Notices

Hi wonderful community

Got some application questions pertaining to the N810...

1) Is there a way to sync Thunderbird/Lightning calendar to a calendar in the N810 to look at it when the device is on- or offline?

(If it helps, I could potentially publish the calendar content to something supporting CalDAV or WCAP).
(The local calendar files are .sdb).

2) Is there a way to subscribe to, and download podcasts onto the N810? I am a Zune user and use the Zune marketplace but I doubt that desktop app would install on the N810?

3) What OS options are there for the N810? Which one seems to be most popular - and why?
I'm not too familiar with Linux (a 20+ years DOS/Windows user...) but I don't mind learning it if there are significant upsides to is

1) I don't think so, but I don't really know.
2) Yes, use my first Newbie link to look for gPodder. You can download directly into the Tablet or you can, at a minimum, drag and drop from your desktop. (There may be synch programs, I don't know, as I usually skip the PC altogether for podcasts.)
3)The default, currently Diablo, is most popular. But you can choose to dual-boot -- see my non-Newbie links. There are numerous OSes. For starters, use the Newbie link to look for fremantle and Mer. You can also run some desktop Linux distributions. Diablo will be replaced by fremantle by the time Nokia releases its next Tablet.

>1) Is there a way to sync Thunderbird/Lightning calendar to a calendar in the N810 to look at it when the device is on- or offline?

I publish my calendars to Google Calendar, then I use Ermining or mCalendar on the tablet.

THAT sounds really interesting. Do you mean that you're publishing from Lighting to google calendar?

Canola is also a good option.

The only day-to-day usable OS is Maemo. Everything else is mostly only good for proof-of-concept purposes or niche use-cases.

Mer, however, is likely to be a viable upgrade path in about 3 to 6 months.

Canola is another, but not very good, option for podcasts.
Video Center, for all its warts, does a passable job. It's prone to bizarre failures, and losing files, but periodic cleanings help.
gPodder does a bit better job - especially since it'll import/export OPML files, but auto-update features are hidden in arcane areas.
(gPodder is what I use on my home machines, but somehow I still stick with Video Center for Maemo).

Hear, Hear! Today, Maemo is what I take on the road. Mer looks to be quite close as a usable alternative. I'm still running it in a VirtualBox system, but considering buying another SD card....

As well, I'll cast in another vote for Erminig to sync with Google Calendar, but I'm a gpe-calendar user (I prefer the interface over mCalendar's, which is otherwise worthy).

There's a lot of options, and things to try, with Maemo.

For other things: I'd suggest MyTube as vastly superior over youtube's interface, Canola is a "must have" as the best interface I've ever seen on a music player, Midori is coming up as my favorite web browser, and hex-a-hop kills time that I would otherwise be using productively.