I've had some problems with Barriosquare where I've not been able to get a GPS fix which made the app more or less useless. Therefore I've for a while been using the FourSquare mobile website, but that has not been a very good solution since it is not very well optimized for touch and the N900. Then the other day I found Cotchin! which is a web based FourSquare client that works brilliant for the N900 because it's fast and very finger friendly. The only complaint I have about Cotchin! is that it's ugly the colour and the icons some work, but apart from that I really like it. If you want to try Cotchin! go to Cotchin! mobile website.
I have not been posting for a very long time but I've been very busy with my studies. I'm planning to start running again this summer and today I went for my first run. When I used my N82 I was using Nokia Sports Trackerto record and share my workouts but since the N900 is not supported by Nokia Sports Tracker I had to find another way to do that.
The solution was eCoach and HeiaHeia.com. eCoach works, like the Nokia Sports Tracker app for Symbian, by recording your workout using the GPS. While you are recording you can see you progress on a map or data showing your speed, time and the distance.
After you finish the workout you can view a graph showing speed vs time and altitude vs time. eCoach also have support for using a heart monitor (FRWD B600 and Zephyr HxM) but unfortunately I do not have such one. The latest version of eCoach supports upload to HeiaHeia.com. HeiaHeia.com got its name from the Norwegian Heia! Heia! chant for their cross-country skiers and other athletes, and it is a service that combines training diaries and social networking. The reason why I like HeiaHeia.com is that I can share my workouts via Twitter or the HeiaHeia app on Facebook.
Although I like to be able to record and share my workouts with eCoach and HeiaHeia.com, I still find that some features missing. When I upload my workout to HeiaHeia.com it does not contain any of the GPS information that eCoach gathered, I would love to be able to show of the route of the workout online. Also I do not seem to be able to share my workout to my wall on Facebook only to the HeiaHeia Facebook app and I can't seem to figure out how to change the language of the HeiaHeia Facebook app from Finnish.All in all eCoach and HeiaHeia.com is enough for my basic needs, but I do hope that we'll see some development especially on the HeiaHeia.com side so that this will be able to compete with Nokia Sports Tracker.
I have for years now been using iTunes on my PC because in my opinion it's the best music-player for PC. But because iTunes is an Apple product it does not work with any other device then the iPhone and iPod and that is very annoying. So what do you do when you want to sync you Nokia N900 with iTunes, well you could do like me and use Salling Media Sync. With Salling Media Sync you can sync music, podcasts and photos. When syncing music you can choose to sync all you music or just specific playlists. Salling Media Sync is free in the unregistered version, the only drawback when using that version is that whenever you want to sync you music to the N900 Salling Media Sync will delete all the music and re-transfer it making sync time longer then when using the registered version where Salling Media Sync only transfer the new music to the N900.
I've used Last.fm for many years now, I do not stream music from Last.fm and I do not pay for the service but I like to be able to keep track of which tunes and artists I listen to the most and I'm a great fan of how Last.fm is able to recommend artists to you by analyzing what you normally listen to.
When I used my Nokia N82 I used Mobbler and I when I got my Nokia N900 I really wanted to have something similar first I tried Vagalume but could not make it work and thought it was to big and clumsy, then I found Last.fm Scrobbler which is perfect. It is small and runs automatically you just login once and then every time you listen to music through the build-in music player Last.fm Scrobbler scrobbles your music.
Now I can still keep track on what I listen to, and with Last.fm connected to my Twitter profile, Last.fm automatically sends out tweet for me every week with my top 3 artists of that week.
Yesterday I had made vegetarian Swedish Sausage dish (Svensk Pølseret) with my Nokia N900 acting as my cookbook and my shopping list using Pyrecipe. Pyrecipe is a great way to organize your recipes on the N900, with the option to both import and export recipes it is easy to build op a great database with all your favorite recipes. With the build-in shopping list its easy to make a shopping list from the ingredient list and check-off the ingredient when you have put it in your basket. Swedish Sausage dish is not usually a vegetarian dish and I haven't had it since I went vegetarian 7 or 8 years ago, but since the only meat in the dish is the sausages it is easily converted to vegetarian by choosing vegetarian sausages instead I bought Anamma Sausages at Helsehjørnet in Aalborg.
If anyone is interested in the recipe it can be downloaded here (Gourmet XML) here (KRecipies) or here (HTML) (The recipe is in Danish)
Another app that I use a lot on my N900 is gPodder. gPodder is a podcast application with many features most importantly u can stream or download podcasts. I have yet to explore all the features of the app especially in connection with the many ways you can add podcasts and that is because so far all the podcasts that I’ve added has been video podcasts which had URL feeds. Because of that the only thing I had to do after I installed the gPodder was to copy the URL for feed into the app by choosing “Add new podcast” and then select “Podcast feed/website URL”. That’s all. The Podcasts I’ve added are mostly Danish podcast and I can very much recommend these Podcasts:
Those of you who played Super Mario Bros. on the NESwill feel right at home in this game. SuperTux is basically the same as Super Mario Bros. but instead of the Italian plumber brothers the main character is the penguin Tux. So far I've played through the first 4 stages and I really like it the control is easy and the stages are perfect length for wasting a few minutes. SuperTux is cross platform but I think it's perfect for the N900.
I had a few problems with the game though. Because of my Scandinavian version of the N900 I had to setup the keys a bit different. But when using "wasd" as directional keys and "space" as jump and "m" as power/run everything works perfect.
One of my favourite apps on my Nokia N900 is SeriesFinal. I always keep forgetting how many episodes I've watched of each of the TV-shows that I follow and with Series Final I don't have to anymore. Basically what SeriesFinal does is download the information about a show that you choose so that you can see how many seasons it has been running, how many episodes there have been and even a little information about the episode itself. Then next to each episode there is checkbox so you can checkoff every episode you have watched.
I've made a few screenshots so you can see how it works.
Yesterday I got my NokiaN900 to work as a TV-remote. For that I needed Irreco to get that I went to http://irreco.garage.maemo.org/ in the MicroB browser on my N900, I clicked on "Download" and then on the "Click to Install" arrow on the grey banner. That opened the the app manager on the N900 and let me install the Irreco.
I have a old Phillips 32" TV so I opened Irreco and in the app menu I chose "Download remote" then "TV" then "Philips" then "22PFL5403D" then "peter.olby", then "2010-01-02 14:43:32" and then "Download". Then Irreco downloaded the remote and the theme and that was it, my N900 is now also my remote.
Thank you to Peter Olby who ever he is for making that remote.
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:
Friend options and settings in MicroB:
Friend shown on map in MicroB:
Map-view in Google Latitude Updater:
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