get the wor(l)d

Just before starting the trip, it is required to get some maps on the new N900. I hope to get some connectivity in Columbia via Comcel, but it’s better to have the required files on the mobile before the trip starts.

Maemo on N900 comes with Ovi Maps, but somehow this application misses some features I like – especially the option to choose which map-source to use. A probably better application is Mappero, which I already used as Maemo Mapper on my N770. It can be used with any maps you like and comes with some download options to pre-store the used maps. But it’s not so easy to select the areas to download, as well as to understand how many maps are required at all.

Mobile Atlas Creator - Mobile Atlas Creator

A better way to download the maps is to use the Mobile Atlas Creator, which can be run on your local computer. There is no description on how to use it together with Mappero, therefore I can’t say if my way is the only one or the best. But thats how I got it done:

• selected to store the Atlas as „OSMTracker tile storage“
• selected some Google Maps, created the Atlas
• copied the whole Atlas structure (in my case  atlases/Columbia_2011-01-25_200000/Google Maps) to the N900, into folder /home/user/MyDocs/.maps
• renamed folder „Google Maps“ on N900 into „GoogleVector“

thats it. If I now start Mappero, I have all the files I will need in the next weeks already on my drive. And if I have the time I will add this whole structure to Mappero with the Tiles and Repository configuration. But not today, because it works. Nice one.

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Since a few weeks I had a new toy – a N900 from nokia. It’s a mobile phone running Maemo, an adapted Linux distribution. Got a used one for a nice price, which should replace a heavy computer while traveling for a few months through southern America.

Anyway, as usual, one of the interesting things is how to sync contacts and calendar-entries with the Linux-driven Laptop on my desk? Luckily the solutions are now available – not as in the previous days with my ROKR E6, a Linux-phone which required me to get Windows to synchronize it, ugly.

The N900 can easily synchronize with the Funambol online service. Just add syncevolution and syncevolution-gui to your N900, configure it by giving in your credentials and you are done.

Most of the people won’t like publishing their contacts anywhere in the outside world. Me too. But beside the Funambol online service their is the Open Source Funambol development page. And from there you can download and install Funambol locally and sync to your local server – nice one. Just install this server and change the address in syncevolutions config-file, thats it.

In my case I had to start the first synchronization from the N900 with the command line parameter „–sync slow“ to let it run successfuly. Later synchronizations worked as required without the additional parameter – just from the graphical interface.

Now, as you have all your contacts and dates locally on your server, you just need to synchronize these to your kaddressbook / kontact or whatever you are going to use. Both of these KDE applications are using akonadi as there storage-backend, therefore you actually need a akonadi-funambol synchronization program. Which can be found in Akunambol. Just installed it (it’s part of gentoos kde overlay: „emerge akunambol“ does it’s job) and now I can sync between akonadi and my lokal funambol too.

Great, thanks to everybody who programmed those tools and who documented the required pieces – I’m never going to be out of sync anymore.

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