Notices

I will be interested in this if it works on the N900, which I'm guessing it will?

That said, how do you get Sideshow working on Windows 7? I can't find it anywhere but Microsoft claim its included on Home Premium.

I have no idea if it will work on an N900 "as is". I can't afford to buy one just yet to find out, either.

Are you using a Windows 7 RC? There should be a SideShow icon in the control panel. But, I do know there are reports of it not apppearing in some circumstances.

Take a look at this page for more info.

I couldn't find it when I was using the RC and its still not present now I have reinstalled the retail Home Premium edition. (in 30 day trial mode)

I will certainly test it for you on the N900 as soon as mine arrives, assuming I can get Sideshow working on my Windows machine.

Atually, thinking about it, I don't think the SideShow Control Panel icon will appear until Windows 7 actually detects a device. That makes sense, I suppose.

If working with N810 and Vista Home Premium? Why not ;-)

That seems to be what is implied. But like in that thread, it detects my phone as a sideshow device but doesn't bring up the control panel option. Then when you bypass it via the help link it does not show the device in the list there.

Seems its a known issue that Microsoft are going to fix later, at least according to that thread.

What could be useful though is if someone wrote a Sideshow server for Linux. Then you could for a laugh port it to Maemo and have a Windows Mobile device paired to a NIT as a Sideshow client. Probably pointless, but very amusing.

That said, if anyone has a PC with a REAL Sideshow device on it I would imagine you could flash the firmware and turn it into a Linux based device instead, taking Sideshow out of the picture entirely.

I can test it on my Vista laptop (which will later be upgraded to Win 7) once I get around to ordering the Win 7 Premium version (yay for student discounts.. I can get it for $30)

Does repairing your phone make a difference? As suggested here.

Pointless indeed. However, I've often thought that there is scope for something similar in Linux. Some kind of remote DBus device interface could be very useful.

Unfortunately my laptop had Vista Home Basic on it which I believe does not support Sideshow and certainly does not run as smooth due to lack of Aero support. One reason I was keen to get Windows 7 Home Premium while it was still on pre-order.

UPDATE
The alpha is now in the extras-devel repository.
It is also downloadable from garage.
See this post for more info.
END UPDATE

Sod it! Let's go for a public beta.

I've created a .deb that should deal with dependencies. It installs mSideShow into Extras.

Get it here;
Edit: Link removed.

At this stage, it only deals with glance data. That means there's no controlling music players, reading emails, viewing contacts etc.

A few things:
PLEASE report any issues.
PLEASE pass comments (good or bad).
Ideally, your tablet should already have a Bluetooth pairing with your Windows machine.
You may need to tell Windows to use the SideShow service. This can be done by selecting the "SideShow" tickbox in the Services tab of your Bluetooth device properties in Windows.

Have fun!