I've just done a tutorial on using an ordinary computer keyboard with the N800 and N810:

http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/200...-ordinary.html

It's been extremely popular even though it's only been published for a few hours, so obviously there are a lot of people out there who want to do this kind of thing with their tablets.

I've tried the same method for attaching a USB flash drive which worked fine, and I'm going to try attaching an externally-powered HDD later on.

However, I'm getting a bit nervous working with memory storage devices, as Windows and Ubuntu require me to make them safe for removal before unplugging them. Is there any equivalent procedure when using flash drives or HDDs with the tablets?

(Before someone says search the forum, I couldn't find any mention of this particular thing in other threads on here.)

Safe removal means unmounting the device.

run df -h to see where it is mounted and then as root, run umount <mount path>

Okay, maybe I should have been more specific.

Does anyone know an EASY way to safely remove/unmount the devices? The kind of method I could publish on the Internet Tablet School site? A GUI-based method?

Ah, I think I've found it!

If I click on the USB icon in the status bar at the top, there's an option which says "Disable USB Disk". When I select it, it tells me it's been disabled and that I can remove the cable.

The support for USB drives now seems so seamless (the automatic starting of File Manager, the message telling me to remove the cable when I disable it), it's as if Nokia had intended this to be an official feature but then kept quiet about it. Why on earth would they do that?

Hehe, cool . I don't have an adapter so I didn't know you could do that.

If you ever get a person asking;
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=17811

^ Will give you NTFS support on USB drives.

You should get an adapter, they only cost a few pounds/euros/dollars but they let you do lots of interesting things with the tablet. Attaching a keyboard alone has made it worth my while.

Thanks for the info, but I have real trouble understanding all the command line stuff, I'm not actually that good with getting "under the bonnet" of computers. I do try to point people to this board though whenever they ask technical questions.

Wow, that does sound good. I can spare a couple of pounds

This is really easy actually, ukki did a great job. All you do is install the fuse package and the ntfs3g package after it using the application manager. and then just plug in the ntfs usb. No command line needed

My adaptor cost 4 euros which is about 3 pounds, it's so cheap and useful Nokia ought to bundle these with the tablets.

Even from a newbie's point of view it's incredibly easy to get it working: search for USB Control in the maemo.org downloads section, click on the install link, when it's installed open the app and press "host", then plug the keyboard (or whatever) in. Almost no technical knowledge required. :-)

Hmm, this has got me itching to try out other USB devices. Is there any way to get a USB printer to work with the tablet? I couldn't find any mention of it in other threads...

Hehe, http://www.internettablettalk.com/20...-linux-almost/

Not really conclusive. Best bet is to install penguinbait's KDE as that has cups (one of the printing standards afaiK)