This phone surprised me in a very good way. I was expecting the worse from a Windows-based phone, and the interface is very good, the connection with Google works wonders, everything is very intuitive and easy to do. Doesn’t look like a Windows OS at all :)

The downside is the AWFUL Windows Marketplace: the apps are expensive and, yeah, totally uninteresting. I just gave up on trying to find apps after a while, don’t even bother.

Guilty pleasure: playing Solitaire on the subway. Gotta love this!

I was happy with the phone, just having problems with Mobilicity coverage. THEN SOMETHING HAPPENED: exactly one month after I bought the toy, I fell asleep on the Trinity-Bellwoods Park and had my purse stolen – yep, with the phone. Is it strange to say that I miss my Windows Phone? Microsoft has done something that I like and I’m not afraid to admit it.

I spent more than a week deciding wether I should buy an Android, like Fabio’s, or use some old phone on a prepaid carrier. After being stolen, the cheapest solution seemed wiser and I’m just a crappy prepaid phone owner now.

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The Good

If you’re a geek, in any level, you’ll fall in love at first sight: it’s OMG a cellphone running Linux? I want that thing NOW! The operating system, Maemo, is debian-based, so it makes installing apps a very simple task, and Nokia got it right and the interface is not that confusing thing I got on my old N78 Symbian – yeah I hate Symbian.

You’re usually one or two clicks away from doing what you need and it has a sliding, full-qwerty keyboard. Typing won’t be an issue. It’s REALLY a small computer just the size of your pockets, and worked like a charm on my GSM carrier.

The Bad

Now that you’re in love and you’ve started your relationship, some things will start to annoy you. You’ll need to add extra (“non trusted” in Nokia lingo) repositories, if you want to install really interesting apps – everything in the “default secure trusted” is booooring and old (this is so Debian I should have expected). The adding new repos thing is not that user-friendly if you’re not used to linux.

You’ll also find out that if you want full root access on your command line, there are also some tricks involved. The N900 is now looking like a geek toy but trying to protect you from playing with it.

After solving these issues, I installed ssh, the apps I wanted and tried to set it up for synchronizing with my Google Life. Now comes…

The Incredibly Awful

The N900 doesn’t carry any kind of app that synchronizes with your google calendar, mail or contacts and their Exchange connector doesn’t work with Google. There are some vague solutions on their forum – even suggesting upgrading the firmware! – but, as I only had the N900 for one week, I couldn’t test ALL of them, and the best I could do was to sync my facebook account and contacts and manage my contacts using the awesome app Hermes.

The thing is: even with my old Symbian phone, it was pretty easy to do Google Sync. HOW COME I have a INCREDIBLY ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICE and it does not do Google Sync? Come on, we’re in 2010, these things HAVE TO WORK. So, this is a major turn off on the N900 for me.

The Veredict

It’s a good gadget, it works and it has great battery life (Nokia is the best for battery life, always). I don’t care about camera or embedded music player – I just need them to work, and if they work, it’s ok for me. But if you’re expecting to transfer your Google Life to your pocket, go buy yourself an Android. I’ll have more amazing cell phone stories to share with you. Stay connected.

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From the beginning: eeePC 900, the old model, features two SSD disks – 16GB and 4 GB. It uses a Celeron M ULV 353 900MHz Processor and I upgraded the RAM to 2GB.

The linux distribution that comes with the eeePC is useless. I’d say awful. Xandros is not even usable by newbies. I don’t even know what is worst, an eeePC running windows or Xandros.
WHY I GAVE UP: Awful interface, user experience, and slowness.

Ubuntu-eee is SLOW. But at least I could manage to configure it according to my needs. But the slowness was a serious issue.
WHY I GAVE UP: It was slow, and they released another version under another name.

Then they turned into EasyPeasy. It was “kind of ok”, but still too slow to do daily tasks like watching videos and listening to music. I gave up.
WHY I GAVE UP: OMG SLOW

My next shot was Crunchbang. I had Crunchbang installed for a long time because I feel it’s very customizable. The guys understood that not every netbook owner is a newbie. And netbooks tend to be slow, so running a minimal environment is always a good choice. But they are Ubuntu-based and they are stuck in Ubuntu 9.04. I tried installing some newer software, like latest pidgin and firefox, but I couldn’t compile the libraries needed without, basically, rebuilding the entire system.
WHY I GAVE UP: It was too out of date for me. Too bad

Jolicloud, with awful netbook interface

I’m looking out for new distros and I know there’ll be a new release of Crunchbang soon. I’m also planning to buy a new, REAL notebook and – uh – BETRAY TEH COMMUNITEH! – as I’m pretty sure I’m getting a good MacBook.

But I still like my eeePC, for being so lightweight and small. And I love to test new stuff, so I’ll keep everyone informed when I choose my new distro. I’m really impressed on how I came to hate my user experience with Jolicloud after only one week. These guys know what they’re doing – NOT!

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The Basics: Adding People Just Because

Can someone please explain me WHY people add whoever they find on their way? I’m going to say a sad truth: you WON’T become more famous or popular or whatever because you have one million friends YOU DON’T KNOW. Oh, yeah, you shouldn’t import your whole Gmail address book into your new Social Network account – that’s horrible.

Most networks will offer you the option to scan you contact list to see if, among their registered users, they found a match of your friends. And at this moment you should be wise and think if you know these people well enough to add them on that kind of network. For instance, on Linkedin, you should add only people who have worked or done some kind of business with you – not your friendly neighbour who always invites you for a barbecue. This guy must be on your Facebook.

There’s an important observation regarding networks like Foursquare and Gowalla: it’s useless to add people who live in different cities, as their information won’t be available to you (unless you go visit each other city). These networks are based in geoinformation and writing tips about places in your specific city. Don’t even bother about adding that interesting guy in Tokyo.

I’m a Fan of Everything

People love ice cream, chocolate, movies, all sort of stuff. Then they’ll become fans of ice cream, chocolate, movies about ice cream and chocolate and everything they find. Again, what’s the purpose of joining every group you see? If a group doesn’t seem to have any relevant information about something that might interest you, why join?

Do I need to be in another social network?

Everyday a new social network is born and thousands of people subscribe to their services. And I’m pretty sure as fast as they’re born, they’ll be forgotten. Do you remember friendster? I had an account there and now i can’t even remember what e-mail I used to register. There are social networks for pets (yeah, don’t you know catster and dogster?) but, mostly, they’ll do the same thing. So, why do you need the incredible new one? Another username and password to remember. More time spent at the interwebs. Yeah, right.

Conclusion

I’m not saying that social networks are bad. They have their place on the internet – like that rainboot manufacturer, “Connecting People” – but there are many people on them who aren’t able to connect to each other very well.

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I arrived at the pickup point – Bloor-Yonge Station – about 7:45 and it was REALLY cold outside. Then I saw some people and I presumed they were also going to the wordcamp thing. After some socialization and some delay, we started to wonder if there was traffic or if we had been forgotten by the bus driver. We were lucky to have Shannon among us with some contacts on her cellphone, so we could find out on time what was going on. Guess what? HEY YOU TOTALLY FORGOT!

Since our arrival to Bloor-Yonge, we waited for one hour and a half until we were finally picked up by an yellow schoolbus. Charlie Brown feelings. :)

This was the only downside of the event so far. The speeches have been interesting and OMG THERE IS SO MUCH FOOD AVAILABLE. I’m also waiting to watch the speeches about WordPress MU.

There are all these different people here, since developers and designers to project managers, animators, and writers. I’ve been SOCIALIZING – that’s what SOCIAL MEDIA (BINGO!) is about, isn’t it?

I should make a giant hashtag about all the memes present at the event, but I’m too frustrated I had no chance trying the Nanaimo Bars. Maybe tomorrow.

Update: The speeches were great, as the after party. But I have some remarks.

I would have made the event more “condensed”. The strategy of serving tons of food at every two short speeches made it too long – it could’ve been a one-day only event – and, sometimes, tiring.

Saturday, after 3:30PM, I was not allowed to charge my notebook anymore (and I have started charging it like 15 min before!) because they were using the “Charging Station” to serve more food. Also, the coffee and tea were removed (tell me why??? – and, oh, it seems people who went on Sunday were COMPLETELY OUT OF COFFEE) and there were only some bananas and plums left, from the awesome brunch we’ve experienced before.

I have some complaints about this “food” thing – I believe it drove us away from the real focus of the event. Maybe less coffee-breaks, and enough drinks would have been enough, I think.

I got a real problem on the second day: after waking up on time, I remembered the subway starts operating at 9AM, and I was supposed to be at the bus at 8:30AM. Magic? I was counting on the subway and could not find an easy way to arrive at the pickup point on Sunday morning. A saturday-only event would also have solved this issue.

I’d definetely go to next year, but I expect a more conventional (more condensed) event, and I’d prefer it on a single day. And, oh, is it really necessary to start SO EARLY? I’d prefer not risking myself having problems with the TTC again.

Thanks Alexa, Matthew, Rick, Shannon, Don, Brian, Ben, everyone I met there and whose website I could find. If there’s someone missing, please add yourself to the comments ;)

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Ah, sim, vocês querem saber das palestras, claro, né? Se eu falei até agora de outra coisa, é porque não me impressionaram tanto assim. Olha, o Google Wave é SENSACIONAL, isso é bem verdade. Mas… o resto… achei… hm… “legal”, “bacana”, adjetivos não tão empolgantes assim. Palestras muito longas e repetitivas, talvez. Ou palestrantes não muito carismáticos (eu queria ENFORCAR o francesinho que a cada dez palavras dizia “Brazil!” “Futebol!” “Canvas!”, ah, ok, canvas fazia parte do script).

Enfim, aguardem o Google Wave. Acho que todo mundo foi ao Google Developer Day pra isso, e o resto foi encheção de lingüiça de HTML 5 (oooh look shiny!) e Social Bullshit. Com picolés e mulatas.

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Meus monitores são um dell de 17 e um dell de 20.

Vamos ao que interessa: primeiro, xorg.conf com o driver proprietário, usado com o Ubuntu até 8.10:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Multihead layout"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" LeftOf "Screen1"
	Option	    "Xinerama" "off"
	Option	    "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 1701FP (Analog)"
	HorizSync    31.0 - 80.0
	VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
	Option	    "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
	Identifier   "Monitor1"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 2007WFP (Digital)"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 83.0
	VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
	Option	    "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "fglrx"
	Option	    "DesktopSetup" "horizontal"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1050x1680"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen1"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor    "Monitor1"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Viewport   0 0
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1280x1024"
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Com o advento do Ubuntu 9.04, o driver open source passou a funcionar comigo. E ficou assim:

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier     "Multihead layout"
	Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
	InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	Option "AIGLX" "true" 	# This looks like it's on the wrong place, doesn't it? But it's where it should be.
	#Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
	#Option	    "Xinerama" "off"
	#Option	    "Clone" "off"
EndSection

Section "Files"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
       FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
       # path to defoma fonts
       FontPath        "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	#Load "dbe"
	Load "dri"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier  "Keyboard0"
	Driver      "kbd"
	Option	    "XkbRules" "xorg"
	Option	    "XkbModel" "abnt2"
	Option	    "XkbLayout" "br"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier "Mouse0"
	Driver "mouse"
	Option "CorePointer"
	Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
	Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier   "Monitor0"
	VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName    "Dell 2007WFP (Digital)"
	HorizSync    30.0 - 83.0
	VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
	Option      "dpms"
	Option "PreferredMode" "1680x1050"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier   "Monitor1"
        VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
        ModelName    "Dell E176FP"
        HorizSync    31.0 - 80.0
        VertRefresh  56.0 - 76.0
        Option      "dpms"
	Option "PreferredMode" "1280x1024"
	Option "Position" "1680 0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier  "Videocard0"
	Driver      "radeon"
	Option "RenderAccel" "true"
	Option "VGAAccess" "on"
	# very important to save power when you have two CRT monitors like me.
		Option "DPMS"
	# EnablePageFlip should allow better performance.
		Option "EnablePageFlip" "true"
	# I'm not sure this has any effects at all.
		Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"
		Option "ColorTiling" "on"
	Option "monitor-DVI-0" "Monitor1"
	Option "monitor-DVI-1" "Monitor0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	Device     "Videocard0"
	Monitor "Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth     24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth     24
		Modes    "1680x1050" "1280x1024"
		Virtual 2960 1050
	EndSubSection
EndSection

A regra é: ir mexendo no seu xorg até conseguir funcionar. Deu trabalho, mas por incrível que pareça, quando troquei o driver pro open source, funcionou de primeira. Ah, ok, devo confessar: eu tinha um cabo com mau contato aqui que precisou ser mexido, então não funcionou tão de primeira assim, mas era problema do cabo, não de configuração. Fora isso, cara, que coisa mágica! Desejo sorte a todos os que precisarem fazer essa configuração corna dos infernos que é usar dois monitores. E eu sei que o meu xorg tá feio. Ele só funciona.

UPDATE: Sim sou imbecil. Haha devo ter ganho um brinde da Intel pra escrever o nome dela duas vezes aqui.

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E aí que acho que até a TFP é mais liberal do que o povo que estava lá, que se preocupava mais com as empresas que com os consumidores, gente falando em anunciar com banners e quadrados em um meio em que todos usam AdBlock, propaganda de “e-mail marketing”, media-kit de blog (hein??, problogging pra mim é doença), e coisas tão bizarras quanto, e eu esperando algo com muito menos papo pretensioso sobre negócios – tipo “Eu sou o Rei dos Blogs Brasileiros porque ganho dinheiro com isso” – e mais bate-papo informal sobre qualquer outra coisa, não rolou a não-palestra que eu mais queria ver, que era a “Técnicas de Blogagem para Pegar Mulé”, muito mais no clima… Totalmente surreal. Eu realmente não tenho saco pra “blogueiro” (odeio essa palavra) que se leva a sério. Tentei trocar duas palavras com o Carlos Cardoso, que eu não via desde os tempos de BBS, mas o assédio era tanto, por ele ser um pro-blogger, que ele me ignorou. Então tá.

Minha sugestão é um Bar-BarCamp: conferência em mesa de bar, para garantir a informalidade da parada, falando sobre nerdices ou não. Sem se levar a sério MESMO. Tem coisas que não combinam com seriedade. E eu ainda pretendia dar uma não-palestra ilustrada com bonequinhos de palito sobre “Sexo Nerd”. Não ia dar certo MESMO.

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