New detailed set of documentation has been released at maemo.org:
Archive for March, 2006
OK, this post isn’t about software that runs on a Nokia 770. And I don’t even have one of the phone that it does run on, it being Geominder, a location-based reminder program.
Works like this: The software installs on your Series 60 smartphone and you teach it your locations, so that when you get to the office or the supermarket, it recognizes the location and then plays an alarm and displays the reminder — a text or voice note — you made.
The website notes: “Geominder uses mobile network’s cell id information and doesn’t require an extra GPS device. Mobile Network cell id information is usually suited for most common day-to-day uses (for example: home - office - shopping). No mobile operator fees are involved in using Geominder.”
When I get my Bluetooth phone and data-plan to go with my Nokia 770, then I’ll be getting this program I know.
In January, I reported that a problem was fixed that I had encountered with Opera not using the “HTTP_REFERRER header in HTTP requests.”
But as you can see the problem still exists, so maybe it wasn’t fixed after all. Is there a way to make our Opera more-standard so this problem doesn’t occur?
For sports fans, “the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings” is a phrase redolent of hope. For us Nokia 770 fans, I hope it means that we’re not stuck with the Opera browser we have, but that in one of the next iterations of firmware it’ll be more stable and more flexible.
For a device predicated on dazzling the populace with its internet tricks, the 770’s browser and email app leave a lot to be desired.
For instance, OperaShow is a fantastic tool in the full-featured Opera, letting you present an html file as a slide show — “page” at a time display, no scrolling, simple click to advance. Wow, would this fill a gap on the 770!
And how about setting different (more) options via preferences, like minimum font size? Even if our Opera is always going to be a subset, shouldn’t there be more customization possible?
And shouldn’t we be able to uninstall the browser and email app if we prefer some alternative applications?
Maybe Nokia will release an intermediate type of firmware, one that falls between the consumer straight-jacket we all have and the minimalist developer version. One where every feature would be take it or leave it.
From Nokia’s Press Release:
Discovery Communications and Nokia today announced a global collaboration that will deliver to consumers Discovery’s high quality, knowledge-based content pre-loaded onto Nokia’s newest and most sophisticated mobile devices and wireless personal devices.
In the first phase the co-operation will give consumers access to a Discovery-produced "Best of Discovery" montage clip on the Nokia N92 mobile device and Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Additionally, Discovery’s content will be demonstrated on Nokia’s devices in many trade shows. The Discovery-branded clip will include inspiring and engaging video of nature shots such as landscapes, animals and sunrises as well as city scenes.
The collaboration demonstrates Discovery’s aggressive efforts to create content and businesses for new distribution platforms around the globe and Nokia’s drive to leverage its leading edge mobile technology to provide consumers with excellent user experiences. The Discovery produced content that will appear on Nokia’s devices complements the company’s television networks by strengthening viewers’ loyalty and attracting new audiences to Discovery’s worldwide brands.
“Squeak is a modern, open source, highly portable, fast and full-featured implementation of the powerful Smalltalk programming language and environment.”
Being a non-programmer, programming languages hold a peculiar fascination for me. (Natural languages too, for that matter.) I wouldn’t bring up a port of Squeak to the Nokia 770, however, if it weren’t for this announcement at the Institute for the Future of the Book about the forthcoming Sophie . . . hm-m, saying e-book creation tool is rather limited. Here’s IF’s description:
Sophie is an open-source platform for creating and reading electronic books for the networked environment. It will facilitate the construction of documents that use multimedia and time in ways that are currently difficult, if not impossible, with today’s software.
That’s definitely worth investigating, especially if one could create and read/experience Sophie books (for want of a better word; in fact, IF is resigned about finding a more appropriate word for objects that ultimately will resemble our notion of book not at all — but that’s not their problem).
I’ll be adding this to the Maemo Wiki application wishlist, but I thought I would put this out in a larger forum in hopes of catching the attention of a Squeak aficionado. Or someone who is as curious about languages as I am.
Edited later to add: Squeak’s already on the wish list. So I’m not the only one!
Edited even later to add: Squeak runs on Linux and I’m told that “where Squeak will run, Sophie will run.” Any idea whether Squeak is too big to fit on the 770 or whether it will run too slowly to be usable?
And anyone knowledgeable to assess the Linux community interest in Squeak and the potential of Sophie, especially for the educational market?
Ruby is the only programming language I’ve ever looked at that I understood what was going on the moment I saw it. (With python, on the other hand, I had the completely opposite reaction.) This matters for someone like me, since I only write a simple program every six months or so and consequently have to relearn most of the language every time I write a program.
I’m glad to see ruby ported to the Nokia 770. Maybe I’ll manage a few lightweight programs (”hello, world” worked for me just now :-).
At any rate, you can download ruby from rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/8726/ruby-1.8.4.nok770d.tar.gz. As noted in the Application Catalog, installation does not require root access. The readme file tells you to put the file on your mmc card and, in XTerm, to enter a specific command to untar it. Note that the readme file instruction has two typos in it when specifying the file name.
Thanks to Ken Hilton for doing this!
Now for a really dumb plea for help. How do I “Modify your path to include: /var/lib/install/usr/bin”? Part of my brain keeps resisting storing this type of information. How come there’s so much memorization and typing in linux?
Mike Cane wrote the initial posts that we consider the founding of the Internet Tablet Users blog (though he did it on a different website, in a forum and not a blog, and under a different name*). So when he goes off the 770, it’s worth comment.
I guess some people have called the forthcoming ultra-mobiles running Windows XP Tablet “overpriced 770s.” I myself have seen only one such comment, but it set Mike off on a rant that I guess first appeared at Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble’s site, Scobleizer, on March 9. (It’s reprinted in Reggie’s post from earlier today and at John Tokash’s blog.) Later on the 9th, I received an email from Mike with his comments, as did at least one other person I know.
I responded to them both with the following:
> A site such as Palm Addict takes *over two minutes* to
> load on a 770. I think it will be a few seconds on a
> UMPC.I set up a stopwatch application on my PC and timed Palm Addict loading on my Nokia 770.
Loaded in seven seconds. Did it again. Six seconds.
I made one modification to my system that I advised Mike to make and offered to make for him. He refused. It eliminated memory issues causing slowdowns and crashes.
It would have made his system different from the off-the-shelf system users buy today. But it would have worked wonders for his blood pressure.
Since he won’t be recommending the 770 to anyone, and since he’s going to get rid of it as soon as he can, I don’t see why he cares if he has an off-the-shelf system or not. Does it make sense to you?
And I have a PostIt Notes program on my PC. It doesn’t slow down when it hits 10KB because it only accepts 800 characters. The Notes program on the 770 is not a lightweight text editor. There’s no lightweight editor on the 770, no matter how much Mike claims that Notes is one and badmouths it for being a poor one. Does the 770 need one? Yes. Why doesn’t it have one? Because Mike wasn’t the head of development, obviously.
By the way, if I took $400 or $500 more and added memory, faster CPU, a hard drive and Windows, then decided the device didn’t have to fit in my pocket and could weigh not 6 ounces but 32, I could turn a 770 into a UMPC.
So Nokia designed something different than Intel/Microsoft. Big deal. So Mike wishes he had waited for those companies to get their act together instead of opting for a less-expensive, less-capable device from Nokia. It will just take him a while longer to save up that extra $400-$500 to get what HE wants. Me? I’m not unhappy at all. I already have what I want.
The Origami/UMPC’s soon to appear fall into the same niche as the Nokia 770. They’re not intended to be a replacement for your desktop, laptop or PDA, but to enable web access and computer use at times and in places where it’s inconvenient, impossible or just plain awkward now**. So why does Mike Cane think 770 owners are badmouthing UMPC’s when it’s the other way round?
You know, I have seen lots of people saying UMPC’s are overpriced without mentioning Nokia 770’s. Me, I expect their prices to fall. These initial ones have everything but a keyboard — VGA and ethernet ports! — and when users realize they don’t use ultra-mobiles as laptops, those will fall away, I think. And the UMPC’s we’ve seen so far are huge compared to PDAs and 770’s***, but they’ll get smaller.
I say, Welcome, guys! Build the market, enlighten the public and make lots of money! It can only benefit the 770 and its successors as people who don’t want Windows, a bigger size or to pay so much find that the 770 suits them better than it suited Mike Cane.
* He moved his posting to itT when it was founded and asked me to take over his coverage, first on a temporary basis and then later declined to resume writing because of other obligations. Reggie Suplido, the itT administrator, and I changed the format and name soon thereafter.
** By “awkward,” I mean things like browsing on a PDA.
*** You can just about fit three 770’s within the outline of an 8.75 x 5.5-inch UMPC.
It’s sad to see Mike Cane talking about the Nokia 770 like this, following his great first impressions on the device. Here’s his full Nokia 770 rant over at Scobleizer.
OK, now I’m bloody *mad*.
The countless eejits chattering around the web have crossed the line once too often. It’s time to set them straight, shove them back from the line, and show them for the eejits they are!
If I read one more time that a UMPC is “just an overpriced Nokia 770,†I will explode!
Anyone who *has* a 770 can tell you straight: The UMPC is *not* a Nokia 770 in any way, shape, or form.
The 770’s Opera browser mysteriously goes Poof! and suddenly disappears while browsing. I don’t think this will happen with a UMPC.
A site such as Palm Addict takes *over two minutes* to load on a 770. I think it will be a few seconds on a UMPC.
The 770 cannot display embedded video on sites such as Google Video or YouTube. A UMPC can.
The 770 cannot play DiVX/Xvid AVI or QuickTime video. A UMPC will.
The 770 has no browser plug in for FURL. No problem for a UMPC.
Forget word processing on a 770. Its Notes program chokes on as little as 10K of text. And the one free real WP program that’s available is hardly useable because the contortions someone has to go through to have a reliable working keyboard for WP just aren’t worth going through. A UMPC can use any USB or Bluetooth keyboard easily, and there are tons of WP programs available — not just *one*.
Yesterday the 770 I’ve been using for several months had to be rebooted *six times* because of its weak CPU and pathetic RAM. In my first hour of using it this morning I had a crash and reboot. This is its *typical day*. Crash, reboot, crash, reboot. I had a Toshiba GENIO Pocket PC — something infamous for its PPC 2002 OS instability. The 770 is a step *down* from that. Most of you don’t want to know what I call my 770. It is filthy and obscene. *Yet deserved!*
The 770 has a 200MHz CPU with 64MB of RAM. A UMPC will have a 900MHz-1+GHz CPU and most will have half a gig of RAM. If you are *still* dumb enough to think a UMPC is just a larger 770, take your desktop machine and put it in your closet. Replace it with a desktop PC that shares the specs of the 770. Then tell me how the second desktop is just like your original one — only cheaper!
I will be *glad* to exchange the *dysfunctionality* of a 770 for a UMPC with *real* usefulness, *speed*, *compatibility* with all web pages, and the ability to hook up any peripheral.
You eejits harping about the 770 don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. So shut up! shut up! shut up!
And as for UMPC being “overhyped†— baloney. It takes being traumatized by something like the 770 before you can *appreciate* a UMPC. What’s that you say? — it’s just another kind of Sony VAIO U *at less than half the price*? Just what I want! Thank you, Intel and Microsoft!!
Stinghorn Ltd, a Finnish-based software solution vendor specialized in secure IP connectivity, has today released world’s first ready and commercially available VPN solution for the Nokia 770.
"As a sole solution in the world Stinghorn SBS offers one single VPN gateway that can be used to create secure VPN connections from Nokia 770 Internet Tablet and from all major operating systems: Windows XP/2000, Mac OS X Tiger/Panther and Linux as well as from PDA devices and SmartPhones based on Windows Mobile operating system. Nokia 770 requires an additional VPN client software distributed by Stinghorn to be able to benefit from secure connectivity, while in all other operating systems VPN connections can be created without any client installations, using the integrated VPN client software."
Continue reading ‘Stinghorn Announces VPN Solution for the Nokia 770′
