Thanks to the sterling efforts of the chaps over at Maemo.org, I know have the ability to run the Nokia 800 OS, known as OS2007, on my Nokia 770. Flashing the new OS onto the machine was simplicity itself, given that a new FIASCO image is available and can be flashed in the usual manner.

So once it's all working, what can you expect? Well, my personal list of favourite new features is as follows:

• Better look over all, especially the two on-screen keyboards
• MUCH better Bluetooth support, including OBEX
• Native support for Bluetooth keyboards and GPS devices
• Automatic join of trusted networks on power on
• Later versions of everything available
• It might just be me, but it seems faster, too

There is rough to go with the smooth, though. One problem I've found is that the kernel included doesn't have smbfs support. If you use something like smbbrowser to connect to Samba shares on your network then you're stuck (at least, I think. I'll check for a solution.) There are also some battery life issues that might need sorting. The most major ones are the media metadata scanner going mad, and the internal alarm manager turning the device on at odd times.

If you notice, either through top or some other means, that metalayer-crawl is using up a lot of CPU time and draining your battery, then you might need to limit its scope somewhat. This is well described in bug 978. Metalayer-crawl is a simple program that indexes the identifying tags on media files stored on the system (e.g. mp3s), but it seems to get somewhat confused by symlinks and can easily end up recursively indexing the entire system forever. The fix for this bug simply causes it to only index files in the user's media directories.

Secondly, there is a strange problem with some devices that a 'hidden' alarm turns the device on at odd times. This simply needs the hidden alarm removing. First, become root, then run:

    $ /mnt/initfs/usr/bin/retutime -A ''

This simply removes all hidden alarm events. You could set custom alarm events with this utility if you wanted. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

A final little tip that I quite like is the ability to use a long press of the power button to put the device into 'soft off' mode. This is basically the same mode as the device enters when the screen cover is put on, but sometimes it's nice to be able to access it without having to put the cover on. This is especially true if you're just temporarily putting it to sleep while you're otherwise engaged, and have power, USB or earphones plugged in.

To enable this feature, become root and edit the file /etc/mce/mce.ini. Find this line:

    PowerKeyLongAction=poweroff

and replace it with:

    PowerKeyLongAction=softpoweroff

Reboot the device and your new soft power off mode will work. Press and hold the power button in the usual way to turn it back on in a jiffy.

Today marked the arrival of my iGo bluetooth folding keyboard, so I thought I'd write a review of it. Naturally, I'm writing the review on the device itself, connected to my Nokia 770 internet tablet. So far, so impressive.

So first things first, the physical item. It clocks in at about 5"x3" when folded, and a touch over 10.5" wide when opened up. It's a quality product and doesn't feel like it will break or behave unduly when under pressure.

As I have previously mentioned on this blog, I have a Nokia 770 internet tablet to replace my old Palm T3. While the 802.11g WiFi, bluetooth, hi resolution screen and full screen thumb-board are all welcome, it does have a lack of PDA functionality. Fortunately for me, this can easily be added with GPE. There is an address book, task manager, calendar and other goodies available in Maemo form on maemo.org.

So now I have a calendar on my N770. It's not as polished as the Palm calendar, and there are some niggling rendering bugs, but it works and does the job. Most importantly, though, it does something the Palm never could: synchronise easily with Google Calendar.

Thanks to the wonderful Erminig application, I can synchronise multiple calendars (e.g. my calendar, my friends' calendars, bank holidays) into separate GPE calendars that I can enable and disable at will, but all visible in the same calendar interface distinguished by colour. This all happens straight from the N770, so no PC sync is required as it is with the Palm devices.

So far it's worked flawlessly. It's really easy to use, and it's made synchronisation of calendars a useful tool to me, rather than just a means of backing up my portable device.

Not really, but it got you looking! I thought I'd document two or three niggles I had with my N770 and how I worked around them. There aren't many, and the solutions are very easy.

Some weeks ago now, it came to my attention that Expansys were stocking Nokia 770 internet tablets for a ridiculously cheap price. Now, I already have an array of personal electronic gadgetry but if there's one thing I have been seeking, it's Linux In My Pocket^tm. I already knew that the N770 runs a version of Debian, so I checked out the scene and it seems to be ideal for pocket hackery. I ordered one.