If you’ve been waiting or wondering how to get the new OS2008 release on your N800, today’s your lucky day… Thoughtfix notes that it is finally official and can be downloaded right away! 

I can’t test this until tonight so please report any issues you might find.  Good Luck and have fun with the new OS!

Technorati Tags: Maemo, Nokia, N-Series, N800, OS2008, Firmware

While the N810 is just starting to become available (depending on who you ask) the latest 2008 OS slipped into the wild and I finally got the chance to check out an official release on my device. There’s nothing immediately new, but it does seem that there are some fixes and adjustments which smooth out the whole experience. I don’t see a changelist anywhere…

I’m finally able to run some apps that had given me issues from the initially loaded OS which is nice, though not everything works as you might expect. I actually think this last detail is more a factor of the developer community working on scratchbox configurations than on actual devices in the wild, so this should improve greatly in short order.

As you can see from these two screen shots, I was running a few versions back compared to the active release.

Initial OS:

Current Version:

One key difference existing tablet owners will certainly appreciate is the restore function from backup. I did a backup (61MB) just before I flashed, and after setting my date and time, received a prompt to restore as you might usually expect. The tablet now supports the ability to restore repositories and even applications (from the restored repositories) and it absolutely worked - and worked well! The main issue for someone like myself is the number of apps I’ve installed as straight .deb files. These files must be reinstalled manually again for the time being.

I should note Skype is no longer working for me, in that it is not installed or able to be installed. I should have seen this coming since people I know running 2008 on their N800’s have yet to see Skype actively, but that’s OK for now. Just be warned if you are running a pre-release OS.

There’s been talk about fixing the repositories as well as how firmware updates happen in subsequent OS releases. I look forward to that certainly but welcome today’s changes wholeheartedly. I still need to spend some time re-tweaking my device, but far less than I had to do with previous updates and not having to hunt things down (for the most part) again is just great.

While I’m not lucky enough to try this on my own N810 yet, Marcelo (aka Handful) has shared a few preview videos to show off the amazing progress that’s been done on Canola. When we last saw things it was still in sketch mode… but seems we are getting close to a public release!

I have not gotten any of the media player applications to work yet on the N810, and am standing by with my 6GB microSD (and adapter)!

Daniel Yerga was able to sort out the issues in running Maemo WordPy in chinook thanks to an update in Python as well as some solid dilegence. And perhaps the desire to stop my harassment on Jaiku. It’s hard to really find fault here sice he was not only incredibly responsive but without a machine on which to test. The python release before today’s had some issues we’d discovered previously and today we (I feel a part of the process) sorted it and Daniel got thing working!

If you have a wordpress blog and a tablet this is a must have killer app. Menus and the ui in general are considerably more finger friendly which ties really nicely into the update for OS 2008. Mobile blogging from anywhere is really handy and something I expect to do quite a bit with the N810 and my N95.

My first, ahem… feature request would be for multiple blog support. I’ve got two and I know a few tablet owners in the same boat.

Technorati Tags: Maemo “internet tablet” nokia chinook python wordpy n-series N810 N800 blogging mobile N95

Zerojay and Texrat from the Internet Tablet Talk forums and (more recently) Jaiku got to talking and decided it would be great to offer services specifically to the tablet community. And so Jablet was born…

While clearly in very early beta, Jablet’s focus is on the use of Jabber which is built into the Tablet OS. While out of the box, you only have direct access to Google Talk (unless you use jabber today), they are working to make it very simple to get the rest of your IM accounts also flowing.

There’s a nice piece on the Jablet forums which walks you through setting up an account. I used the web form and then used a cross-platform and free jabber client called Psi to show the available transports (other services enabled on the server). It was just a matter of choosing my IM services and adding my login info to get AIM, MSN, Yahoo and Gtalk added. Gtalk is actually redundant when you run on the tablet, but it lets me keep tabs on Jaiku as well as my main IM stuff via Pidgin on when I am using a PC which I do not have admin privileges. Once this is configured a quick shot into the tablet’s accounts control panel and you can add your new Jablet account to be up in running. The whole process took me about 5 minutes.

Once your account is configured on the tablet, you’ll be connected to the Jablet server with access to your IM accounts from within the Tablet’s chat client. This is a really excellent addition for me as it’s one less application to install (Pidgin) and I can see and set presence from one application. I also have full access to all my IM contacts from across services within the contacts application! System notifications work seamlessly with all services through jabber which is very cool!

The Jablet guys are very interested in giving back to the community and want to develop services which let people enhance their Tablet experience. I’m in complete support of this and think it’s a fantastic idea! Well done! Even in this early stage it’s absolutely worth getting your IM services connected.

Technorati Tags:
IM, Internet Tablet, Maemo, N-Series, N800, N810, Nokia, Presence, Jabber, Jablet, 770

One of the contentious points in the user community is the Internet Tablet’s support for Ogg files. While this is not something I’ve been personally looking for, I’m still quite happy to share that Ogg Support is now just a click away!

For the time being you can use UKMP to get your OGG on…

Well - which are you?

When the 770 came out it closed connections when you slid it back in the case which was a nice feature since it automatically switched into a more power efficient mode. When the N800 arrived and now with the N810, we have the opportunity to leave our tablets on at all times.

Clearly this takes a toll on battery life over the course of a day, but in my usage it seems well worth it. I actually have had both my N800 and N810 set to auto-connect to both WiFi and cellular connections so when I walk out the door, my tablet switches over to my phone as the wifi drops.

This system worked incredibly well with the N73 as my phone since the battery in that phone was hard to kill even with a full day of tethering. The N95 has a considerably less powerful battery — even the newer N95-3 which I’ve been using for a month or so. I find I’ve got power in the car as well as a Proporta Mobile Power system that lets me recharge or maintain charge on the phone while the tablet enjoys a very long day of use. If needed I can top off the tablet with the Proporta of course as well.

Last night on the Podcast, I discovered I was the only one of the three of us keeping my tablet in always on mode. I’m curious how others use their devices… since the tablet is predominantly positioned as a second device (phone being the first) I would think most users are using it as aggressively as I am, though this is clearly a personal thing.

I tested the On Demand method today and found that while it saved a bit of battery life on both devices, I prefer to be able to look down and see live updates to my mail and rss feeds. The tablet is a direct extension of how I use the internet and just like my laptop it’s always connected and powered on.

What works for you?

Update - Reggie posted a poll on Internet Tablet Talk - feel free to vote and share your opinion!

Tonight I got together with Dan and Reggie to talk about the past two weeks with the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. We ran through quite a few topics from the applications we like and want to see as well as the platform in general.

Dan is hosting the MP3 of tonight’s discussion, but you can do a save as right here. Enjoy and please let us know what you think!

Technorati Tags:
Internet Tablet, Mauku, N-Series, N810, Nokia

If you are using the MicroB browser (you are of course right?) then you might be very interested to learn about the release of Greasemonkey for MicroB! Yes it’s exactly what you think it is and works exactly like Greasemonkey does on Firefox.

Be sure to read the directions for getting going. There’s an odd bug that requires you restart the browser twice in order to get it working. I missed that myself the first time and could not figure out why others were reporting success… pilot error it seems.

I love this…. I know have Gmail Macros rocking on the N800 via bluetooth keyboard which gives me a great idea of how well it will work on the N810 when the next update comes … hopefully soon! There are a ton of scripts to try — hacker delight!