TuxRunner

Here’s some steps you can take to install some new boot videos on your N900, and then store them in /opt so that you don’t take up storage space on rootfs.  You’ll need to first find some boot videos that you’d like to use.  Typically I’ve been finding a great collection of them posted to the forums over at http://talk.maemo.org.  Looks like the best format for them is AVI format from what I’m reading in the posts on that forum.

Download them to your N900 either over the internal browser, or transfer them over USB cable.  I put them under /home/user/MyDocs/tmp (which will show up as /N900/tmp on the device).  Then go through these steps to set them up “optified”, which just means that you’ll be storing them in some of the 32GB of space the N900 has instead of the limited storage available on the “rootfs” filesystem. (continue reading…)

I just discovered Kino (yes, I moved the rock I’ve been living under).  Since I’ve been home resting and recovering from a surgery, the wife had an idea for me to transfer all our digital video from an old Canon video camera over to the Drobo.  I’ve only done this once in the past with a Windows laptop and a Firewire card using the built-in tools in Windows.  So I set out on a mission to find something that would do the same under Linux.

Turns out there’s actually a handful of good applications out there for Linux that can be used for video editing.  Since I’m no pro, I found Kino to have a very good basic interface that’s easy to learn, and it out of the box supports the ability to capture video from any Firewire-connected video device.  Even has the ability to control your camera using on-screen buttons for rewind, play, pause, fast-forward, and more. (continue reading…)

Full disclosure…I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro (barely, I just had shoulder surgery 6 days ago. Almost can’t type).  So I’m not totally against Apple products.  I don’t mind using them actually.  But seriously, if I wasn’t given this MacBook by work I probably wouldn’t be using an Apple product.

Apple finally had their press conference to release their new tablet product.  Once I found out what it was, I guess I started to try to figure out if I’d ever have a use for something like that.  Couldn’t come up with one reason really, given all the other tech gadgets that I can use.  Since I’m really into my Nokia N900, I started to compare the two devices.  And what I was able to come up with is a lot of reason I would never give up my N900 for the iPad, so here’s why I prefer the N900 to Apple’s newest iStuff. (continue reading…)