I can't think of a way that doesn't use the pipe symbol (the "|" symbol) which has been relegated to the virtual keyboard. What you might be able to do is remap the keyboard to give you access the the pipe symbol and any others that you might need from the hardware keyboard.

Hmmm...Looks pretty hard. Why not just simply run Nokias own backup app and install ssh server on n900 and then copy everything to desktop pc (If usb-mass-storage mode is impossible without touch screen).

Or even better buy microsdhc card and put it inside of n900 and run nokias own backup app and make backup to card and additionally copy whole filesystem also to card. Nokias own backup app saves PIM info from phone. You can also use fast application manager to save you application list so that you can restore it.

Looks like remapping involves a lot of code, but aside from that, wouldn't I need to type the | in order to remap it? or am I understanding the code incorrectly?

Having just looked at that again, that looks fairly out of my depth, I've failed programming courses a few times...

What if I program a script to connect to a Wifi network, and install the VNC and get it up and running, place it on to a microsd card, and run that from xterm?

EDIT: I realise I've contradicted myself with my lack of programming knowledge, what I mean is, what if someone else programs a script

use gconftool --all-dirs /system/osso/connectivity/IAP to list the dirs and then go through them one by one with gconftool -R /system/osso/connectivity/IAP/GUID?

Instead of doing: which gives a recursive list of all things under that gconf folder, try: which will list all the subfolders. Then for each folder name (it will be a pain to type them in as they are so long), do for example: to see the details inside that particular folder. Repeat until you find out which one is the connection you require.

EDIT: vitaminj beat me to it!

If you have vim installed, you can write a shell script and execute that. In vim, you can insert a pipe using Ctrl+V and then x7c in insert mode (7c is the hex code for the pipe character).

Ncc - Just make a textfile, name it x.sh

In it, place the commands you want to run, in order.
Copy it to the n900, then type: "sh /path/to/x.sh". It should run.
You can try it with the above network command.

Alternately, grab backupmenu and it's dependancies(you need the armel .deb files), and install (as root) with "dpkg -i /path/too/pkg.deb"

I'm guessing I'm getting the file path wrong. I've placed the x.sh file into the root of the microsd, and tried

"sh /media/mmc1/x.sh"

which came back with "sh: can't open /media/mmc1/x.sh"

Um, that didn't occur to me.
But it doesn't actually involve much typing.

Actually, I just checked, you don't need to type that character, it is called "bar" in that file. And it is possible to modify the keymap without using the touchscreen. I did run into a minor snag in that vi/vim require you to press Escape to leave "insert" mode, but I worked around that by copy and pasting the letter I needed using "visual mode" (press "v" to enter visual mode, use arrow keys to select text, press "y" to yank/copy selection into buffer and "p" to put/paste buffer contents after the cursor, you can also use "d" followed by left/right to delete the character left/right of the cursor the "d" can be prefixed by a number to delete multiple characters.) For my test I replaced "Eurosign" (you only need to change the first one on the line, the second is for function+shift) with "bar" in "english_base" to achieve the desired result, but if you are not using the English layout you need to change it in the section for the layout you are using.

You sure you got that right? I tried it on my N900 and my Ubuntu netbook and it didn't work.