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Ever wanted to control your desktop computer right from your N900‘s screen? This post will show you how to do that using PresenceVNC.
This guide is for *nix (GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOS) users. Windows users can look up a guide on setting up VNC online and try the same, by connecting to their PC directly, however, without ssh this will be much less secure.
First of all, fetch PresenceVNC from your N900:
sudo gainroot
sudo apt-get install presencevnc
Get openssh too, if you don’t have it:
apt-get install openssh
Now, on your PC you’ll need to generate an SSH key (again, if you don’t have it yet):
ssh-keygen -t dsa
This will create a file ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub
You will have to drop this file into the same directory from your PC to the N900, you can use file sharing sites, USB, ssh, whatever you want for that.
Verify that you have the SSH server running on your PC, try to SSH into it:
ssh <user>@<ip_address>
Repalce <user> with your username on the PC and <ip_address> with your PC’s IP address. If you don’t know it, use sites like this one. If your PC and the N900 are connected to the same network, you can usually try the local address, 192.168.1.33 or 192.168.1.34. It should ask you to verify the key (type ‘yes’) and your PC’s password. IF it doesn’t then it’s likely your 22nd port is closed, use tools like iptables or Firestarter to open it.
You will also need x11vnc to start the server, look it up in your distro’s repositories.
Once that is set up, open up your N900‘s terminal and connect to your PC with the following command:

ssh -C -L 5900:localhost:5900 <user>@<ip_address>
And start the server (yes, right from your N900)
x11vnc -ncache 10 -display :0
Now, just open up PresenceVNC (don’t quit the terminal!) and connect to localhost:0 Watch in amazement as your PC is fully controlled through your N900.
On the screenshot below you can see IceCat opened on my ArchLinux desktop’s StumpWM:

Enjoy!

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Note: this how-to is aimed at advanced users. Messing something up during the installation or usage may harm your device, everything is done at your own risk.
Being an ultimate hacker device, the N900 is often prone to getting software issues during your playful experiments. When that happens, don’t go strait to reflashing your device, it may still be rescued with a rescue initrd image provided by MeeGo! This how-to will show you how to install and use the initrd image for rescuing your N900.

The first part of the how-to assumes you’re using a *nix system (GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, MacOS) on your PC , information on Windows installation can be found below.
On your PC, open up the terminal. Make a new directory, where the image will be kept, and cd into it:
mkdir n900-rescue-initrd
cd n900-rescue-initrd
Now, get the rpm files for the image from the MeeGo repos:
wget http://repo.meego.com/MeeGo/releases/1.1/core/repos/armv7l/packages/armv7l/nokia-n900-rescue-initrd-0.1-2.157.armv7l.rpm
wget http://repo.meego.com/MeeGo/releases/1.1/core/repos/armv7l/packages/armv7l/kernel-n900-2.6.35.3-10.3.armv7l.rpm
Now, you’ll need to unpack the rpm packages using rpm2cpio. If you don’t have it, it should be available from your distribution’s repos. Else, you might try using a BASH or Perl versions, execute them the same way, as you would execute rmp2cpio.
rpm2cpio nokia-n900-*.rpm | cpio -vid ./boot/initrd*
rpm2cpio kernel-*n900-*.rpm | cpio -vid ./boot/vmlinuz*
Now you will have a directory named boot that will contain the files required.
Before you start the initrd charge your battery completely. The initrd doesn’t support charging and you want to be sure your phone won’t die when the initrd is in use.
To start the initrd, you’ll need to use the N900 flasher, please read this article, if you don’t understand what I mean. Note, we’re not reflashing the device, we’re just loading the image into the device’s memory on boot.
Shutdown the device by removing the battery and putting it back, then start the flasher in the same directory with
sudo flasher-3.5 -k boot/<vmlinuz-n900> -n boot/<initrd.img> -l -b”rootdelay=1 root=/dev/ram0″
Replace <vmlinuz-n900> and <initrd.img> with the actual file names.
After it is started, plug your N900 to your PC with a USB cord. Your device should now boot and you’ll get a menu with the following features:

Toggle USB networking on/off (N)
Reboot the device (R)
Shutdown the device …

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Note: the steps we go through this how-to include modifying low-level system files and imply that the readers know what they are doing. If you can’t understand some bits or think you might break something, you might want not to try this hack.
Interested in further customization of your N900? Then let’s take a look at how to change that “Swipe to unlock” screen that appears when you press the powerkey with screen locked.
The files we’re interested in are located under two directories:
 /usr/share/themes/alpha/backgrounds/
and
/usr/share/themes/alpha/images/
Now, the files are lockslider.png, which is a background image located in the first directory mentioned; LockSliderTop/Bottom/Left/Right.png, which are the backgounds for the slider itself and are located in the second directory mentioned; and, finally, LockSliderThumb.png and LockSliderPortrait.png, which are the images for the slider button in landscape and portrait mode. These are also in the second directory mentioned.
You know the file names now, so you’d want to get creative and make substitutes for those originals! Back them up, if you need it.
Use the original files as a base, you need to be sure the image sizes match. That is, lockslider.png needs to be 800×480, other files need to be the same size as their originals. Check out this custom set for further example.
As soon as you finished creating your files, drop them all to their respective directories and reboot your phone.
  cp -f lockslider.png  /usr/share/themes/alpha/backgrounds/
cp -f LockSlider*.png /usr/share/themes/alpha/images/
sudo gainroot
reboot
Enjoy your new custom Swipe-to-unlock screen!

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Getting bored with the old look of your SMS and chat screens? If so, open nature of Maemo allows you to tweak the look to your own preference.

Configuration files for Conversations And Contacts themes reside under the /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html/ directory. Backup the files if necessary.
First make your own theme with html-css-javascript or find one that suits you made by other enthusiasts on Talk Maemo or here.
In case if you downloaded the theme, unpack the downloaded archive to any directory, for example, ~/MyDocs/theme
cd ~/MyDocs
mkdir theme
Then, copy all files in the archive to the directory mentioned above:
cd ~/MyDocs/theme
sudo gainroot
cp -f * /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html
Because many downloaded themes include only files for SMS interface, copy them for chat interface:
sudo gainroot
cd /usr/share/rtcom-messaging-ui/html
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.css MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.css
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.js MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.js
cp -f MessagingWidgetsSMSConversation.html MessagingWidgetsChatConversation.html
Finally, reboot your phone,
sudo gainroot
reboot
Or kill the process:
sudo gainroot
killall rtcom-messaging-ui
 
Enjoy your new interface!

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I’ve been away for quite some time, some of you may remember me from before, for the rest… I’ll leave this mistery unsolved for a while. But I’m back, with a bit less time than before, so I’ll be visible only time-to-time with my thoughts on Nokia in general and N900.
The qutote from Cicero in topic is not accidental, after Nokia made some astonishing decisions about future of Maemo, MeeGo and (yuck!) Windows Phone 7 I doubted in all of this community gibberish. I’m Open Source fan for quite some time and Nokia’s idea to abandon mobile Linux of their own, made me think it will be forgotten. But as we see from activity in Community SSU repositories on Gitorious, people are still interested in developing something new for N900 (and Maemo). So let’s have a look how is it going right now…
Since first release of CSSU we’ve already seen 9 major versions, including bugfixes, improvements and new features. The most wanted ‘portrait mode’ is already implemented for some parts of user interface, like status menu or Settings panel. Even task switcher automatically rotates available applications if available (and pretends to rotate if not), reorganising switcher to be usable in portrait mode.
Okay, so we have something new, but there was no update since May, so why the big words about hope and such? I’m following Community SSU activity feed and for July only commotion is like for April, May and June in total. I think that’s good forecast for another CSSU release soon.
Summarizing, there is still hope for N900, but we shouldn’t look for it in Nokia, but in community, as long as it exists. And since I’m still breathing, maybe i can find myself useful, do you have any ideas?
–
MJ

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Good rivals, each are trying to get to the top of the market but Nokia is much ahead.
The Nokia N900‘s dimensions are 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc while the iPhone’s dimensions are 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm making the iPhone the winner.
The N900 comes with a TFT resistive touchscreen while the iPhone is equipped with a TFT capacitive touchscreen so both device’s draw here but I was expecting the N900 to be the leader in this section.

The Nokia N900 screen is 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches while the highly praised iPhone comes with a 320 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches display making the N900 more suitable for small writing, speaking about small writing, the N900 comes with a QWERTY keyboard and the iPhone doesn’t.

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The Nokia N900 was released in November last year while the Motorola Charm was released in August but also released the same month which shows that Nokia is falling behind. The Charm comes with a TFT capacitive touchscreen with the size of  320 x 240 pixels, 2.8 inches and the Nokia N900 also comes with with a TFT but a size of 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches considering the size, the Nokia N900 wins this round.
The Nokia N900 comes with a QWERTY keyboard as well as the Motorola Charm.As usual, both the devices have a 3.5 mm audio jack. The Charm comes with 512 MB internal memory but the Nokia N900 comes with 32GB internal memory. The rival comes with Android OS, v2.1 (Eclair) which is not as good as the Maemo 5. The Nokia N900 is great to capture images with 5 MP, 2576×1936 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Dual LED flash, video light, the Charm is far behind with 3.15 MP, 2048×1536 pixels.
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The Nokia N900 comes with 278 h (2G) and 250 h (3G) while the Motorola Charm comes with 267 h (2G) and 334 h (3G) which is a really big issue for me but I don’t know for others.

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Both are good devices but are also rivals. The N900 was released in November last year while the Samsung Wave was released in April, this year.

The N900 is really big with 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc dimensions while the Samsung comes with 118 x 56 x 10.9 mm. The N900 is most definitely the brick here. The Samsung Wave comes with something new called Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors which normally is used in the Nokia’s but the rival comes with a regular TFT resistive touchscreen, 65K colors,. The Nokia N900 comes with Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and a full QWERTY keyboard which the Wave lacks but in return comes with much more Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Multi-touch input method, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, Scratch-resistant surface, TouchWiz UI 3.0, Handwriting recognition and a Smart unlock. The Samsung Wave comes with 1.5 GB system storage but the N900 comes with 32GB internal memory beating the Wave by far.
Both camera’s are good with the Nokia N900 having the advantage of Carl Zeiss optics beats the Wave. The Nokia N900 comes with Maemo 5 which makes It very good for the Linux user as it is Debian-Linux based but the Wave comes with Bada OS which is not so bad after all.
The Samsung S8500 is beating the Nokia N900 with 600 h (2G) and 550 h (3G), the Nokia N900 has 278 h (2G) and 250 h (3G).

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The S60 software platform is slowly ageing away with Maemo covering it up. So I have to say, that the S60 users have to now get used to Maemo. You’ll hear me say this a couple of times here at our Nokia N900 blog.
Maemo 5 is currently present on the Nokia N900.
The Maemo OS which is based on Debian Linux and the GUI which is derived from various frameworks and libraries. The software uses the window manager, and GTK-based Hildon as its GUI and application framework..
Maemo 5 actually has nice 3D games cooking up for us with a new Twitter app.
Here is something that you can expect for the Nokia N900 :

So you can see that Maemo is actually better than Symbian but only in a few ways. The best thing is that you have the terminal to fix problems and awesome games e.g the roller coaster game in the video is really testing our patience.
At work/home and your laptop or computer stops working? Then use your Nokia N900, it is a mini computer in your hands.
With (Maemo) Debian Linux based, Mozilla, the internet browser technology and the Nokia N900 deliver a extremely good mobile experience. The device shows where Nokia is going with software and Nokia should continue to work with the community to unlock the new software capabilities.
Maemo is something that is fuses the power of the computer, the internet and the mobile phone, which is great to see that it is evolving marvelously. If you have any different opinions, let us know at the Nokia N900 forum.

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Announced in August, 2009 but available 2 months later? I am surprised. Read on this Nokia N900 review for more.
The Nokia N900 has really big dimensions of 110.9 x 59.8 x 18 mm, 113 cc. But it actually makes sense as the device is a mini computer. with 181 grams, it is heavy. These are the reasons that the Nokia N900.
The huge screen has 800 x 480 pixels, 3.5 inches which makes it great for gaming.

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Both are rivals and both yet are just wining each other by 1 or 2. They are called the Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid X.
Both devices are giants but yet very good.
The Nokia N900 comes with Maemo 5 which is very good considering the responses about it much looking at the Android 2.0 OS responses, the Nokia N900 is better. If you want to see which one is the best than you have to look at the responses about it.

The Nokia N900 looks very good with its clean lines and classy finish. It measures 110.9 X 59.8 mm in its face and is 18 mm thicknesses which that makes it a good reason to call it a brick phone. The weight of 181 g feels like a big block of solidness.
The Motorola Droid X measures 115.8 mm in length and 60 mm in width which makes it look bigger than the Nokia N900 but it is a lot slimmer than N900 at 13.7 mm. The weight of 165g is also lighter than the N900. The device has a smooth look and a feel.
If you want memory than the Nokia N900 is the better choice as it already comes with 32GB internal memory plus the advantage of adding 32GB to it making it a total of 64GB memory for the user while the Motorola Droid comes with a 256mb internal memory with a possibility of just adding a 32GB MicroSD card.
Have a look at some of the dimensions I have listed and that the Nokia N900 is the official winner : Apple iPhone 3GS: 165 PPI, Nokia N97: 210 PPI, HTC HD2: 217 PPI, Motorola Droid: 265 PPI and the Nokia N900: 267 PPI <– WINS !
Some users haven’t noticed the amazing capabilities of the Nokia N900, it comes with full internet meaning the capability of opening any web page because of the Flash Player 9.4 (Flash Player 10 in the future) while the Motorola Droid doesn’t have it. Adobe did announce that would have the Flash Player 10 for this phone.

Google Navigation is about some interesting and complementary GPS features that helps a lot when it’s about going to some …

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Meet Xournal, another type of a writer but its only problem is that it is a prototype like so not everything is present unfortunately.
It is an application for note-taking, it keeps a journal using a stylus and you can sketch with it but of course, it can also be used to add notations to PDF files.
I am sure that you noticed that Xournal does have similarity to other programs developed for Linux such as Jarnal, Gournal and Windows Journal.
Xournal is compatible with Maemo 4 (OS2008) which is running on the Nokia N800 and the Nokia N810 Internet Tablets including Maemo 5 which of course is being used on the Nokia N900.

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We’re all waiting for PR1.2 update for quite long time. Some people say it’s way too long and Nokia doesn’t really care about users. On the other hand there is no point in releasing partially tested update with more bugs than previous version and I think this is good point of view.
While waiting I’m following all of the news I can find. Yesterday there was another speculation about when PR1.2 will come. At first I’ve had mixed feelings, varying from hope to irritation. After PR1.1.1  it was said to be released ‘soon’ and we all found out that amount of time given in such unspecified way may be highly relative. I hope Nokia worked really hard while ‘soon’ was growing.
Apart from speculations I’m frequently checking maemo.org wiki PR1.2 page, at least every morning and… Surprise! According to the latest news our long awaited update will be released to public today (May 25) in UK and tomorrow (May 26) for rest of the world. For most of users this it should be available Over The Air, so you can check App manager for Maemo 5 updates, alternatively there should be possibility to use Nokia Software Updater (for Windows users) or flasher (for Linux users). If you have any problems with this update feel free to ask, I’ll try to point solution for any problem.
What else can I say… Finally!
–
For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

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Many times during my studies I was in urgent need of small, primitive computer-like device that would help me solve simple math problems, device known as calculator. Many phones have built-in applications for really basic calculations, so what can we expect from N900?

Maemo 5 has it’s own built-in calculator, rather simple, with basic look-and-feel. There is possibility to switch to ‘scientific’ calculator, but still number of operations you can perform is relatively small, but it may be enough for everyday use.

If you don’t really need any sophisticated math algorythms you will probably prefer something simple that will allow you to sum, multiply or divide floating point numbers. NCalc is such application (available in extras-devel and extras-testing), clear, simple, easy to use, good solution for less demanding users.

On the other hand, if you want to use advanced math, like trigonometric functions, logarythms etc. you should be satisfied with free42 (available in extras). Look-and-feel emulate plain calculator, with classical buttons and simple LED screen. By default free42 runs in portrait mode, so it’s easy to operate with one hand, while taking notes with the other. In my humble opinion it’s enough for most of math of physics classes, even if you want to fiddle with ‘black magic science’ like quantum mechanics.
Variety of calculators doesn’t end on this three, you may already know some other applications, feel free if you’d like to share your point of view.
–
For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

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Most of you probably know sudoku, logic game of placing numbers in 9×9 grid following few simple rules. This games comes to almost every phone or mobile device in general and it’s no different for N900, even more, at the moment you have four alternative applications.
First of all we have EightyOne already available in extras, so it appears as pretty stable and well written piece of software. It has few difficulty levels, so everyone may be satisfied with playing. On exit current progress is saved, so you can take hard level and little more time in few parts. I also think that interface is quite good, numbers placed initially are different color than placed by player, you can easily tell how far you are from the beginning. Also gives few intresting options like statistics, tips or solving all game to check if you’re following good trail.
Another sudoku-based game is masudoku, for now available in extras-testing and extras-devel. It’s also equipped with few difficulty levels, but I find it more difficult to play because of one-colored numbers, only wrong placed pieces are shown in different color. It also gives you possibility to solve all, check if you can still solve the game and take hints. Unfortunately no option to save, so you have to start from the beginning every time.
masudoku – levels, marks, tips, devel&testing
Third I’ve found is gpe-sudoku (in extras-devel) and I was pretty confused seeing it’s interface, not so intuitive to be honest. It lacks level distinction, description of basic functions on screen, but also has some neat functionalities, like saving game or placing checkpoints to which you can go back to specified point.
The last one is Thumb Sudoku available in extras-devel. Following the name, it can be played using only your thumb, because runs in portrait mode, so it’s easy to operate with one hand. Nice interface, large grid, good visibility and comfort to play anywhere are most obvious pros. Save on exit is another useful thing, but unfortunately it doesn’t give you choice of difficulty level. Nevertheless still in devel, so it can improve soon.
As you see …