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[6 Feb 2012 | | ]

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Everybody occasionally needs to make a sketch or write something. But oftentimes, there just might not be a piece of paper or anything to write with lying around. On such occasions, you might want a handy sketching tool around.
The N900 sure comes with a stock “Sketch” app, but you sure might notice it might be pretty slow and unresponsive. But hey, there’s a better one available! Try PenPen.

There’s a variety of reasons, why PenPen is a good sketching app. First of all, it’s fast and responsive, whatever you will be writing will appear on your virtual paper almost instantly. Next, it has some very good support for portrait mode. Finally, there’s multiple page support, which means you can easily separate different drawings.

PenPen is currently available at the Extras repository, so just get it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install penpen
If your job or hobbies include a lot of sketching, like mine do, then PenPen is a good thing to have on your N900. If you’re in a worry of your screen getting damaged, or just want to get a better experience from your mobile sketching, you might also want to grab a good screen protector from our store.
 
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Have a suggestion? A problem? Post them on our forum or in the comments and we’ll look into it.

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Applications, Featured, Headline, Reviews, Software »

[2 Feb 2012 | | ]
QR and Bar Codes with mBarCode

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With all the latest hype about QR-codes, you must certainly would want a QR scanner on your phone. Especially if you’re living in Japan, where QR-codes are most popular.
Well, the N900 sure has a QR-scanner, and a pretty good one! mBarCode, together with a QR plugin can read both barcode and QR information.

You can get both mBarCode and the QR-plugin from the Extras repo:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install mbarcode mbarcode-plugin-qrcode
Launch the application and now you have a very good scanner! Target your camera at a QR or a barcode and the information gets read almost instantly. Links and other “can-be-malicious” content is shown to you before getting opened with your tap. You can even check the shortlinks by copying them and visiting this site.
You can also store the scanned code into a file, or read the code from a file you stored. That way you can use the codes later, or scan the codes downloaded from a website.

With all that, mBarCode is a must-have if you’re used to dealing with QR and barcodes.
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In case if you’d want to test how it works and you don’t have any scannable codes around, you can use an online generator, like this one.

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Featured, Games, Reviews, Software »

[1 Feb 2012 | | ]
Teeworlds on N900

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If you happen to run a GNU/Linux machine and often play video games, then you might have heard of Teeworlds. If you didn’t hear about it yet, Teeworld is a retro-styled 2-D online side-scroller, which has pretty graphics, fast-paced gameplay with the well-known game mods: CTF, Deathmatch, etc. A lot of user-created content is available for the game, including extra modes, maps, and graphical sets.  Well, thanks to the Maemo being a complete GNU/Linux distribution, Teeworlds is surely available for playing on your N900!

The package for Teeworlds is available in Extras and you can install it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install teeworlds
Once installed, you can launch it and see how actually well does the PC game run on your phone. Teeworlds starts up pretty smoothly, can access all the servers, settings and everything else. While you might think that the N900 keyboard might not be suitable for playing, the default key bindings prove otherwise, the game is played fairly well. If you don’t like the bindings, of course you can set your own.
Another point for Maemo’s power as a mobile platform, such a game is definitely worth trying, so check it out!

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Applications, Featured, Reviews, Software »

[30 Jan 2012 | | ]

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Check out our new page Funny LOL Pictures (click here) - it brings you daily funny pictures that will make you LOL!
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Need to take a couple of notes? Simple calendar notes and/or text files not enough for you? Then check out Conboy, a clone of Tomboy, which is a very good note management program!

As soon as you get the package (which is available in the Extras repository) and run the app, powerful note managing capabilities will unfold on your screen. Conboy allows text formatting, text alignment, zoom and quite some extra stuff, all of which you can check by looking around the menus and the interface. And it’s all quite readable and manageable!

By pressing that little folder icon, you’ll get a list of all your notes, which can all be searched, sorted, deleted, edited… All management operations are handled quite well, which makes Conboy even better.
So, if you keep forgetting things, or if you’re used to taking a lot of notes, like I am, then Conboy is surely a must have on your Nokia N900.

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Applications, Featured, Reviews, Software »

[27 Jan 2012 | | ]
Keep your N900 safe with HandsOff

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Check out our new page Funny LOL Pictures (click here) - it brings you daily funny pictures that will make you LOL!
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No doubt, your phone must be something very valuable for most of you. If so, you will want to keep it away from thieves. HandsOff is a handy app that will help you with that.

HandsOff is a simple alarm tool that will detect possible theft of your N900, using light and proximity sensors. Just type in a PIN-code and, well, press the big red button on top.
After armed, as soon as your N900 leaves the area where it’s supposed to be, a loud alarm will notify you about it right away, and might prevent a theft. Surely, the alarm won’t stop, unless a proper PIN-code is entered. You can also set your own alarm sound and sensitivity, so you can carry the phone in your pocket. You might want to tweak the settings a bit, until your desired settings are discovered.
Even something that relatively small can prevent a theft, so if you’re paranoid, or just want to keep your N900 safe, you should probably try HandsOff.

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Featured, Games, Reviews, Software »

[26 Jan 2012 | | ]
Numpty Physics on N900

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Check out our new page Funny LOL Pictures (click here) - it brings you daily funny pictures that will make you LOL!
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Ever played Crayon Physics Deluxe? Well, I’m sure you’ll be happy to learn about it’s FOSS clone, Numpty Physics! And what’s more, it runs on your Maemo device perfectly!

In case if you never heard of the game, here’s a quick overview: you have a ball/box/something ‘A’ and you must get it to star/box/something ‘B’. How you do it is completely up to you, your stylus and your imagination. With such a simple premise, the game is very-very fun and has a huge replayablility factor, as every level can be passed with at least 10 ways.
Need to get a ball over a palm tree? Build a giant mallet to hit it! Or create a zipline than will take the ball over the tree. The possibilities are basically endless. In case if you get bored with 17 alread included levels, you can download more, or easily create your own levels!

A little and simple, but very addictive game that will make sure to hold your interest for long and kill the time whenever you want. So get the game and start creaating!

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Comparison, Featured »

[3 Sep 2011 | | ]
Accessories that make your N900 look cooler than others

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Well as we know the N900 is pretty much a hacker’s phone I would. Well is those little little things of the N900 that makes us users looks cooler than others. Here are some of few examples.
1.The USB OTG CABLE

Well this is my cable which I use to connect Pendrives and HDD hard disk to my N900 to read files from it. You can try the h-e-n application from extras-devel repo. Or install hostmode-gui from -devel, kernel-power will be installed if no other compatible kernel is present. You can buy the USB OTG Cable here.
apt-get install hostmode-gui
2.TV OUT

Yes TV out for me is cool. Why? Cause you get an oversized Maemo running on your TV. On the downside, there seems to be a lot of static around the metal casing of the screen. Those using the TV OUT cable should take note of this. By the way, this cable is included in your N900 box just so you know. If you lost yours, you can buy it here.
3.PS3 SixAxis Controller

Yes a PS3 Controller. The N900 only works with the OLD SIXAXIS which the model between the Dualshock 2 and Dualshock 3. So whoever that wants to buy for the sake of having fun with it should take note you can only use SIXAXIS and not SIXAXIS DUALSHOCK 3. For the demo and installation guide, you can always check here
This is just a simple post to give some idea to those who are not in the know what their N900 could do. Cheers!

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Applications, Reviews, Software »

[26 Aug 2011 | | ]

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It’s never a bad thing being spoiled for choice, and when it comes to web browsers we indeed have a few to choose from.  Opera browser is one such choice, and it has always had a fairly good reputation, and I do appreciate them making such good browsers for mobile devices.  I even recall using Opera on my N95 in lieu of the rather average built in browser.

Opera 11 boasts a very modern looking UI, features usually only seen on a PC, and runs at a decent speed too, unlike Firefox.  It’s good to see that even once the choice to run Opera is made, we are once again spoiled, with a slew of configurable options to choose from too.
The zooming options are rather well implemented, being buttons on the screen, leaving my volume button for volume which I love, and the Opera webpage boasts that it does not suffer from any checker boarding.  Checker boarding is something that I deal with often with MicroB, and its great that it isn’t present here, which current usage has shown to be true.

One point where I found MicroB still trumps Opera is that MicroB can still render many full sites better, and doesn’t jump into mobile sites.  Facebook for one is where MicroB does well, but Opera simply jumps to the silly mobile version.  If the mobile version is what you want though, it runs very well on Opera.
Opera 11 is a fantastic browser, and I would recommend it to anyone to give it a spin.  For me, it is my backup browser when MicroB decides to have its time of the month.  You can grab it from the Extras-testing repository and all warnings to anything you pickup from extras repositories.  So what are you waiting for?

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Featured, Headline, Reviews »

[25 Aug 2011 | | ]
Wristwatch of the future?

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You may have seen around a year ago when Apple released its sixth generation of iPod Nano, that people started using them as watches.  This seemed like a look into the future, and while the concept is an amazing one, the current implementation is somewhat still lacking.  In the end, the device was still limited to what it could do, you were just finally ‘holding it right’. Another watch concept has recently shown up over on Hack a Day, based on Arduino, which is an open source single board microcontroller.  It consists of a pilfered Nokia LCD and other circuitry.  The fun part of this watch is that it is connected to a N900 via Bluetooth, and has a GUI for showing missed calls, messages, email, and is being worked on to support the Maemo media player.

The concept is one of brilliance, and Apple bias aside, I would still prefer one of these in a refined form then an iPod Nano on my wrist.  The idea of having my phone do all the work and my watch managing it is amazing, and would do wonders for battery life.  The other advantage of course is being able to leave the N900 in your pocket all the time and just having to check your watch as needed.
From a first look, there doesn’t appear to be an actual time feature as of yet, but one would be rather easy to implement, and would complete this watch of the future.  Of course the design would need to be refined further to scale it down and make it appropriate to wear out, but I still love that concept as a whole.
If I could connect everything to my N900, I would.  Working on tech to have such synergy with each other is what the big companies should be doing and if this amazing device brings about some form of consumer product, I think I would be lining up for one with the same fanaticism and dedication some do to buy their fruit.
 Check it out more over here

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Applications, Featured, Reviews, Software »

[6 Aug 2011 | | ]
Organise the clutter – Mussorgsky

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If you’re like me, when adding music to your trusty N900, all you did was drag and drop your entire music folder.  Effective in one way sure, but the way Maemo shows you your tunes, is a little different to that of Microsoft or any of the others.

It’s always easy to avoid devices limitations, but if there is a solution, why not take it?  I am referring of course to the way the standard media player decides to organise music.  It works all nice and rosy if you view your music in the all songs, or playlist views, but what happens when you want to get adventurous and check things out by artist, genre or album?
Hey look, that artist made an entire album collaborating with different people for each song, now that’s a pain.  What’s worse is that the default media player wants you to just sit there and take its punishment.  Well, not if Mussorgsky has anything to say about it!
Mussorgsky is a music organiser, which is able to change the metadata of audio files.  What’s more, it’s very easy to use.  Upon launching, we are greeted with two options, metadata, and album art, both shown in the same button style as the media player.  If you want to edit metadata, simply select the song, and it lets you change the title, artist, and album.  Its only basic information but it’s the stuff that counts when it comes to sorting.

The other option, being album art does exactly what it says it does.  Once again it comes down to simply selecting the album, and then Mussorgsky connects to the web to give a few different options of covers.
Simply, effective, and now I can finally sleep at night knowing that my music is all fantastically organised.

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Featured, Reviews, Software »

[17 Jul 2011 | | ]
Nokia N950 under water

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Check this amazing video of the Nokia N950 video recording under water. This is a video test from MeetMeego Youtube Channel.

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Applications, Maemo 5, Reviews, Software, Uncategorized »

[16 Jul 2011 | | ]
Google+ on the Nokia N900

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The talk of the interwebs at the moment appears to be centred on Google, and their yet another attempt at the social medium – Google+.  Luckily for Google, so far it’s generally positive, and from what I’ve experienced so far, it does indeed seem like third time’s a charm. Let’s see how it is Google+ on Nokia N900.

As stated by one of my favourite web comics, it’s Facebook, but not Facebook, which indeed is exactly what I want! Even though Google+ is still in closed beta, an app has already been written for Android, obviously being Google’s baby.   Being in closed beta though, not many people will be able to make much use of this app… yet.  Once Google+ opens up for one and all, they will be glad they got the kinks out of their app early and it’s even on its way for iOS.  But where does that leave us loyal Maemo fans?  Us fans who don’t even get a dedicated Google maps app from the mighty rulers of the internet.
Considering only recently a decent Facebook app was made (thank you Sociality), I think it may be some time, if ever an app is made for the N900.  But fear not!  If it was so easy to defeat out beloved barbecue hotplate, it wouldn’t have survived all this time.

One option is to boot NITdroid, and viola, you now have access to the app, but that kind of stunt is out of the question just to use an app right?  Well, unless your running Android on your N900 over Maemo the majority of the time, it’s not really worth it and what the heck are you doing anyway?  There is a better way!
 The simplest method once again is the best, and the infamous MicroB web browser has come to the rescue again. Just as it is my preferred medium to browse Facebook, it will become my preferred way of viewing Google+ and it does a brilliant job of it too.  It actually manages to render Google+ exactly as it does Facebook, probably even faster, but that may just be …

Headline, Reviews, Software »

[30 Jun 2011 | | ]
Meego 1.2 Community Edition (Review)

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After the release of the Nokia N9 Meego 1.2 Harmattan, I was tempted to install the Meego 1.2 on the N900 device. After hours of trials and errors managed to flash the raw image and kernel into the phone’s EMMC. Which means now I’m booting into Meego without Maemo.
Installation guide would be provided but please be warned that ” ONLY FLASH IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING ” does apply here. It might brick your N900 and bring it to Nokia Care Centre for warranty replacement. I was lucky to be able to flash back to the Meego image and here is the preview.
Meego 1.2 Harmattan Pros:
New Interface. The interface flows gives a very new feeling and it is fresh but it has traces of Maemo. Multitasking button is similar to the one in Maemo. The switching between opened apps feels like the one in Windows 7.
Smoothness:
At some point the settings menu was really smooth. It was easy to scroll, responsive and there were no complaints about it. But you only get this half of the time
Meego 1.2 Harmattan Open Sourced:
For it being open-sourced, much modification could be implement and it could be something new.
Lock-screen:
The lock screen is something new, where you drag an icon over to an empty space where that space could be regard as a unlock space. It definitely differs from the slide to unlock or entering codes or drawing lines to unlock.
Meego 1.2 Harmattan Cons:
1. Still very buggy. Most of the applications seems to take awhile to load and settle down before you can start using. It started lagging after a few apps were opened to multitasked.

Call and messaging have to be ironed out. Can only receive messages after a phone reboot
Incoming calls couldn’t be received. Any incoming calls would crash the phone itself

2. I wouldn’t say this is much of a big con, but it still have traces of Maemo in it. Maybe is due to the community contribution but if Meego were to be somethine fresh, it would attract more people. For example, the browser used in it is Fennec from Maemo and the …

Applications, Headline, Reviews, Software »

[6 Jun 2011 | | ]
FourCircle – The foursquare app for the N900

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Now there is a new Foursquare app for Nokia N900 for those who wants to check in anywhere they go. Pretty much new and still in development plus it is a bit buggy when I was using it to review this Nokia N900 application. Here it goes for the review of FourCircle
Features:

A simple interface for those who wants a fast check-in. Takes a short time to load.

The check in interface. It shows you where are the check in points nearby you. The nearby estimation is way off I would say considering my nearest point is 3km away when my closest is like 2 metres away. I hope they can take a good look at this. But you can still check into the place you want.

Ranking that shows your current point accumulation

The ranking board system. Somehow I feel that it follows the interface adapted from iOS device Foursquare app

GPS detection is not accurate and other features such as Tips Nearby and Recent Check-ins require some in-app bug fix

The Tips Nearby seems to be working properly for awhile.

This was the bug I encountered with Recent Checkins. I pressed the button once and it wasn’t responding and it didn’t give any response too. Realised this event when I wanted to switch to my SMS. So i think if this bug is fixed this app could turn out great. Score: 6/10

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Applications, Comparison, Headline, Reviews, Software, Uncategorized »

[3 May 2011 | | ]
Cutetube vs CuteTube-QML on Nokia N900

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Well for those who have been downloading Youtube videos as past time, I’m sure you guys have come across this app in the N900 called Cutetube. It is a nice little app where you can watch and download videos from Youtube directly onto your N900. Now it has been upgraded into another app and it is called CuteTube-QML. Well here is the comparison.
CuteTube

The Main Page of the Cutetube.. Simple and like any other app it has the settings bar on top.

Oh wait there is an error. Yeah. The old Cutetube has an error signing into Youtube accounts even though you entered all your information correctly

The settings bar that I was talking about.
Note: I was so frustrated with the old Cutetube that I didn’t want to do any more screenshots of it. So for now, let’s go to Cutetube-QML. By the way, after installing Cutetube-QML, you would definitely want to uninstall Cutetube as Cutetube seems very well not-functioning correctly.
Cutetube-QML

Well this is the new Cutetube-QML with much smoother interface and nicer design and also works very well. In fact you can sign into your Youtube account properly this time

Since I was unable to sign into Youtube using the old Cutetube therefore unfortunately I can’t show you how the My Channel part looks like. So here you are the My Channel menu for the Cutetube-QML

Here is where they list down the videos that you previously favourited under Favourites

Here is the Uploads section

Here is the search menu. One tip for you guys set the search preferences to Relevance to get the videos you want.

When downloading a video this is what you get. You have to start the download yourself. Just click on it and there is a DOWN button just click on it
So there you have it. Things have changed quite abit in here. Help and questions would not be answered in the comment box anymore. Please head over to our FORUM and start asking there. If there is no topic created for your question feel free to create one. See you there

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