Fist Day with New Toy

I receivedt the N770 yesterday. I had to sign for it which meant that I had to go to the post office to pick it up. Actually, I guess I should not complain, I received an email from the City of Plymouth that someone is stealing UPS, FedEx and USPS packages from people's door steps.

I installed the battery, plugged in the power supply, installed the memory card, and booted it up. The first thing I did was set up my wireless. I could not get it to work, so did a little digging in control panel and discovered that for some reason, by default the N770 is looking for a five digit WEP key rather than the ten digit WEP key, so it truncated the last five digits of my WEP key. Once I figured that out and specified the 10 digit WEP, I was off surfing the internet.

When is the first thing a Linux geek does when he gets a new toy? See what software is available! As previously stated the only two things I absolutely need to do is enter work times into a word document and log calls in an excel spreadsheet. The first thing I tried to install was the Gnumeric spreadsheet. It is located at Maemo.org in the download section and all I should have to do to isntall it is just click the icon. It would not install, I got a message the I was missing libglade. I googled the package name and found a .deb that should have worked but it would not install. I read the forums and ran across an entry saying that the 770 application manager does not handle dependencies well so I would have to log in as root and do an apt-get update. I installed Xterm and found a "how to" for logging in as root. It was a little more work than I wanted to do at the time, so I decided to install other software. Amazingly, as I installed other programs, the installer added new repositories, and when I tried to install gnumeric again I was able to install it.

Gnumeric looks like it will work well for my purposes. I just need to log some customer data and the current time and date. I set up a short cut on my Palm to enter the current date and time, but I wasn't queit sure how to do that on the 770, all I knew was that I was not going to manually enter the time and date. I finally figured out that I could go to Insert> Special> Current Date and Time, and it worked perfectly. The spreadsheet that I use is located on the memory card so when I connect the USB cable to my computer I can print the information I need from the spreadsheet. I am hoping to set up bluetooth so I don't have to dig in my backpack for the USB cable.

Abiword was my next challenge. It is not one of the options in the program installer or on the Maemo website. I googled it and found many .debs for Nokia, but none of them will install. Today, I found a repository on abisouce.com for the maemo version of the program. I will have to give it a try later tonight. If all else fails I can probably use antiword to convert the document onto a RTF that hopefully Maemo pad will read.

Initial Likes:

• The design and weigth of the N770 make is seem like a quality device.
• Even though the screen is small, I can read everything on my google home page. I had read many positive comments about the display and they were correct.
• I had read comments complaining about the speed of the N770, but it was fine. Surfing the net was definitely acceptable, the only complaint I have is it takes a while to boot into Gnumeric. I think some people have to realize that it is not a dual core processor.
• There are many free programs on Maemo.com.
• Maemo Mapper, could it be, a free mapping program for a GPS?

Initial Complaints:

• I did not realize that the unit would have to boot every time you use it. I thought it would be like a Palm, where the OS would stay in ram. That said, the boot time is fairly short so I can live with it.
• I did not realize that gnumeric and Abiword were not preloaded, I wasted a whole evening trying to get them loaded and I still do not have Abiword loaded.
• There is no root to the OS, you have to log into R and D mode or, as I did install a program that allows you to get root access.
• This is a Linux thing, not just a Nokia 770, but a lot of the programs from the Maemo download section will not install.

Nokia N770

This blog is to document my experiences with the Nokia N770.

I had the bug to replace my Sony Clie that I have been using for the last three or so years. It has worked great for what I needed it for. I have two main uses for it, I have a time sheet in word that I fill out and I have a spreadsheet that I use to log calls. I have Intellisync to sync with Outlook, but it is a feature that I hardly ever used, if I needed to access my emails I would do through webmail.

The Clie was nice, it was small, the battery would last two weeks between charges if I did not use the PDA much, which was good for vacation. I am a Linux geek so I was happy that I would sync it in Linux.

The battery started to lose some of its life, so I went to Ebay and tried to find a replacement and the least expensive one was $36!!! I thought that was ridiculous, so it was time to get a new PDA. However, after getting the new PDA bug, I searched Ebay one more time and found a battery for $11.00 including shipping. To late though, I had already decided it was time to invest in some new technology.

I only need a PDA for a few specialized tasks, however there are a few things I would like my new PDA to do that just were not available when I bought the Clie. A MP3 player is one of those functions. High on the wish list is a GPS, but it is absolutely not a necessity.

I recently bought Streets and Trips and a GPS for my laptop, I don't always use it but it is really nice to have in an emergency. A good example is I was just in Honolulu to give a training class, some of the manuals did not make it so I had to find a Kinkos to print and copy the manuals. I entered the address for the local Kinko's into Streets and trips and my GPS guided me directly to the store. I did not know how to get back to my hotel from Kinkos, so Streets and Trips to the rescue. I believe you could buy a GPS for a few of the higher end Palms but my GPS and software would not work with the Palm so I would have to buy new software and a GPS. From reading comments on forums about GPS units on Palm and Pocket PC platforms, there are a few thing that I don't really like, there are complaints about the display being too small to read, and the voice directions are very hard to hear. So, I am torn, it would be handy to get in my rental car, fire up my hand held, plug in the GPS and go. As opposed to booting my laptop (much longer time) and agreeing to all of the disclaimers before Streets and Trips will let you use it. The bottom line is the concept of a hand held with a GPS sounds good but I am not sure how functional it would be. So, the N770's ability to use a GPS is not a deal breaker.

From what I found there is a bluetooth GPS available for the N800 but not the N770. On maemo.org I found a map program but I am not sure exactly how it works, I'll have to do a little more research.


To recap, I use my Clie to sync a word document and a spreadsheet so I can print them from time to time. I also on occasion need access to an email or notes in outlook, but I can go online to access that information.

The features that I think I will like about the N770:

• Having internet access with out booting up my laptop. I should be able to quickly check email at the airport.
  
• Even though I cannot synch documents (at least I don't think I can) I should be able to connect to my work computer and print what I need.
• Skype should come in handy. We vacation in the Caribbean where calls home are expensive. I have used Skype in the past and it has worked great. It would be nice to leave the laptop at home and just bring the N770.
• Internet radio and MP3 playback is the main reason I upgraded.
• I can play Doom on the N770.

It will be interesting to see if these features are what I actually like about the N770 or if after using the tablet for a while I will find other uses for it. Or if I will end up hating the N770.

I am a Linux Geek at heart so I am looking forward to hacking the N770. I see they already have a kernel that will allow you to use a 2 gig RS-MCC card rather than the 1 gig current max. There is also a hack to use the new faster memory. Nokia has released the 2007 version of their operating system for the N770. It is officially supported on the N800, but it is nice to see Nokia will let us hackers (I use the term loosely for me) install unsupported software.

I will get the unit next week, I just tracked it and it looks like it will be here on Monday. I will be updating the blog with my experiences.