People say that Nokia N900 lacks portrait mode in homescreen and applications. Some time ago I’ve found desktop widget with pretty descriptive name (shown in my app manager) Application launcher widget with portrait mode a.k.a. DrLaunch.
There are some applications that already have portrait mode, like built-in phone that probably everyone uses, Brain Party or SPB Brain Evolution 2. Mostly I was placing application shortcuts for these to be reachable with my thumb when phone is rotated to portrait (but still icons were showing in landscape specific way). I was even thinking of creating alternative icons rotated to appear ‘portretized’.
One day i’ve discovered this strangely long name in application manager, and found it interesting. Auto rotating widget appeared on my homescreen with 4 application shortcuts. After digging in options I’ve found that grid may contain maximum 16 applications but if you have something on your wallpaper that you want to have visible you can leave some empty spaces. All of placed shortcuts are rotating along with the phone, so in portrait you have all of the grid rotated by 90 degrees. Another nice feature I like in this widget is that it doesn’t start application after shortest tap, you need to press for about half a second, so it prevents starting applications by accident when you have some turbulences in bus or tram and tap shortcut on the homescreen by accident.
I find this widget really useful and I think it’s small step ahead to have more interactive homescreen. More widgets should be auto-rotating, especially if they’re square-shaped, which should be fairly easy to do, no complex transformations or resizing. There is really big potential in this widget.
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MJ

Lots of people ask me about USSD-widget recently claiming it’s not working for them, they cannot configure it properly or widget just doesn’t show on desktop. I googled a bit and found another way to use USSD codes (in the same project actually), that you may like. Just follow this tutorial.
First of all go to widget’s garage webpage in your N900 browser. There you can see 4 packages, not only widget itself. The thing I want to introduce is ussd-pad, let’s try this one.

If you already have ussd-widget installed you actually need to download ussd-pad only, if not install 3 packages: pexpect, ussd-common and ussd-pad (in this order).  To do this just click download link and choose to open in App manager for every of this packages.

After this you will have new application that shows phone-like keyboard where you can put the code to check account, charge or anything. For me there is no working codes I know of, so I receive something like “functionality unavailable” from the cell network.

This should help if you have no patience for widget configuration and basic one doesn’t work. Frankly I’m surprised that this package isn’t included in any of catalogues.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

For those who already played with Maemo (or Linux in general) command line, the idea to put output from some commands should be already familiar. I was thinking of it also, trying few solutions and this is one of them.
Desktop Command Execution Widget is nice placeholder for shell scripts showing their output on homescreen, which may be useful if you want to have detailed info on N900 status on screen every time, without going to XTerminal and executing specified command. After you install the widget you will get several default scripts that can be placed on desktop and possibility to place more than one on homescreen, so you can get as many as you want! This can easily replace fixed widgets which show only one type of information if you know how to write appropriate script. Let’s start with something easy.
Example 1 – detailed uptime status
Linux users and network administrators may know significancy of big uptime, which means that hardware and software are working well and stable. Among the scripts you already have Uptime, Boot reason and Boot count, we can put all 3 of them on homescreen or modify to get all 3 in one by placing all commands (just copy using Ctrl+C and paste using Ctrl+V) one by one, separating with semicolon ( ; ) or double ampersand if you want to ensure the commands will execute properly in given order.
Example 2 – from the scripts wiki
Widget configuration gives option to see scripts wiki available on maemo.org, let’s take first one and see what it can do. This one uses AWK, powerfull tool for Linux users that will allow to freely manipulate command output and display in desired manner.
Example 3 – echo and favourite quote
You can place anything in this widget, like favourite quote using echo command, which will display the text you enter. So let’s say we want to have two lines with quote and author, we can use:
echo What quote says exactly && echo Author
More examples – try yourself
If you want to use something more try to look at ready commands and mix them in the …

My approach to homescreen is rather minimalistic, I use only what I really need. Among this elements there are some widgets that I find useful.

We all know that N900 is highly network-oriented, that’s why my first choices circled around network connections. Because I use wireless connections in many different places I like to know what network am I connected to, and because of my network administrator background the most interesting property is IP address. To check this I use Personal IP Address widget. It doesn’t take much space, shows network interface in use and has possibility to attach connections menu on click.

If it comes to the network there are times when I need to use GPRS or 3G connection. I like to keep track on how much data I’ve downloaded to fit in every month data pack provided by mobile operator and for this I have Personal Dataplan Monitor widget. It shows data counters since last reset in compact mode or with last reset date, the way you need. One tricky thing with this widget is where to find reset option, I was looking for quite some time and finally I’ve found it in Settings for Phone, under Data Counters you’ll find ‘Clear’ option.

This widgets are always present on my homescreen, maybe you will also find it useful.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum