Preparing for the N900 a guide

by Maemo Ninja on November 5, 2009

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Very soon I will have my hands on with the N900. But instead of waiting for the mail carrier to knock my door, I thought I’d prepare myself. How? Well, already knowing what apps I’ll be installing and using helps, but there’s also the obvious; email, contacts, etc that I’ll have to setup.

Personally I’m a heavy podcast consumer, so I’ll definately be installing gpodder, and since I’m like all the other “cool kids” I’ll be using twitter regularly, so I’ll be installing Mauku (I’ll also be using other services that Mauku supports), I won’t likely purchase Gravity, since Mauku is does everything Gravity can do when combined with Pixelpipe. Also, I’ll be using Skype, since the N900 makes it a no-brainer, and of course I’ll be using SIP (from Gizmo5) for use with Google Voice (more on this in a later post [HINT: make completely free calls]). I’ll also be posting pictures and videos everywhere, so the Pixelpipe application will be extremely useful. I’ll probably even be installing Qik to show off the N900 online (follow me on twitter for updates on that, as well as other N900/Maemo stuff).

The number of applications for Maemo5/N900 are expanding everyday, most of them are available at Maemo.org or Maemo-Select. Most of the apps for Maemo are likely going to be free and from the open source community. MaemoMapper (although not yet available on the N900) is an amazing application, which can pull map images from various sources, such as Google Maps and is completely free.

So now that I know what apps I’m going to be installing, I’m going to need to have all of my login information ready. Here’s the cool part… since the N900 is running a modified Fennec (mobile Firefox web browser) and I’ve already installed Mozilla Weave on my desktop, laptop, and netbook. All I have to do to import my saved login information & bookmarks into the N900 browser is to install the Mozilla Weave plugin for Fennec and login to Mozilla Weave. That should save me tons of hassles with transferring all the important stuff. For almost everything else mentioned above, if you don’t already have an account with that service (Skype, Pixelpipe, QiK, etc) I urge you to start creating your accounts now if you purchased an N900 already.

For me I’m concerned about my podcasts more than almost everything else. My N810 changed how I use my computers. I no longer need to sync podcasts, or launch Firefox any time I need to look up a phone number, check wikipedia, etc. I still use my netbook for downloading some video podcasts, but with the N900’s much improved video performance that will soon change. On my N810 I use gpodder for downloading podcasts, but on my netbook I use Miro. I exported my podcast subscriptions from Miro to an OMPL file on my netbook, and sent that file to my N810. In gpodder, I imported that file, and then uploaded my subscription information to the gpodder server. Now, once I get the N900 all I have to do is install gpodder, sign in, and download my subscription information. Viola’, now all of my podcasts are taken care of.

The most tedious task was going through my contact lists on GMail (I’ve got 3 gmail accounts and 2 Google Hosted Services accounts). I’m expecting to do a lot of editing once I get the N900, adding pictures, birthdays (yes there is calendar integration with contacts), and addresses (even more integration here too).

While I haven’t done everything I need to do, I think I’m ready, I don’t want to have to go through another long setup process, other than the usual wallpaper, ringtone, setup. So if you’ve ordered an N900 (and you should), start preparing now. You’ll thank yourself later!

So stay tuned for more Maemo/ N900 news, hints, tricks, etc. I’ll be posting pictures, videos, and more, as it happens.