On last week I was visiting Berlin. I took my Nokia N800 and a GPS receiver with me. I have installed Maemo Mapper on the device and loaded Berlin maps beforehand on it. Navigating was working nice, but I still had to buy a paper map. There's something that a digital map can't replace.
Another reason for taking the N800 with me was the WLAN connection. I succesfully connected to the hotel's WLAN. Also it was handy on the airport where I had to spend several hours. However the WLAN spots were not free so it cost some money but I can manage a few euro's cost.
I also finally ordered the Neo1973 (OpenMoko) device. I'll be waiting for it, and I will surely report first impressions on this blog. But until that I'm testing the development tools and tell more about them later...
Monday, August 06, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
OpenMoko finally here
So they really got first developer versions of OpenMoko device Neo1973 for sale. I'm about to purchase one of these very soon.
After reading specs and documentation I found this device even more better. The developer version of Neo1973 will include:
While waiting for the device I've been playing with OpenMoko system in QEMU. It seems quite slowish but can't yet say anything about the speed on the device. Here's a little video capture (sorry about the wrong aspect ratio):
So now waiting for getting the device on my hands to be able to tell more about it...
P.S. Nokia N800 got updated software and is running now Skype. Works fine but unfortunately it's closed software. However nice move...
After reading specs and documentation I found this device even more better. The developer version of Neo1973 will include:
- Neo1973 (GTA01B_v4)
- Battery
- Stylus
- Headset
- AC Charger
- Phone Pouch
- Lanyard
- SanDisk 512MB MicroSD Card
- Mini USB Connectivity Cable
While waiting for the device I've been playing with OpenMoko system in QEMU. It seems quite slowish but can't yet say anything about the speed on the device. Here's a little video capture (sorry about the wrong aspect ratio):
So now waiting for getting the device on my hands to be able to tell more about it...
P.S. Nokia N800 got updated software and is running now Skype. Works fine but unfortunately it's closed software. However nice move...
Saturday, July 07, 2007
GPL version 3
Recently Free Software Foundation released the final GNU General Public License version 3. What that does really mean?
First of all many software says it uses version 2 or NEWER. The key word is the later one because user may choose which version to use. Is there going to be two branches of one software, one for version 2 and one for the 3rd one? Ok, that might be a problem. However there's still some software which insist to use version 2 only. On of these are the Linux kernel. It will be version 2 unless something else is decided...
Also version 3 defines that some vendors can't any more lock their devices to use only the official binary provided by them. Vendors must now allow customized code to be flashed or uploaded to the device and not to lock it on any way. Sounds fair.
Secondly software patents are not allowed. This prevents deals which Microsoft has made lately with some Linux providers. It will be interesting to see the real affect. For now on we must only speculate.
Generally the GPL version 3 is good thing, but people should take a little bit careful with it at first. The future will tell what comes.
P.S. First developer versions of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 will be available since 9th of July. I'll be waiting for it...
First of all many software says it uses version 2 or NEWER. The key word is the later one because user may choose which version to use. Is there going to be two branches of one software, one for version 2 and one for the 3rd one? Ok, that might be a problem. However there's still some software which insist to use version 2 only. On of these are the Linux kernel. It will be version 2 unless something else is decided...
Also version 3 defines that some vendors can't any more lock their devices to use only the official binary provided by them. Vendors must now allow customized code to be flashed or uploaded to the device and not to lock it on any way. Sounds fair.
Secondly software patents are not allowed. This prevents deals which Microsoft has made lately with some Linux providers. It will be interesting to see the real affect. For now on we must only speculate.
Generally the GPL version 3 is good thing, but people should take a little bit careful with it at first. The future will tell what comes.
P.S. First developer versions of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 will be available since 9th of July. I'll be waiting for it...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Long time indeed
First I must apologize for not writing for a long time, but have been busy and doing everything more important. And it's been silent lately.
Fortunately now the phase 1 of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 is near. It's means that some devices will be available for developers to order. I try to be one of those lycky ones, but let's see first how many of these devices they're able to get for sale. Hopefully enough.
Meanwhile I got Nokia N800 (for the discounted price, thanks goes for Nokia) and had some time to play with it. It's quite impressive and a real improvement from 770. Now there's enough memory and CPU seems fast enough. It makes a really good tool with GPS receiver and Maemo mapper. Used it a few times to navigate while being at a car. And the media player is also a good piece of software, for example I tried playing music over UPnP from a friend's Windows XP Media center edition and it did a nice job. But again I have had a very little time to play with it more and implementing my own stuff for it.
Hopefully I have more time in future to update this blog but until then it's a bye.
Fortunately now the phase 1 of OpenMoko based phone Neo1973 is near. It's means that some devices will be available for developers to order. I try to be one of those lycky ones, but let's see first how many of these devices they're able to get for sale. Hopefully enough.
Meanwhile I got Nokia N800 (for the discounted price, thanks goes for Nokia) and had some time to play with it. It's quite impressive and a real improvement from 770. Now there's enough memory and CPU seems fast enough. It makes a really good tool with GPS receiver and Maemo mapper. Used it a few times to navigate while being at a car. And the media player is also a good piece of software, for example I tried playing music over UPnP from a friend's Windows XP Media center edition and it did a nice job. But again I have had a very little time to play with it more and implementing my own stuff for it.
Hopefully I have more time in future to update this blog but until then it's a bye.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
The new mobile devices
Recently Apple announced the brand new iPhone. It sounds good: music device, phone and internet in same package. But wait a minute, isn't it just another phone? It has only a nice user interface and there's a new way to control the phone. And one thing I miss: iPhone is just an ordinary GSM phone. I'd like to browse the internet with high speed 3G connection, but no. And why to integrate big music player on it? I have already iPod, and my current phone has 1 GB memory card, audio player and internet access, and it supports 3G. Listening music with phone is not anything new. So the iPhone is just about a new UI design and controls? The worst part is that Apple don't want 3rd party applications for it. Yes, I can't develop any applications on it, and no way to get my favourite applications on it. It just is not open.
But lets take a look for a open phone. There's an option called OpenMoko. It's quite open, it has finger controllable touch screen, it also includes stylus for more accurate control, and the user interface looks also nice. It's based on Linux and open source software. It includes the basic operations (call, send & receive message) and allows installation of 3rd party applications. The first model, Neo1973, has quite nice touch screen (2.8"), built-in GPS and USB. However it's still GSM phone, no 3G. But sounds very nice. Unfortunately there's very little information about the platform. Is it based on Qt or GTK+ or is there some other widget set in use? Sounds like it's Debian-based, the provided presentation used apt-get. The phone is about to be on sale soon. Then we'll know better. But at least I'm excited.
Also Nokia published new internet tablet, N800, which is follower for the 770 tablet. It has improvements such like more memory, better CPU and camera. Sounds nice. It has active developer community and provides maemo platform and SDK for developing applications for the tablets. It has intenet (video) calls via VOIP (Google Talk). However it has no GSM phone at all. You still have to carry around a ordinary phone, preferably with bluetooh and fast 3G. It's kind of benefit also. You can update your phone from GSM to 3G and the internet tablet has also the speed benefit. However, the N800 is a good improvement - and it's open, at least on some level.
But lets take a look for a open phone. There's an option called OpenMoko. It's quite open, it has finger controllable touch screen, it also includes stylus for more accurate control, and the user interface looks also nice. It's based on Linux and open source software. It includes the basic operations (call, send & receive message) and allows installation of 3rd party applications. The first model, Neo1973, has quite nice touch screen (2.8"), built-in GPS and USB. However it's still GSM phone, no 3G. But sounds very nice. Unfortunately there's very little information about the platform. Is it based on Qt or GTK+ or is there some other widget set in use? Sounds like it's Debian-based, the provided presentation used apt-get. The phone is about to be on sale soon. Then we'll know better. But at least I'm excited.
Also Nokia published new internet tablet, N800, which is follower for the 770 tablet. It has improvements such like more memory, better CPU and camera. Sounds nice. It has active developer community and provides maemo platform and SDK for developing applications for the tablets. It has intenet (video) calls via VOIP (Google Talk). However it has no GSM phone at all. You still have to carry around a ordinary phone, preferably with bluetooh and fast 3G. It's kind of benefit also. You can update your phone from GSM to 3G and the internet tablet has also the speed benefit. However, the N800 is a good improvement - and it's open, at least on some level.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Playing around with a embedded box
Sorry, it's time since I last updated this blog but I've been busy with work projects. However I have had some time to play around with a nice embedded device on my spare time. I needed a wireless router so I bought a Linksys WRT54GL. It's originally a WLAN router with 200 MHz mips CPU, 16 MB RAM and 4 MB flash, with Linux based firmware.
There's lot of projects to replace the firmware, such as DD-WRT, OpenWRT and HyperWRT. I choosed to flash the DD-WRT to my box. Flashing went fine. After the flash I was able to access the router by telnet and HTTP. It was easy to set up SSH running from the web interface. So I had a Linux system running with SSH access on a embedded box. The next step was to install own software on it. I set up JFFS on the box and Samba share on a bigger server which was mounted by DD-WRT.
Next step was to install some packages with ipkg. I took the prebuilt packages from OpenWRT repositories. There was some problems installing some libraries because a Samba share does not support symbolic links. Solution is to make the proper links on the server side. It required some tweak to make the applications to run, such as set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to proper location. Some applications required some extra parameters to work properly. Generally the Samba share provided virtually unlimited amount of storage for applications. The only limitation is the box itself.
I'd like to set up a compiler environment for my desktop environment to build applications for mips and to run them on my WRT box. I have some ideas to make it run different kind of applications. However first I'd like to set up a web server on it and make my primary router to forward them to the WRT box. Which one would hit first, the power or the memory limit? How about to set up a swap over the Samba share? To be seen...
There's lot of projects to replace the firmware, such as DD-WRT, OpenWRT and HyperWRT. I choosed to flash the DD-WRT to my box. Flashing went fine. After the flash I was able to access the router by telnet and HTTP. It was easy to set up SSH running from the web interface. So I had a Linux system running with SSH access on a embedded box. The next step was to install own software on it. I set up JFFS on the box and Samba share on a bigger server which was mounted by DD-WRT.
Next step was to install some packages with ipkg. I took the prebuilt packages from OpenWRT repositories. There was some problems installing some libraries because a Samba share does not support symbolic links. Solution is to make the proper links on the server side. It required some tweak to make the applications to run, such as set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to proper location. Some applications required some extra parameters to work properly. Generally the Samba share provided virtually unlimited amount of storage for applications. The only limitation is the box itself.
I'd like to set up a compiler environment for my desktop environment to build applications for mips and to run them on my WRT box. I have some ideas to make it run different kind of applications. However first I'd like to set up a web server on it and make my primary router to forward them to the WRT box. Which one would hit first, the power or the memory limit? How about to set up a swap over the Samba share? To be seen...
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Mobile calendar and synchronization
At home I use OS X iCal application on my Mac to mark up important events and meetings. Then I have Nokia 9500 Communicator with me all the time and mark events to it also. I have also Nokia 770 hanging round sometimes. To make things even more wicked I carry a laptop along me on my trips. This works usually but one night it became a real nightmare.
Communicator has a table stand which connects via USB to computer. It has sync button on it. However I have never managed to get it working with OS X. With my Linux laptop it works ok, but never successed to synchronize calendar events. Fortunately my Mac has bluetooth and so has the communicator. The next problem after pairing these two devices was that iSync didn't want to work properly. After googling a while I found instructions how to set up iSync for 9500 and how to install 9500 plug-in to iSync. Surprisingly everything was working fine. I got my contacts backuped and calendar marks in sync.
Oh, now I have nice working synchronization. But wait a minute. It's completely manual, needs starting iSync and pressing some buttons on both devices. One night I took my laptop and communicator and gone working to a distant location for a couple of weeks. I remembered that I had a meeting on one of these weeks but no idea on which day and what time. Took a look to my communicator and found... nothing. I forgot to sync my devices. Ok, no problem I have SSH access to my Mac. Unfortunately Apple has decided to make some modifications to iCal version 2 and the calendars are not available as files any more in my home folder. Quick search did not result anything. Now I got a problem.
You know it's not nice at all to call people and ask "when did we actually had the meeting"? It gives a stupid image of you. The lesson learned: always sync your mobile calendars. Also got an idea. Why not sync everything automatically, on multiple places and easily accessible remotely? I would like to see a command line interface for iCal or the calendars as easily readable files. How about automatical synchronization when my phone is available via bluetooth? Yes, I can still press the "accept connection" button in my phone if it for example beeps once when it's needed. Synchronize to my laptop - it has bluetooth as well. Unfortunately it lacks a good calendar. Also 770 lacks a calendar completely and it has bluetooth as well. So could somebody make a good open source calendar which works on my laptop, 770, other possible Linux based systems and synchronizes well with 9500 and Mac via bluetooth or USB? Automatically, if possible? Anybody?
Communicator has a table stand which connects via USB to computer. It has sync button on it. However I have never managed to get it working with OS X. With my Linux laptop it works ok, but never successed to synchronize calendar events. Fortunately my Mac has bluetooth and so has the communicator. The next problem after pairing these two devices was that iSync didn't want to work properly. After googling a while I found instructions how to set up iSync for 9500 and how to install 9500 plug-in to iSync. Surprisingly everything was working fine. I got my contacts backuped and calendar marks in sync.
Oh, now I have nice working synchronization. But wait a minute. It's completely manual, needs starting iSync and pressing some buttons on both devices. One night I took my laptop and communicator and gone working to a distant location for a couple of weeks. I remembered that I had a meeting on one of these weeks but no idea on which day and what time. Took a look to my communicator and found... nothing. I forgot to sync my devices. Ok, no problem I have SSH access to my Mac. Unfortunately Apple has decided to make some modifications to iCal version 2 and the calendars are not available as files any more in my home folder. Quick search did not result anything. Now I got a problem.
You know it's not nice at all to call people and ask "when did we actually had the meeting"? It gives a stupid image of you. The lesson learned: always sync your mobile calendars. Also got an idea. Why not sync everything automatically, on multiple places and easily accessible remotely? I would like to see a command line interface for iCal or the calendars as easily readable files. How about automatical synchronization when my phone is available via bluetooth? Yes, I can still press the "accept connection" button in my phone if it for example beeps once when it's needed. Synchronize to my laptop - it has bluetooth as well. Unfortunately it lacks a good calendar. Also 770 lacks a calendar completely and it has bluetooth as well. So could somebody make a good open source calendar which works on my laptop, 770, other possible Linux based systems and synchronizes well with 9500 and Mac via bluetooth or USB? Automatically, if possible? Anybody?
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