Some people actually consider the N900 an education device - it has helped so many people to learn to develop that it is really true.

I admit that I'm planning to launch a dev blog and publish some videos on it to help new people getting started.

And yet: here you are..

I'm interested as to what your story is, really.

I came here in late 2007 when I needed help with my newly purchased N800. I was blown away by the cool tips and tricks here. When I had questions, the hackers here were incredibly helpful and supportive. I was just learning Linux then, and the N800 really made learning Linux fun.

I got interested in the attempts to port the Debian repositories to ARM, and I was fooling around with getting Debian running in a chroot. Then debernardis challenged the forum to get OpenOffice running, and shortly after it appeared in the Debian armel repositories, and I was hooked.

I have been fairly stressed, busy, and lacking in enthusiasm these days, but in general, these forums still tend to be more positive than negative for me. Cool hacks are still posted here first, and there's still lots of opportunities for me to keep learning and exploring cool new things. Coming here and trying out stuff like the WiFi hotspot or the bluetooth mouse hack helps keep me engaged in something when I feel frustrated and down.

I'll share my story, though I haven't been a very "community facing" maemo-ist. It's long and rambling, but this seems like an appropriate place to share it.

I was a Linux enthusiast from my mid-teens, and bought (and later won another in a programming contest) a Sharp Zaurus SL5000D to try my hand at mobile programming. I wrote a couple of small Qtopia apps, released my very first open source application, and installed a LAMP stack that allowed me to locally serve php/mysql pages to keep track of my bird list.

I upgraded to a Zaurus C1000 and continued php/mysql programming on device. Right around the time the N810 was announced I was interested in a more connected device (the Compact Flash wifi card in my Zaurus died). I followed the forums here trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on an N800 or wait for an N810.

Since all my previous mobile devices had hardware keyboards, I decided to wait for the N810 and bought it when it first came out. I was disappointed that there was no working LAMP stack off-the-bat, so I delved into GTK programming and wrote my bird list app using that.

While I learned GTK I decided to write some small applications I could release, and if memory serves "Large Statusbar Clock" was my first effort, borrowing the idea from wazd's blog. I was very encouraged by the reception I got from the community and listened to some of the suggestions for a better tablet experience. "Personal Menu" and "Personal Launcher" were born to fill some of the gaps the community noted. "Countdown Home Plugin" was a scratch-my-own-itch program to keep track of an upcoming vacation.

This was all OS2008 development, and I was pleased with the response theses programs received. After being admonished by my wife for not applying to go to the Summit (I think in '08) I applied for sponsorship to the '09 Summit with low expectations. I was surprised that I was considered important enough to attend, so made my first ever trip overseas and met my first ever community members in person. I was blown away by the friendly engaging nature of the community members

After (and before) getting an N900 I developed "Personal Dataplan Monitor," "Personal IP Address," "Personal Photo Frame," and ported "Countdown Home Plugin" to maemo5. I also ported Birdlist to maemo5, and got involved in Qt programming - both at the library level and application level. Of course, this involved porting Birdlist to Qt.

I look forward to writing my first Qt program for Meego, and hopefully a chance to attend the Meego Conference in Dublin. I have a lot less free time now compared to when I started - two young sons will do that.

I know I am not the most vocal member of the community, and I know my contributions can't match what I have gotten out of this community, but hopefully I can continue to make things people find useful. I hope to eventually increase my activity back to former levels, assuming my free time ever recovers.

I'd just like to address something that comes out of this point, not directly to you, but to everyone as a whole.. there are those of you who look at the people who are pouring bucketloads of time into Maemo, MeeGo, whatever project, and think.. "well, I can contribute so little, what difference does it make?" and similar things, and, well, that's simply not true.

The work is always there, waiting for your expertise, and your skills, and you *can* make a difference, no matter how much and how little you can put into it, and the work you do manage to do is highly valued and appreciated.

Back to you personally, I'd like to thank you, both for your work, and for your story.