Posted in Applications at 1:35 pm by Jonathan Greene
Canola2 was released yesterday and it’s really quite nice! While it’s a beta and there are a few rough spots (importing and dealing with podcasts and internet radio) I would recommend this to anyone looking to take advantage of media on their tablet.
I just did a quick video overview using a cool new service called Qik live from my N95 — Here’s a 5 min overview:
This may be coming too late for many, based on the discussions on ITT and across Jaiku, but if you ran the beta OS2008, I would strongly suggest you skip restoring a complete backup when you update. Yesterday’s post about the missing stylus input, lack of thumbboard reliability and deactivated word complete are all functional with a fresh flash of 2008 and no restore.
I attempted a restore after seeing things work (not the restore during setup) and still found the bugs on restart. With a selective restore – Bookmarks and Application list only – I am back in action with OS2008. This is quite unfortunate as one of the key benefits I saw was the ability to have a better backup and restore process – and I believe something that took a fair bit of effort from the Maemo team.
My backup was originally done on the N810, restored on the N800, then backed up again on the N800 and restored once more with the release version of the OS. I never actually saw stylus input on the N800 with OS2008 until last night’s clean install (without restore) so it’s possible that this bug existed from the initial beta on the N810. I assumed actually that stylus input was just a bug during the beta release for the n800… clearly that was incorrect.
I’m hoping now that the N800 and N810 images are the same and on par with each other that no one else (who reads this anyway) will run into these problems.
Update – I just reflashed the N800 and opted NOT to restore and the stylus keyboard popped right up. I”m not sure why this is the case, but it’s there. I’ll be restoring things incrementally to see if I can rebuild slowly. Without there being a published list of don’ts with regard to updating the firmware, it’s hard to see how others will not also make this same mistake. One of the benefits of OS2008, is a less destructive update process with better restore function — though clearly not from pre-release / beta versions.
When I was testing the N810 and OS2008, I never looked for or even wanted the stylus keyboard but as soon as I updated my N800 with the beta release it was something I immediately missed. This was amplified by the fact that the thumbboard was not always popping up on all text entry points and at times I’ve even found myself in a few dead ends … no way to enter text and no way to do anything without entering something … hard to use Google without actually entering a search!
I expected this to go away with the release version, though after updating my N800 yesterday I still have no way to enable stylus entry and I am still finding it hard to get the thumbboard to pop up all the time. I’ve reset the N800 once today to try and fix this, but this is not what I was hoping to see with the OS2008 release. As you can see in the following screen shot, I am running the latest firmware but there’s simply no option for stylus input to activate.
I know there’s also supposed to be predictive text selections when using the thumbboard, which I’ve also yet to see on the N800 … I’ll have to try a fresh flash without a restore to see if there’s something buggy from a prior version along the way, but I have to say I’m quite frustrated. I tend to message quite a bit on the tablet and need text entry to be both reliable and flexible.
Today’s release is as you would expect, a bug fix and feature refinement since we’ve already seen all that’s in the new OS. The N810 and N800 images are now the same though which is excellent. Beta testers, developers and daring end users were sharing different notes through this trial period…
Be sure to do a backup before you flash… I’ll be updating my N800 shortly!
Posted in Applications at 8:16 pm by Jonathan Greene
One of my all time favorite arcade games appeared in the Maemo Extras repository recently and I’ve been enjoying a few rounds of Galaga daily since installing it. Maemo XGalaga is a really nice port of this classic and runs very efficiently on the tablet.
I know a lot of people love blocking ads and now there’s an effective way to handle this on your Nokia Tablet. Adblock Plus has been developed from the full Firefox version to work on the tablet. I’ve yet to try this on my own system, but here are a few shots of what to expect…
Posted in Applications at 4:56 pm by Jonathan Greene
I’ve been using Modest for a few weeks now and it’s gotten progressively better and more stable with each incremental release. While it’s still in beta, anyone can give it a try now. The official site is live and I suggest you check it out if you’ve been seeking a more substantial email option on your OS2008 enabled tablet.
I’ve got my Gmail account setup with IMAP and my own personal identity rather than @gmail.com which works as you would expect any modern email client to work. The main issue which I believe will be resolved as it reaches release (non-beta) status is that Modest does not currently give you the option to replace the default email client for mail duty so unless it’s open when you click a mailto-link or choose to send via email, the other app will open. That said, I’ve had it working in the background on my N800 (and previously the N810 before I sent it back) with great success. Connections over Bluetooth DUN and wifi work quite well.
Some notes from the announcement on Maemo.org:
Some highlights:
the basics: POP/IMAP/SMTP (normal/secure)
MAP folders support, and IMAP-IDLE (“push-email”)
easy setup of new accounts
send and receive of rich text-emails
managing mail with your fingers
100% open-source with a BSD-like license
Some important notes:
modest will *not* replace the official e-mail program
it does have the same name/icon in the menus, so don’t get confused!
Modest uses English, regardless of your settings
Modest works great with Gmail; don’t forget to use ‘user@gmail.com’ as your username, not just ‘user’.
Posted in Applications at 10:26 am by Jonathan Greene
Maemo Mapper 2.2 has been released and includes official support for the OS2008 platform!
It’s been a while since I’ve used Maemo Mapper to be honest and I really like what I see here. Setup is MUCH simpler and you can add additional mapping data services with a single click on start-up. POI can be downloaded very easily as well from the menu which is a very welcome addition.
I’m going to have to play more with route planning as this looks like a great and free option to the Wayfinder navigation subscription. Wayfinder still seems like a simpler (though slower and more expensive) option for point to point directions, but I love the idea of using Google Maps for my route planning…
