Ok. So, I am pretty flipping excited. Nokia has just approved sponsorship for me to travel to Berlin (as in Germany) this September for the OSiM World and the first annual Maemo Summit conferences!

I am excited for several reasons:

1. OSiM World is rad.
2. I get to meet a bunch of my fellow maemo.org cohort. (I can’t wait to see all of you!)
3. I get to immerse myself in two straight days of Maemo goodness. (Maybe even document it in some sort of special way.)
4. And, well… I’ve never been to Europe! (Really.)

Seriously… This is more exciting than I could ever express here.

Thank you Nokia/Maemo — and, most notably, Quim — for continuing to support this community in such an amazing way.

This is old news — especially if you’re a member of maemo.org and got the four or five email notifications about it — but the fine folks in Nokia‘s Maemo division have decided to support the Maemo community in rebranding Maemo. Part of this process is centered around redesigning a logo for the maemo.org website.

I’ve submitted a number of ideas myself, and I thought I’d post them here too. I’ll keep posting my ideas as I come up with them (clicking the image will take you to a larger version at the maemo.org wiki).

Submission #1:

Submission #1b:

Submission #2:

Submission #3:

Submission #4:

Submission #5
(discarded because it looks
too much like the Palm logo — duh!):

Submission #6:

Submission #7:

Submission #8:

Submission #9:

Submission #10:

Submission #11:

Submission #12:

All of the submissions can be found here (there are some good ones too!).

Good luck everyone!

I just wanted everyone to know that I’ve created a maemo group on LinkedIn. Just go to my profile and click on the group to join.

The fine people over at WOM World recently sent me a Nokia N95 8GB (just on loan for two weeks so that I could check it out). The N95 GB is a nearly $700-$800 cell phone, depending on whether you get it with a plan or not. (Ok, ok. Are you breathing again?) But, for $800, you don’t just get a phone… The N95 8GB has 8GB of internal memory, 128MB RAM, a 5-megapixel camera that can take stills or record video (with a flash, zoom, and a whole bunch of “manual” features), video call capability, an FM radio receiver, GPS, support for a variety of audio codecs, Java and Flash support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, infrared, A/V output, and more…

I’ve only just opened the package, so I’m not going to post a full review right now. My first impression is that the N95 8GB seems to be pretty slick. Aside from a slightly brickish form-factor, the user-interface is pretty intuitive and (for a cell phone) the buttons are all easily accessible and feel pretty responsive. The slider aspect of the phone (to access the number/text pad — slide up — or the media player controls — slide down) seems a fragile, but honestly, I’m not sure how many people have handled this phone before me.

With the advent of Apple‘s iPhone, I wonder why companies continue to make all-in-one phones with limited internal memory, no touchscreen capabilities, and without additional memory card slots. Still, the N95 8GB is a small, easy-to-pocket phone and media player with a bunch of features. While I haven’t dived into all of the functionality yet, it looks very promising. I’m really looking forward to seeing how well it connects with and accentuates my N810.

Thanks to my trusty Nokia N810 Internet Tablet (and, Mr. The Frog, of course), Josiah was occupied while flying this past week…

For those of you who still don’t consider the Internet Tablets as worthwhile PMPs, you should think again. Find someone with Canola installed and play around with it for a while. I know you’ll be impressed.

The video you see in this picture went from DVD to Handbrake (Mac) to N810 without a hitch. The playback was flawless and the N810 kept its charge for much more than the three hour flight to and from California (almost two whole movies and a bunch of music listening).

NIN recently released Ghosts I-IV, an instrumental concept album… With it comes a 40-page booklet. If you like NIN, you can download the first nine tracks (out of 36) for free, including a digital version of the booklet (which is basically an image for each song).

I’ve taken some time to convert ever page of the booklet to 800×480 Background images, usable on the Nokia Internet Tablets. The Zip file is a 17MB download, but it’s well worth it.

Download the Zip file here.

For more info about what Trent Reznor wants to do with Ghosts, watch this.

As if finding myself with two Nokia N810 Internet Tablets wasn’t enough of a predicament. (I know: there are many of you scratching your heads, saying, “Yeah, right!”) But, honestly, there have been innumerable accounts over the course of my (what, over twenty years now?!) involvement with open source software and communities where I wished I could give back even a modicum of the products, support, friendships, et cetera, that I have withdrawn for my own use (and even profit).

Yesterday, you might remember me mentioning that Nokia was sending me a gift for helping them do some testing. Actually, it wasn’t Nokia, per se, but a friend, one of the fine people on the maemo development team, Jake Kunnari. Anyway, I was thinking that the gift would be a T-shirt or something — you know, just a small gesture of thanks.

I got my shiny new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet today.

Yes, I’ll admit it… I’m stoked!

You’ll notice that it’s in a nice little leather case as well. You can see it better here (although, I don’t know how long that link will be work, so do a search on eBay for “N810 case” and you’ll probably find it). The N810 itself aside (which everyone knows is pretty dang super cool, so I don’t have to say all that much about it), the leather case is really great too. It has two slots for SD cards, a cut-away where the stylus on the N810 is, a magnetic strap, and an optional belt-clip. The case is black and is made of quality genuine leather. Coolness! (The photo here was lovingly taken by my pal, Tyson H.)

Ok, so, yeah… The N810 itself? It’s awesome. You know about my enthusiasm for the N800 already. It’s basically just a smaller N800 with a slide-out keyboard and on board GPS. Everything else is mostly the same (well, except that the N810 doesn’t have a 360 degree camera or an FM radio receiver like the N800 does). But, the thing is sweet. Go get one.

Lastly, because of some testing help that I gave to the wonderful maemo folks (they’re the Nokia team in charge of all things software-related for the Internet Tablets), they’re going to send me a gift (actually, the gift is in the mail right now). I’ll write another post when I receive it.

Anyway, happy tableting! (And, thanks, maemo team, for choosing me to be one of the lucky Device Program recipients!)

I decided to take a few of the photographs that I’ve shot over the past year and turn them into desktop images for your OS2008-enabled Internet Tablets. The Internet Tablet versions are below (the originals are available here).

Click on the thumbnails to view the full versions and to save to your Internet Tablet(s). Or, download all of them in a single Zip file here:

Samoff IT Backgrounds 2007

Who said Christmas only lasted one day?