Blogging from the Nokia N900 with MaStory

I usually use my laptop when I'm blogging but for this post and the one before this I've been experimenting with using MaStory. MaStory has some really great features among them are great integration with Blogger, Wordpress, Livejournal, Drupal, Pixelpipe, Flickr and Picasa. But also support for a lot of HTML code and very advanced posting options. The only thing that I personally miss from MaStory is spell- and grammar-check.
MaStory for me means that I can work on my blog posts whereever I am, and I do not need my laptop for blogging anymore - that's a great freedom.
One problem that I have found though is that when I add pictures straight from MaStory they are way too big for my layout here on blogger.

Genealogy on the Nokia N900 with geni.com

For some years now I've been interested in genealogy, first I used different offline solutions on my PC for building my family tree, but in the start of 2007 geni.com went into public beta and since then I've used geni.com. Today I'm connected to nearly 35.000.000 profiles with more than 100.000 blood relatives on the tree. With the help of geni.com I now know how I'm related to the Margaret the 2nd of Denmark and I can follow my bloodline back to Yngvi Hálfdanarson born in the year 20. Geni.com is in my opinion a fantastic tool for building family trees because it combines pure genealogy with social networking because you can invite your family to participate in building your family tree. The reason why I mention all of this if because of the fantastic browser MicroB on the Nokia N900 the full flash support in the browser makes it a perfect toll for using geni.com on the go. So far I have not found a single thing I cannot do on geni.com with my N900, I can even navigate the tree.
All this means that I can now do genealogy while I'm on the train, waiting for the bus or even laying in my bed.

Enjoy podcasts on the Nokia N900 with gPodder

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:

Danskerne Akademi:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/akademirss.xml (Danish)
DR2 Udland:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/DR2_udlandrss.xml (Danish)
Smagsdommerne:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/smagsdommernerss.xml (Danish)
So ein Ding:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/soeindingrss.xml (Danish)
Spise med Price:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/spisemedpricerss.xml (Danish)
Troldspejlet:
http://vpodcast.dr.dk/feeds/troldspejletrss.xml (Danish)
GeekBrief.tv:
http://www.podshow.com/feeds/geekbrief.xml (English)

All the video podcasts from Danmarks Radio can be found here: http://www.dr.dk/Podcast/video.htm

MMS on the N900

I finally got MMS to work on my N900 the last couple of days I’ve managed to both send a MMS and receive one.

To do so I needed to apps: fAPN and fMMS. fAPN is used to make a new APN and fMMS is the actual MMS client.
As I’m in Denmark and my N900 uses Telias network I had to find the right MMS parameters for Telia Denmark, and fortunately the Maemo community has made that pretty easy as there is a list with all the know MMS parameters listed by country and provider here.

After I had found the right parameters and installed the two apps I opened fAPN and added the APN Telia MMS, then closed the program and went to internet connections in the settings menu. There I chose connections, Telia MMS and Edit. I then had to push next and put in www.mms.mtelia.dk as name of access point, then next and then advanced. In advanced I had to put 193.209.134.131 as HTTP-Proxy and 8080 as port number and then hit save.
With the APN now configured I then went to fMMS and configured the app I chose Telia MMS as the APN, http://mms.telia.dk as the MMSC, put in 300 as the value for “Resize image width” and then my phone number including country code.
And that was it… Now I can send and receive MMS on my N900.

Another great game for the N900: SuperTux

Those of you who played Super Mario Bros. on the NES will 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.

Sync N900 contacts with Facebook and Twitter using Hermes

Another app that I really like for the N900 is Hermes, with my old Nokia N82 I had to use ZYB to sync the contacts on my phone with my friends on Facebook. With Hermes I can do that right on the Nokia N900, that means that the profile pictures and birthdays are saved in then contacts on the N900 and because of the great integration between contacts and calendar on the N900 the birthdays of the contacts shows up straight away in the calendar.

Bird demolition with Angry Birds

One of my favorite games on the Nokia N900 is Angry Birds. In the game you got 5 different kinds of birds with different abilities that you send off with a slingshot to try to kill some green pigs. The game loads fast and is great if you just have a few minutes to spare. Unfortunately there are too few levels BUT it seems like the Maemo community have come up with a solution - user made levels. I have not tried the user made levels myself yet but I'll post when I do. The new levels and information can be found here: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=40591.

If you are playing Angry Birds try to slide your finger up and down at the middle of the screen that will zoom in and out.

I wanted to post some screenshots but I think the video from the Angry Birds website is very good so I embedded that instead:



The game is also available for iPhone

Series database on my N900

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.

The N900 as a TV-remote

Yesterday I got my Nokia N900 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.

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: