Hi all!

I recommend noobs read these posts first:
root access for newbies

and
helpful links for newbies

The following list is not in any particular order and does not represent a "to do" list of things to install. It's just a bunch of stuff that I got working, that I hope will help other beginners enjoy their N810s.

* 7.5.08 - I'm posting this update using my Samsung R500 via Bluetooth for my connection! Kinda slow, but considering I'm up on a hiking trail in the mountains, I can't complain. Hint: you will need to know your username and password to tour cell provider. For Alltel, the username is YourPhoneNumber@alltel.com ; the password is 'alltel' .

* USB keyboard working (sort of) 7.3.08
I never tried get my USB keyboard working prior to Diablo. My female-female connector arrived today. I used my Winows pc keyboard.

As per the warning in the Internet Tablet School,
When I run usb control and hit the host button on the bottom, the tablet pauses for about 5 seconds and then complains: "USB device not supported". But, it works, and the USB keyboard is now the input device when the N810 built-in keyboard is not open. It takes the place of the on-screen keyboard.

But, after that, my on-screen keyboard will not pop-up until I reboot!

* Diablo Update 6.29.08:

I was able to successfully clone my Diablo flash to my new 8GB micro SD card this morning using Penguinbait's install-tools-n810e v 1.0.0-3. Lots of space in rootfs now!


Get the tools from http://www.penguinbait.com/
Some tips on using the tools:
You MUST run them from flash - not from the "internal" SD "card", or from the external card. You will probably have to run them more than once to get them to work. When you are done with them uninstall them from Application Manager. They contain code that lets them run on either Chinook or Diablo; I found out the hard way that if you had run them under Chinook and then upgraded to Diablo and tried to run them again, the leftover chinook portions freak them out and they won't run under Diablo.

I first tried it with the card unformatted. The .deb failed right away, complaining about corrupted or unformatted. I thought, 'fine, I'll format'. Same fail. I thought 'fine, I'll format and copy some files to make sure the card is alive'. It was, and disk-usage reported 7.something GB available.

Tried again, this time it reported "external card detected" and trundled for a while, then failed. The log showed that the partitioning had worked, but BLKRRPART thought the device or partition might be busy and could not re-read the part table and suggested a reboot might be be needed. The log showed that fsck complained the superblock did not show a correct ext2 filesystem. After that were various other errors, all secondary to the superblock thingie.

Tried again. This time, although it complained about "corrupt or unformatted card", it did not stop working. It trundled for about 10 minutes and then reported success!

All is OK and I can boot to flash or to mmc1; both have Diablo.

So, I have everything I need running on Diablo:
Garnet VM, gnumeric, Pidgin, WiFiInfo, USB control, load-applet, ntpdate, vncviewer, vpnc-gui, emelfm2, various utils like nano, traceroute, telnet, and (sort of) kismet (it still stops gathering packets after it runs for a while).

* on 6.24.08 Joe clued me into emelfm2. This is a fantastic tool, does everything that the Nokia file manager and gpe-filemanager do not:

Get the OS2008 .deb here: http://wardenclyffetower.com/MaemoFi...hinook.all.deb

Run it as root from xterm for maximum power.

*People say the n810 is a crappy PIM? HA! I just installed Garnet VM, and I am blown away. There has to be a way to pay those guys for this application. The Garnet VM gives me all the PIM capability I had with my Palm Zire. The HotSync over wireless was effortless and fast.
http://www.access-company.com/products/gvm/index.html
The Garnet screens look exactly like the Palm, complete with the handwriting recognition area. Totally Amazing!



* Need to charge? Instead of buying another Nokia travel charger (list $27.00), get this nifty Kinsington USB retractable power-tip; I found it at Circuit City for $14.99 http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/produ...T&cm_keycode=4

* The Internet Tablet School tip about leaving the tablet on, in "airplane mode", with the screen locked, not only works to save battery life, it allows the NIT to be quickly avaiiable without waiting to boot. I left GarnetVM running all day at work; it was just like having my Palm Zire again.

* Learned about redpill/bluepill mode from http://www.internettablettalk.com/wi...B_Dual-Booting) Red Pill makes searching for available apps from already installed catalogs easy - I discovered that I did not have to go and download apps; they were already there!

* vncviewer working great now - the problem was the encryption settings on the work servers - we use a purchased version of RealVNC 4.4 . The fix is to use the "Import Legacy 3.3" from the realVNC options dialog on the host. I originally obtained vncviewer here: http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/shaman...ternet-tablet/ , but it might be available now in from Application Manager.

* nmap working now, from both /usr/bin and external SD card ( /media/mmc1 ; note that on the n810's /media/mmc2 is the internal card. To allow chmod to set x privilege on vfat partions, edit the mmcmount file) I obtained my version of nmap here: http://home.mminternet.com/~delaroca...ap-4.50.tar.gz

* OpenSSH is great - get that app early in your hunt; it is one of the apps that can be installed via the Application Manager. Can also be used to gain root, by SSH'ing into your own tablet. You can also SSH to your tablet from another computer!

* EasyRoot installed - quick way to get root. get EasyRoot here: http://nitapps.com/) After installing, just type "root" from the Xterm promt.

* vpnc-gui working great with corporate Cisco VPN. vpnc-gui can be installed via Application Manager.

* Pidgin working with our corporate Groupwise IM system. It crashes a bit, but it is mostly OK. People are freaking out as I IM them from unexpected places! Pidgin can be installed from the list in Application Manaer

* Fixed problem with WPA-PSK and 64-hexit PSK http://www.internettablettalk.com/wi..._no_passphrase ) wireless is solid and reception is great. I'm hopping on all kinds of "free" unsecured networks (just for test purposes, of course. " I never had wireless relations with that SSID..." ). Reception is very good.

* The Mameo SDK repos are not just for developers! http://maemo.org/development/tools/)and now have traceroute, nano, telnet, tcpdump working.

* qwerty12 pointed out how to edit my profile to permanently extend my path from xterm as root : * Got kismet (mostly) working, thanks to help from tz1 and others via the Kismet Thread:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...t=1322&page=14
Kismet will run, but tz1's binary was compiled from 2007 source, not the 5.18.08 source. tz1's binary uses the n770 driver. Not sure if that is part of the problem, but when I run Kismet on my n810, it stops grabbing packets after a random amount of packets go by (BTW, setting connection search to 'never' does not fix this, as is reported in many posts). Kismet will also not report the signal strength, and after upgrading to Diablo, pressing 'r' no longer pops up the packet graph window.

All in all, I am very pleased. My only complaint is the stiff, spongy keyboard - hey Nokia - fix that on the n900! Use the microswitches from your other phones!!

Steve

The n810 keyboard is that bad? I really need to test one out. Is there a nokia store in new york?

Hi;

Some like it; I do not. Your mileage may vary. Check out this thread.
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=20187

Steve

not sure about a nokia store, but here's a place that i know which carries the n810. mobilecityonline.

Some Best Buy Stores have them in their store. You can check their in-store availability online:

Best Buy:Nokia N810

Not sure if they are on display or not but it might be worth a phone call.

I think the N810 keyboard is pretty good for a device of that size, weight and price.

It's certainly better than on most pocket QWERTY devices I've used.

But there's always room for improvement on keyboards (unless you own one of those really old PC keyboards with the proper clicky switches in them that seem to be extinct now).

Hi;

Let me be clear on this point: I love my n810, despite the (for me) unusable keyboard.

I only slide it down when I have to do something that I can't do with the on-screen keyboard, such as press up,down,right,left arrow. (BTW, if they would just let the on-screen keyboard work when the keyboard is slid open, that would make things a lot easier!)

As a person who loves good design and is frustrated by easy to avoid errors, I am very, very bugged by the problems with the keyboard - because they would have been trivially easy to fix.

All Nokia would have had to do is use standard keys from another phone, make them smaller so they don't touch, and give them nubbins. That's all!

I have a strong suspicion that a boss on the design team gave more weight to "pretty" than "functional". I'm totally baffled that nobody at Nokia put a force gauge on the keys and noticed that it takes well over half a pound of force to activate! Bizarre.

My company bought my n810. Someday I'd like to buy the successor for my personal use, but it has to have two things that the n810 does not:

* It has to be a phone.
* It has to have keys that take less than 8 oz. of force to depress.

It this asking to much?

Steve

I found myself majorly missing a SIM card slot for data access on my recent 12 hour car trip :P Although... I don't think I would have had an issue had I not broken my bluetooth phone with high-speed data networking a few weeks ago :P

And I definitely think the keyboard could use some improvement. I really like it though

Hmmmm....

Is a SIM card all that is required to turn the n810 into a phone? I would think that it is missing the circuits needed to communicate over a cellular network - but I am *very* ignorant in this area.

Steve

Well, from a consumer perspective, the SIM is all; they don't see what radios are inside, and it's assumed that if Nokia adds a SIM slot, they add whatever "magic" is needed. But you're exactly right; there's no GSM radio.

BTW, the on-screen keyboard may be used while the slide is open; I saw a post on it recently (last week or so), but I don't use an N810, so I don't know; some key combo enables it. Ctrl+Fn, maybe? or something...