I seem to be just going on about the N800 at the moment but I have been having lots of fun with a whole host of additions since the last OS update. It seems like there is a flurry of activity for a month or so after each update or maybe thats just my perception. I find loads of new things to install after I have re-flashed the OS and the applications backup fails half way through restoring my previous config.

The latest bells and whistles come in the form of Large Statusbar Clock which provides two statusbar applets, one for minutes and one for hours. I tested an earlier version a while ago but it kept forgetting that I like 24 hour clock. The latest version is however much better and allows you to set alarms too. The other one I have added, mainly to make room for the clock, is Advanced Backlight which provides additional backlight settings and master volume control in one applet.

The final extra is Load Applet which gives a nice indicator of CPU and Memory utilization and access to a process list where you can kill off errant processes. It also takes screenshot (either instant or delayed) which is very handy. (hence the obligatory screen shot). (interestingly it doesn’t show in the screenshot below?????).

You will also notice the massively improved personal menu from my earlier post which has come on leaps and bounds in such a very short space of time. The on going discussion on the ITT Forums has really spurred this application on to the point where it would be a travesty not to include it in the next OS version.

During the mornings boredom browsing I found this most promising little plug-in for OS2008 Personal Menu.

I have only slightly resented the fact that a button was being wasted by a set of applications that I rarely if ever used. Personal Menu allows me to replace this with an easily customisable set of favorite applications. This gives me extra choices, is much easier to add and remove things and re-order than the normal applications menu. It also means I can keep my applications organised by type in the main applications menu which I like.

It looks like the functionality may be coming in a future release of ITOS from one of the posts in the discussion but untill then this is an excellent usability add-on.

I had decided that I would re-flash my N800 today. Mainly because it felt cluttered with things that I don’t use. I know I could remove things but I am a hoarder by nature and wouldn’t remove things if I felt i might use them again once. Re-flashing forced me to only make the effort to re-install things I knew I would make use of.

The final list was:

Media Players

• ukmp (cool interface and random play all)
• mediacenter (does everything else better than ukmp)
• Quiver (great viewer and being able to see the exif data is cool)
• FMRadio (well you have to don’t you)
• mplayer (plays any video file you can throw at it)

Games

• maemosweeper (kills a few minutes at bed time when I can’t face mahjong)
• penguinpop (ditto)

Applications

• FBReader (for reading everything else)
• Gnumeric (timesheets)
• notecase (every note I don’t want any one else to read)
• WordPy (blogging and Flickr uploads)
• Modest (it’s better than the built in app and fits neater than claws mail even if it’s still buggy)

Utilites

• load-applet (cpu, memory and screen shots all in one place)
• usbcontrol (great when someone throws you a USB key with some stuff on if you have the cable with you that is and a gender changer)
• grsnyc (backup to linkstation)
• rsync (powers the above)
• openssh-client (ditto)
• Camera (the twirly camera on the n800 makes this really useful for odd pics of something other than my ugly mug)

The notable exceptions here are the GPE utilities. I would have kept them if I had been un-installing things but when asking the question “Do I really use it?” the answer was no so I didn’t re-install. I am not sure if any one really cares but I like lists like this sometimes as it gives me ideas about other apps to look at.

I saw this ground breaking annoucement (BBC iPlayer for iPhone and iPod Touch is iGo | The Register) and couldn’t resist trying it out on the N800. Since upgrading to OS2008 the general browser video experience with sites like YouTube has been excelent from the tablet so I had some moderate expectations for this experiment.

The experience was only slightly gratifying as I managed to start the embeded flash player and stream the opening credits of  Ashes to Ashes.  Once the program started I began to be irritated by some significant frame skip and rather annoying pauses as it refreshes what must be a pitiful in-memory cache. The rather annoying pauses were also experienced when I tried to watch the same program from my laptop so I can only assume it is some part of the flash applets programming to prevent people from stealing and re-distributing the content by copying the cache file. It would probably be better if I had slightly faster broadband (only on 512KB/s at the mo). The rather more constant issue of frame skip is probably due to the fact that the video is encoded at a significantly higher resolution than your average YouTube clip and the tweaks and hacks in OS2008 are not quite up to the job. The little button to pop up a full screen window also failed to work but thats a minor issue in comparison as the embeded player was already a reasonable proportion of the screen estate.

If anyone tries this on an N810 or even an N800 and has a better experience I would be pleased to hear.

After the last firmware upgrade for my N800 I have really started using it a lot more and as such needed to think about more routine backups than I have been. My other computers all backup over the network to a Buffalo LinkStation using rsync so as the N800 is linux based this seemed like the ideal solution.

The initial installation of rsnyc and openssh from maemo.org was trivial and every thing was ready to go within minutes. In my searches for rsync I also stumbled upon grsync. Grsync is a simple front end to rsync which seems to integrate nicely to the hildon interface and will make it much easier to keep up with regular backups than relying on me to open xterm and run a script.

In order to get the best out of grsync I used ssh-keygen to generate some ssh keys on my N800 and appended the id_rsa.pub to the authorized_keys file on the LinkStation. Once this was all done and I had connected to the LinkStation once from the N800 to sort out the known_hosts file I was ready to go.

Setting up the grsync was trivial as I already knew what rsync options I needed and the appropriate syntax for the remote side of the sync pair.

In operation grsync gives you very informative progress indicators and the actual output of the rsync command in a little window so you can check what has actually been done.

I only backup the /home/user directory from the internal memory as this is where I tend to put anything I actually create on the N800 (the SD cards are full of books and mp3s which have come from the laptop anyway) , the whole process only takes at most five minutes and with GRSync it’s now very simple to keep to a nearly regular backup routine.
Foonote :
The version listed appears only to be compatible with OS2007 but I am using it quite happily from OS2008. I did install it directly from the Application Manager but I couldn’t tell you which repository it came from.

I came across this review (Using The N810 – Writer’s Friend (Or Not?) as the tablet guru.com feeds are sucked into my N800 RSS reader and was very interested to read the comments and views expressed. I have long desired to do more writing and when I find myself away from my laptop is usually when I have my best ideas, fail to write them down and then forget about them completely. This was part of the justification for getting the N800 as it has a massive screen and I would be able to take it anywhere and jot down notes and ides whenever I felt the need.

I bought my N800 just before the N810 was due out and couldn’t justify waiting or the additional cost for the slideout keyboard (which looked un-usable to me anyway) and built in GPS which I didn’t need as I still had a perfectly good bluetooth one that I used with the Tapwave. Instead I shelled out for an iGo Ultra-Slim Keyboard which paired up nicely and fits very nicely into my other pocked to counterbalance the weight of the N800 in my fleece.

Now onto the practicalities. Most of the time for short notes and general use (browsing the internet, searches etc.) I find the on screen stylus operated keyboard very usable and very quick. The location of the N800s d-pad means it rests under the left thumb as you are typing so you can navigate about quite easily and the whole interaction feels very well designed. For slightly longer notes esp when I am tired I will resort to the on-screen thumb board which again can be very fast but seriously limits what you can see on the screen as you type. The best solution all round from when I am sat on the sofa/in bed or out in a coffee bar somewhere is to pull out the iGo. Even if I am mid note and I decide to use it I just open it, hit enter a couple of times (I am lazy and leave bluetooth on all the time, screw battery life it lasts long enough for me) and the on screen keyboard vanishes and I can tap away. I can even leave the N800 stood on the coffee table (WordPy allows you to increase font size) and type with the keyboard on my lap. The only occasional issue I have is with some double characters being typed especially when I use the function keys to get a number and get the number followed by the letter but thats easy to fix.

I did briefly make use of abiword for OS2007 and if this is a killer application for you then using an N800 with the stock OS2007 is definitely the way to go (although it is a little buggy in places but not un-usable). However  most of what I write will be posted to a blog or end up being dragged into another document at some point on my desk top for formatting so the combination of NoteCase and WordPy is easily enough for me. The built in Notes app is very good too though for very simple text but I just seem to have stopped using it now that I have Notecase.

In summary if you want to write then get a bluetooth keyboard and potentially save yourself some money by getting the N800 instead of the N810.

I have been having some extra time at home recently and as a result I have had much more time to play with my N800 than I have previously. The latest addition to its ever growing list of installed apps is TabletBridge. This allows me to connect to my SoundBridge or SoundBridge Radio and gives me complete control over what is playing and even turn if off (which is very useful when I have left the SoundBridge Radio on in the bed room).

In use TabletBridge has very some excellent mapping of hardware keys for the N800 which allow me to control all aspects of the SoundBridge including switching libraries which has been missing from some of the other remote control applications I have tried on my laptop. All told for now I think this is an essential application for anyone that happens to own both an IT and a SoundBridge.

Technorati Tags: N800, maemo, SoundBridge

A small follow on from the previous post I have now completely abandoned my Tapwave and tejpwriter with its simple encryption support. As a result I found myself with no safe place to keep my notes from prying eyes.

The ability to have some of the information I carry about with me encrypted is essential. Things like meeting notes or insane ramblings that might just make me a millionaire if no-one else steals my idea really ought to be safe from at least the casual eye. (I will never expect any data to be safe from a suitably determined individual or organisation but there really are very few of those compared to nosey little oiks who will just have a nose about because they can).

A very cursory browse round the Maemo Garage only listed a few solutions to my problem and I won’t go into a full review of all of them because I didn’t do one. One solution stood out a mile and that was Notecase. It is a Hierarchical note manager, so I can try to be organised in some of my note taking and structure things as I go, which also supports saving to encrypted files. There are other solutions out there that provide some encryption support but they did seem mainly for password lists and not just notes. The feature list is huge as you can see if you look at the site but the features that stand out for me are.

• Auto Load Last Document (just because I am lazy)
• Desktop counterparts for Windows and Linux (easy re-use of files)
• Auto Save and quit on idle (because I forget and then there would be no point would there)

The opening of the last file is really useful as it makes it very easy to just open the application and up comes the password dialogue and away you go.

In use the application is reasonably intuitive with some toolbar buttons to easily add new nodes and promote and demote the selected node in the hierarchy. The ability to mark nodes as completed also allows it to double up as a to-do list. The tool bar also provides options for easily adding images, links and simple formatting to a nodes text.

The only thing that would make this application perfect is if I could post directly from it into WordPress. There are some interesting export options including exporting to HTML which may warrant some more investigation as an intermediary. I might post more on that if I can find a solution (cut and paste loses all the formatting and links when pasted into WordPy).