Now using Barriosquare for Foursquare on the Nokia N900

Woohoo... I've been waiting for this day since I started using Foursquare and now it has come. I am now testing Barriosquare for my Nokia N900 and I like it... It's obviously not a finished build since it's not even in Maemo extras-devel yet, but that doesn't mean that it's not very usable and usefull.
To install Barriosquare I first had to get permitted into this group to be able to get the .deb-file after that I had to manually install the dependencies through X terminal with "apt-get install", luckily there's a great guide on how to install in the group.
When I first opened Barriosquare I had to login and then it worked. I could from the options menu choose how Barriosquare should acquire my position, I could see my position on Google Maps, see my badges, see the nearby venues, I could add a venue and I could search for a venue.
I was unfortunately not able to show my friends' recent checkin list, and my checkin history but I think that could have something to do with the Foursquare servers as I often get error screen when I use the browser version!?

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• Tell the world where you are and earn badges with Nokia N900 and Foursquare (jbhdenmark.blogspot.com)

Tell the world where you are and earn badges with Nokia N900 and Foursquare

The last week or so I've really become addicted to Foursquare. I think that with more and more people carrying around smartphones, sharing you location is gonna be huge, and I think Foursquare is a great example of how location sharing can be done. I've in another post written a bit about Google Latitude, but for me Google Latitude has not done the trick, because even after a great deal of convincing, I have not succeeded in getting any of my friends to use it, and since Google Latitude cannot be connected to either Twitter or Facebook it is essential that you friends use it as well. Foursquare is different, of cause it is more fun to use if your friends use it too, but since it has great integration with Facebook it can still be meaningful to use, even if your friends doesn't. With Foursquare you check-in to venues through the Foursquare mobile website. The venues has either already been added or you can add them through the Foursquare website. When you check-in at the venues you earn badges, and so far I have earned the Newbie badge, that you get for your first check-in, and I have earned the Local badge, that you get for checking in at the same place three times in the same week. You can also get to be the mayor of a venue if you are the one with the most check-ins at a venue (atm. I'm the mayor at three different venues.).
Foursquare has dedicated apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry, users of the Nokia N900 are stuck with the mobile website that looks far from great in the fantastic MicroB browser. But the mobile website is usable and since the only thing you need it for is checking in it is alright.
But we will not be left out for long... BarrioSquare is coming... BarrioSquare is a Foursquare client for the N900 developed by Chris B and is as far as I know in private beta atm.

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• Google Latitude and N900 (jbhdenmark.blogspot.com)

Google Latitude and N900

I've been a great fan of the concept of Google Latitude for awhile now, but since nobody I knew used it I've not had the opportunity to really test it until now. After I got my Nokia N900 I managed to convince 3 of my friends to try Google Latitude - they have not been too impressed but they have used it enough to let me see it in action.

So how is it to use Google Latitude on a N900? Well the experience could have been much better...

First I used Google Latitude through the MicroB browser. To do that you need to use the mobile version of Google Maps by installing the MicroB extention Maemo-Geolocation and using this URL: http://www.google.com/maps/m. This will update your position and you'll be able to see where your friends are at but it has some shortcomings - you cannot zoom, you cannot scroll, the blue spot you use to center the position on yourself is underneath the "exit full screen button" so you cannot use that in full screen mode and also the whole thing is not touch optimized so it's very hard to use without the stylus.

What to do then? Well there is really no solution for most of the inconveniences of using the Google Maps website just yet, but there is an app that at least makes it a bit easier to update your position. The app is called Google Latitude Updater. This app is still in the Extra Testing Repository so it's basically a beta release, but it does what it promises it updates you position in Google Latitude and in the app menu you can choose between the map-view and the "app-view". What I would like to see in the future from this app is some kind of autoupdate ec. every 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

I've added some screenshots to show how Google Latitude looks on the N900:

My position shown in MicroB:

Friend list shown in MicroB:

Friend options and settings in MicroB:
Friend shown on map in MicroB:

"App-view" in Google Latitude Updater:

Map-view in Google Latitude Updater: