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Are you an engineer or an engineering student? Then a scientific calculator is a must-have for you! AlmostTI will turn your N900 into one of the Texas Instruments Sci Calcs that beat pretty much every calculator app that is available for the N900!

AlmostTI is a Texas Instruments Sci Calc emulator and a really great one! It will emulate TI73, TI82, TI83, TI83+, TI83+ SE, TI85, and TI86 (some models will require you to locate a ROM for them, as the app doesn’t include it by default) and emulate them really well, making pretty much every single function usable! Writing code, graphical calculations, anything that a real TI can do, Almost Real TI can do as well.
See for yourself, fetch the emulator from Extras with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install ati85
The only thing I found weird is the lack of documentation. It took me some time to figure out that you need to tap the top-left corner of the screen for a menu that will allow you to choose which calc to emulate. The top-right corner quits the emulator.
Totally the best calc app for the N900, and a must-have for the engineers, ATI85 is something you would really like to have on your N900. Especially since real TI-eighties don’t actually fit into a pocket.

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Planning to have a phone conversation that might be memorable? Want to record a sound that your N900 plays? Or maybe use your N900 as a dictaphone? Then you need a good audio recorder, and Recaller is a great choice.

Recaller is a nice little widget designed to help you with recording just about any audio, be it system sounds (including internet radio or sounds from games), phone calls or the external sounds. All you have to do is to configure the widget to use a desired recording mode, and tap on it to start a recording, which will conveniently be stored in the directory you specified (MyDocs folder by default).
Recaller can record in three audio formats, the AAC, FLAC and WAV, all of which are perfect for recording voice audio (if you want high quality, go for FLAC, AAC gives you a smaller file but eats more resources for compression. WAV is fast, but the file will be a bit bigger than the AAC one). If you want to automatically record all out/ingoing calls, Recaller can do that as well.
So, grab this great little recording widget from Extras with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install recaller
and forget about having a separate dictaphone app!
Note that recording calls might be illegal in your country. Recording copyrighted music from internet radio streams is also illegal.

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Enjoy reading? Enjoy interactive fiction? Well, some happy news for you, in addition to Ren’Py for visual novels, with a Maemo port of Gargoyle you have tons of interactive fiction in your pocket!
For those who never heard of Gargoyle yet, it is a very advanced interactive fiction interpreter that supports many-many different formats, like z-machine (Inform), glulx, tads, agility, alan, hugo, level 9, magnetic, scare and more!
With that much formats you can play many sorts of fiction, allowing you to choose many genres and play famous games, such as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy or Zork. For those of you in search for fiction to read (or play, if that is how you prefer to say it), you can find game archives with the help of search engines. One of the most famous archives is IFArchive, which has games for most platforms Gargoyle can handle. Just grab the file for the game and launch it either from a command line with gargoyle [gamefile] or from a graphical menu.

Gargoyle can be obtained via the Extras catalogue with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install gargoyle
GET it, but don’t forget a light source.

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If you have been a long-standing Nokia fan, then you sure remember the currency converter that Nokia always included in it’s older phones. Well, for some reason, there isn’t one by default in the Nokia N900 and many of you could tell that they needed one sometimes. Especially if your career has something to do with travelling. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that available in the Maemo Repositories.

Currency Converter is, well, a currency converter app and a quite good one. It supports 70 different currencies (pretty much every major currency is there and it’s just as much you’ll probably need) with updating exchange rates, and has a handy calculator built-in. Unit conversions are there as well!
Counting taxes, adding up different currencies, unit conversions, the app has all you need from a currency converter.
So don’t wait, get this must-have app strait from the Extras with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install currencyconverter

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Are you a fan of word games? Well, I know I am, so when I found Wordsler in the repos, I just couldn’t pass it by.

Now, Wordsler is a fun word game, which is basically Quiddler, but on your N900‘s screen. If you’re not familiar with Quiddler, the game’s simple: you are given a set of cards and you form words out of them. For every word you form, you receive points based on the cards you used. For example, a card with Q is worth more than the one with A, as there are less words that have the letter Q in it.

Wordsler has a few game modes aside from the standard Quiddler: Time Trial, which is pretty much self-explanatory and Online Challenge, where you can compete with other players online, adding quite some fun into the game. Wordsler also features an achievement system, which also adds some playing value.
I myself found the game a good time sinker, I have spent at least an hour playing after discovering it. So, if you want to check it out, grab it from Extras with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install wordsler
And dive into Quiddler without physical cards!

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Have a like for simulation games like Numpty Physics? Slysics is something you’ll definitely enjoy.

Slysics is a fun simulation game where you build sleigh tracks and then watch the figure gracefully (or painfully) slide down them.
With not that many tools you can nonetheless build some really great simulations and you are only limited with your imagination. Build a giant track with a ramp to see how far the sleigh will travel? Maybe a beautiful scenery? Or a sadistic track full of traps and rough falls? You are free to do anything.
Slysics is currently available in the Extras-Devel, which you’ll have to enable before getting it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install slysics
The game is moving on to OpenGL, which will soon bring it better graphics, but even with it’s 2D now, it’s still very fun.
A fun little time sinker, Slysics will sure keep you busy for quite some time.

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Using MMS? Or want to try? Well, unfortunately, N900 doesn’t support MMS out-of-the-box, but fMMS can help us with that! In this guide, I will show you how to setup fMMS on your N900.

First, get fMMS from the Extras repository with these commands:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install fmms
Now, for the settings! Run fMMS and go to the settings:

Once there, tap another Settings button. Now go to this page and carefully fill in all the information for your mobile carrier. Make sure to double-check all the settings after you did so, a typo in the AP name can cost you quite a lot (literally, your carrier might charge you heavily if you try to connect to a wrong AP).
Now, a little note, if the data on the wiki page says “Use Proxy: No”, you will have to take another few steps:
1. Tap the system Menu button, go to Settings -> Internet connections -> Connections -> MMS -> Edit
2. Tap Next -> Next -> Advanced
3. Uncheck the “Use proxy” checkbox and click Save.
If it says “Use Proxy: Yes”, ignore the above and continue.
Now to test all your settings, set the “Polite” Setting in the fMMS settings menu and (via the statusbar menu) connect to an internet connection called “MMS”. Open up MicroB and go to the MMSC URL you put in fMMS settings (don’t worry, unless your carrier is crazy and charges for receiving MMS, you won’t lose money). If everything is setup correctly, you should have a blank page. If you have something like “HTTP Response: 400″ or any text like that, then you’ve got something wrong, check all your settings again.

There, now fMMS is set up and you can send and receive MMS messages! If you have still have any troubles (after you’ve passed the testing), please see the Troubleshooting here.
Enjoy!

Guide requested by Steven Kierath, our reader. Have your own suggestions/requests/problems? Contact us on our Facebook page (you can find the link on the homepage) or send me an email.

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Just yesterday, I was on my way home. Usually, I listen to the music while out on the street, but my audio player wasn’t with me and it’s been a while since I have uploaded any fresh music into my N900. Luckily, I had all my music on my home PC (which was conveniently running) and with an N900, I sure can access and listen to it. Want to know how? I’ll show you in this guide.

This guide assumes the machine you’re connecting to runs a *nix system (GNU/Linux, BSD, MacOS). For getting SSH up with Windows, refer to this guide by Lifehacker.
First things first, you would want to have SSH running on your machine with the music. Make sure you start it and have the SSH port unlocked on the machine.
If you are unsure how to do that, see this guide for Ubuntu, which will work for most other GNU/Linux distros with minor changes, or refer to your system’s documentation.
Obviously, you also need OpenSSH on your N900, which you can get with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install openssh
if you don’t have it already. Now, let’s look at the methods you can use to start playing music from a remote machine on your N900.
You can use MPlayer + SSH. This is a faster, but a slightly inconvenient way, for which you need MPlayer on your N900.
If you don’t have it, get it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install mplayer
Then, you can use this command:
ssh <user>@<remote-address> “cat <full-path-to-file>” | mplayer -
Where <user> is your username on the machine, <remote-address> is your machine’s IP address and <full-path-to-file> is the full path to the file you want to play.
The inconvenience of this is that you won’t be able to play many files at once and you’ll have to use the full path to the file.
A better method is sshfs. Again, if you don’t have sshfs, grab it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install sshfs
Create a directory, which you’ll use (as root):
mkdir /home/user/Home-PC
Finally, mount your machine’s filesystem on that directory with sshfs:
sshfs <user>@<remote-address>: /home/user/Home-PC
There, you can now access the whole home directory of your home PC via /home/user/Home-PC and that means (besides other files) you can …

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Are you a roguelike enthusiast? Want to take your beloved NetHack with you? Or want to try it out?
Well, then you’ll be happy to know that a “Vulture’s Eye” Maemo port exists and works very well.

Vulture’s Eye is accessible from the Extras, so get it with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install vultures
NetHack surely can be played without it’s graphical version, but you should take in mind that the N900‘s keyboard is not the best thing you can play roguelikes with. While having a dislike for “tiled” roguelikes myself, I found Vulture’s Eye very sweet to play with a touchscreen. It works very well, and still allows you to feel this dungeon atmosphere. Sure, sometimes you will have to slide down the keyboard, but most of the time you wouldn’t need it, and this allows you to explore the dungeon while you’re in a bus/queue/whatnot.
So don’t wait, fetch vultures from Extras and dive into the quest for the Amulet of Yendor!

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Note: this how-to is aimed at advanced users. Messing something up may harm your device, everything is done at your own risk.
Want to keep record of all your call durations? Well, while the functionality is not included by default, there’s a hack that can help you out. All we need to do is to patch the SQL database.
Note: You don’t need to be root for following the guide.
Open up your X Terminal and cd into a folder we need:
cd /home/user/.rtcom-eventlogger
Make a backup of your original database file, just to be sure:
cp -a el-v1.db el-v1.db.backup
Download the patch (you’ll need wget, if you don’t have it, install it with sudo gainroot; apt-get install wget):
wget ‘http://talk.maemo.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=10495&amp;d=1275242093′ -O triggers.txt
Apply the patch:
sqlite3 -batch /home/user/.rtcom-eventlogger/el-v1.db < triggers.txt
Finally, install Extended Call Log from Extras:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install extcalllog 
You’re finished! Now the call durations will start recording. Please note that it will just start, so you’ll need to go through a couple of calls before you can see the durations.

Enjoy!

Thanks to kovach from TMO for the patch.

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Do you watch TV often? Chances are you have your favorite shows and don’t want to miss them. Then you need a TV program, but why waste money to buy one when you can use Showtime?

Showtime is available in the Extras, so fetch it with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install showtime
Showtime will show you a complete list of everything your favorite channels will air, complete with information and reminders! Just pick your region (there are many available), pick a channel and hit “Go”. Simple, isn’t it? And it’s free.
If you live in the UK, you can even perform remote recordings of your favorite channels!

Unfortunately, I did find some downsides. Mainly: I couldn’t get data for channels in regions other than my own and there’s no Unicode support (as you can see from the screenshot above).
Well, unless your country uses a language that needs Unicode for displaying, it shouldn’t be a problem for you and Showtime will serve as a nice TV app.

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Doing some running/jogging and wish to monitor all your stats without having an actual pedometer? Or maybe you’re worried about the efficiency of your paths? Well, then you can use your trusty N900 as a pedometer easily, with a Pedometer Home Widget.

Install a package with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install pedometerhomewidget
And now you have a pretty effective pedometer as a widget, that can be configured to your weight-height and will give you detailed information about your speed, steps, burned calories, distance and time. A nice chart for all your weekly efforts is included as well. And you can use it for both walking and running.
The results are pretty good, although you will have to tweak the sensitivity settings and other things for best results. Especially when running. You will also want to keep your N900 close to yourself, to ensure it won’t receive any data from random bumps.
So get the package and enjoy your new functionality!

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Ever since J2ME have spawned, it has been widely used by pretty much any mobile platform. However, J2ME support on the N900 is rather lacking, which has become a problem, but not an unsolvable one. Some of you may have heard of MicroEmu, but as it is written on Java (SE version) itself, it is very RAM consuming, making apps slower. PhoneME is an alternative written in C, and while it is still in testing, a rather good one.

Since the emulator is still in testing, the most progressive version can be fetched through this link. Get the file and open it with your App Manager. Alternatively, do it faster via the command line:
sudo gainroot
dpkg -i cvm*.deb

After installation you will have several new items in the menu:
Run Midlet will run a specified .jar file. You can also use it through a command line:
/opt/phoneme/bin/runmidlet <path_to_jar_file>
Midlet Settings will, obviously, open up a settings menu, where you can customize a few things, like fullscreen launching or portrait mode.
Finally, there’s a preinstalled Opera Mini and Microemu-demo for testing using/testing purposes.
Well, I should definitely say that the performance of the apps is very, very good. Opera Mini starts up in seconds, unlike it did in MicroEmu and works very well, you can as well use it as an alternative browser.
Some other apps I’ve tried work just as well: sounds, network etc. are all functional.

A few downsides include the inability to handle .jad files well and some sound glitches, but that can be forgiven, given that the emulator is still in development.
So go and get it, it’ll be worth it.
 

Thanks to Salut Ct for yet another good suggestion. Have your own suggestions? Please leave them in the comments, we’ll definitely look into them and give you credit!

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Prone to falling asleep while listening to music? But of course trying to do that with your N900 will simply waste battery life while you are sleeping. Well, then you want to stop the player, but you can’t really do that when you’re asleep, can’t you? Ah, but you can, thanks to Sleeper.

After installing Sleeper, you will now have a widget that, upon pressing, will start a timer. After the time desired will pass, Sleeper will pause your N900 or shut it down, depending on your settings. You can customize the look of the widget and the times you wish to use in minutes.
Sleeper is available in Extras, so fetch it with:
sudo gainroot
apt-get install sleeper
And enjoy Sleeper.
A simple, but maybe a life-saving widget, because, hey, sometimes it’s just nice to fall asleep while listening to some beautiful music, right? Especially if you have some sleep problems.

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Often you wouldn’t even want any phone functionality from your N900, unless you are actually using it often. When you don’t want it, disabling every cellular function seems reasonable, as it will save you up a lot of battery life, but unfortunately, Nokia’s Flight Mode turns off any radio functionality, and that includes WiFi and other communications. But, luckily, there’s a savior for those who would want some connectivity with cellular functions temporary disabled ? Tablet Mode!
After getting a package from Extras, you will now have a flashy button in your powerkey menu, which, upon pressing will enable (or, obviously disabling, if you had it enabled already) the Tablet Mode, allowing you to use your N900 as a regular tablet with no phone functionality saving you up quite some battery life.

Surely a must-have on your N900, so install the package with
sudo gainroot
apt-get install cell-modem-ui
And enjoy the tablet mode!