Nokia N800 and 770

Life with the 770

2007-06-12T20:32:00.000-07:00

I love the 770. I just told my wife tonight that it is the best geek toy that I have seen in quiet a while. A word of warning though, I am somewhat of a Linux geek and I have had to push my Linux skills (as limited as they are) to the maximum from time to time to accomplish some of the tweaking of the 770 that was needed.

I had made some assumptions that were not accurate. I had assumed that the 770 came preloaded with Gnumeric and Abiword. It does not, but you can download the from maemo.org. The problem is that you have to know about maemo.org. It took a while of poking around nokia.com for me to to find maemo.

If you are new to the Nokia 770 here are several web sites that will come in handy:

Maemo.org
Garage.maemo.org
Internettablettalk.com

Since the Nokia 770 is a Linux OS there are tons of support and many developers coding programs that they think will improve the 770. Maemo.org is where you want to start. There are many "click to install" programs, however do not expect to be able to install all of them. Garage.maemo.org is the developers site with many more programs, however, many are alpha or beta so you may not be able to install many of them or they may not be useable if you can install thme. Internet tablet talk has been the most helpful of the sites. There are forums and a wiki that are probably the best resources for any questions you may have. I may have missed it but I did not find any useful support on the Nokia site.

It is nice that the 770 has such a a large community but I have several complaints about the support web sites for the 770. First, the downloads, forums and wikis are spread across at least three websites so it may take you a while to locate what you are looking for. My other complaint is the maemo.org and internettablettalk.com sites are unbelievably slow, they have to be hosted on an old 286 Northgate.

One of the problems that I encountered when I was trying to install programs was I would get an error about about the programs being incompatible. One of the things that I learned about Linux and apt-get is to do an apt-get update, the problem with the 770 is that it is hard to become root. There is a wiki entry here on how to become root. I was able to follow it, but later I found a program called becomeroot that works great. After installing it, go to xterm (you will have to install it from maemo) and enter "sudo gainroot", and you have root access to do an apt-get update among other things.

As I mentioned before I was able to install Gnumeric and it works great. I have just a very basic spreadsheet that I use to track support calls so I cannot guarantee that Gnumeric will work well on a spreadsheet with embedded formulas, but it is just fine form my needs. Initially I was disappointed with the time it took to load the program, but now that I have been using it for a while, I have gotten use to the load time and it does not bother me.

The other program I needed was Abiword. I was able to enter the repository and install the program through Application Manager. It appears to work great and if I had a bluetooth keyboard I would have no problems creating text documents. Unfortunately, the one Word document that I needed to be able to open with Abiword, is a complex table and it crashes Abiword on the nokia 770. The document works fine in Abiword in Windows and Linux. I tried everything, I tried to convert the document txt, rtf, abiword and abiword template, but to no avail. I finally recreated the document as a spreadsheet and I am using Gnumeric to enter data into it. Sweet.

I am basically using the 770 as a PDA. I track my calls and time in a spreadsheet. I do not surf the internet alot with the 770 but I do from time to time. I actually used the 770 to check email when I was at a hotel and my laptop would not conntect to the witeless network, but I was able to access the wifi hotspot with the Nokia.

One of my concerns with the 770 was having to boot it up to use it, I was under the impression that it would use too much power to leave on all of the time. While cruising the Maemo forums I found a thread where people were talking about how long they have had their 770s on without rebooting, some had had their unit running for months. I decided that I would try leaving the unit on all of the time and I only have to charge it about once a week. It has a couple of battery saving features, when you put the cover on it will automatically blank the screen. Likewise, when I remove the cover it returns the screen to full brightness. The bluetooth and wifi will automatically turn off after ten minutes for inactivity. I honestly thought that this thing would be a battery hog, but it lasts almost as long on a charge as my old Palm.

Maemo has many free programs, but as I stated earlier you are probably not going to be able to install everything or some of the programs may not work. Without a doubt the best program that is available for the 770 is MaemoMapper. This is free GPS program that uses free mapping programs (Google maps and others) to create a fairly good GPS program. It is not as polished as Microsoft Streets and Trips (if you consider that program polished). The voice is a computer generated voice, but it is functional. I don't need a human voice telling me which way to turn. There are two usability issues with the program, once you enter the route in it will automatically download the maps, so while you are driving you will not be able to zoom into a specific location, unless you have an Internet connection in your car! The other issue is since it downloads the maps to your 770 it can fill up your spare memory quickly.

I do not have a preference for data input. I can use the on screen keyboard, hand writing recognition, or the finger board. The writing input is a little slow and glitchy, but I had mastered it with my Palm so the hand writing recognition on the 770 did not bother me. I have ended up using the on screen keyboard the most, but I also like the fingerboard. I have read posts complaining about it being glitchy, but that was not my experience. The only problem that I have with it is it will not work with gnumeric.

You can actually watch videos on the 770, the screen is sharp for its size. The unit comes with a sample Discovery Channel video that looks really nice. I am not sure how you would watch other videos. I beleive that there is a video converter that will format a video for optimal viewing on the 770. I am not sure what video format that you input into it. I am also not sure where you would get a video from. Obviously you cannot rip a commercial DVD to the 770 and you cannot watch an Itunes video. There are made for the web TV shows, they may be the best option for video on the 770. The other issue is the memory card, I think the max that the unit will accept is a 2 gb card and you have to install a special kernel to use the larger card. You could have a collection of several memory cards for the 770 that you can load MP3s and movies on.

The bluetooth feature for file transfer is nice. I use to have to connect my Pam via USB cable to my desktop. It is definitely simpler to use bluetooth to transfer files. All I do is open the file manager and browse to the the icon for my desktop machine and I can move files to or from the desktop.

Slight irritations with the 770:

None of the mail, contact, or calendar programs are compatible with Outlook. This is not a must have but it would be nice to be able to import my contacts and notes from Outlook into the 770.

A functioning word processor would be nice. Abiword can be installed, but is should come standard.

It would be nice to be able to charge the unit through the USB connection.

You should be able to power a USB device through the connection. For example, you should be able to connect a USB keyboard or a USB GPS.

The unit should have more than one memory card slot.

A really irritating (lack) of features:

The 770 has a microphone, you can install Gizmo (for internet calling), but the microphone is not enabled by default and it is no small chore to get it working, if it is even possible to get it working. Also there is not a microphone connection to plug into an external microphone.

I have seen posts in the internettablettalk form saying that is is possible to get a bluetooth headset working with the 770, but it is way over my head and a lot of the posts seem to dead end.

A lot of the issues that I am complaining about have been addressed in the N800 and N815 so I am thinking about upgrading to the N800. The N810 has a built in GPS and it runs about $450. My wife gave me a Garmin for Christmas so I think the N800 would fit my situation a little better.

Nokia has released OS 2008 for the N800 and N810, the problem is that the Maemo programs have to be recompiled for the new OS and last that I checked MaemoMapper and Abiword were not working in OS2008 yet. I tried to upgrade my 770 to OS 2007, it is not officially supported and for good reason, I had nothing but glitches and lockups after I installed it so I had to downgrade to 2006. If I get an N800 I am not sure I will upgrade.

I really do not use the 770 to its full abilities. There are times when I am at home that it would be easier to use it to check my Gmail account but out of habit I will boot up my laptop.

I want to upgrade to the N800 to get better email support, larger memory cards and the ability to have two cards. Would I use it as an MP3 player? Currently I do not use the 770 as MP3 player, I have an IRiver that I use when I travel. I think having more on board memory would make me leave the IRiver at home.

Video calls through Gizmo would be really cool, but from the posts that I have read it is not a really stable feature.

The main reason that I want to upgrade to the N800 is for its camera feature. It is a lame camera feature. It is only 600 x 480, roughly 4 x 6 photo quality, but all I want to be able to do is snap a quick feature when I am travelling to post on a blog or email to friends. I do not have a data capabilities on my Razr and I travel to Mexico from time to time and my phone does not work there so I do not want to carry it just to take pictures. I posted a question about the photo quality on internettablettalk and I think most people misunderstood it, however I did get several replies saying that the unit can work as a basic camera.

If you are a geek either unit is a fun functional toy. They are the Nokia version of the Ipod touch, and they were released before the touch was a product. The interface is not as slick as the touch but it has many more programs.

Fist Day with New Toy

2007-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

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.