This probably sounds like a "WHY would you want to do that?" suggestion, but let me explain.

I live alone. I travel alone. I work alone (sometimes in scary places). With the best "Lone worker policies" in the world, there remains an element of risk. One of the small steps I can take is to use the "ICE" system in my phone's address book. The principle is simple: if police or paramedics find you unconscious in a pile of blood, they will check your phone's address book for ICE "In case (of) Emergency". And there they should find the contact details of the person or people you want contacted.

Except, if you drive an n900, what are the chances of the average police person or paramedic being able to work out how to open the address book or how to use it?

So I want something I can drop onto each homescreen which will open an entry to my next of kin (or whoever).

My first thought was a widget which would open a page of the notes in calendar (or leafnote?). This would have the advantage that I could enter two different people, and their relationship to me. Easier (I think) would be just to be able to put a contact entry onto each homescreen... since I can't count on a harrassed and bloodstained emergency work realising there's more then one.

Yes, I know - with any luck it will never be needed. But I'd rather it was there and un-needed than needed and not there.

Suggestions? Help?

Do four contacts, with basically the same data, put one on each.

or ice1-4. let the n900 decide which one of your emergency contacts finds out you are dead first.

i did this with generating the same contact 4 times in contacts list, so each time i add the contact on an homescreen one of the same contacts disappears from the "add contact" list.

Seems a tad messy! But thanks for the advice. I was thinking of making a little 'picture' for ICE, so can I use the same image for all four (which would save the 1-4 confusing a poor paramedic!)

i think the main problem is paramedic's capability of using n900, so many people around me don't have...

Well, that's the point. If s/he's capable of lighting up the screen (which will happen if s/he flips the keyboard, for example, which is a common enough thing to do with this form factor) then I want an 'ICE' icon visible which you can just 'poke'. Without needing to know that you're actually handling an open sourced, step-4 of of 5, maemo-powered pocket computer with telephony using PR 1.1.1....

i went to a vodafone store to register imei of n900 and the girl there couldn't even manage flipping the keyboard, she tried to slide just like n95. she didn't think of "poking" at all and vertical n900 writing on the right side gave her no clue

There is also the problem of using a lock code which i do, set at 1 hour. Not too anoying a time for me but makes the ICE thing even more difficult.

i suggest you carved the ice info with a knife at the back of ur phone. easy.