the more i read these forums, the more i understand why linux and linux based gadgets are a long long way from winning over the average joe.

"use gizmo, gawd..."

there's the people that change the world with technology, and then there's the coders who get linux working on the nintendo ds.

Hey, more Unintentional Irony from sleepkyng!

You have a knack for that.

Yikes! Hey guys, the last thing I wanted was to start an argument among our more esteemed contributors. I guess by starting this post I was hoping for someone to come out with something like, "Hey, you didn't see the annoucement? It'll be ready in a month.", or perhaps, "Here's a work-around that that will help you." Perhaps the tone of my original message was a bit too confrontational.

I'm a 30 year IT/Networking professional. Linux has been a huge part of my life, ever since I started with version 1.2 back when Linus was still wondering what job to get after university. I've fought the good fight as much as possible, given employment with a major multi-national who doesn't see IT risk as important as the risk we might take on the next oil well. We use Linux now, mainly in technical workstations and super-power number cruncher clusters. I'm not sure our management even understands the origins of the software that is helping them make so much money. Not sure they even care.

I say that to say this: If there's one thing I've learned it is that you need to go with the flow sometimes. When I open my Skype client, I see that 10,000,000 number of logged on users at the bottom. I realize that going to my long contact list and convincing all those people to start using Gizmo, or Google Talk, is probably going to be futile.

Do I think the world would be better off with all open source software? Sure. Do I think it will ever happen completely? No. There's just too much momentum from closed source efforts and too much marketing.

I think a lot of people in the industry were taken by surprise when Skype's viral marketing campagn was successful, and got them millions of users. I for one agree with a lot of telecom industry folks who say that SIP based systems are the future of VoIP. That being said, Skype is the 1000 pound gorilla right now, and I don't think anyone would count them out for a long time to come. They've got way too much momentum.

So, one way or the other, we need to acknoledge that Skype is here to stay. If we can't get native video Skype clients for the IT, we should at least look for some sort of gateway mechanism that would allow interaction.

Nokia isn't stupid (nor are certain employees of said company...). Clearly if the IT is intended to be marketed successfully, it needs to appeal to the mass market. As a communications tool, a huge part of that mass market is Skype users. My intention with my first post was to help folks see that video capabilities with programs like Skype are now "easy enough for your mother". I think the expectation from a lot of folks is that these capabilities should be available in a small handheld tool that was always intended to have video.

I understand that Nokia is dependent on Skype/Ebay for the development of video Skype for the IT. I also understand that from a marketing point of view, it is in Nokia's best interest to show customers that the full capabilies of the IT can be utilized.

IMHO what Nokia could do is to let Skype know the unhappiness of IT users. Say "Skype, you see we are bundling as agreed, but users are upset at the quality of the bundled software"

Second point, I agree that momentum is great, it's the problem of the chicken and egg. I would use google talk and gizmo but at the moment I have 5 contacts which use gtalk and around 50 on yahoo messenger. I would give up the resource hungry yahoo client (I'm talking about the winxp one) in no time but I can't.

The same for voice. I would like to use gizmo or gtalk, but I am tied up to yahoo and skype (yahoo being no voice both on my IT and on my Symbian phone)

The one advantage Skype has - which was one of their USPs when they first launched - is that its protocol seamlessly traverses NAT routers.

Recently, my wife was visiting her family and although both N810s had worked well with the Internet Call feature built-in when connected to the same WLAN at home, it didn't work at all from within my WLAN to her device inside her parents' WLAN.

So, we tried Gizmo, which at least connected the call but no audio or video was transmitted. We gave up and used a phone instead.

Given most users are a) behind NAT routers on wireless and b) nowhere near as technical as me, how anyone uses these features is beyond me (does anyone use these features?)

Certainly I'd like to get it solved - even if it involves punching holes in my firewall - when I go to JavaOne in May.

Nokia did its part. Skype was bundled with the product and promoted. So your point above was addressed.

What those slamming Nokia over this fail to realize is that there's more to this story than is being mentioned, and I truly thought that as professional adults SOMEone here would have realized what hasn't been said in regards to Skype's responsibility. Unfortunately I can't go into it, and what I want to suggest is mostly speculative on my part-- but surely anyone who's been involved in software and/or consumer device development could figure it out. But maybe I can say it in an oblique way. For one, research Software Bundling Agreements and look at what the bundler typically requires from the application provider-- as well as standard disclaimers of liability. That ought to be enough to get the dialog going in the right direction.

I had a dream, too... that the N800 would allow me to video chat in Yahoo. Has that happened yet? No. I'll bet there are people out there who were dreaming that the N800 would let them video chat in PalTalk. Or wherever. (These would be the responsibility of someone other than Nokia of course... it'd be Pidgin or Paltak or whoever.)

Bottom line ... as our community grows, the hopes and dreams will expand to fill the available imagination bandwidth. Not all will be realized. Many will be. I still have to pinch myself every few days when yet another program surfaces that I MUST have. I can't wait to see what becomes available tomorrow. Maybe it'll be my dream application. Maybe it'll be one more I hadn't realized I can't live without until I see it.

Life is good!
DF

I had a dream. A dream of a handheld linux device. I drooled over the zaurus for a long time, but it was like 600$ and just not quite worth it. I thought many times about buying one, but just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Then comes a new device, a 770 made by Nokia. It runs linux, nice screen, xterm and ssh from anywhere over my phone. Wow, and only 350$, what a deal.

Nokia could not make any software and I would still be happy. My dream was realized on Jan 2nd 2006 (when I bought my first internet tablet 770), then with my n800 in Jan 2007, and to my absolute amazement the n810 in Jan 2008.


Could you pinch me now? No No wait, I want to see what this dream brings next.

Currently I am dreaming of more RAM

Thanks Nokia/Maemo Team

I never dreamt about video..

but I started to see the potential in a portable small computing device and got myself a Palm T3, installed developer kits etc. etc.

No wi-fi, so I bought a wi-fi card. Thus occupying the single SD slot (made it a bit tricky to download anything to the card..). Even with the developer kit it was a bit tedious. Closed-source problems: phonelink application didn't support my carrier. Didn't support latin-1 characters. Vendor didn't bother updating the software, no way to fix it myself. More closed-source problems (no way to fix other drivers).

Then the Palm lifedrive came along: One SD slot, internal harddisk (4GB). Looked at it. No way to upgrade the internal storage (except through major surgery). People told me the HD introduced latency problems (spin up/spin down) etc.

An image started to appear in my mind: An open-source based device with built-in wi-fi and bluetooth, and instead of built-in harddisk it should simply have an extra internal SD slot which made for instant upgradable internal storage and no moving parts. The outside SD slot would then be freely available for the things I used the SD slot on my T3 for. As for the open-source system it would preferrably be Linux, as I've been using it for years and have lots of development experience.

I bought a second-hand old version of the Sharp Zaurus just to get a feel for a Linux-based PDA, even with its limitations.

As for my wishes for the 2-slot PDA I expressed my wish design over on Brighthand in the Lifedrive discussion forum.

Then suddenly the Nokia 770 appeared out of nowhere. Linux-based, almost what I wanted. But it had a single slot and used the rubbish RS-MMC card, and it had just half of the memory I felt it should have. I outlined what I would want on one of the Nokia blogs: 2 SD slots, 128MB RAM etc.

Then the N800 came out, pretty much exactly to my specifications - I'm not making this up! I naturally ordered one the same day as it was announced.

(Since then it's gone downhill though as Nokia seems to have abandoned the direction the N800 was taking).

I don't think anyone intended to imply that the N8x0 is useless without webcam support, or that Nokia's development team are doing a bad job. It's just that this is a glaring hole at the moment - you have a nice handheld internet tablet with a camera, but you still can't use the camera for any useful purpose a year later.

- Nokia's own software: gone
- Skype: still no video support on the N8x0, none on the horizon
- Google Talk: only has video support between tablets, not on PC (huh??)
- Gizmo: beta product that very few people in the broader world have

Rather than attempt to assign fault, I would think that Nokia would want to see this hole filled.