But that is not the dream I’m referring to in this post.

I’ve always had a gadget lust, from “hi-tech” cellphones/smartphones, to PDA’s, to tablet PC’s, and even to Star Trek PADD’s. Then came a new line of devices; UMPC’s (Ultra Mobile PC), MID’s (Mobile Internet Device), and finally, Nokia’s own Internet Tablet. And after years of dreaming, two years or more of drooling (ever since the N770 came out), and a year of waiting, it finally happened!

I just love it! Even if it’s not a phone (though not impossible to use as a sort of phone). And I’ve got lots of things planned for the N810, and for KDE. I just hope this little baby can keep up.

2009 didn’t kick off quite well. I got the flu immediately after New Year’s day and that lasted for almost a week. Luckily for me, my midterm exam that was scheduled on the 10th was postponed for the 17th. Even that was a disaster (here’s to hoping I didn’t mess that one up).

But regardless of that, there were a few highlights this month that tells me that 2009 will be an exciting year. KDE 4.2, which is going to be released really soon now, marks another milestone release from the KDE 4 series, boasting a lot of improvement and interesting changes. Furthermore, last week, Nokia, now the owners of Qt Software (formerly Trolltech) announced that the next release of Qt will also be available under the LGPL, hopefully pacifying/satisfying a lot of “I-don’t-want-to-use-Qt-because-of-the-license” people. And last but definitely not the least, hopefully this month, I will be getting my Nokia N810!! So yes, 2009 is probably going to rock!

And what new year would be complete without a set of new year’s resolutions? Here’s my 10 Commandments for 2009.

1. Discipline and Focus. Combat procrastination, perhaps my numero uno character flaw.
2. Be Health Conscious. The final months of 2008 really shook me up physically. It’s time to pay more attention to my health and weight (and shape ).
3. Blog Early, Blog Often. But also Blog Shorter. I should try writing more in shorter spurts than writing a novel in one go. And maybe not limit myself to only KDE/FOSS subjects (though those won’t appear on Planet KDE unless relevant).
4. Finish pending projects ASAP before turning to new ones. Prevent “project” creep from overwhelming me.
5. Schedule. Try as I might, I couldn’t live without some form of structure or guidance. While I do like the occasional spontaneity, I cannot thrive on random chaos. Of course, the effectiveness of a schedule relies on resolution #1…
6. Code more! My primary motivation for free software and KDE was programming. 3 years later, I haven’t done much progress. Time to move forward! Need to spit out actual KDE and Qt code.
7. Get a hobby. There’s life away from computers… I just need to discover it.
8. Sharpen the mind. I’ve been worried (read: paranoid) that my memory and sharpness seems to be declining lately.
9. Save money. Need to pay back Mama for (half of) the N810 and probably open up my own bank and PayPal account.
10. Document! Take note of important procedures I’ve done or scripts I’ve used. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to redo something I’ve done before, only to realize I’ve forgotten how I did it in the first place. It’s a habit I hope to develop and carry over to coding.

And now for the hardest part: actually doing all these.

1. KDE UserBase: Together with other members of the CWG, I almost spent a whole week working on the wiki. It was a sort of rush work since we wanted to have a “launching” Friday last week. So far, everything’s looking good. It’s far from complete, of course, specially since it is something that the KDE community would need to build up. I’ll blog about it in more detail next time.

2. UPOU: School’s over!! We finally had our final examinations for the first semester last Saturday. So I spent the whole week before that reviewing. Actually I was practically reviewing only one subject. But I’m tired of whining about the deficiencies of that one subject, so I’ll just be glad that it’s over. Now I can read the supplementary book that I read without pressure of deadlines. I’m looking forward to more interesting subjects next semester (“Computer Organization” and “Data Structures & Algorithms”) and hopefully better teachers.

3. KDE, Source Mage: I got too new e-mail redirects! One from kdemail and one from Source Mage, the latter basically meaning I’m a developer now, much like an ubuntu.com or kubuntu.org email redirect. I guess I have another set of stuff to keep me busy the coming days.

4. Software Freedom Day 2008: Last September 20, , some of my friends from Ubuntu-PH attended one of the SFD celebrations held in Metro Manila (there were other simultaneous gatherings), though not really representing Ubuntu Philippines (I wore my KDE shirt, again ). Two of the SFD celebrations on that day catered to IT students as their primary audiences. IMHO, it was wise to target this sector because these students would be the ones populating the IT industry soon. So it’s best to start them early with Free Software. Here are some pics from the event. Again my apologies for the quality. I am definitely not a photographer. On an unfortunate note, I think there is still some need for more education about free software, even (and probably especially) among those tasked to spread it. One speaker practically labeled “Yahoo! Messenger” as “Free Software”, equating “free software” with “freeware”. I’m just hoping the speaker meant otherwise (they were going back and forth between two groups of people).

5. N810 and Maemo 5: I finally found (thanks to jsgotangco) a local store that sells the device that I’ve been dying to have since last year (wow! it’s almost been a year now). Lo and behold, it costs Php 24,000!! That’s US$ 533, more or less. That is practically the price of a high-end Eee PC or an HP Mininote, basically a Netbook price. And then another blow came to my plans: Maemo 5. All the talk of Maemo 5 goodness and future Qt integration with it makes me want to think twice about getting a N810 now. Not that I have the money to buy one anyway. I still have to figure out a way to raise Php 24,000, hopefully within this lifetime… My sister recommended oDesk.com, but that brings in whole lot of different personal issues.

Long story short: Great past 2 weeks. Busy as hell, but was well worth it. Going to have another busy week or even month ahead. I’m Looking forward to it.

The Philips SA3225/97 player is really just a simple device. A bit too simple even. One of those devices that does one thing (or a few things) does them well (hopefully): music (MP3, FM Radio) and video (in a proprietary SMV format) player, text reader, recorder, picture viewer. That’s it. You will have to manage those files, specially your music, elsewhere. No problems connecting to GNU/Linux and KDE it’s simply seen as a removable USB device. Oh, and of course, it can’t play Ogg Vorbis.

Now my other toy is a whole different story. It’s a ZTC (or CECT) C2000, more known locally as “one of those China phones”. Quite sad that quite a number of these phones (some of which are actually good), are being re-branded and marketed as cheap Nokia and iPhone clones (although some do seem to be iPhone-inspired). But that’s another story. This is one good phone that has a lot of features that I want: of course, calls, SMS/MMS, GPRS (sadly.. no 3G), music player (MP3, FM Radio, Voice recorder), Videos (3GP, MP4, TV receiver), games (NES emulator), and a big touchscreen. And the best part of it was that I only spent US$ 120 (roughly converted from Philippine Peso) for such a great phone! Ok, I really only spent $75, the rest was from my mom.

I bought this phone, and made sure it was an inexpensive one, for two reasons. The most “urgent” would be that I needed and wanted a new phone, and with the nice set of features and nice price tag, it was a great deal (although I was actually planning on buying another phone which looked a lot like an iPhone ). But my ultimate goal is really to be able to hack and play with it, perhaps even install Qt and/or KDE on it, which is why the “cheap” price tag was an important factor (so that if I brick it, I won’t cry… much…). Of course, the biggest problem would be the fact that this is not your regular Linux-friendly phone, and it’s not that well documented for Linux hacking. However, since I have found instructions on how to upgrade/flash the device’s firmware (OS?), I’m hoping that it will be possible to do something with it. If not, I hope to at least be able to install Qtopia on it. That would be one major step forward. Now all I have to figure out is where to get started, since this (mobile/embedded development) is a totally new and alien frontier for me.

Of course, I’m still hoping to buy a Nokia N810 (actually I prefer the N800) and am taking steps to earning around $450 for one.

I know it’s a kinda late reaction, but…

FIC Neo1973, the first phone to run OpenMoko, is finally available. At least for developers, or interested people with cash to burn.

It may not be as stylish as the iPhone, but it’s definitely kool-er for Linux geeks (like me?). And the developer’s preview prices are almost half the price of the Greenphone. I can’t wait for the final price of the “end-user” version! Although I just might save up for the Neo Base edition.

The biggest advantage to this phone is its openness and the mass market appeal (see how cheap it is). Of course, our beloved people from Trolltech might disagree, but at this point in time, I can’t see the Greenphone going into the mass market yet. It has its own niche to fill.

Now to sit back and wait for people to port Qtopia over (OpenMoko currently uses GTK+) or for someone to run KDE on it if possible. I remember someone was able to run KDE on an HTC Universal, but Neo only has half the CPU speed. How about Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded? Maybe a Kubuntu version of UME?

I can dream, can’t I?

Warning: Gadget-obsession reviving…