Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

I ran into this bugzilla comment for Maemo, concerning the lack of Ogg support in Maemo on the Nokia internet tablets (it is really more about that specific comment and the linked PDF file than the bug itself).

Dear Nokia,

I was trying to download the new firmware image for the N800, but you website is so nicely done that:

• it download very slowly until it times out
• I can't use wget to be able to resume the download because you force me to go through an "authentication" and a click-through license that has no legal value.

Any solution?

Update 2007/12/12: still no solution. Filed a bug.

I had a dream. Apparently, the dream came true.

And the added GPS is the icing on the cake. However I wonder if the GPS chipset driver is Free Software.... as OpenMoko seems to have had issues with the GPS solved by changing the supplier.

I would like to thank the Maemo team for my enrollement in the N800 Developer Device Program. I'll try to do what I can to order it as it is currently not made easy. I still look forward to get a N800, and I'll be patient.

I also would like to thank Trolltech for sending me a free copy of the book C++ GUI Programming with Qt4 as promised when attending the presentation at aKademy last September.

Thanks to tf, etrunko and uwog, there is now an AbiWord 2.4.6 package for Maemo 2.0 (the one that runs on the Nokia 770).

To get it set the following package source in the application manager:

• Web address: http://www.abisource.com/downloads/apt/
• Distribution: mistral
• Components: user

Note: there are still bugs and I have barely anything to do with that version (due to lack of time to really get started on Maemo development).

Next step? Provide a build for the N800 (I don't know who in the team will have a device, but it won't be me). And build AbiWord 2.5.x

For a few days, our only internet access was throught wireless network with the Nokia 770. I tried with the laptop but the prism54 card I'm using didn't get any signal while the Nokia 770 could.

Could we turn the Nokia 770 into an USB to Wifi adapter? I think it is possible. We have almost all the bricks. We just need to write a CDCEther driver for the USB slave (relatively trivial, I have done that in the past for the freebox) and bridge that ethernet interface to the wifi driver. And all the wifi specific configuration be handled by the UI in Maemo. Linux has a CDCEther driver built-in.

Pubs with random wifi access points are real geeknests....

Posted from a Nokia 770.

jrb: scrolling is hard sometime without using the stylus. I wish too there was a wheel.

I have my Nokia 770 since Wednesday and I have been playing probably too much with it than I should. Ah nevermind.

• The screen is really crisp and legible. They actually claim to have 225dpi.
• I upgraded to the newer release, 42-9. Doing so require using a proprietary flasher program. That is a bit odd.
• Opera, the default browser is quite fast, and works fine on the 800x480 screen. I hate Opera User-Agent. Shows up as IE.
• Input with virtual keyboard is painful, even if you have prediction of what the user input and Input with character recognition works even less, but I also have issues with Grafitti2 on the Palm. That is probably my awful handwritting. Actually the Newton didn't do bad at that time.
• I still wonder why it does not come with a PIM by default. Even if it is an Internet Tablet, it should be able to replace a Palm for the PIM features, as one do not want to carry another device. I have installed GPE, still waiting for the calendar to work. I wonder what are Nokia plans to that regard, but for me it sounds natural to have PIM on this kind of device. Long term would be to add a cell-phone, but that is hardware.
• There are a bunch of usability issues that I have to report, mostly using it without the stylus.

But my overall impression is good.

DHL delivered my Nokia 770. I'm using it right now to post this .

Rock on ! Thanks Nokia !

PS: and I got a replacement power supply for the PowerBook. Thanks Ol! Works okay-ish. In fact it is also a problem on the motherboard.

Nokia started shipping the Nokia 770. Marc even got his unit after ordering it.

Damn. Mine isn't here yet :-(

Update: Dave and Vincent got their too.