Andrew Black
Maemo and Mer Theme Designer
Review: Midori
Dec 8th
Extras-Devel Warning: Please read Site Disclaimer!!!!!
I love Midori on Mer and have used it on Diablo in the past but Midori for Fremantle is great. It has many of the missing features from Maemo Browser. Why wait for Nokia to add Portrait view when Midori has it already. Unlike how some of programs for the N900 do it the screen rotates when you rotate the the phone not just because you closed it. This is great because I often only keep my keyboard out when I’m actively typing and I might not want to be in portrait mode just because it is closed. The change from Landscape to Portrait is very fast taking only a second or so. Midori also has a basic build in dashboard that you can set favorites to. I would love to see something more like Tears where it keeps favorites, most viewed, and search on the dashboard in tabs, but any dashboard will good.
One thing that has really bugged me about Maemo Browser is the fact that i ave not been able to change my user agent yet so can view certain iPhone formatted websites. Sites like m.espn.com for the iPhone works great on the N900, and has a lot more features then the regular mobile version but require a iPhone user agent to view it. Midori lets you change your user agent in just a few clicks in the preferences menu. You have several user agents to choice from and it makes switching real easy.
Tabs are another thing we have yet to seen in Maemo Browser that are a great feature, the tabs are small but you really don’t want to wait to much space making them any bigger. There are check boxes under the menu that allow you to turn off images, scripts, and plugins with just 1 click. There is a press and hold menu that allow you to view source enter and exit full screen and many other features. Just reminder once in full screen only way back out is holding on for menu.
If your looking for a browser with more features then Maemo Browser then Midori is the way to go. I have don’t enough tests to compare speed but it feels a little faster but that could just be me hoping so. Screenshots below.
Why I use a Screen Protector.
Dec 1st
Well the real reason I use a screen protector is because my wife always reminds me when I get a new toy that it needs and and not to scratch it like I do everything I own. I was late putting on on my n810 which is why it carry’s many battle wounds from dropping it, putting it in my pocket with keys and even a bad stylus. After the n810 I started putting protectors on everything. When I got my n900 I really didn’t want a protector I wanted nice clear look of my screen. I know the nice die cut protectors will give that look as well but me custom cutting on my self will not give me the look I like.
I gave about a week after getting my n900, I figure that I should want to protect a device that qgil shipped to me personally. The first one I cut was to small so I cut a new one and it fit just fine just had one bubble I can live with. Then the scratches started I was so happy I had my protector on. I have ranked up a dozen or so scratches and was considering putting a new protector on later this week when it happened. While doing some painting today at work my wife called I pulled my n900 out of my belt clip case and hit Answer with my thumb it wasn’t until I got off the phone that I noticed the huge glob of paint on the screen. I’m so happy it was on a screen protector and not the screen. I didn’t manage to get a little dot on top near power button that was easily removed. I would be so disappointed if I had ruined my phone. Just remember it doesn’t matter is the screen is easier to scratch or if its isn’t scratches are not the only thing that can go wrong. Also Protector your Screens!
Review: Hermes
Nov 18th
The other day I was dreading having to get photos of everyone of my contacts so I can have nice pictures of everyone instead of the standard no image icon. I forgot to get my photos off my old phone so I would have to take photos of everyone again. I really hated doing that, I remembered seeing a post on t.m.o a week or two ago about using Facebook profile photos, since most of my friends use Facebook this would work great for me.
I found the post very easily using the new power search on t.m.o. It uses a Google custom search to search the entire maemo.org domain. More on that in another post maybe, like I said I found it real quick and it seems there are several people working on ways I decided to try out Hermes since it sounded like what I wanted to do and the developer of it said it worked great.
Hermes is one of those applications that just works and works well. You just open it up tell it where to get your contact photos from Facebook or Twitter. Facebook has to open a web page for you to authorize Hermes to use it. I’m not sure how Twitter authorizes since I haven’t tried it.
Once you have you details in you tell it to Retrieve your contacts info and it goes and and searchs for the missing information. It will automatticly link some of your contacts with the Facebook/Twitter contacts using personal information, the ones it doesn’t auto link up you can go in and mannually tell Hermes which Phone contact is which Facebook contact. I had to do that with my wife’s Facebook contact, its no real big issue and I would rather manually select who was who then have it putting the wrong information in. That is really all there is to it your done. You can go back later and Refresh the contacts information in case some stuff changes. I really recommend this application if you use Facebook or Twitter.
Evony Age 1
Nov 13th
Like many people I have seen the adds for Evony on many game site and thought it would be must like any other browser based game. Just about text and very little or no graphics. I was very surprised an happy to see I was wrong. When I ended up registering for Evony a few days ago I quickly found out that the game is full of graphics. It puts the look and feel of a full installable game into your browser. I have tested it on both Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer and it runs great. I know some people might say that you can get better looking graphics from installable games, but this is the best I have even seen from a flash browser game. Also when you compare the cost of a regular game like this at $29 to $50 to the $0 you pay for Evony do you even have to think about it. I mean come on its free you have to at least try it. I was even more surprised when I realized that Evony will load on my N900. The game isn’t meant to be played on a small screen like this but it does work. It would be good for jumping on a doing a few quick things.
For those of you who don’t mind putting a little bit of money into the game the have something called Cents that you buy using real money. Those Cents can then be turned in for in game resources, metals, and many items to increase stats and make things go faster. Don’t worry if you can’t afford any Cents because you will get some doing quests and you can earn Cents by getting people to join Evony.
There is a new Beta feature called iEvony that is an installable application that takes your contacts from many places like email and IM and send them a message to join. You also get a page that you can give people the address to join. Mine is http://andrewblack.evony.com as you can see they are easy to share with people since they are short and easy to remember. This features requires invitation code right now but they are easy to get was given mine by someone in game.
I can’t really think of a single think wrong with the game yet, over all so far the game has been really cool. I plan on doing some more reviews once play it some more.
If you want to find me in game I”m on Server 97 and my Lords Name is Bayk.
Mastory
Nov 2nd
I know Mastory has been reviewed by Reggie to day but I decided to review it today also. I decided the best way to review it would be to do my review using my N900 and Mastory. The overall look has improved from older versions thanks to some new icons from Joshua.maverick on t.m.o. When first setting it up I had a little trouble because I did not have a option on my blog setup to allow remote publishing. When I failed to connect to my blog I checked the log and not only did it contain what my problem was but it contained how to fix it.
The overall look for buttons and the menu are very simple and very easy to understand. something that some applications don’t manage to do. I find that my first use of Mastory to be very nice and I can see myself writting most of my Blog posts from it on my N900. If you have a blog of your own I suggest you download it as soon as you can.
Mer’s Table @ Florida Linux Show
Oct 26th
Mer/Maemo.org had a table at the Florida Linux Show in Orlando this year and thinks could not have gone better. Both I and GeneralAntilles were both there talking to people at the table. GeneralAntilles did a great job of talking to people about not only what Maemo.org and the Nokia tablets are but what Mer is. I would say that we had 10o to 200 people stop by our table, some wanting to talk about a device they have or a device they want. There was a lot of people also who had never heard of Mer or Maemo who wanted to find out what it was. Of course we got lots of questions like Can Mer be ported to [Enter Device Name Here], a lot of the time the answer was no not yet but several people who are interested in getting Mer running on there device have stopped by #Mer ready to start working on a port to there device.
The Linux show was an over all success for both the show and for Mer in my option. There was a lot of good speakers including my self at the show and tons of people to come listen to what we had to say. The staff at FLS could not have been nicer. They made sure everything we needed was taken care of. I do have a few suggestions for them about the location of there show. There was no good place to get food the only real option at lunch was a $10 Turkey Sandwich/Chips/ and soda. I also never found anywhere else to get another soda. By the end of my day I was hungry and thirsty. In the future I hope they have better food options even if its just a guy there selling hot dogs and sodas.
I was happy to see at least one person from Maemo.org there that wasn’t involved in the Mer/Maemo Table. Jeff Jackowski was there taking photo of the show and off my talk. Once he gets those posted to him Flicker Account I’ll make sure to add a link to them here. There were lots of N8×0 devices there and lots of people commented that they had a 770 in a drawer somewhere. I think Nokia needs to find a way to pull people who had a 770 but lost interested back into the community. Several people said they would try to being there 770/N8×0 back to life with Mer.
The only thing I wish could have been better was my talk on What Mer is. I’ll be posting the slides I used along with a post about my talk later. If anyone has any questions about my time at FLS please let me know.
Getting ready for Florida Linux Show
Oct 23rd
This is going to be a short post just wanting to say I’ve been getting ready for the FlS this week in Orlando. If you are in the area stop by and see us at the Mer table and you can listen to my talk on Mer if you want more information on it.
Recreation of my Site
Oct 20th
I know I have been down for quite some time but my site is back up and ready to go. I’m going to be posting blogs about the Linux shows I got to as well and reviews of N900 applications, themes, and more. Stay tuned for more.
Back From Self
Jun 14th
Well I just got home from SELF and I can’t believe how much fun I had I was a little scared at first since I don’t like talking to people I don’t know, and I really don’t like crowds normally either, but this felt like I was around friends so I did on. There was 462 people at SELF this year, which from what I understand is a good turn on for the first year. One of the organizers told me when they started planning it they said they would have been happy with 100 people. I for one will be going back next year and I hope more people will join me.
The real reason I went to SELF was not for my own benefit but for Mer’s. I talked to hundreds of people about Mer some of which own Nokia Tablets and alot of them who didn’t own a tablet of any type. I printed 200 fliers and at the end there was only a few left. So I would say about half the people there picked one up. I can’t say how many people will read it or ever install Mer on a device but I would like to think that at least a few people will.
I was shocked to see someone using a Nokia N800 to record a podcast and when I stated talking to him I found out he records every podcast he does on the N800 because he always has it with him. When we started talking more I asked him if he had heard of Mer. He said he hadn’t and we started talking about it next think I know I’m getting interviewed for one of his podcasts. Which will be released on Hacker Public Radio very soon. He questioned me on Mer and what he thought would be a quick few questions really got him interested in it the more I talked. I let him play with my N810 that had Mer on it and he really seemed to like it. We talked for about another 5 or so minutes after the podcast recording had stopped and I hope he installs Mer and Loves it.
I had long talks with several people including some of the people from Linux Link Tech Show, Freenode.net,Ubuntu, and KDE just to name a few, but my longest talk was with the people Florida Linux Tech Show that is going on in October down in Orlando FL. I was asked to come down and have a table and do a presentation. I decided to go since it will be fun for me and good for Mer. One of the guys from the FLTS had several devices you couldn’t even get in the US yet. One was a Samsung U7 Monitor that is a 7 inch USB powered USB display. It would be nice to add an extra display for say xchat or something to my computer. The device I really fell in love with was a GlobelScale Sheeva Plug. It is a 1.3Ghz computer in a plastic box the size of of my iPhone but a little thicker. They cool thing is they only run about $100. The one they had was given to them as a promo development device and he is going to try and get us one to use as a development device as well.
It seems almost no one I talked to even the ones who had a Nokia Tablet had ever heard of Mer. The ones who did say they heard about it only knew of it in passing and really didn’t know what it did or why it was made. Out of all the people who tried Mer on my tablet I don’t think anyone of were turned off by it and all of them where happy to see the left bar gone and happy they didn’t have to stick with hildon if they didn’t want to.
Not really to do with Mer but at SELF the developers of click2try.com were there and it looks like they have a real neat site that allows you to try open source software in a cloud computer environment. So you can see if you like it before you download and install it. I did not try it on my tablet because it requires Java but I did on my Triple E and it worked good. I just wanted to thank them designing such a good product and having a free option available. I am going to do a full review of there service later. Just wanted to get the word out on them in this post.
Now last but not least there was some really cool door raffles, I ended up walking out with a free Shirt and a book on GIT I didn’t win any of the good stuff like the unlocked Google Phone that Chris Dibona from Google dropped off and no one knew about until they where calling out numbers for it. Of course I got like a hundred free stickers and bunch of distro CDs and a few free magazines. The cooleset of all stickers was the mini Linux Tux stickers that fit over the Windows Key I was given about 50 of them to share with my friends so if anyone wants a couple let me know and I’ll mail them out to you.