This is a good idea but I am unsure about the "prize money" donation!

Would it make sense to get a donation directly from Nokia?

If Nokia think we are still relevant then they can "put their money where their mouth is". They can even publisize it.

ill add another $20. can i paypal it??? PM me the details

I've asked in the "Donating ZodTTD for a perfect PSX emu" thread, if we could donate the money we've collected there, on this coding competition instead, because ZodTTD doesn't want to get donations to buy a N900.
He says that maybe a donator could be disappointed afterwards.

is anyone decent at coding but lacking ideas willing to take requests?

the things i want to see but lack the knowledge and patience to implement really fry my brain! anyway...

idea for what i THINK would be an easy to make; yet suitably sci-fi quasi-futuristic for competition. you've probably seen something similair in a film or two but i dont think it has been done for real yet. - a customisable news/weather alarm clock, you wake up in the morning to the sound of "good morning john/dave/steve/sandra, the weather today will be sunny/cloudy/wet with highs of 32 and lows of 15, the headlines are nokia takes over world, steve jobs commits suicide, first colony on mars goes ahead, pr1.2 released." perhaps a joke or saying of the day, horoscope, yadda yadda yadda...

really its just a speech synthesiser that retrieves data from websites, can check half an hour before alarm is set to go off, play alarm music for 10 seconds before news, then resume music afterwards.

i wish i had the know how to patch this together, but it would be really nice to see someone implement it.

Wow! Thanks everyone for getting involved and supporting the comp! I don't have time to reply to everyone's question just now (Im on my lunch break) but I'll do so in more detail later.

It's a good point about adding developer resources to the first post. Don't forget this thread is on the 'Developer' section here on maemo.org, there's plenty of posts in here for us newbs to get started. Whatever your development platform of choice (Qt, Python, etc) you'll find something to get you started. This is a great place to start and will have you coding your first app in minutes http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=43663, there's also more great links in this recent thread http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=52915. The key is to get started, and dont be afraid to ask questions. Beginners are definitely welcome in this comp, even the crumbiest "Hello World" There's no need to wait for 1.2 to develop for the n900, but hopefully it will be with us before long.

I didn't expect so many offers to donate, that's awesome! It's also a bit of a headache, though a nice one , as we don't have a centralized paypal account for holding everything and I dont want anyone to paypal to me first ofcourse! If anyone knows a good method they can vouch for then please recommend. Else, I was just going to paypal my contribution directly to the winner which may work out well as it'll save in-between fees. If everyone who has offered pledges does the same it should still work out well. zehjotkah, how were you collecting for the ZodTTD fund? Maybe we can use the same method here.

Also, we might lift a signifigant sum so how should we split the winning bounty amongst the entrants? First, second, and third place with a 50%, 30%, 20% split? Category winner prizes? Or all to the overall winner?

Johnel, the competition is effectively being run by myself and members here helping out and not by Nokia so there's no Nokia donation Im afraid (unless hint hint ). I hope no-one feels they are obligated to donate - it's only if you want to but it would be certainly appreciated. More important is to get people developing, donate an app to the contest if you prefer Im expecting something from you, weird fail pic of the day app or something

We haven't had the problem there, cause everyone is able to donate to ZodTTD directly.
If you don't want to collect the money, I would offer myself.
I'm a long member here, and everyone can see my address on my site. Also I have to loose many if I would cast away with the money (youtube, twitter, my site, everything!).
So I think you can trust me.

Nokia: Ask them immediately!! They are very generous at this. Search for the email addy of Quim or Peter.

I definitely trust you, but I think if we were doing that it'd be more widely trusted if we had a mod/supermod to do it on our behalf. No offense meant at all

I'm just about to go back to work and i'm not sure who Peter is, could you (or anyone else who is friendly with Quim or Peter) please contact them on the competition's behalf? I'm not sure how generous they can be, but even if they only have old Maemo stuff from conferences or whatever lying around the office it'd all be welcome to add to the bounty.

Speaking of which, I've contacted member 'fake' to see if I can purchase 3 of his n900 lazer cut stands to add to my bounty contribution, my plan is to send them to the developers of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd placed projects. They're pretty neat and it'll help support one of our own with his business too.

I've send Quim this email, Peter is notified, too:

Understand your point of view....but I'd rather have 3 twitter apps available and choose to use the one that I think is best...this also encourages some competition between developers to produce better apps and thus the end-user benefits....

OK, now I get it.....

Oh nooooo...

I guess I started my first N900 project to early: DreamRemote

I published the first version one week ago. So I guess it's to late for me and my little project to join?

Okay... it's to late and I'm disqualified before I subscribe myself to the Coding Competition.

Maybe... it's possible that I could have a other Idea in the next days. But sadly I guess I have not enought time for more than one project.

Anyway... great Idea kojacker, big thanks and I will observe the coding competition with suspense.