Maemo 5 gets community OS updates !

The Maemo Community Council and Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh are pleased to announce the launch of the Maemo 5 Community SSU project. It is currently in a testing and elaboration phase, and your help is required.

What is it?

Seamless Software Update (SSU), is the term Nokia used to brand the over-the-air updates of Maemo.
Community Seamless Software Update (CSSU) is being developed by the Maemo community, for the Maemo community. It aims to deliver fixes which can't be delivered easily through Extras, such as core N900 packages. It won't, however, bundle software which can be installed through the Extras repositories.
It's got a presence in various Maemo forums:

• IRC: #maemo-ssu on FreeNode
• Bugs: Bugzilla, product: Extras > Maemo 5 Community SSU
• Wiki: Community SSU
• Talk: In-development Community SSU

Who is it for?

Long-term: all N900 users.
Now: power-users, developers, Nokia/Maemo/MeeGo engineers, testers, documentation writers and those willing to risk a re-flash in order to help.

How do I install it?

1. Make sure you're running PR1.3, Nokia's last official Maemo 5 update. To see if you have PR1.3, go into "Settings > About product", you should see under "Version" it has the numbers beginning with "20.2010.36".
2. Go to wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU using your N900 browser.
3. Click on the "Install" arrow next to "Testing".
4. Hildon Application Manager (HAM) will launch and will prompt with you a series of messages and warnings. Click continue and let it install the community package.
5. Once done, close HAM and go into the applications menu. Look for, and launch, for "Community SSU". This will then automatically run through a series of scripts to ensure HAM will now be using community repository for updates.
6. HAM will re-open and present a system upgrade called "Maemo 5 Community SSU". Once installed, your device will reboot.

These instructions are also in the wiki.

More to read ! 

Presence Notifier : Notification for status changes of your online contacts !

 Presence Notifier notifies you about presence status changes of your contacts !

 

The settings page in the control panel is intuitive allows you to :

- enable/disable the notification
- enable for all status changes or only for "... goes online" notifications
- enable for all status message changes.
- configure the notification window (autohide notification after X seconds).

Don't forget to drop a feedback to the author ;)

TV-B-Gone (Tvbgone) : shut down any TV the "brute force" way !

TV-B-Gone® is a universal remote control desktop widget that only has a power button that allows you to switch a TV on or off by shining pulses of invisible light that tells most any TV to turn off or on, thanks to the N900's Ir Transmitter.

it can require up to 69 seconds for the device to find the proper code for a particular television receiver, the most popular televisions turn off in the first few seconds.

More to read !

Ovi Maps Extra Features : Voice guidance, Real turn-by-turn, 3D buildings And more !

Thanks to the community to bring us all the features we've always missed in the Ovi Maps for the N900 ! Yeah you hear it right !

The community goes ahead to provide us a true turn-by-turn navigation and voice guidance! The tweaks are currently a work-in-progress but already usable !

You can see how it goes over this thread, i'll try it ASAP !

E.F.F : Empty Frequencies Finder !

E.F.F. (Empty Frequencies Finder) is a utility that lets you choose a range (only 87.5 FM - 108.0 FM) to scan from, for empty/unused frequencies, using the reciever of N900 and headphones as its antenna. For example you can use this utility to find empty frequencies, so you can easily transmit from your N900 to your radio. If you are not satisfied with the emptiness of the frequency scanning results you can select between modes, to find a better one.

The following are required to run the app:
- PR 1.3
- Headphones

 

 Via : talk.maemo.org

TV Out Control Home Widget !

 TV out control desktop widget allows you to control different parameters of the N900's TV out that (for some) are not available in the control panel :

- Enable/disable
- PAL/NTSC
- Aspect ratio control - switch between 4:3 and 16:9
- Scale control - scale the display to fill the TV screen area, or make it smaller

Mediabar (XpressMusic-esque) : With mediaplayer controls!

Do you want to display a multimedia bar similar to that on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and other XpressMusic devices? mediabar can do it ! It's activated by holding the proximity sensor for 1.2s, and of course, this is configurable, just edit /home/user/.config/MohammadAG/mediabar containing icons which can be used to quickly launch applications from almost any screen !

Via : talk.maemo.org

MaeModder : all the best mods for N900 !

MaeModder : an application, written all in shell and with a simple python GUI that allow you to do the most important mods for Maemo:

- Swappiness set to 30

- Custom Icons

- Custom transitions made from the black plastic ones, but with some changes

- Power button menu mod (reboot and icons)

- Customized modest (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=56634)

- Customized photo settings (etc/gdigicam)

- Customized hildon-desktop, Matan one (up to 9 desktop and a lot of keyboard shortcuts)

- Customized leds (Blue=calls White=SMS Yellow=IM GreenWater=eMails)

- MLV profile added to the default titan's ones ...this is half way between lv and ulv .. and is for the n900 that have problems with the too hight undervolt of the ULV profile.. :

- Wifi-Switcher popup mod: the popup of the program doesn't need the tap to disappear anymore.
After less seconds it disappears automatically.

- Wi-fi modules autoloading (called autostart in the script): this mod disables the autoloading of the wi-fi modules on maemo sturtup, just like Wi-fi switcher does.
WARNING: don't install this mod if you don't have Wifi-Switcher installed or you won't be able to connect to the network anymore.

- Update Notifications Off : this mod disables the update notifications... very useful if you use only FasterApplicationManager.

Via : talk.maemo.org

Top predictions for mobile in 2011 !

Usually i don't write about such things, but hey, 2010 was an exciting year for mobile technology, and i'm sure, as many of you, dear readers, that the next 12 months are sure to bring even more advancements, services, gadgets and nice products, thanks to the constant agressive war between phone and OS manufacturers that push things further and further. Indeed, here’s what I’m expecting, and even hoping, to see from the mobile technology space this year.

Nokia : 

- I guess Nokia’s smartphone market share will stabilize between 38 - 40% as cheaper Android phones will flood the market by the second half of the year, from Samsung mainly.

- The company will continue to tout MeeGo, which will become available in the form of 4 devices in 2011, (3 handsets and 1 tablet).

- Symbian will be stronger, 2011 will be the year of the "half-way" come back (the user experience will be improved a lot).

- It'll be probably insane but i expect to see Windows Phone 7 on a Nokia device later this year, but, as a short-term trial strategy for both parties.

- OVI services will be improved a lot :

* I expect to see some OVI Movie service with high def content Dolby Digital Plus powered.

* OVI Store will do fine, i hope we'll see some UI overhaul as well.


Android OS Improvements :

- Android phones will come closer to rivaling the user experience of Apple iOS devices. Until that, i'll get an Android device.


Tablets :

- 2011 would be the year of the tablet : BlackBerry, Motorola, HP, more from Samsung and at least one model from Nokia.


Others :

- The companies that make the image sensors in smartphones are also introducing models that support 1080p video, which means full HD on a mobile phone by the end of the year (from SonyEricsson and Nokia)

- Flash is going to be less adopted mobile technology by the end of the year but not dead.

- Location based services will be expanded.


Well, those are my top predictions for mobile in 2011, but i want to hear yours. Let me know what trends, devices and technologies you expect to see take hold in the mobile space in the new year !

Happy new year to y'all :)