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

Thanks for that! I don't know if it's the same article, but there's also a tutorial on their website.

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

what to do?

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

Hmm.. if you send back the money you can update the widget so it keeps track? Thats good.

Would it mean those that have donated already would have to send twice, would be an extra paypal fee for them? Thats bad.

How many have donated so far? 3 i think..? If we're charged to send it again I dont mind topping mine up to the $50 again, it might be a bit unfair expecting others to do so too. If they send it again we might be lucky :) But if it's just a few this would be the time to update it at the beginning before more come in. I think it it gets the tracker working it'd be worth it as it's more transparent and everyone can see their donation going in and how we're doing in total.

No word on the official maemo.org paypal account, it could be a while if it ever comes..

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

zehjotkah, either make a donation button or have people send the money as a 'gift' then paypal wont charge fees

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

sending the money back wouldn't cost any fees. Also I haven't accepted the money yet, so there aren't any fees to pay.
But if I would accept the money we would have to pay fees.
I have to accept the money to update the widget.
My solution would be a official maemo.org developers fund (paypal account) where everyone can donate.
Donations don't need to pay the fee.
It seems, that the chipIn page transfers the money as payments and not as donations.

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

yes, that is my solution.
But I would like to have an official maemo.org paypal accout, so it can be used for other purposes, too.

edit: I've sended back the donations.
Please don't use the chipIn site anymore.
edit2: I've ended the chipin, so it can't be used anymore.
I will send texrat a PM.

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

I've removed the chipin link from the first post for the time being, just in case.. edit: and wiki

An official maemo.org paypal account would be the best solution, however at the moment there is no such thing. I think Texrat has pushed for one before and will try to do so again, in the meantime I guess we need a solution for now.

Shall we try out the donation button idea?

Edit: I just got the emails from paypal and chipin saying my donation was returned

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

texrat's inbox is full^^
here the PM, if you're reading this, texrat, please empty your inbox...
edit: send via email

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

Its great that you prolonged the competition deadline, 1 month seemed really too short to me to create anything useful.

I'm not sure this was meant as a joke :) It can take quite a long time to reach the extras quality. And I'm not sure how much time can the testing process take, but surely its not very quick. Someone also mentioned here that the apps don't have to be perfect, which is in contradiction to this.

As I'm not familiar with the extras promotion process, I don't dare to make any suggestions, but I think it should be clearly stated in the rules.

I want to participate too with my own application, a filemanager. Yeah, boring... But the default FM is a joke and its surprising that there are no real alternatives for such a crucial tool. I hope I can make something usable till the deadline, won't be easy with my limited time..

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

It was meant as "your app is in -testing, so very few in comparison of all N900 users know it. No problem to take part in the competition"

a good filemanager could be the winner in the Utillities category...

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

I see, so no real requirement there... Any concrete ideas how the voting will be done?

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

by a poll here in this forum.

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

This competition is a very nice idea, and I'd like to see it organized in the best possible way, if it will be a great success we may repeat it, may be 3/4 times per year.

I guess it has two objectives:
* new apps
* new developers

I'd like to not trascurate the second point.

Actually there is *already* a developer community that in the spare time works for their projects. They have for sure some WIP projects and more possibility to win respect of a new developer coding a new application in less than one month.

These may not motivate new developers to participate and the competition will only "accelerate/sponsor" existing developer community (gaining only the first objective: more apps).

It may be nice to look for a solution that may handle well both points.
E.g. for each category write the already mentioned wish new app list, and have two subcategory, the first totally open to every project/app/idea (where "old" developers may fit their wip projects), and the second that will take only projects from the wish list and have so two winner per category.

Another point should be to have Nokia more involved while repeating the competition regularly. What's about an n900 for every category winner? and in the future, the first meego device and so on?

But to achieve that we have to propose things that meet Nokia plans.

I'm *quite sure* that putting the world Qt somewhere will help a lot (best qt application? for category?, a qt apps wish list?), but we have to take live other toolkits too and not hurt "old" developers.

Just brainstorming, what do you suggest?

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

^^^ Nicola, you mentioned a wish list yesterday and I asked, as it was your idea, if you would go ahead and make one. Have you created a wish list thread then? :) Give me the link and i'll link it in to the first post.

The competition is open to everyone, the idea is to get more development happening from everyone. There is a bit of a sub-competition open for beginners only (you might have noticed in the thread I was enquiring about purchasing 3 lazor cut stands as part of my bounty to be given as prizes only for beginners). Ive asked entrants to mark their submission with "beginner" if they'd like to be considered. If others would like to offer donations/prizes for beginners I dont see why we couldnt accommodate that.

Voting will be subjective, people will put their own value on what's entered. You mentioned projects may be WIP for some time which is great. On the other hand, other people will equally likely to vote for something fresh and new. Just because someone has more experience doesnt mean they have the ideas that capture voters imagination. Plus it's good practise, and newbies will find help and encouragement Im sure.

I'd suggest we definitely dont make it a Qt only competition. More Nokia involvement would be great, and maybe if this one is a success they will get more involved in arranging regular competitions. So help us to achieve that :)

Out of interest, are you planning on entering an application, and what development framework were you thinking of?

Edit: Thanks to EarthRise for spotting the broken link in the first post! Fixed.

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

I did not forgot the wish list, and planned to put it on the wiki page (qgil suggested to use the wiki), just need a bit of free time :)

About the newbie developers your pov is ok, but still think that in future we have to differentiate new entries (ala gsoc) and the old ones in a different manner, as now we need more apps and more developers :)

About me, I personally need a "normal" (not a desktop widget) sound recorder application, that show a srolling graph of the input level plus basic editing capabilities to cut uninteresting parts, plus autostart/stop based on treeshold levels.

Do not know if free time will permit me to code it or to offer some euros :)

I have another couple of blocker to decide, I'd like to use Qt, so the 1.2 release will help a lot, but the release date is yet unknown, and have to learn qt-mobility to see if I may use it's audio capabilities instead of using alsa-lib directly (my preferred way actually, as I'd like to implement an aggressive ring buffer in a different thread to avoid alsa underrun when the device is under heavy load).

Picking another task from the wish list may be feasable too :)

Niko

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

@kojacker - Your signature needs a date change.

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

I agree with nicola.mfb on the 2 objectives. The idea with the beginners is a good one, though a bit hard to define who is a beginner and who isn't.

I would probably consider myself as a beginner. I'm a professional developer, but I've never made an app for a mobile device, nor one in QT/GTK. I made a port of a game for N900 (see my signature), I don't think that makes me too experienced though.

Some guidelines for that should be set I think. The lasercut stand is cool, I really like it, but I wouldn't like to rob it off anyone thats more noob than me :D

About the rewards for apps from the wishlist, I don't see how it helps with those 2 objectives. The wishlist can give developers ideas, if they don't have their own, and also an app high on the list will probably have high chances of winning if it is good. Although it would give devs motivation to make an app they don't need themselves... But still, I don't think its good to shatter the prices too much.

EDIT:
Oh, for the wishlist, it really needs to have some voting system and should be ordered by popularity. Hard to do with just a wiki? Maybe a thread and update the wiki manually? Thats a tedious job though. The brainstorming system seems similar to what we need here, but this would be abusing it quite a bit...

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

Yep, more apps and more developers was the reason the competition was started in the first place :)

Personally I would consider you slightly closer to intermediate experience than outright beginner. Certainly you have a lot more experience than me :) But it's subjective ofcourse, it is hard to define but some folks will have very limited programming knowledge and making their first program. At the moment there aren't too many beginners coming forward, and it's hard to judge their needs if they aren't making them clear. I did offer to try and get a series of small coding tutorials done, like simple PyQT forms and dialogs, simple read from and write to a database, accelerometer control but i didnt get any response to that. There are already excellent tutorials, it may be that it isnt needed. This competition in part followed from this quietness from potential new developers and to have something that newbs can work towards joining in with.

Hmm prices?

To be honest, the whole wishlist thing is a great idea but if a simple thread isnt good enough then it needs someone to come forward and devote some time into it. Volunteers are always welcome and much sought!

Edit:
Niko, Im not sure if I read you correctly but please put a link to your wishlist once it's done onto the wiki but not the actual wishlist itself! That could turn the wiki page into a right lengthy mess! I also feel it's good to physical separate them, the wishlist is there to spark ideas and give an indication of what the community would like, but should not seen as an integral part of the competition. Developers should feel free to design and enjoy working on projects they really want to!

Also Niko, it sounds like you have some passion for getting new developers involved in this competition. If you're not working on a project because of 1.2, though that shouldnt stop you, are you able and willing to devote some time and drive that ideal forwards?

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

Right :) count me out of the beginners group then.

Hard to tell.. I think I'm gonna check out at least some of those tutorials in the coming days, so I might give you some feedback then.

Sorry, I mean "rewards", not "prices". Its the same word in my language (reading it after me doesn't make sense to me anymore :) I'll edit it)

I'm sorry to inform you that I'm absolutely not suitable for anything like this, because I'm lazy, unreliable and have very little time to spare... But I really appreciate what you guys are doing :) I'll rather do the coding. I was about to start the filemanager project for quite some time now. This just gave me a little push :)

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

Is this competition being publicized outside of this forum?
Also, even if you live in Australia, does Nokia pay for the trip?

It would be great if more and more people on the net actually get to see that this competition is going on
Maybe we'll get many newcomers onboard due to the prizes being so good. More entrants the better! =)

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

Ok, so I've just found there is also the word "prize", which is quite different from "price", even though it is one word in my language. Life is still full of surprises, thats good :D

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

I think I will be joining this competition in Games category. I considered making a space-shooter, but I don't have any good spaceship models, so decided to make a retro shoot-em-up. It'll have Geometry Wars-like graphics(because they're easy to make :p ). I hope I can finish it in time, being lazy sucks :D

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

Has the competition has begun? So people have 4 weeks from now to submit their application?

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

May 21 to July 21 sounds like 8 weeks.

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

LOLOL. Why did I read it as June 21st. =P

Anyways, I've written an article about this competition on a site that I'm an editor at in hope that it gets more exposure. :D
http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/2010/05/nokia-n900-maemo5-coding-competition-win-a-paid-trip-to-dublin-ireland/

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

I've got an idea for a game to add to that list when it's up.

Is there already anywhere some documentation about the various ways of accessing all the wonderful hardware features of the N900? It really has so much potential, but difficult for a beginner to know where to start.

Maybe the wiki page could include information about development resources as well as this list of ideas for the competition?

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

Because the tilte says JuNe!

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

lol yes, you're not going crazy jakiman :) The original date was June and everything had to be changed now since the date has been extended. I emailed a mod on Friday to change the title, still waiting for him to get around to it. Oh and thanks for making the article on Capsule Computers, very well written!

witchole, have you tried the development wiki on here? http://maemo.org/development/ It's actually a treasure trove of how to access the features once you get used to clicking around it :)

OK now I got loads of questions to ask everyone :D

• I don't think we got any more ideas about splitting the bounty up. Do we want bounty % prizes for category winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd), or top X apps, mixture of both, none at all.. ?
• What is your definition of a beginner?
• How about a competition committee (say, 5 people) who'll be called in to help determine if an entry is in the wrong category and where it should be moved to?

While we wait to hear if there's any movement on a maemo.org paypal account being set up, im soon going to go through the thread and start adding those who have pledged into the bounty to the first post. There's a lot of posts so if I miss you out please let me know. Also, if you can't commit any more we understand, times can change, just let me know and I'll remove your name from the list. You can also pledge 'anonymously' if you like, just pm me and let me know. And please keep the pledges coming, the more we collect the more we can award out! :)

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

Will be possible develop an application with Qt 4.6? or will not be released yet at the end of the competition.

thanks!

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

Million dollar question, huh? :) i think we're all looking forward to pr1.2 but only Nokia know when it's due to be released. IMO it should be out long before the competition ends, so don't be afraid to get started on your app - it'll not go to waste :cool:

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

Here's what Ive added to the first post in regards to bounty pledges so far

Bounty Roll of Honor (still collecting)
kojacker - $50
lcuk - $50
cheve - ?
ArchiMark - $10
felbutss - $20
mymybib - $5
mobiledivide - $10
hepokatti - ?
RenegadeFanboy - ?
bald.eagle.one - $10 (by pm)

Not a bad start! A big thanks and well done to everyone so far! We're still week one and plenty of time to get some more pledges in .. remember all donations big or small gratefully received:)

(Ive added '?' when no specific amount was mentioned, please let me know so i can update it.)

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

I don't have any particular idea ATM, but I'd be happy to join one of the projects (or a new one).
I can bring in some linux/debian c++/python/qt skills

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

I say this because in the applications i am developing I use the State Machine Framework, and untill qt4.6 this will not be availabel. For the moment I am compiling them for symbian.

Regards!!!!

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

My first "serious" program when learning a language, is a number guessing game. Where the comp gets a random number and the player has to guess it. The comp is guiding the player in the right direction by telling if the number bigger or smaller.
When I'm comfortable enough around a language, I create a Reversi game.

I want to participate in this competition with a Reversi. I'll do it in Python an Qt, and call it PeQersi. Wanted to do it for some time and this competition will be a good motivation.
I started working on it, and it's about 10 percent finished.
Didn't put it up anywhere yet. Want to reach a player vs player gaming level of script, so people can use/test it.

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

FYI, I saw your post and will supply the stands before the contest deadline.

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

I am also probably going to use QT 4.6, although I haven't looked at what's changed yet. I expect it to have generally much better support for Maemo. I'm gonna look at the changelog though and see if I really need it.

But I firmly believe the patch will be out before the competition end :D If not, maybe I'd be able to participate in the next round... haha

I'm also gonna set up a paypal account (finally) and when I do it, I'll pledge some money to the bounty myself.

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

One of the best motivators for a project like this is recognition. Can we get any kind of publicity sorted either on the front of maemo.org, through nokia.com or one of the big tech blogs (giz, engadget, slash, etc, etc)?

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

Great..

Add 10 $ here...

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

An excellent initiative, typical of this forum and the Maemo community as a whole.
I'm too dim to code but will happily add $20 to the bounty.

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

Hope I'll get my program done before the end :D