Personally Texrat, I think the email client they continue to ship is the biggest failure. The poster does make some good points about the functionality that does come with the IT.

But whining about having to add a repository to be able to download software is just plain crap. I really really do not see the big deal about adding repositories, or for that matter upgrading firmware.

Adding functionality is a bonus, but they could knock out some of that low hanging fruit already. Two years and that email client is still crap.

Soooo... Does anyone else think that a fullscreen clock might not be such a bad idea?

I can see where a user could make the assessment you do, pb, (re email client) but I was speaking from a much broader perspective. In that sense, if Nokia made it very clear that the client was so limited, then users are fully informed and if they buy the tablet anyway it's an issue now of doing so out of spite. Okay, half kidding there.

And while I won't support whining in any shape or form, I do believe there have been serious problems with repositories and thus legitimate complaints (such as one bad repo crashing the whole process). Average consumers should NEVER have to worry about them (and guess what: in principle, Nokia agrees). Want to install something? One click and it should just happen. The .install packaging went a long way toward getting there. Future Application Manager improvements will further close the gap.

Finally, it's my understanding the recent email client work has shown progress. Is that not the case? I keep reading about this Klaws thing...

JUST to get the thread back on track () :

I too have been thinking about a full screen clock app. In the past two weeks I've been at two different funerals (not the 10 minute pop in/out, the 3 + hours a day for 3 days funeral). I brought my tablet, carefully concealed in my left suit inner-pocket (I brought earphones as well, but decided it to be too risky to use them ). I used the built in Clock applet (on the desktop), and would quietly/carefully consult it every 5 minutes.

Just an idea for such a clock, I think it would be cool if it was a nice glossy/flashy iPhone like (I don't have an iPhone, but something that you would expect to find on one) clock, Analog preferred, but Digital cool as well. Something that a quick glance would make it easy to read, and could still lead to a conversation if your caught ():

Wow what was that in your pocket? *whip out tablet* Yeah, it's my cool Internet Tablet ;-)

vs

what was that in your pocket *whip out tablet* Oh, I was just checking the time off of this small built-in desktop app. Wanna see! *guy walks away*

I thought about building such an app myself, did all the research, what SDK I need to d/l and install, how and what language... But I don't think I would have the time to actually code it, seeing that school starts in a couple weeks.

Some quick googling turned up something along the lines of what I was thinking:

iPhone digital:


Nice glossy analog:


(Google query: iphone clock)

Ideas? Suggestions? Comments?

Jon

I puzzled through the SDK installation only to have it *partially* work. No one actually has a good tutorial on how to set up a development environment for this tablet. Some of the HowTo's are literally incomplete pastes from several readme files...so bad, there are actually instances of "now use this command:" and there is a blank space. The same files are referred to by different names in almost every setup guide, and in order to find all the necessary files you have to piece clues from five different incomplete tutorials and fill in the gaps with Google (mostly seeing unanswered requests for help setting up the dev environment).

Thankfully I can poke my way around this stuff and figure out what needs to be done, and maybe eventually write something up in a rational manner.

There are a lot of good programmers out there who just want to get a toolkit and write their code, not fix the toolkit first.

I asked for a "Port-and-Hildonize for Dummies" as well. No replies.
I gave up on the documentation that is available since it's mostly incorrect, incomplete and outdated.

Ton.

As the original poster - I wasn't insulted. I like when people try to be funny. If you meant "this new user" to be me - I'm not so new... But - thanks for the support - it is appreciated.


Now - where's my clock?

How to make a full screen clock without compiling anything:

Install xterm

Open xterm

Make font as big as you can

now run

while sleep 1
do
date
done

Now make it full screen,

See you had the right tools the whole time Just got to learn how to use them... I'll tell you what, that clock is way better than the email client

Will that nifty routine let other processes run? Or is it selfish?

It plays nice with others

You know I have looked and there are not a lot of fullscreen clocks for linux out there. There was a nice fullscreen Binary clock for python, I think we should port that one....

http://freshmeat.net/projects/binclock