look at this video. This is a demo we did using Qt 4.6 for S60 and the N900. You can find the source code in the same place where you can get Qt’s source code.

TouchSearch For Fremantle -- Easily search the web.

One of my favorite Desktop Widgets on my N800 was the "Internet Search" applet. However, I was disappointed to find out that it was being dropped in Fremantle and there would be no official replacement. Since I wanted to learn a little more about programming for Fremantle and something as useful as a Search Widget wasn't available, I decided to tackle both at once.

UX meets Code hackfest in December @ Barcelona: confirmed!

Quim Gil just confirmed the UX hackfest in Barcelona for 4, 5, 6 december: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=33719

Evas UV Mapping and WebKit-EFL

One of the most requested feature for Evas was rotation and other transformations. These are no more, Rasterman just did generic UV Mapping support, enabling rotation, perspective, 3d-simulation and more.

Packaging Glom for Maemo 5

N900 meetups in Moscow, London, Tacoma

Following on from N900 meetups in New York, Chicago, Helsinki and Dubai two additional dates have now been announced: London on November 17th and Moscow on the 24th November. Both meetups will take place at the Nokia flagship stores in the respective cities. At the meetups you'll get a chance to hear more about the N900, get some hands on time with demo units and potentially win prizes.

What would you like to see for ARM based embedded distro’s?

How is the weather in Qt 4.6 ?

Hmm…it looks sunny Take a look at this video. This is a demo we did using Qt 4.6 for S60 and the N900. You can find the source code in the same place where you can get Qt’s source code.

Q&A and Extras-testing discussion on IRC

Just as a reminder or for those not subscribing the mailing lists, tomorrow (Nov 10) will be held a discussion about the community Q&A for Extras-testing.

We appreciate input from everyone, if you can't attend the meeting please express your thoughts in advance in the related thread[1].

Meeting details:

*IRC: irc.freenode.org
*Channel: #maemo-meeting
*Time: Tuesday, November 10th, 14:30 UTC

 

More details and discussion:

[1] - http://n2.nabble.com/Quality-Assurance-and-Extras-testing-discussion-on-IRC-td3945607.html#a3945607

 

Android... is it Linux ?

This i just something that I saw on LWN (from Harald Welte) and felt needed a little more visibility here at maemo.

The presentation shows how Google has simply thrown 5-10 years of Linux userspace evolution into the trashcan and re-implemented it partially for no reason. Things like hard-coded device lists/permissions in object code rather than config files, the lack of support for hot-plugging devices (udev), the lack of kernel headers. A libc that throws away System V IPC that every unix/Linux software developer takes for granted. The lack of complete POSIX threads. I could continue this list, but hey, you should read those slides. now!

 The slides

As usual the commentary at LWN raises some interesting counters.

A new plugin to lead them all :)

In the last weeks I (among other things) worked on a new plugin repository (vastly inspired by EOG’s) for third party plug-ins for Emerillon.  There are currently 4 plugins being worked on and not all of them should be distributed with the base Emerillon application. Enters emerillon-plugins.

Maemo Official Applications Bug Jar 2009.45

A Quick Look at Maemo Official Applications in Bugzilla
2009-11-02 through 2009-11-08

maemo.org Extras Bug Jar 2009.45

A Quick Look at Extras in Bugzilla
2009-11-02 through 2009-11-08

Maemo Official Platform Bug Jar 2009.45

A Quick Look at Maemo Official Platform in Bugzilla
2009-11-02 through 2009-11-08

Maemo – Barcelona Long Weekend, December 4-6

Just an extended microblog post to let you all know about something that is growing pretty fast: Maemo – Barcelona Long Weekend. It all started with a UX Meets Code workshop for 50 invited Maemo developers but then we started getting questions in forums, emails and phone calls. Specially about local activities. This is something we [...]

N900 Youtube app

Xournal

Portrait of Xournal

Q&A and Extras-testing discussion on IRC

Just as a reminder or for those not subscribing the mailing lists, tomorrow (Nov 10) will be held a discussion about the community Q&A for Extras-testing.

We appreciate input from everyone, if you can't attend the meeting please express your thoughts in advance in the related thread[1].

Meeting details:

*IRC: irc.freenode.org
*Channel: #maemo-meeting
*Time: Tuesday, November 10th, 14:30 UTC

 

More details and discussion:

[1] - http://n2.nabble.com/Quality-Assurance-and-Extras-testing-discussion-on-IRC-td3945607.html#a3945607

 

Live from Nokia's The Way We Live Next 3.0

Over the next two day I'm at Nokia's The Way We Live Next event, which 'features presentations and demonstrations from Nokia and our ecosystem partners, showing how Nokia are connecting and building the communities of the future'. You can follow along via our live coverage below or via @aas.

Nokia N900 tips & tricks; using a Bluetooth keyboard and external display

With the fast processor, large display, and internal 32GB flash memory I started thinking the N900 could serve as a great base station for a full computer experience. Could I connect my 37″ LCD TV and a Bluetooth keyboard to the N900 and use it as a mobile PC? I turned on the Bluetooth radio and selected to add a device. I then enabled searching on my Think Outside BT keyboard and voila the N900 found it and identified it properly and they were paired together. I also used the Nokia TV-out cable and plugged the yellow cord into my TV port for instant video appearing on the large display. It seemed to all work together out of the box with no additional utilities or tweaks.

A new plugin to lead them all :)

In the last weeks I (among other things) worked on a new plugin repository (vastly inspired by EOG’s) for third party plug-ins for Emerillon.  There are currently 4 plugins being worked on and not all of them should be distributed with the base Emerillon application. Enters emerillon-plugins.

Open position and great opportunity for a talented and gifted web developer

I am looking to hire (permanent position) a talented web developer. He/She need to be proficient in

• HTML (4/5), Javascript, AJAX, CSS (2/3)
• Javascript UI & Animation frameworks like dojo, jQuery, script.aculo.us or similar

If you are one and are interested to know more about the position, please send me your profile to Devesh Kothari (email is first name dot last name at nokia.com). Position is based in Tampere (Finland)

Miniature - it moves!

How it

N900 Youtube app

N900 meetup in Lisbon, Portugal – November 14th

Have you heard about the awesome N900 ? Do you want to try it and know more about Maemo ?

If you’re based in Portugal this is the perfect opportunity to get your hands on an N900.
Thanks to the WOM World/Nokia folks, we’re hosting a small meetup about the Nokia N900 and the Maemo community, in the next Saturday in Lisbon at the “Mar Adentro café” (Maps) between 15:00 and 18:00.
I’ll give a small demonstration of the N900 and then will let people ask questions about the device and the community and enjoy some hands-on time with the device. If you already have an N900, join us anyway, you’ll not regret .

Due to the space logistics, I appreciate that those willing to attend contact me.

Xournal

Portrait of Xournal

Firefox For Maemo Updated To Beta 5

The Mozilla team just announced a new version of ‘Fennec’, which is also known as Firefox for Maemo. The new version, Beta 5, includes several updates, listed below. I’ve tried Fennec on various Maemo devices, including the N800, N810, and now the N900, and this version is the first that I would consider even remotely usable. It launches in seconds, rather than minutes, which is a first step towards usability.This new browser for the Nokia N900 is still somewhat slow, even over my home WiFi network, though the interface is, in my opinion, much nicer than the built-in browser. After a bit of loading, this new version has no problems rendering the full version of Maemo-Guru.com, in fact.

Qt 4.6 for Maemo: It works!

Today at work, David King kindly informed me that there was some new Qt package in extras-devel. This could only mean one thing - I immediately fired up my scratchbox environment and installed the packages, trying to confirm that this new version would run with Qlom. And in fact, it was surprisingly painless. Thanks to autotroll, a simple QT_PATH env variable did all the magic, hooray!

Q&A and Extras-testing discussion on IRC

Just as a reminder or for those not subscribing the mailing lists, tomorrow (Nov 10) will be held a discussion about the community Q&A for Extras-testing.

We appreciate input from everyone, if you can't attend the meeting please express your thoughts in advance in the related thread[1].

Meeting details:

*IRC: irc.freenode.org
*Channel: #maemo-meeting
*Time: Tuesday, November 10th, 14:30 UTC

 

More details and discussion:

[1] - http://n2.nabble.com/Quality-Assurance-and-Extras-testing-discussion-on-IRC-td3945607.html#a3945607

 

N900 (and other OMAP3 devices) DSP accelerated Theora

David Schleef’s theora optimisation for the dsp in the OMAP3 will really make open video a reality for the N900 and other OMAP3 devices like Palm Pre/Motorola Droid. Thank you David and Mozilla for the work.

Back Open, Back to Bugzilla

After an interesting ride internal, I’m back to open and hacking Bugzilla — at least for a couple weeks — helping Andre with technical and coding stuff for maemo.org Bugzilla, as the increasing amount of incoming bug reports takes more and more time. It’s very nice to see the same old guys still around.

My priority tasks are first some quick, much needed tweaks to the current version. Then on to new lands, getting Bugzilla 3.4 in shape for maemo.org. Stay tuned.

PyGTKEditor 3.0 is still in development

I’m still working on the version 3.0 of PYGTKEditor.

Search-as-you-type in gPodder and a tag cloud

The uni semester is in full swing again, so development has slowed down a bit again compared to September. At least we are able to work on the my.gpodder.org webservice as a project in one of the courses (so expect some new development there soon). Anyway, here are some thing I've been working on recently:

Qt 4.6 for Maemo: It works!

Today at work, David King kindly informed me that there was some new Qt package in extras-devel. This could only mean one thing - I immediately fired up my scratchbox environment and installed the packages, trying to confirm that this new version would run with Qlom. And in fact, it was surprisingly painless. Thanks to autotroll, a simple QT_PATH env variable did all the magic, hooray!

Do you think the N900 is better than the iPhone?

I just read this article titled 15 ways the N900 is better than the iPhone and 5 ways it is not and have to say it is quite a well presented argument. Obviously at this time, the available applications for the iPhone beat just about any platform, but as I have said before the extremely strong browser on the N900 makes having many apps a moot point. I have a preproduction N900 and an iPhone 3GS and admit I do keep switching back and forth because there are some key apps for my usage that I find appealing on the iPhone. I also think Apple has the user interface down so the common user feels comfortable with the device. Then again, no one ever said I was common and I really enjoy the geekiness and power of the N900.

Nokia Starts Shipping Its First Linux based Smartphone, Nokia N900

Accroding to Reuters’ Tarmo Virki, Nokia has started deliveries of its first Linux powered Smartphone, a real game-changer that will help Nokia to finally turn the tide of smartphone war in their favour and control the mobile market again.

Nokia Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said in a speech the company started deliveries of the phone on Tuesday.

Analysts see N900 and following Linux devices as key for Nokia to gain back ground in the coming years, something that market has been waiting for a years, a real game-changer that will help Nokia to finally turn the tide of smartphone war in their favour and con... .. .