These are the minimal specs I need:

• Monthly fee: 20 $
• CPU: 1 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB
• HDD: 10 GB
• Traffic: 1 TB
• IPv6
• KVM based hosting (own kernel)
• Location: USA (US IP)

The last point is the critical thing. There are simply no good VPS providers in the US. Most of them are hosting very limited servers for very high prices. I tested two european providers with servers in the US.

Server4you.com

The price is ok but these are no KVM or Xen VPS. You have no control of the kernel. Tun/Tap devices are only possible with plans with higher pricing. So this is no option for me.

EDIS.at

This VPS seems to be perfect. Here are the specs:

• Fee: ~13 €
• CPU: 2.5 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB
• HDD: 12 GB
• Traffic: 4 TB
• KVM based hosting
• Location: USA

But there are two things I dislike. First thing, you get no IPv6 block. That's a pitty but ok. Second thing is a bit heavy. I really feel ripped. As you read the server is located in Chicago, USA. That's right but it has an IP address from Switzerland.

So I'm trying to address you, the readers. Does anyone know where to get a VPS with my desired specs or maybe better? You would really help me and my wallet, because the root server I'm using atm is killing me.

There are two methods of doing this, an easy one and one that's a little bit tricky for normal users.

Method 1: Reflash

The first and easiest method is to simply reflash your Nokia N9 with a more suitable firmware. If you choose this method you can head over to this blog article and continue reading there. But remember that you probably loose your data, settings or some other important stuff. Read the warnings carefully.

Method 2: Change your repositories

The second method is a for more suitable for advanced users but a normal user should understand it, too.

The reason why there is no Skype on chinese Nokia N9 is that they have different repositories. A repository is a software cataloge where Nokia stores all the apps you can install. There are different repositories. In our case one with all apps and one with limited apps. So we can just change that and have all apps we want.

Open a terminal and type in the following command:

devel-su

Now enter your root password (if you haven't changed it "rootme" without quotes).

You are operating your device with root / admin privilegs now, so be careful.

Next type in this command to check how your sources.list files name is. It's the text file where your repositories are listed.

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

You should get an output like this:

aegis.ssu-keyring-001.list
osa.list

Maybe you have more entries but the one we are interested in, is the one starting with aegis. Now knowing the name of your sources.list file type the following command to edit it:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/aegis.ssu-keyring-001.list

If your file looks like this (except the part between "https://" and the @ symbol) you don't need this tutorial because you already have the correct repositories. If not, just change the first line which ends with a number to the one shown here. Your line should have a different number at the end.

deb https://qa9recEP:Pat2UGuP@downloads.maemo.nokia.com/harmattan/001 ./
deb https://qa9recEP:Pat2UGuP@downloads.maemo.nokia.com/harmattan/apps ./
deb https://qa9recEP:Pat2UGuP@downloads.maemo.nokia.com/harmattan/tools ./

When you finished editing press Ctrl + X to close the file and then Y to save the changes.

Now you can install the new stuff by typing the following commands:

apt-get update

Skype:

apt-get install account-plugin-skype l10n-app-skype

Accuweather:

apt-get install wxapp

GoogleMail and GoogleTalk:

apt-get install account-plugin-gmail account-plugin-google-talk l10n-app-google

After a final reboot of the device you should be ready to use Skype and all the other apps that aren't available on the chinese firmware.

PS: I can't check if you need the new credentials or if you can keep yours. Maybe someone can check this and leave a comment. Thanks.

So here is the guide to reflash your Nokia N9.

Get the flasher utility

After you made a backup of your pone you have to get the right flasher released for MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan at http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/. You will need the flasher 3.12.1 or WinFlasher 3.12.1. Don't use the maemo flasher 3.5, this is for the Nokia N900.

Get the latest firmware

Then you will need to get the firmware image for your device. You can use a software called NaviFirm for that. Get it from http://www.symbian-toys.com/. You will have to do this on Windows. I didn't got this to work under linux with the newest wine.

You need to find out your product variant is. Mine is "059J1V4 - RM-696 NDT AUSTRIA BLACK 64GB". Locate your product variant under the microsim tray. See the picture for reference.

Now open NaviFirm and choose "Nokia N9 (RM-696)" in the first row, then "20.2011.40.4" in the second row, that's PR1.1. Now look for your product variant in the third row and mark and download the corresponding firmware image on the right.

The name of the firmware image file can be different for every product variant. Now you have all parts to flash your N9.

The flashing process

Make shure that your Nokia N9's battery is at least half full, because the process can take some time. Now power down your phone. Wait a few seconds before you continue.

Now open a terminal (Linux) or a command prompt where you installed flasher (Windows), type the following and press <Enter>. Change the filename to your firmware image filename.

flasher -F FIRMWAREIMAGE.bin -f

If you will see a message like "Waiting for device" everything is ok. Now connect your Nokia N9 with the PC and watch the magic begin. The flashing process should begin and you will be finished after 15min. Then disconnect the phone and restart it by pressing the power button. Everything should be fresh and clean now. This method shouldn't flash the userspace with your music and movies etc. but I'm not sure so make a backup before flashing.

UPDATE:

PR1.1 is outdated, so please use PR1.2 insted.

It looks just awesome. The quality couldn't meet the one of the original cover and I had to use some black parts to get the best fit but it works. With a little bit of super glue the last parts were fixed and now it just looks like I wanted it.

If you want a white Nokia N900 too, just head over to ebay and search it. You will find many offers starting at 10 $. This one was 12 $ and is worth every cent.

There are two ways to do this, but first we need a nice image. I used this small tux:

The picture must have a maximum size of 120 x 120 pixel and can only consist of black and white.

GUI method

You can use an application called LPMCustomizer for this. Download it here: http://my-meego.com/software/applications.php?name=LPMCustomizer&faq=13&fldAuto=406

Just open the debian package with the N9 and it should install the application automatically. This app doesn't work for me so I tried the terminal way.

Terminal method

First copy the image to a folder you normally don't see so that you can't delete the image by accident. I copied it to "/home/user/" with this command:

cp /home/user/MyDocs/Pictures/tux_bw.png /home/user/standby.png

Now you can just open the Terminal application and enter the following command

gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/meego/screen_lock/low_power_mode/operator_logo /home/user/standby.png

When everything goes right your standby scren should look like this now:

Update:

Some other nice standby pictures for you:

Tux

Debian Swirl

Rule #2

I managed to get Opera Mobile 11 running on Nokia N950. This is no official way and you will "break" your package manager because you have to copy files directly to the rootfs but atm there is no official port so you have no other choice if you really want Opera Mobile 11.

I extracted the files from the official RPM package for MeeGo 1.2 N900 DE available here (http://labs.opera.com/news/2011/05/24/).

Just download the tar file at the bottom of this post.

Get root access by ssh to localhost with the following command. The passwort is "rootme" without quotes:

ssh root@localhost

Then enter the following on the terminal to untar the archive and install:

tar xvf operamobile.tar
./install_operamobile.sh

To start Opera Mobile 11 you have to enter this on a terminal:

/usr/bin/operamobile

Download:

http://hotfile.com/dl/125265610/30d8d48/operamobile.tar.html

Important Note:

There is no way to uninstall Opera Mobile 11. You have to delete every single file by hand!

Update:

sandst1 managed to make a debian package out of the extracted RPM. See his blog posting here.

You can safely install the debian package over my release and if you uninstall the packaged version my files will get deleted too. So your package manager will be happy if you install that package.

Small example, if you want to backup your harddrive to a file you could use:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/home/user/my_harddrive.img

But dd doesn't show the current process. It only outputs it when it is finished. There is a solution to this but that needs a second terminal.

But here is a way that is really nice and works great. You can use a tool called pv, which measures the data which is piped to it. So if you want to backup your harddrive you could use:

dd if=/dev/sda | pv > /home/user/my_harddrive.img

It will display how much data is copied, the time elapsed and the current speed. If it knows the size of the input file you will even get a progress bar.

So another very nice tool I want to share with you.

It's based on the well known Knight Rider TV series. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Download it here: knight_rider-loading-bar.tar.gz

To the extent possible under law, I have waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Knight Rider loading bar. This work is published from: Germany.

Ricardo

So as I'm part of this world I will contribute to this sometimes very diffucult discussion. Please remember that all you will read here is my personal opinion, it could be completely rubbish for someone else. So let's start with this never ending story.

What is Maemo

Maemo is a mobile operating system developed by Nokia. It's my favortite OS in the mobile sector because it's based on Debian and I like Debian. But the most important point why I love this OS is, it's a real open source linux OS for mobile devices. Not this kind of "open source" that you know from Android. Android is not open at all. There is no contributing. Google just pops out a new version, then every manufactor adapts it to it's needs and you get it on your device. The real open source thing is a little bit different but that leads us to a completely different topic.

So Maemo is a operating system for mobile devices. Nokia developed it and put it on there smartphones.

What is MeeGo

The important point about MeeGo and this is what most of the poeple are complaining about is that MeeGo is no enduser type OS like Maemo. You can't put the normal MeeGo Handset or Tablet or whatever on your device and everything is fine. You possible could, but thats not the way it should be used.

MeeGo is a platform for people or companies who want a OS for there devices. So they can take MeeGo adapt it to there needs, for example with a custom UX and add stuff to it so that it runs on there hardware and thats important, contribute there changes and improvements back to MeeGo or upstream. Thats the difference from the Android approach. So you can make your own MeeGo and put it on your stuff. Like on your mobile phone, your car entertainment system, television or whatever comes to your mind. Thats the way Nokia has done it with there MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan software. So I don't understand why people argue with Nokia that they have done something evil. They did exactly what people should do with MeeGo. Take it, improve it, adapt it, put it on the device. The point about contributing back to MeeGo is not clear here because I don't know if Nokia contributes back. But in the past Nokia always does, like with GTK or Hildon, so I think they did it also this time.

What's up with Nokia

If you search for #Feb11, #Elopocalypse or "Maemo is dead, long live MeeGo" and all the topics that were discussed in the last months you will get an idea about the hole thing. In this post I just want to explain my opinion about it.

I really don't understand why Nokia chooses Windows Phone as there primary smartphone OS. I mean nobody likes Windows Phone, really nobody! My mom has no clue about operating systems and such stuff, so she's a normal enduser like millions of others and she would never buy a Windows Phone because she knows Windows from her home computer and she knows that it simply sucks. No matter if Windows Phone is good or not, nobody will buy it. So the first thing that come to the minds of "normal", non-technical people is: "Windows Phone? No, I don't want bluescreens on my mobile!". That's the association they have. Because mobile Phones don't have blue screens and if there is and error on your mobile phone you just put the battery out, put it back and everything runs fine and this happens not very often. On a PC the normal behavier is that you have many erros a day with confusing error messages and you are happy if your work with that damn mashine is done. You have tons of applications and you try to understand them but you don't want to stay too long because your life happens outside of this computer thing. Everything from the point of a "normal" enduser like my mom with no technical attitude.

So what Nokia should do in my opinion are two things. First they should continue the developement of Symbian for there low end devices because Symbian is the best operating system for mobile phones ever! I don't like it because I used to have mobile phones from the high end sector and Symbian is a low end OS. But for people who just want to make calls, write sms, etc. (normal phone activities), Symbian is the best they can get. Why? Because they already know it. Because Symbian was always there and they understand how it works. But there is one other big reason why Symbian is superior to all other mobile OS. The battery lasts a whole week! Thats very important because the normal guy is used to charge his/her phone every few days. But smartphones must be charged daily or many times a day if you really use it as a mini computer what it actually is. If you are my mom you won't buy a phone that you have to charge every day. So in my opinion Nokia should keep Symbian for there low end products because if you just want to make calls and stuff you don't need more than Symbian already does. And Symbian is really good in doing these simple things.

But what about the high end phones? This kind of mini computers with GigaHertz CPUs, massive storage, big cameras and internet connections and facebook apps. There must be a simple but powerful operating system that can do all this things. So I understand that Nokia needs to do something about that. Because they doesn't have such OS. They had Maemo 5 and that was a wonderful OS, but if you really want to use this powerful functions you have to learn some stuff and spend time to understand it. For technical people that is no problem, but the biggest group of people who buys phones are non-technical ones.

Like my brother, he doesn't want to know what OS is running on his phone. He doesn't want to know how the application store works. He just want to play games like Angry Birds, use the internet to communicate on facebook and shoot nice photos of cars he was driving in his job (he's a mechanic at Volkswagen/Audi). So he should be able to easily shoot a really nice high resolution photo of this great white Audi R8 he was driving today. With Maemo 5 he can't, because he first must search the internet how to enable the Extras-devel repository. Sure he must first find out what a repository is and that he can add one to get more software for his phone. After he managed this he can grap a better camera app like BlessN900 to shoot a nice HDR image of this great car he was driving. That is way too complicated for normal users. Normal non-technical users want smartphones that are easy to operate like the iPhone. I hate the stuff from this fruit religion/company but there is this one thing that they have done right. The normal apple guy wants to use a smartphone, not just a normal phone for making calls and he/she wants to to this without knowing how all the stuff works. He/She just wants to click 2 or 3 buttons and get there nice photo. That works with an iPhone. For example I, as a power user and developer hate this. I want to know what OS is this under the hood. I want to see the source code, adapt it to my needs, change stuff, do everything I want and if I want to change the hole operating system I want to be able to do it. That's the reason why I love my N900 because it's my phone and I can do with it what I want, no matter what or how complicated it is or how deep I must go into the system.

So Nokia needs an operating system for there high end devices. They choose Windows Phone which is a bad choice. In my opinion they should choose Maemo 6 aka MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan. I mean look at this amazing system. It's the perfect match between this iPhone style simple/easy/mommy thing and a power user/developer view. Because you can make so many cool things with it and it's so damn easy to do it but it's all open source and you as a power user can do all the stuff you want. This is the Maemo that Fremantle (Maemo 5) should have been. Maemo 5 was very good for power users but not easy enough for mommies. Harmattan has done everything right. It's the perfect Maemo/MeeGo that everybody in the Maemo/MeeGo community was waiting for.

But Steven Elop doesn't know me and if he did he simply would ignore my thoughts, so Nokia will kill Maemo, they will stop doing MeeGo stuff, than they will let Symbian die like Maemo and they will sit on there "burning platform" with there Windows Devices that nobody has bought and everybody will tell them "I told you so!".

Maybe I could see and get my fingers on a N9 or N950 today and with this experience I will summerise my opinions about these 2 new phones from Nokia in a few days in the next post.

So stay tuned for this and for now tell me your thoughts about the Maemo/MeeGo thing and what you think about Nokias attitude to Windows Phone. Do you know someone who has really used a Windows Phone and liked it?

Introduction

Long time ago in a community not so far away, ...

I've started a small project that includes a website and an app for uploading your Angry Birds highscores and compare them with others. Some guys told me that there was alreadfy a site with the same goal (angrybirds-score.com). But I continued developement of my own site because it was quite funny to do it.

Now I switched to another server and the old Angry Birds Online Highscore (ABOHS) was backuped and archived on my harddrive. Then all stuff was setup I began to bring up all the old services and there was my old project ABOHS. I asked the community at t.m.o if they want me to continue the work on ABOHS and the reactions where positive. But then there was the guy who runs angrybirds-score.com and he asks me if I would like to develop an app for his site. After I thought about it I decided to stop my own website and to start the development of this app.

Old things new

So I'm now developing an app for Maemo, Symbian and Windows for uploading of your highscores and game stats to angrybirds-score.com. It will take some time because I have many side projects at the moment. I will try to finish it as fast as I can.

If you like playing Angry Birds on your Maemo/Symbian Device or on your desktop computer running Windows you should have a look at angrybirds-score.com. There are hundreds of players with all platforms like iPhone, Android etc.

If you are interested in automatic uploading of your highscores and game stats look at abscore.makesyouhappy.org. I've setup a small website there to publish my app and the links to interesting stuff around the project. You can follow the development process at gitorious and report bugs at bugs.makesyouhappy.org.

I hope many people will like the app.