Actually it's extremely easy now; As long as you have OS 2008 installed (N810 this is the only option, N800 obviously you need to make sure you've got it installed) all you need is one of
these for the N800. I understand for the N810 that a similar adapter/dongle should be available shortly. All you have to do is plug it in, plug in your USB device, and the tablet will recognize it (see the list of supported devices in the wiki entry).

The biggest draw for USB seems to be thumb drives and USB keyboards; both of which I think would have a significant following among new commers rather than just "niche" groups...

Anyways, thanks again for the excellent site!

-Rob

Rob, thanks for that info. I think what put me off was a recent blog entry on maemo.org which claimed you had to modify the cable yourself, or buy a female/female adaptor and install software, but apparently that isn't required.

EDIT: Aha, you make these modified dongles yourself! Do you think other places will start making them too, or is your shop the only source at the moment?

Krisse,
Your clear, concise tutorials with video are clearly the product of hard work and your love of these devices. After watching several of your vids and seeing the simple beauty of the GUI with the variety of cool software available due to the efforts of many, I finally decided to go ahead and order a Nokia N800 ! (currently, onsale.com has a good price...)

Thank you for helping me discover just the perfect little portable device that will do everything I want it to (and more). Nokia should sign you up as an NIT Ambassador

Edski, thank you!

I do these tutorials precisely because I do think it's a powerful and very easy to use device once you know how to get started, so I'm helping people get started.

To give Nokia their credit, they have loaned me an N800 totally free and gave me an 80% discount on buying an N810, so they have helped the site as well.

There's been a thread for a while by various users in the N800 section of the forums talking about how to make some different versions of the cable/adapter; I started by making one for myself, found a fairly easy way to do it, and posted it up. There were several responses from some of the less technical people (my favourite was "easy to do is relative to your skill with a soldering iron!") wishing they could just buy one somewhere and be done with it, so I did some checking and decided to just keep doing the same thing I'd done for myself and offer them up for other people to purchase. At the moment as far as I know I'm the first person to do this, but I mean there's certainly nothing saying that I'm the only one who ever can or will Once I get the initial batches sorted out (I knew there would be some desire for these, but the demand has been overwhelming!) I'm working on establishing some reseller prices as well so that others can help keep the shipping costs down in other areas.

The goal and motivation of the whole thing is to make it easy for everyone to be able to enjoy the full USB functionality of the tablets, not just the more adventurous among us.

Thanks!
-Rob

That's really great Rob, I wish you the best of luck with the venture!

Just out of interest, is it possible that Nokia might simply alter the next firmware so that the normal adaptors work without modification? Or are they unlikely to do that for technical reasons?

Another tutorial, this time on how to connect the N800 or N810 to the internet using a wi-fi connection:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...nect-your.html

As always, please please please DO say if you spot any mistakes, it's always helpful to hear feedback on these tutorials.

Okay, this tutorial is for Star Trek fans, or anyone who just wants a completely new theme for their N800 or N810. It tells you how to turn your tablet into one of those "PADD" computers that they carried round the ship, but unlike the props this will actually work:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...turn-your.html

I've added a video of the LCARS theme in action, if anyone's curious to know what it looks like in various applications:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...turn-your.html

Another tutorial added to the Internet Tablet School, this time explaining how to use the RSS Feed Reader, and why it's such a useful application:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...-rss-feed.html