JDPFu.com 2025

Sure I’m a little late, but I recently discovered the Panucci Resuming Player for Nokia N800/N810/N900 internet tablets. I’ve tried music playback programs and have always been disappointed since they didn’t support 30 second skip forward, backwards or resume after power off exactly where I was previously. Panucci does all these things.

Had to reflash my Nokia N800 last week due to some sort of error. That fixed everything, however, it meant that I needed to reload all the applications – which is fine. It never hurts to reload the apps and wipe the trial’ed software off.

• Map Sources
• GPS Routes
• POI DBs
• Turn by Turn Voice Prompts

Maemo Mapper Sources

Anyway, the main app on this portable to me is Maemo Mapper a GPS tool. Previously, it was pre-configured to provide VE Maps, OpenStreet Maps, Yahoo! and Google Maps for street, satellite and hybrid maps. This time, only OpenStreet Maps was provided. I need to find how to add these other views.

• OpenStreetMap – Traditional “Mapnik” “http://tile.openstreetmap.org/%0d/%d/%d.png”
• Google Maps (street) “http://mt.google.com/vt/v=w2.95&x=%d&y=%d&zoom=%d”
  I hear that Google changes this from time to time.

Layers

Layers are maps which have transparency so they can overlay the map you are using and add additional information. For example to add Road and city names on Google Satellite or Google Terrain maps.

• Google Traffic “http://mt.google.com/mapstt?zoom=%0d&x=%d&y=%d”
• Google Labels “http://mt.google.com/mt?v=w2t.88&&z=%0d&x=%d&y=%d” (use with Google Satellite or Google Terrain for labels for cities, roads, etc., i.e. “Hybrid” maps.)

Download GPS Routes

There is good news. In my search to find those old map sources, I uncovered a fix to the routing by address. I never had this working before. It is really simple .

Maemo Mapper configuration as follows: Menu → Route → Download… and change the domain portion of the Source URL to http://gpx.geotags.com/ Leave the cgi-bin/gpx.cgi?saddr=%s&daddr=%s portion remains the same. It was good to see it work. Very nice.

POI Databases

Over the years, I’ve added a few Points Of Interest databases to the device. Chains of cheaper gasoline stations, my preferred fast food chains and Walmarts. You never know when you’ll need to buy something at a Walmart on a trip. I also have a list of over 1,000 waterfall locations. If I’m near a waterfall, it is nice to know it and stop when in the area. I need to build a list of hiking trailheads and parking areas.

Turn by Turn

flite is needed for a Synthesized Voice telling you to turn left. There are lots of dependencies that may not be easily achieved.

A picture is worth …. 1,000,000 words in this case.
This link shows the way that different distributions are related, started, and some died. It only shows the most popular distros, perhaps 300 of them. I didn’t count.

Today I visited the skype.com website to get a newer version of Skype for my Nokia N800. The download page has been removed for that and the N810 devices. The N900 has a download, but I don’t want to risk it.

As long as Skype on the N800 continues to work, I’m not too worried. Just like many people, I’m unhappy with my telecom provider.

• They are too costly. They think they compete with AT&T on price, not Vonage or some other $9/month VoIP services
• Calls are dropped mid-sentence
• Connectivity disappears weekly

For about the last week, I’ve been in the Fort Collins, CO area for my niece’s wedding. That required about 6 hours total, but if I’m going all that way, I want to make it into a mini-vacation.

During the trip, I saw elk, bear, bear cub, rattle snake, rabbits, HUGE grasshoppers, millions of grasshoppers, gray squirrels, ground squirrels, and a few fish. A few interesting photos are below.

$99 mini-netbook with an ARM processor

Buy It Today!

The device runs either WindowsCE or Android, but I imagine an Ubuntu-on-ARM or Maemo5 distro will work too. For $99, I’d buy one of these devices today, on a whim. If they were in Walmart or Target, then I’d buy 2 of them. Seriously, my neighbor could replace her $700 laptop with this for all the email and surfing she does AND be safer on the internet.

Add an 8GB class 6 SDHC and you’re ready for most home internet users.

Today, I was doing a little online shopping using my Nokia N800. Ikea has a few price cuts on bookcases and they looked interesting, so I wanted more information.

I visited ikea.com and clicked United States – crash. Not just a browser crash, but a forced reboot of the entire device. SWEET! The N800 uses a modified Mozilla browser running a version of Linux, BTW. This isn’t a normal cell phone or otherwise limited browser. I’m not running with any special permissions either. Crashes shouldn’t be possible.

Good job Ikea. My N800 is 3 yrs old and this is the first time it has crashed to a reboot. Impressive. May I suggest you review your web site for errors?

I’ve written more than a few Nokia N800 Articles and figured that a central location listing them might be appreciated.

On Saturday, I went GeoCaching with an expert Geocacher (over 1000 caches found and logged). We went to a trail that I’ve hiked twice before, so I knew the terrain and was prepared for the effort required. At least I thought I was prepared. It turned out, I was not.

Equipment

I have a Nokia N800 that gets tethered via Bluetooth to a GoPass GPT800 Bluetooth GPS Receiver SiRF Star III. At the time of purchase, this was a highly regarded GPS receiver chip.

My sister had a hiking-specific GPS unit from Garman with a big antenna. I don’t know the exact model, but think it is a metal grey color with black and white screen. No color, since that uses too much energy.

My brother-in-law uses a few applications and scripts that he wrote to grab GPS point data for any geocaches near where we are planning to be. His scripts also grab hints and comments from other enthusiasts.

The Issues

So, we’re hiking on the path and we both have waypoints/POIs entered into our units marking the cache locations. I keep walking on the path, then my sister heads off into the brush. Not just a few feet off the path, but out of voice yelling range. We both have whistles, which is good hiking practice. My GPS was still telling me to continue on the path. She found it. I didn’t realize the cache locations wouldn’t be fairly near a trail. Since I’d already hiked these trails with my GPS tracking enabled, I had that prior track loaded into my map and could see approximately where the best place to take off into the bush would be.

GPS units appear to be designed for movement, somewhere around 10mph or faster seems ideal. I can’t walk that fast. When we stopped to get readings, mine jumped around a lot – hundreds of yards. Further, if the GPS signal gets lost due to trees, hills, whatever, then mine takes you back to a previous location as an initial guess. With tracking enabled, the map gets really busy with a pseudo-star pattern of lines.

Cockpit Error – i.e. user error ;)

On about the 3rd cache, I realized that the built-in compass for the GPS software wasn’t really working the way I thought. Fortunately, the same tool that my whistle is on has a compass, signal mirror, magnifying lens, thermometer and an LED flashlight . It is a really handy little plastic tool for hikers to have. I don’t mind that it is cheap, it does work. The compass was more than accurate enough for my needs, but sadly, the GPS location was still off. My sister kept making a beeline to the caches and found almost all of them in this area.

Final Result

I’ve decided that geocaching with my current setup isn’t fun. I get frustrated when technology doesn’t work as expected. To resolve the issue, wiping the original OS2008 included with the N800 will be needed. I’ve been unable to update the GPS mapping tool software since it was loaded due to some underlying libraries that couldn’t be updated too. A fresh OS install with the newer release will be good and get me out of Application Manager hell. Maemo 5, here I come. Then I’ll re-visit the same location and see whether the new software helps with the accuracy of the GPS. Knowing where some of the caches are located, will be helpful.

If this doesn’t work, perhaps it is time for a new bluetooth GPS receiver. The current receiver is really good for driving – seriously, so that $35 was well spent.

If you are a smart phone user AND a Linux nerd, you WANT a Nokia N900.
Here’s a very detailed review, perhaps too detailed.

The highights are:

• CDMA (tri mode) and GSM (quad mode) cellular phone with 3G data speeds
• WiFi supported
• Linux – full multitasking; listen to music, surf the web, download files, and 5 other apps at the same time, no need to close apps to do something else* take that Apple lovers
• GPS and GeoCache-ready apps
• QWERTY Keyboard take that Apple lovers
• BlueTooth
• SDHC expansion memory, easily swapped, 32GB internal plus external slot
• 800×480 screen take that Apple lovers
• 3D graphic acceleration
• 5Mpix Camera with near HD-quality video
• User swappable battery take that Apple lovers
• Plays almost any video or audio media take that Apple lovers
• 1,000s of free Linux apps – lots of software is an understatement; xterm, PDF, RDP, VNC, games, Office/Productivity, IM, RSS
• Excellent VoIP and Skype support (Ovi, Google Talk, Jabber, and SIP) take that Apple lovers
• TV-Out
• Connects to your MS-Exchange server including Calendaring
• Mozilla-based browser with Flash 9.4 support and multiple window support (# only limited by memory). The reviewer didn’t fine any web pages that didn’t work regardless of javascript, flash, or AJAX.
• Oh, and all the things you expect from a PDA – contacts, calendars, email,

The review compared the keyboard to that of another Nokia phone, but I’d like a comparison with a Blackberry QWERTY keyboard, which I consider FANTASTIC for thumb typing. I’m curious about built-in security features too, though a lock code is standard.

The only downsides to this device are:

• Data plan needed (monthly cost)
• Unclear that any subsidy will be provided by any cellular provider.
• Unlocked price – $584 on Amazon. Ouch.
• Screen size reduced from 4.1" to 3.5" so it is about the size of an iPhone.
• No voice dialing?
• Java was not shipped with the device, but it is definitely available.