Having sorted out ‘facebook’ing from N900 last night, it was time to check on my second favorite online activity-Tweeting. The micro-blog service of Twitter has really caught on me and I just can’t imagine a day without accessing Twitter for Twitter is my new Google for its user generated content for search phrases have that human touch to it and are updated in real time making it a far better search engine than any of the automated search engines in market today.

Whether you find Twitter as an ideal replacement for google as the search engine of choice is debatable but the addiction to Twitter is unquestionable not only for me but for millions of netizens out there, for whom tweeting is as much a part of everyday routine as brushing their teeth! How does the N900 treat the Twitter addicts like us? Let’s find out. Read the rest of this entry »

Nokia N900 desktop.

You might be curious about the operating system of the Nokia N900 phone. Look no further. We have the 411 on the Maemo.

Based on the Debian operating system, the Maemo 5 (also known as Fremantle) is a linux software platform developed for smartphones and internet tablets developed by Nokia. This open-source code software derives its graphical user interface (GUI), frameworks and libraries from the GNOME project.

The Maemo’s interface can be manipulated in different ways. You can use the directional pad of the phone or, for the reason why it was invented, use touch interface. The Maemo 5 can also recognize handwriting and other gestures. This is the next step in touch-interface tablet technology.

Maemo 5 gives the user four (4) desktops similar to the Spaces feature on the Apple Mac OS X. These desktops can be customized with different backgrounds, shortcuts and widgets. Widgets are little applications running on the desktop. Basic widgets include a clock, calendar, news and notes. You may add or subtract any widget on your desktop. By swiping the screen, you can move from one desktop to another.

A breakthrough in Nokia web technology is the inclusion of a Mozilla (Firefox) based MicroB web-browser that comes with Adobe Flash and can display websites in a 800 x 480 display resolution. Compared to previous version of the built-in Nokia web browser, this is a breath of fresh air.

The following formats are supported by the Maemo 5 software:

• Video: MPEG-1, MPEG-4 ASP (H.263), RealVideo, AVI, 3GP
• Audio/playlists: MP3, RealAudio, MPEG-4, AAC, WAV, AMP, MP2, AMR, AWB, M4A, WMA. OGG/Vorbis (requires addon package), M3U, PLS
• Image/Animation: JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, SVG Tiny, ICO
• Text/layout: text files, PDF, HTML.

Your Nokia N900 will include this very powerful Operating System, which is said to be open and available for people to use and create new applications. If it does perform the way it is written, then Apple does have good competition in the lucrative mobile phone market.

For more information about Maemo, visit their official website at http://maemo.org/