maemo.org - Talk - [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

maemo.org - Talk (https://talk.maemo.org/index.php)

- Development (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=13)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

There is no need for anyone to feel bad. Users sometimes get carried away just how important it is for their favourite app to win a competition, especially if the results are visible as they are in forum polls. It's neither allowed nor nice, but the good thing is that the vast majority of apps were barely affected (wait until you see that N900-vs-whoever championship site results !) and, the bottom line remains - many new apps were created and devs got introduced or gained extra exposure to the community. Considering it was a grassroots effort, I think it did pretty well, not that kojacker can't organize another competition that will be done even better :) As I said to kojacker, next time we can/should use the token-based mechanism we use for council elections (every eligible voter gets a token and mail invitation at the start of the voting, the vote count is not visible until results, etc).

In any case congrats to every contestant who submitted an app - you did something great, and I wish to express my special thanks to those who submitted their very first apps as part of this initiative !

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...omp_header.jpg
Wiki page
http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Coding_Competition_1

Congratulations to our 1st place winners!

==Desktop==

Application name: Queen Beecon Widget release 1.0.0.1
Author: No!No!No!Yes!

Description: Queen BeeCon Widget (See Talk Thread) is a highly customizable and flexible widget-based multi-instance monitoring, alerting and interactive tool for Maemo 5 Fremantle and the N900.

Screenshots:
http://wiki.maemo.org/images/thumb/d...500px-Qbw1.png

Partial Change Log since 0.1.4

Code:

queen-beecon (0.1.9.9)



  * New: Added "On Sight" Update Policy (If flagged, content is not updated if widget is out of sight (on other desktop) or if display is locked or in stand-by)   

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which holds "On Sight" or "Out Of Sight" status: $QBW_ON_SIGHT (true=QBW Instance is "ON SIGHT", that is widget is on current desktop and display is not locked or on stand by. false=QBW Instance is not on current desktop and visible or display is off or on stand by)

  * New: DBUS method "is_on_sight" which returns true (QBW Instance is "ON SIGHT", that is, widget is on current desktop and display is not locked or on stand by) or false (QBW Instance is not on current desktop and visible or display is off or on stand by)

  * Changed: Optimized usability of settings for Widget Width and Height

  * Changed: Optimized progress animation logic for visibility when instance not On Sight

  * Bugfixing: - 



queen-beecon (0.1.9.8)



  * New: Implemented per-instance progress animation with customizable number of frames, timer, position and possibility to have it shown or hidden (Now every instance can have its own progress animation) + Settings for Hide/Show, frames #, timer, position and basename. 

  * Changed: Extended error message text to all DBUS methods

  * Changed: Now when command or script do not return any output no more "No Output" text gets printed inside the widget

  * Bugfixing: Added error message if non existing parameter is supplied to all DBUS methods "set_param_*" 

  * Bugfixing: Under certain conditions HotSpot Index was not properly reset in case update policies prevented execution of script from happening. Fixed.



queen-beecon (0.1.9.7)



  * New: -

  * Changed: Line width for widget contours FX when widget pressed set to 1px    

  * Bugfixing: Reentrancy issues for DBUS Monitor. Fixed

  * Bugfixing: "If you enter a long name for the title, the right part of the prefs gui isn't visible anymore and you can't scroll to the now hidden gadgets!". Fixed. Area is now scrollable also horizontally.

  * Bugfixing: Issues with positioning of small widgets with respect to bottom and right margins. Fixed. 



queen-beecon (0.1.9.6)



  * New: REVOLUTION!!! :) Implementation of multiple (9 = grid 3x3) Hot Spots to click on the widget. Clicked Hot Spot Index Position can then be passed to the executed script via Parameter Variables Substitution $QBW_HOTSPOT_PRESS (0=Not Pressed or other update policy,1=Top Left,2=Top Center,3=Top Right,4=Center Left,5=Center,6=Center Right,7=Bottom Left,8=Bottom Center,9=Bottom Right)

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which hold Proxy related information: $QBW_HTTP_PROXY, $QBW_HTTPS_PROXY, $QBW_FTP_PROXY, $QBW_SOCKS_PROXY, $QBW_RTSP_PROXY (In the format <host:port>)

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which hold Proxy related information: $QBW_IGNORE_HOSTS_PROXY (In the format <host1;host2;host...>)

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which hold Proxy related information: $QBW_AUTO_CONFIG_PROXY_URL

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which hold status or persistency information stored in configuration via DBUS method call set_param_string string:"rememberMe" string:<rememberthis> : $QBW_REMEMBER_ME. Useful, for example, for remembering values like counters across subsequent command executions. 

  * Changed: Logic to purge configuration settings of non-existent QBW instances from configuration file. (Check/Purge performed at every entrance in Settings dialog)    

  * Bugfixing: Reentrancy problem with Settings dialog box. At times, in case of laggy interface, 2 or more instances of dialog were opening. Fixed. 

  * Bugfixing: Incomplete unreferentiation of DBUS resources. Fixed. 

  * Bugfixing: Incomplete unreferentiation of callback functions for async command execution and timers. Fixed. 

  * Bugfixing: Incorrect logic for updating when widget desktop was active/on. It was updating also when active widget's desktop was swept off. Now updates content only if "Update on Desktop" is TRUE and Widget's Desktop is being swept on. Fixed. 



queen-beecon (0.1.9.5)



  * New: Added supplementary progress images/icons (cycle is "queen-beecon-progress[0-3].png") searching logic in directory storage in this order 1) "~/Mydocs/.images/queen_beecon_dir" 2) "~/.queen_beecon_dir"   

  * New: Added button in Command Edit dialog to add instance only commands to the list of stored commands   

  * New: Implementation of following DBUS methods: get_current_results_text (Get current content of results text) 

  * New: Parameter Variables substitution for using with scripts which holds the current content of results text ($QBW_CURRENT_RESULTS_TEXT=Current content of results text)

  * Changed: Default shape for Beecons is now rectangle. Hexagonal cell will be only shown when pressed  

  * Changed: Shadow/Light effects on widget surface, either when pressed or not, are now fixed in size (~4px)  

  * Changed: Changed some logic in simple Command Edit dialog box  

  * Changed: After instance imported, now advanced dialog box closes and reverts back to settings with all parameters reloaded

  * Changed: Changed Warning and Information notification in Advanced Settings to display hildon_banner*  

  * Changed: Changed DBUS connection acquisition for DBUS Monitor.  

  * Bugfixing: Refined and fixed logic for DBUS Monitor initialization and deinitialization   

  * Bugfixing: Changed and fixed logic for handling/displaying Exit Code if error spawning asynchronous command  

  * Bugfixing: New asynchronous execution logic was not releasing file handles. Fixed

See complete Change Log in the WIKI

Get it from: Extras-Testing

Maemo.org link: http://wiki.maemo.org/Queen_BeeCon_Widget

==Location & Navigation==

Application name: CloudGPS
Author: Damian Waradzyn

Description: CloudGPS is a complete rewrite of the J2ME version (hosted on sourceforge / http://cloudgps.sourceforge.net/) to N900 using OpenGL ES for smooth operation. First alpha release is very limited in function but it still may be of use for someone. It allows exploring "OpenStreetMap I" map (it shares tiles with Maep and possibly others) but future versions will allow other map sources. It can show / follow your current location. Planned features include searching and routing using CloudeMade services, portrait mode and more. This project aims to provide great user experience - no more lags or delays This release easily works with over 50 frames per second on my N900. Future versions should be even more optimized than current one.

Screenshots:
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/723...gpsalpha01.png
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/3...0072002033.png

Get it from: extras-devel (apt-get install cloudgps).

Maemo.org thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58402

==System & Utilities==

Application name: Faster Application Manager
Author: hqh

Description: Faster Application Manager tries to be what the name says, a fast-to-use graphical front-end for apt-get, written from scratch and optimized for the N900. It's WAY faster than the built-in manager, allowing multiple selections before time-consuming operations, etc, etc...

It can:
- Install, upgrade and remove packages (select multiple before performing operations!)
- Filter packages quickly by category or status, sort packages, search packages and the user can also blacklist them!
- Optionally handle ALL packages, not just user/ categories
- Manage repositories
- Works both in landscape and portrait mode

It can't:
- Integrate into the system's auto-update functionality or Ovi store

- Filtering by date/fetching dates is an experimental feature at the moment and needs to be enabled from the options menu first for it to work for packages that have not been already installed

Screenshots:
http://hqh.unlink.org/Screenshot-20100720-104609.png
http://hqh.unlink.org/Screenshot-20100720-145215.png
http://hqh.unlink.org/Screenshot-20100720-145315.png

Get it from: Extras-Devel. All the standard warnings of extras-devel apply.

Maemo.org Thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=57503

==Games==

Application name: PSX4M
Author: Smoku

Description: Sony Playstation emulator

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2XOfoTYvqU

Features/work to be judged: Implemented Maemo5 spacific backends for video (HAA), audio (PulseAudio) and input (GTK+). Speed improvements. Command line interface for setting options.

Change log:

Code:

Version        Changes

0.4.1        * Initial packaging.

* Implemented PulseAudio sound backend

* Implemented HAA video scaler

* Added commandline options

Get it from: Extras-Devel
http://maemo.org/packages/view/psx4m/

Maemo.org Thread: http://maemo.org/packages/view/psx4m/
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=47904

==Graphics & Multimedia==

Application name: PenPen SketchBook
Package name : penpen
Author : Ben Lau

Description: PenPen is a handwriting memo/sketch book for quick note taking / drawing with unlimited size of paper. It is designed to be the replacement of the built-in app "Sketch" in N900 , but more focus on quick note taking.

It is vector graphics drawing tool. A single click and drag could erase the whole stroke of drawing. Word removal is much easier than bitmap drawing tool.

Features:

- Vector graphics
-- Unlimited size of sketch area
-- Support to erase stroke by single click and drag. Word removal is easier
- Support auto-saving. No. of clicks are minimized.
- Multiple sketch viewer
- Support auto-orientation
- Export PNG

Screenshots:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2152786/penp...722-231927.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2152786/penp...622-204312.png

Get it from: extras/ extras-testing

Maemo.org thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=717597

==Other==

Application name: TweeGo.
Authors:Mikhail Ramalho and Rodrigo Avelino

Description: TweeGo is a twitter client developed for Maemo 5 using Qt/C++. Combining great usability and excellent graphics, we managed to achieve an amazing user experience. .

Tweego Features:
+ See your timeline, using the more button you can see all your tweets
+ Tweet without need to go to the browser
+ Delete your tweets!
+ Favorite tweets!
+ Reply and RT a tweet!

New features for the competition:
+ New and smoother timeline!
+ Different colors for urls, mentions and #tags in timeline
+ More buttons inside the timeline
+ Tweet with your location via GPS or IP
+ Change user avatar
+ View a tweet's location inside the application
+ View twitpics inside the application
+ New mentions timeline

Screenshot: http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/967/screenshot01.png

Source Code: http://gitorious.org/tweego

Depends: libqt4-core, libqt4-gui, libqt4-network, libqt4-dbus, libqt4-webkit, libqt4-maemo5

Maemo.org Thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=47827

==Beginners==

Application name: DropN900
Author: jonnenau

Description: Client to view content, get and post files and manipulate your dropbox account data from your Nokia N900. Make an www.dropbox.com account today if you don't have one and see how you can share files over the network with your PC:s and mobile devices.

Present features:
• Login with your DropBox email and password, one time authentication. An oauth access token is used on later sessions. You can remove auth when you like and re-login with same or another DropBox account.
• Full DropBox access. Read/write to everything in your dropbox account.
• Create new folder, rename file/folder, upload file, download file, remove file/folder.
• Image file thumbnail preview, loading animations and showing results for actions.
• Threaded networking (non-bloking) so you'll have a smooth user experience while network I/O is happening.

Screenshot:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3589544/Drop...-16-7-2010.png

Other info: work done: 2,5 weeks from start to finish (version dropn900 0.1.0-6) approximately 50-70 hours.
used tech: python2.5, pyqt4, dropbox web api

Get it from: You'll need to have extras-devel enabled in your device repos.
App Manager - just search 'dropn900' category in 'network', its the only thing you need to install.
Terminal - sudo gainroot; apt-get update; apt-get install dropn900;

Maemo.org Thread: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58882

And thank you everyone for taking part :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

^^ Just wanted to have all the category winners together for easy linking purposes :)

Also, I've sent an email with the list of the winners to Nokia and the council, shall update with any news as I get it :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by kojacker (Post 780828)

I only live about 4 hours away from Dublin by train, so a trip would be wasted on me. Certainly if anyone deserves one on the organising side it would be zehjotkah. The guy sat through his family holiday receiving and updating paypal payments and organising the whole treasury end of the comp. If it wasnt for him, we'd still be here waiting for the official maemo.org paypal to be created :p He's a real 'maemo-head' too, hopefully that doesnt translate as offensive :P, but if you search Youtube for any n900 app review the chances are you'll find him doing it.. so definitely if Nokia offered anything I'd ask it to be passed onto him. But we're not seeking anything, glad to be involved :)

zehjotkah's a bit of an unsung hero so I wanted to mention that all in here :D

wow, that were kind words!
Thank you!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

I was not really involved. I followed only this contest with interest and a lot of respect. It was a lot of work, many things to organize and some surprises. Good and bad. But in the end a great success.

Quote:

Originally Posted by attila77 (Post 780865)

As I said to kojacker, next time we can/should use the token-based mechanism we use for council elections (every eligible voter gets a token and mail invitation at the start of the voting, the vote count is not visible until results, etc).

I had myself only the pain to select the one application from each category to give my vote for. And I must say, it was very hard to select only a single one from each category. Because of that I would suggest a new voting sheme if we select anyway not the forum polls the next time.

Give every eligible voters 10 Points. And let them decide how to spread. 1 Point to each application, 6 Points for the favorite and 4 for the next favorite or all 10 Points for the one and only application you've elected. In my opinion a good thing to get more balanced results.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helmuth (Post 781297)

Again, I must say the maemo.org council voting mechanism solves this as well :) , though you don't give points per se, but you order your choices, so it's not only your 'best' vote that counts, but 2nd, 3rd picks, too. Making your points spread per wish is usually not a good idea as just a few voters who go all-in on a single app can change the outcome completely.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Hey all, we got a write up in Quim's blog today - go and check it out if you haven't already :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Are you planning any next competition? For ecxample The Second N900 Coding Competition :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Figa (Post 785117)

Are you planning any next competition? For ecxample The Second N900 Coding Competition :)

of course, but the next one will probably include meego.
how about a winter-competition?
every half a year a competition running for two month.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 785129)

of course, but the next one will probably include meego.
how about a winter-competition?
every half a year a competition running for two month.

Thanks it´s awesome. Maybe every three months and during one month, but it si maybe so much often.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 785129)

of course, but the next one will probably include meego.
how about a winter-competition?
every half a year a competition running for two month.

I'd avoid crucial phases in July/August as it is vacation time in almost 1/2 world.
Also 2nd half December and 1st half January might be at risk...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Figa (Post 785135)

Thanks it´s awesome. Maybe every three months and during one month, but it si maybe so much often.

yes, I think it's too often.
We should prefer quality over quantity.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Just to let y'all know, Ive paid out on the beginner's contest prizes tonight. Jonne has chosen the Advanced Qt C++ book so hopefully thats a sign of some advanced N900 applications to come :D

Jonne also kindly passed on the cash prize, so that enabled us to create a new prize for the 3rd placed runner up robbiethe1st, and his excellent BackupMenu :)

First 3 places (sorry robbie, I only got 3..) also get the lazer cut stands, and I'll send them on once fake sends them and they arrive here. So I'll be in touch for postal addresses then. In the meantime, please check you all got your winnings (to the paypal addresses you sent me, so it's your fault if you don't! :p) and let me know if there's any problems :)

Still waiting for a few paypal addresses for the other categories, but I hope to have the full list this week. I'll pass on the details to zehjotkah to award the rest of you at that time :) Keep an eye out for the paypal confirmation emails :cool:

Nokia prize winners - i guess Quim/Nokia will be in touch a little closer to the conference to make arrangements with you. Let me know how you get on :cool:

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Happy to pass down the money as it would be too much to get the trip and money too. I code Qt quite much at work and first was going to start DropN900 with Qt too. I would say advanced book is just the thing for me to get better as a programmer ;) I didn't know about the book and stand before today kojacker contacted me. So this experience (being part of the competition) just gets better and better every day. The stand looks sweet!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

I've done all payments except of two, since PayPal is not allowing to transfer money to certain countries.
Please check your mails.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 790779)

I've done all payments except of two, since PayPal is not allowing to transfer money to certain countries.
Please check your mails.

I have received the payments.

Thanks zehjotkah, kojacker and everyone who has been involved in all these admin works.

And of course, I would like to thank everyone who donates and votes in this competition. This is such an awesome and encouraging event for all Maemo developers! :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Well done kojacker and zehjotkah! Now it is time to wait for the precious N9 hopefully this price is 10% of the phone :) As it looks like now I can not continue my work without wasting 80% on testing and compiling as the emulator is not working at all... But I give this promise, the first day I get a new phone I can continue this project with. That day will be the start on the programming again. This assuming I do not get the emulator to work.

Might be the wrong thread but nokia will probebly present the N9 at nokia world as they did with n900 right?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by amandalam (Post 790824)

What else can I say? Thanks all...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

I received the payment, too. :) Thanks a lot!

Because of adverse conditions :D it was forbidden for my project to join the Beginner section. :rolleyes: So I was sadly unable to win the book price... :(

I want to do something useful with the donation from this community (and it's not enought for a new Dreambox 8000) :D
So I'm now proud to proclaim:

I used the price to order this Book:
http://cover.galileo-press.de/9783836214292.gif

I wrote my first N900 project in python using PyQt4. But I still don't like Python and perhaps I have enought time and energy to contribute at the next competition with a application written in C++ and Qt! :D

Thanks zehjotkah and kojacker for this great competition! :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 790779)

I've done all payments except of two, since PayPal is not allowing to transfer money to certain countries.
Please check your mails.

Please also check your PayPal account. It seems that PayPal is not always sending a transfer notification.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Anyone knows how to transfer money to russia?
I've some problems regarding that.
PayPal is not allowing transfers to Russia and I don't know how to use my normal bank account because German bank accounts always have a number, but Russians not?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

The negative sentiment after this competition is for me:
Many projects were only developed especially for this competition and now they are lying there incomplete and imperfect.

Only three examples:

ApMeFo from Nathraiben - Last Post: 09-Aug-10, 22:28
(great project, a promising solution announced for one of the biggest issues of her software, but never seen again after the coding competition)
Metre App by Klen - Last Activity: 30-Aug-10 16:57
(is this user also fallen off the face of our maemo earth? His project seems to fallen asleep anyway...)
Detroid by destroid - Last Activity: 17-Aug-10 21:14
(he promised new levels and powerups for his game if he will win the contest, but now he has not the first place and he was never seen again)

The competition was great. It brought us a couple of great new applications and ideas to our platform. But now we've got several unfinished projects and the developers are disappeared. :(

I have only posted to inform the community about my feelings. What do others think about it?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Helmuth (Post 810597)

I don't think that this problem is related to competition. There are a lot of other projects that were promising and were abandoned at some point.

But after all, people are doing these programs for free and spending their own time on these.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

there are some extended hackfests being discussed for before the Meego summit.
I mentioned on there wondering whether the prize winners would be able to come along and get involved.

http://forum.meego.com/showthread.php?t=1342

Projects ebb and flow, sometimes there is intense action, other-times calm.
We have some good solid applications advanced through this competition and seen some others evolve towards a better goal.
If you want to know about a project, ask the developer.
If you notice something wrong or something you can help with - get involved.

I know hrw and a few other guys in #maemo irc are looking at a clean front end for ApMeFo menus; what can you do to help?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

is it possible to do this competition again pls?like every year?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by andil (Post 852839)

is it possible to do this competition again pls?like every year?

Yeah I'd love to see this as well. :) This one was really successful, it'd be a shame to only do it once. A well known, annual competition event would strengthen the community and let people prepare really cool stuff in advance!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Yes we want to do it again.
I'm waiting for MeeGo Conference if there will be something that would influence the competition.
That would be then a six month period for competitions.
Also we will need some help.
For example:
Who is willing to take care of the wiki?
Who is willing to do the treasure-related things?
Who does have the best connections to potential sponsors?

I think the competition after the next one (next one will be: Winter 2010/2011 maemo/MeeGo coding competition) will be hosted on meego.com.

BTW: here you can watch a presentation I made resuming the last coding competition and some thoughts about future ones: http://meetmeego.org/home/das-wetab-...lles-passierte

Of course you can start to post your ideas already today!

Thanks for your interest and help!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

In case anyone wonders how does MeeGo Conference "sponsorship" from Nokia works:
I need to pay for myself and they will reimburse me the cost afterwards.

Regarding my recent deals with Nokia, I'm not fond of trusting them again.

Anyhow, I send the cost of my proposed flight to Quim Gil for approval and haven't heard from him since.

What a great prize from a great company, I tell you...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoku (Post 857557)

I got the email from Quim talk about the flight information. Later it was transfered to Linux Foundation to take care of our flight information. Did you got the email from LF?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoku (Post 857557)

Yes ... Not to mention the:

"you have to share your room with another sponsored participant"
and
"sorry extra-european winners but we realized there's too many of you so we have no cash to sponsor your flights and we have to approve your super-mega-giga-economic-nocheckedinluggages-coach-journeys and handover sponsorship to Linux Foundation"
and
"may my "partner of life" share my same room given she's paying for her flight and any extra fees for the room?" - "Yes you can, you need to pay 2 extra nights" (which is reasonable and sharable BTW and IMHO) - "Why did you register a not-sponsored guest in your room" - "Because you told me!" - "Oh sorry, you are right, disregard our complaint"
and
My bank is gonna charge me extra costs if I receive payments/reimburse from abroad (>30Euro)

Surely not a valuable medal for your image here my dear sPONSORS NOT!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Seems like instead of getting good publicity and goodwill from sponsoring this competition, Nokia are instead making fools of themselves in the shabby way they're treating the winners.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by No!No!No!Yes! (Post 857972)

Yes ... Not to mention the:

"you have to share your room with another sponsored participant"
and
"sorry extra-european winners but we realized there's too many of you so we have no cash to sponsor your flights and we have to approve your super-mega-giga-economic-nocheckedinluggages-coach-journeys and handover sponsorship to Linux Foundation"
and
"may my "partner of life" share my same room given she's paying for her flight and any extra fees for the room?" - "Yes you can, you need to pay 2 extra nights" (which is reasonable and sharable BTW and IMHO) - "Why did you register a not-sponsored guest in your room" - "Because you told me!" - "Oh sorry, you are right, disregard our complaint"
and
My bank is gonna charge me extra costs if I receive payments/reimburse from abroad (>30Euro)

Surely not a valuable medal for your image here my dear sPONSORS NOT!

:eek::eek::eek: o.O shame and sad.

Is it possible to make a constest for ourselves without any sponsor any prizes?just for fun maybe?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by andil (Post 862524)

:eek::eek::eek: o.O shame and sad.

Is it possible to make a constest for ourselves without any sponsor any prizes?just for fun maybe?

of course that would be possible, but how many developers would be attracted by community-only prizes? In case of the last competition that was around 30€ per winner.

I'm really sorry that you had a bad experience with Nokia.
In my experience the last sponsorship was managed quite good (maemo summit in San Francisco).

I just want to remeber that we still need some volunteers for the next competiton.
I think it would be good the have a official maemo.org PayPal account this time.
It was no problem last time, but I had the impression that many refused to donate some money because of the private nature of my PayPal account.

Thanks.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Well, I think the arrangement was from the beginning that linux foundation pays the trips and their people handle the paper work. I'm not sure how you can bash Nokia for that. Also there was a clear mail who you need to mail about the travel arrangements for approvement and it was certainly not Gil Quim. I got my reply in few days.

I can say it was a bit surprising to see the sharing of rooms but I can cope with that. If you think of it there is probably so many official Nokia and Intel people that one bed rooms have probably went to those people months in advance. Also you wont be sitting in your room too much, just sleeping at nights.

Paying the trips and them paying it back after the proper documents might seem weird. But if you think about it, they can't really push 500-1000 euros to your account and just believe that you are actually buying the tickets with that money, I mean they don't have the time to check if you actually are in the event. And what if you are not, send you an invoice to get the money back?

For the two reasons mentioned above I almost did not leave myself, I thought I'd just take the N900. Not to mention I lose 4 days pay also. I understand the tickets might be hard to bank if you are a student, then it sucks. But I think the system has logic behind it, even if there is a multi million company behind it.

I am now going and hopefully all other guys are too. We should send some pm:s now or when we are there and do some meet and drink some beer :)

Looking forward to it.

P.S. Suggesting that Nokia/Linux Foundation would not pay the tickets afterward due to your "bad experiences" is just not justified. They are doing the best they can and assigning a lot of people to help us get there and do the arrangements, I would not bash them here. The alternative we would not get anything but the few euros gathered here from maemo.org users pockets.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonnenau (Post 863655)

Code:

Received: from nokia.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mgw-sa01.nokia.com

 (Switch-3.4.3/Switch-3.4.3) with ESMTP id o8TFhQtS027137; Wed, 29 Sep 2010

 18:43:26 +0300

Received: from [172.19.79.58] ([dadhcp-172019079058.americas.nokia.com

 [172.19.79.58]]) by mgw-sa01.nokia.com with RELAY id o8TFh6DC026992 ; Wed,

 29 Sep 2010 18:43:09 +0300

Subject: About your Maemo developer contest prize

From: Quim Gil <quim.gil@nokia.com>

To: Gil Hoernecke Joaquim <quim.gil@nokia.com>

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:41:38 -0700

Message-ID: <1285713698.6996.171.camel@gilhoern-desktop.localdomain>

X-Nokia-AV: Clean

[...]

Hi, you are receiving this email because you were one of the winers of

the Maemo developer contest.

[...]

- Check the best prized travel option to travel to Dublin and send us a

quote. Once you get our approval you will need to book the flight

yourself. Keep the receipts and we will reimburse you.



- About the accommodation, just tell us the 4 nights you want to use

between Saturday 13 and Wednesday 17 and we will take care of the rest.



- Note to those that have requested sponsorship through the MeeGo

Conference site: we have agreed with the organization that this

sponsorship will be covered directly by Nokia. You will receive an email

notifying that your request has been declined. Don't worry, just follow

the steps described above.

[...]

--

Quim Gil

MeeGo advocate

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Yeah and a little later there was a message about them solving the arragements as there were more non europeans as they thought. Then I at least recieved this mail

Once you have looked at airfares, send the
itinerary and cost to xxx xxx (xxx@linuxfoundation.org)
for final approval. Once approved, please go ahead and make your
flight arrangements.

In addition, we're also approving your hotel accommodations for four
nights and will cover room and tax charges only. You need to fill in
your name (as is on your passport) in your preferred shared room as
soon as possible at xxx. The Linux Foundation will pay the room and tax charges to the hotel directly.

So yeah seems I was wrong it was the hotels and flights still from Nokia. I guess you did not get this email from the linux foundation or what?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonnenau (Post 863731)

So yeah seems I was wrong it was the hotels and flights still from Nokia. I guess you did not get this email from the linux foundation or what?

No. But I got hotel confirmation out of the blue today.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoku (Post 863733)

No. But I got hotel confirmation out of the blue today.

Yeah I got it too. I will pm you the uncencored mail so you get the contact!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] The First N900 Coding Competition! 21st May-21st July. Open to all!

Hmm.. I haven't been involved since giving the winners names over, I was hoping everything would be all sorted by now and everyone would be looking forward to their trips/receiving their phones. Sounds like there is a bit of a muddle going on, I hope everything clears up soon for you everyone :o

Having a quick look at the conference wiki, it seems that sponsorship will come through the Linux Foundation:

Quote:

The way the Linux Foundation handles this process in their conferences is simple: you find the best trip, get approval from Angela Brown (Linux Foundation), book your trip and the LF will reimburse you. If you have been approved and you don't have anybody around you with a credit card to do the booking then contact Angela and explain your case. This is no guarantee for anything but she is the one that will be coordinating these reimbursements.

I can understand it's awkward for those especially further away to buy their own tickets first, trusting to be reimbursed afterwards. We have winners from Hong Kong and from South America - that's expensive. IMO it seems like the prizes are a workaround using Linux Foundation's existing system, sort of bumping you to the head of the queue rather than straight out sponsorship. I hope this doesn't stop anyone who wants the trip from being able to do so. The consolation is that those who can't make it will get new handsets instead.. so they're still better off as winners atleast. But I'd wish everyone had the chance to decide which option they prefer without any financial pressure...

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 862980)

of course that would be possible, but how many developers would be attracted by community-only prizes? In case of the last competition that was around 30€.

It's possible but I suspect a lot smaller. When I started the competition it was just gonna be a weekend thing, I put $50 up as a prize but it was mainly for the fun of it. The competition didn't really take off, however, until a bounty collection was established and news of the Nokia prizes was announced. Before that only a few had registered their interest. However I think the comp helped spark some new interest in development and it proved we were serious about running it right, so maybe more would like to get involved in the next one.

Personally I'd love a short competition soon, Im not bothered about prizes I'd enter just for the hell of it :) I didnt get to take part in this one, hopefully I can in the next one :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 862980)

I just want to remeber that we still need some volunteers for the next competiton.

I'm always happy to volunteer where I can, you only need to ask :)

As we know from our vantage point behind the scenes there's plenty of lessons we learned the good way and plenty we learned the hard way running this comp. Pleasant surprises and painful lessons. The good news is that means there's plenty of stuff we can do to make the next one even better :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 862980)

I think it would be good the have a official maemo.org PayPal account this time.

That would have been great but I don't think that'll ever happen, remember we waited for that at the start but it was a dead end - we literally waited months on that never materialising :p Which is why the competition was lucky you stepped in to save the day :cool:

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehjotkah (Post 862980)

It was no problem last time, but I had the impression that many refused to donate some money because of the private nature of my PayPal account.

I think at the start people were reluctant, heck even I was.. you were just about to head off on holidays to Spain.. with the bounty in your bank account :p But I think confidence grew with every donation that came in, people became more and more generous and wanted to be involved... it's amazing to think as a community we started with $50 and finished with over $1000 :cool:

To the winners - I hope you get everything sorted soon and things look clearer for you all. I also hope I get to bump into you all at the conference, it'll be nice to put some faces to the names. Pints are expensive in Dublin but im sure I'll be able to get a round in :) Although Im not being sponsored ofcourse so maybe you can help poor old me instead! :D I'd love to get a photo of you all together and that'll be a nice way to finally finish this competition thread/chapter :)