N800 as a professional tool

Openoffice.org 3 !!!

2009-04-26T10:39:00.005+02:00

One year of silence on this blog - it happens you know, there are times you don't feel like talking or you find other ways of expressing yourself. But, I had to say this...

Yes, a quick post only to say that debian repositories now sport the 3.0.1 version of Openoffice.org - too good! It also imports pdf files as drawings (though not perfectly we must admit). If only there was more ram on the device...

Abiword got to 2.6.8 - no great change from the previous version, but still a nice word-processor which starts quickly and does its job.

Abiword 2.6.4

2008-08-05T15:08:00.005+02:00

Debian sid repositories for armel now sport the latest Abiword 2.6.4 - this is slick and powerful on the internet tablet. Perfect for writing, includes conversions for plenty of other word processing formats, outputs to pdf, has collaborative tools.

What are you waiting for? Go get Debian for the Internet Tablet, update, upgrade, enjoy :-)

Rlplot: easy scientific graphs for the internet tablets

2008-07-16T15:03:00.004+02:00

For those like me, who aim at using their tablet as the sole computer for work and leisure (at least when other workstations are unavailable :-) ), here is rlplot - a simple yet powerful wysiwyg plotting program. One step away from your tablet, using synaptic or apt-get under debian chroot.
It produces publication-quality graphs of several kinds, including horizontal and vertical error bars, box-and-whisker plots, and has also basic statistics on numerical data.

Easy Debian on the internet tablets

2008-07-05T21:10:00.003+02:00

Qole did it again - now installing Debian is straightforward for everyone, and there's no excuse for not trying. You will have full and up-to-date Openoffice.org, Abiword, Firefox 3 (Iceweasel) with Java and thousands other packages on your tablet.
And - don't believe they're too slow - in fact, they take time to start, but afterwards they're responsive enough to make some serious work. I did - editing letters, converting to pdf and sending, editing presentations, browsing them full screen...

Among the various applications available, which you can install with Synaptic, or with apt-get in a console, I found also Pdftk - a command-line pdf merger, splitter, encrypter and decrypter, and Mp3info-gtk, a mp3 audio file tagger. Both work well and are easy to use.

Openoffice.org and Abiword: work in progress

2008-05-23T08:49:00.004+02:00

It's becoming reality - now you can have those applications you sorely lacked on your internet tablet. The sorcerer who made all possible is Qole - thanks Qole my friend! (see his signature).

Openoffice.org 2.4 and Abiword 2.4.6 already work (even if with some glitches, which should be fixed hopefully).
It's not a breeze to setup, yet: you have to make a big partition, untar there a debian armel rootfs, then activate it by chrooting, update, upgrade, and apt-get install those applications you need.

Everything is explained here:

I am still having trouble in making the proper desktop items, and I have been changing the Qole's script for chrooting as root. When I get some real results, I'll post here. But I am very happy of these new opportunities!

The video above - admittedly ugly and boring - shows openoffice.org writing and drawing, plus abiword, so that you can see how (un)responsive are these apps on the N810.

OS2008 and the art of writing

2008-03-30T15:15:00.005+02:00

The problem

Since OS2008, there's no abiword. This is sad but true, and while a new version of abiword is indeed in beta phase, it is still unusable for serious writing because of too frequent freezing and crashing. So, how are we going to do in the meantime?

The solutions

Xournal. Some details here. You can use it for short docs only, though, say one page letters. Text does not wrap, and that's all. But you can open pdf files and annotate them by hand, and this is invaluable. A new port is coming, says Anidel.
The Notes app, shipped with OS2008. Has basic formatting, saves in html so that you can open your scribbles with every modern word processors. Crashes often for somebody (not in my hands).
Microsoft Office. No, it's not a joke, you can have it. Just a 4.2.1 version from 14 years ago :-)
You can do it easily: install Basilisk II (a nice Mac 68k emulator) as described here; buy yourself a copy of the old dinosaur (i.e. on ebay) and install. It's not too slow, and it's usable.
You better get also the free filters for word and powerpoint 97/98 files. Ah, and you can make pdf files from your office documents with the PrintToPdf extension - but beware, you'll need two copies of Basilisk, actually: here's why.
Plain text? Duh! That's for geeks. If you are a geek, use vi, or emacs. No pointer for those, sorry.
By now I am using Notecase - it's an outliner, and has some nice features. Has some basic formatting, exports to html, and there are ports for various linux distros and for windows, other than for maemo.
An outliner allows you to jump back and forth quickly through the sections of your document and this is good for writing in a non-sequential manner - the way you could write a scientic paper (I am doing that, presently).
The future is lyx.

Paper to Xournal - easy!

2008-01-19T14:31:00.001+01:00

I like Xournal very much. And now for yet another reason: because it is quite easy to convert your handwritten paper notes to the xournal xoj format (and then edit, annotate, convert to pdf as wished).

Get here script for your linux box to convert scanned notes to xoj. Some dependencies are needed - they're in ubuntu - debian repositories though.

Another script to combine several xoj files into one is also included.

Xournal as a word processor for OS 2008

2008-01-19T13:40:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Aniello Del Sorbo (anidel on internettablettalk.com/forums) we have Xournal for OS2008. Aniello ported version 0.4.1 which sports a new and useful tool in comparison to the version ported for the previous operating systems, i.e. a text tool which allows to insert/edit text from the keyboard, in a chosen font.

This is more or less what you want from a basic word processor, right?

And this way we have a simple way to prepare letters and memos on-the-fly, already in pdf format thanks to Xournal export-to-pdf tool, and mail them or send to a mail-to-fax service.
I have converted to pdf the letterhead of my hospital and now I'm able to prepare those stupid bureaucracy stuff almost anywhere. This is great because unfortunately abiword for os 2008 isn't ready yet, and there's no other simple way to get a formatted output for all those silly institutions that don't like plain old paperless ascii :)

Xournal can do other tricks, though, for sure... Get it from Maemo site.

I am so glad

2008-01-09T14:04:00.000+01:00

I have just received my n810, 5 days only after discount codes were activated.
It's awesome. The touch and feel is way better than I thought after all my readings.
It's a bit of the future in my hands, the future I want for my little daughter: free info, collaboration of people no matter how far, beauty and peace. I see all these things into this small piece of silicon and metal. Maybe I am starting to be senile but this is the kind of dreams you grow to appreciate with time.

Flat-file databases on your n800

2007-12-02T08:55:00.001+01:00

Flat-file archives are easy to understand and manage, are quite a typical office application, plus are useful in several fields and professions, so let's look at programs to manage them on our n800.
Broadly, the term "flat-file database" refers to any database which exists in a single file in the form of rows and columns, with no relationships or links between records and fields except the table structure (see wikipedia article). For instance, a list of names, phone numbers and addresses, or a list of products, codes and prices.

At present, I know two programs that can manage such a database on the n800: Gnumeric and Info-on-tap.

Gnumeric is a well-known and already established free spreadsheet program (a far descendant of Visicalc!), which allows a database to be prepared quite easily in the usual rows-columns setting. Of course, you will have a first row with field names, and each subsequent row will contain a record. Editing is straightforward. Searching is easy, either with the EDIT / FIND command, or by setting up an automatic filter (select all the database columns, then go to menu DATA / FILTER / ADD AUTO FILTER). All the more advanced data extraction techniques which are standard on modern spreadsheet programs are available.

Info-on-tap is much younger: it's a python application, coded by Gene Cash, which implements creation, management and query of a flat-file database with quite intuitive commands.
In order to install it you have to include Gene's repository in your /etc/apt/sources.list - this can be accomplished in an automated way, by clicking on its "click to install" green arrow onto the programs' page, or by hand editing the sources.list file while being root. If you decide to go the manual way (as I generally prefer), the repository coordinates are the following:
deb http://home.cfl.rr.com/genecash/nokia/debs bora free
(this is the line to add to your sources.list file).
Either way, you should subsequently find info-on-tap, as well as the other Gene's applications, in to the list of the installable software of your application manager.
After installation, you'll find it in your extras menu. When starting the app, you'll see an almost blank window. The first thing you want to do is create a new database (right?) - don't be fooled by the "ADD NEW" button in the bottom of the screen, which is there to add new fields or new records, but navigate the menu and choose NEW TABLE. Here you can give a name to your database, and add fields through the ADD NEW button. At present, your fields may have the following types: date/time, integer, floating point, single-line text and multi-line text, but probably Gene will implement also drop-down lists, because they can be seen in his online documentation.
After you define the structure of your database, and push the OK button, you'll be ready to populate it with records, again with the "ADD NEW" button. At any time, you can re-define your table or edit records. You can also search your database, either with the "FILTER" list box on the bottom of the screen, or with the EDIT FILTER / NEW FILTER menu command, which allows quite complex filter combinations with boolean operators, which can also be saved for future use. There's a simple SEARCH menu command available if you like, too.
Last (but not least) your database table can be exported to html, for internet publishing or for browsing on generic PDA's.
Gene is actively working on this app, and new version seem to be published almost daily in his repo. My short review is based on today's version, but I bet that next version will be quite interesting. What about the possibility of adding picture fields? Or being able to compose fancy input masks?

Concerning usability, it's clear that Gnumeric is a complex, multifunctional application and might confuse and/or intimidate those who don't have much experience with spreadsheets (are there any, tough?). Other than being able to make several things, it has a clear advantage in comparison to info-on-tap, in that it should be able of importing & exporting in several formats, so that you can put on your tablet other existing flat-file databases, either directly or by some straightforward conversion that you can perform on your desktop computer.

On the other hand, Info-on-tap does what it is intended to do, no less and no more, so it might appeal the user who wants to concentrate on his archiving task; has a quick and nice interface, and promits to evolve in a powerful program. You will have to populate its tables by hand, though, until its Author develops a way to import comma-separated values or other simple text-based archives.

Thanks a lot old boys!

2007-11-10T21:53:00.000+01:00

Making useful things with pdf files

2007-11-04T13:16:00.001+01:00

From time to time I have felt the need for a tool to work with pdf files, i.e. selecting a number of pages from one file, merging with pages of another file, annotating and signing the resulting document and encrypting it with a password so that it can't be modified (or - at least - can't be modified too easily).

On my linux box, the most straightforward solution is pdftk. This is an excellent command-line utility, with some gui interfaces also available (search Google for them - I have been using this one), which does all those things and more. Windows, Mac OsX and BSD binaries are also available.

Did I tell you that my objective is to do on my N800 everything I can do on my desktop?
Yes, but pdftk is a thing that presently can't be compiled for the internet tablet. It needs a java compiler, and no one is available for our platform. So, shall we give up? No.

PyPdf, written by Mathieu Fenniak, is our new tool. As stated by its homepage,

PyPdf is a Pure-Python library built as a PDF toolkit. It is capable of:

extracting document information (title, author, ...),
splitting documents page by page,
merging documents page by page,
cropping pages,
merging multiple pages into a single page,
encrypting and decrypting PDF files.

OK, so Python is the only dependency needed, and with Python and pyPdf we shall be able to do more or less everything can be done with pdftk. Python is also the interpreter language for several nice applications written for the Internet Tablets, so it's likely you already have it.

How do you know if it's already there? Open a xterm window and give the command "python".
You should see something like the following:

">>>" is the Python prompt and we will use it later. For now you can exit Python by giving the "exit()" command.

If, on the other hand, no Python prompt is shown (you get something like python: not found), then you have got to install the runtime. Go to http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/installation.htm and follow the instructions.

Keep the xterm window open because we must go on working there.

Given we have Python, we need also its development modules which are needed to install the pyPdf library. So, go to the http://pymaemo.garage.maemo.org/manual_installation.html page and perform the install of development packages as described in the last paragraph. Briefly, the commands are

sudo gainroot
apt-get install python2.5-dev
exit

Now you've got to take PyPdf. Download the latest version from http://pybrary.net/pyPdf/
You could do

wget http://pybrary.net/pyPdf/pyPdf-1.10.tar.gz

Uncompress:

gunzip pyPdf.1.10.tar.gz
tar xvf pyPdf.1.10.tar

Install the library (while being root):

sudo gainroot
python2.5 setup.py install
exit

Now we are ready to fiddle with pdf files. This will require issuing commands directly at the python prompt so let's call python again like before and when we get the prompt ">>>" we can start experimenting. The best thing is follow the example give in the pyPdf home page.

The example opens a "document1.pdf" file and composes a new document, with the first unchanged page of document1.pdf, the second page (rotated clockwise), the third page (rotated counterclockwise), the fourth page superimposed on a watermark (taken from "watermark.pdf"), and the fifth page cropped to half size; in the end, the new document is written into a new file.
Just substitute document1.pdf and watermark.pdf with files of your choice, copy the example commands one by one and paste to the Python prompt, hitting Return to execute each.

Of course, using the Python interpreter is not ideal, and a GUI is needed. I hope I can code it as soon as I have some free time...

Printing with your N800

2007-10-22T17:26:00.001+02:00

We must thank Penguinbait, one of the happy inhabitants of the Internet Tablet Talk Forums, for having ported CUPS - the Common Unix Printing System - the most common interface to printers for Linux.

Printing from your Internet Tablet can be very useful, even if there are few applications which allow that, because the built-in apps and the majority of ports have not been coded with the idea of printing their contents.

Quite luckily, Abiword 2.2.7 has printing, hence it looks like we can do some paper-oriented word processing on our tablets.

Beware there are some glitches, though: for example, I have not been able to print images into page headers correctly, like in common letterheads. Also, at times some images aren't printed at all. My workarounds where to avoid letterheads in headers at all (sigh) and, for the second problem, include the recalcitrant image into a text box - it works this way, at least in my hands.

Paying attention to these points, I was able to write and print letters with the official logo of my institution and my scanned signature in the end, and also convert them in pdf format, ready to be sent as faxes with an internet-based service.

How did I produce pdf from abiword? Easy... The print menu allows to print to a file, and the resulting file is in postscript format. Well after you have your filename.ps file you need the ps2pdf utility (it's in the cups port of Penguinbait).
I did /usr/local/bin/ps2pdf -r300 filename.ps filename.pdf in a term window, and OK - here's the pdf file I needed.

You can also directly print a pdf file by doing lpr filename.pdf

There is a debian package I did for Penguinbait's cups port - go get from http://www.debernardis.it/n800/cups12_armel.deb

Be aware to follow the remaining instructions in the original Penguinbait's thread and in particular executing ldconfig and disabling docpurge.

Let me know if there are problems with it.

Word-processing on the n800

2007-10-21T12:04:00.000+02:00

After trying several text-editing and word-processing applications for the n800, after trying to compile siag office and ted with unsatisfactory results, I'll stick for the moment to abiword 2.2.7 aka maemo word processor, at least until the new operating system 2008 is ready and a new version of abiword is available.

Abiword 2.2.7 in itself is not bad, it's also capable of printing if you have Cups on your tablet or exporting to a postscript file, and with some fiddling does produce some mixed text/graphics documents without crashing.

It's not-so-easy to install, right! You have to switch to red pill mode, which is not straightforward and may givr problems with your tablet if you install or upgrade something not ready for the average user.

For this reason, I have fixed the original packages for abiword 2.2.7, the way that they can be installed directly from your application manager without turning to red pill mode.
Go get the following files:

save them in your mmc or in your home directory, and install them in this same order by double-clicking each one in your file manager.

In the end of this process, you should find abiword in your tablet's extra menu.

Never do this

2007-04-07T20:25:00.000+02:00

Say you want to start over with your internet tablet and have a xterm open, and
you think you can issue a "reboot" command.
Say you try but your OS informs you that this can't be done because you have no root privileges.
Say you think you are smart and do "sudo gainroot" and then "reboot".

Well you better never try. Your tablet will never boot again and will stay stuck somewhere before the nokia hands appear.

I did this sad experience. My OS needed reflashing. Oh well, at least this is quick if you have another computer available. But if you are out for a trip,, you better trade your n800 for a moleskine :-)

Me and my tablet

2007-04-07T19:21:00.000+02:00

What am I going to post in this blog? The point of view of a professional user who took his n800 as an aid to his work and hobbies, and intends to turn it in a portable workstation for office tasks, power browsing, data searching, archiving and retrieval.
In the past few years, I have used for these tasks the complete series of Nokia Communicator smartphones, includung the 9000, 9110, 9210 and 9500 models, a Sony-Ericsson P800 plus a number of laptops. Let's see if the n800fits better than those for my scopes; I'll publish my discoveries and thoughts here so that they might be useful for others. Well, if eventually the n800 scores low for my needs, I'll pass it to my wife :-) and get for me an E90 or some other futuristic device to come!