Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Hello!

I am about to buy an n900 and i have a few questions

Does the touch screen mouse in DOSBox work well yet?

How well does Theme Hospital work under DOS?

OpenRA, does it run well and is it playable?

what do you reccomend as the first things to install to make the phone a better exprerience?

Thanks,
Paul

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

fMMS as you can't send MMS straight out of the box
rootsh for root access
Tweakr so you can edit various options and save more profiles than the standard 2
Petrovich for easy media sharing to fb, flickr etc
FMboost to boost power output of FMtransmitter
gPodder and Pannuci for downloading and managing podcasts
Mediabox as it's better than the built in player
Conky so you can look at rootfs (and aviod filling it!) and other system info
Autodisconnect to manage connection disconnects and save battery
BatteryGraph (or Battery Eye) to help see how efficent your battery is...

That's my list at the moment - I'm sure others will offer different opionions....

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Cellular Modem Buttons - Allows you to turn on/off the GSM radio at will to save battery.
AdBlock Plus - disables ads, which could take away loading times on websites.

You can run Windows 95 on DOSbox, so I'd assume the mouse works fine.

OpenRA is still in development, try searching the forums for more information.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Thanks for your help :D

when i plug my n900 into USB, do i see whe whole file system or just mydocs? how would i go about accessing RootFS via usb? is it possible?

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

No, you don't see the whole file system via USB (or at least I don't). For that I found the OpenSSH Server works very well with a GUI-based SSH Client on my Mac (Cyberduck)

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

It only shows MyDocs when you plug it in.

You could access the rest of the filesystem via Terminal or PCMan File Manager on Easy Debian. (both on the N900 itself)

Accessing rootfs is not possible by default via usb. Again, however, it is possible to find using PCMFM on Easy Debian.

The N900 only mounts MyDocs to the computer when it's plugged in, but I'm not sure if there's a hack around that.

Edit: kjmackey beat me to an answer, and yeah, using SSH with a GUI is another way.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Define 'well'. It's never going to work reliably for any game without some time of manual adjusting, and might even be impossible depending on the game.

Being a Win95-era game, I wouldn't even try it. You might have more luck with CorsixTH, but as it is now...

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

OK thanks, anybody know a good screen protector for n900? one that preserves the feel of the screen as much as possible??

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

zaggy.... mate from work has one. it does make phone screen a bit sticky tho. personally i just use a sock case. although. if i hold my phone at the right angle and get the sun on it i can see slight marks on my screen. only had it two weeks. imagine that after a year or 2..... does anyone feel that they have something stuck on the end of the stylus sometimes?

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Yes, that is dust and it causes the very fine scratches some people are complaining about. A screen protector is really ideal, since in the worst case scenario it can be easily replaced.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Don't get Zagg, if you don't want your device to be sticky and feel when touching the screen. But do go for a cheapy screen protector off ebay. They are good enough for your N900. I got a ClearTech and it suck on screen. ClearTech is made of the same material as Zagg and very hard to keep clean.

And it takes more than 1hour to fully put it on. And left out of action for atleast 5hours to dry.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

As for screen protectors, if you really don't like messy looking things, don't get them from Lexerd either.

The ones I received (2), were very horribly cut. The holes for the various sensors on the front of the N900 were out of line, as was the hole for the earpiece. The sides were curved.... I could go on and on. :rolleyes:

Send me a reply if you know any screen protector that fits almost snug with the bezel around the screen area, it would be much appreciated.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Lol I got the same problem with the screen protectors I bought. It just won't fit properly unless I cut it again later.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Ok, thank you, now a few more questions. N900 is on it's way, nokiaretail says "ready to dispatch" and I was wondering

on the litle drop drop down menu, with profile mode etc I see many peoples on here with brightness and snapshot etc, which do you guys reccomend as the best applets for this menu?

What is the widget to display uptime, boots and mAh and such?

Thanks

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

just back to one of the question: accessing the root fs:

i do that from my laptop using sftp - i have openssh server installed and i use Nautilus to browse the content of the phone. you need to take note of the ip address of the N900 say in your home wireless network, that there you go.

hope this helps.

wahlau.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Don't get a cheap one is all I can say.

I have had 5! Yes, I was stupid enough to buy 5 different cheap ones, varying from £1.95 - £4, and they haven't been particularly easy to put on, some didn't even fit (too big). I'm currently using my cheap one as thats the only one that went on with no bubbles on the screen, only around the corners. Will be buying a more expensive one soon I think!

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Must Haves:

Brightness: Simple Brightness Applet
Snapshot: Load-applet
Widget: Desktop Command Execution Widget
Flashlight: Flashlight
Cellular Modem Control Buttons (turns phone radio on/off, while keeping Wi-Fi on)
OMWeather (weather.com frontend)

Plenty more, but I'm about to leave for Cancun for spring break. ;)

Will post more on the train.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Thanks a lot! you guys are so helpful!

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

I'm happy with my Vikuiti screen protector from protectionfilms24.com.

Also I like the 2G/3G selection mode applet, it lets me choose when i want to save power vs download speeds.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

can i ask now a question

when i order from Nokiaretail.co.uk, and i see "ready to dispatch" how long do i have to wait for my Telephone?, it has said this since friday.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

According to some posts you will not need Petrovich to send files over BlueTooth in PR1.2 (next update, currently unavailable).

I am using BatteryEye, but seen post here that BatteryGraph allows to export data so it can be analysed on the computer in external program (OOo Calc, etc.).

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

I'm in a similar situation (except I probably won't end up getting one), but with different questions. I have an N810, for what it's worth:

1. The N810 feels really "closed" to me; it needs a bunch of kernel patches to run (ie, no DIY kernel upgrades with any sort of ease), has closed Wi-Fi drivers, excessive daemons, etc. Is the N900 any better? What, if anything, is closed/proprietary?

2. Is the GPS any better than the N810's? I'm concluding from various posts I've read that it still is fairly crummy and really needs a net connection to properly do its AGPS stuff, and, at least with the N810, you really couldn't hack around it.

Anyway, thanks.

Re: Just Some Questions Before I Buy N900.
 

Responding to myself:
Battery Eye keeps log of all battery-related events and changes in SQLite database in /home/user/.config/battery-eye/beyed.sqlite

One can use sqlite3 to open this file as database and get historical data, e.g. to get percentage of battery at all recorded moments one can use 'select * from observation;'