A new over-the-air update has been released for Documents To Go Premium Edition. The updated version 2.001.346 now includes some basic PowerPoint editing AND Viewing, features the top version lacked. In the update description they also mentioned improvements for Excel.

The previous version of Documents To Go Premium Edition had both Word and Excel editing, but lacked even basic PowerPoint viewer features. Ironically the Viewer edition was able to view Powerpoint viewing, forcing many to install both the viewer end editing versions.

Once the update was installed it added a duplicate Slideshow to go icon as I also had the viewer edition installed, which can be simply fixed by uninstalling the viewer edition.

As for the PowerPoint editing you can do the actual editing by going to New>Outline.

If you still don’t have DTG, you can get the Premium version which has all the editing features for $29.99 or the Viewer edition for $9.99.

When you dial a contact on the N900, it will only display and give you the option to call that number in the Call Log (Dialer). Even if the contact has several other numbers, you can only dial that last number.

You could always exit the Phone dialer (Call Log) and go to Contacts, but there’s a much easier way. In the Phone dialer, select your contact’s last dialed number and a menu will open giving you the option to call only that number and to send an SMS. Now select the contact’s picture to reveal more numbers and details.

The N900 has a single ARM Cortex A8 CPU running at 600Mhz, a stark contrast to today’s modern Android devices running at a whopping 1Ghz. Most Android users will probably take a look at the N900 ‘s spec and dismiss it as running at “just” 600 MHz, but is this really the case?

It’s no secret that the N900 can multi-tasks like no other, capable of showing a live view of all open applications in the Dashboard, Nokia’s multitasking interface for the Maemo OS: that YouTube video playing in the browser will continue playing, showing a live view, even when accessing this so called Dashboard. Something that those newer 1GHZ Android devices simply can’t accomplish.

From the PR1.2 and earlier, the N900 could be considered  moderately fast when it comes to speed, slowing down after some heavy multitasking. With the release of the PR1.3 Update, the N900 received several improvements and features, among them also quite a performance boost. Now it’s not only capable of handling several application at a time, including plenty of eye candy, but it’s now really fast, too. When I thought about it, I realized that it was also running at that same 600MHz clock speed. Even some user that had overclocked their N900 in the range of 800 to 900MHz all the sudden realized that it was speedy at the stock 600MHz!

All of this brings us to the following question: Is a 1 GHz CPU in a mobile device a good idea? Perhaps, mobile handset makers like HTC clearly seems to think so. Is it necessary to run a modern mobile device? Definitely not, with the N900 being the best example of this, running at “just” 600 Mhz. This also clearly shows that it was never about the clock speed, but efficiency. Symbian is famously known for running running quite smooth on lower clocked hardware, now it seems that Maemo and hopefully MeeGo will soon join this group.

 When using the Email app on the N900, many people tend manually setup their email services, without ever knowing about or using Nokia Messaging. They tend to open the email app and follow the Account Setup Wizard or go to New Account and follow the instructions of the same wizard. This is where they’d choose their email services, like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo mail, this is NOT the proper way to setup Nokia Messaging. In fact by configuring it this way, you aren’t even using the Nokia Messaging service.

Nokia Messaging gives you push-type email, that’s in many cases times faster than any email service or client I use. As I wrote in a previous article, it has some neat advantages of its own. Other features of Nokia Messaging can be found here. 

So, how do you properly setup Nokia Messaging on the N900?

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One of the features introduced with the PR1.2 update was the Email Widget. This widget is supposed to display an overview of your emails, including subject and number of unread emails. Officially this should also work with Nokia Messaging, but it didn’t.

Fast forward a couple of months and we now have PR1.3 and the Email widget now works with Nokia Messaging, but here’s the catch: this time it only shows the number unread emails, but not the subject line of those emails. If you’re using Nokia Messaging (and you should!) you’re now stuck with a large email widget that only shows the number of unread emails, with most of the space remaining unused.What’s even worse is the fact that they don’t plan on fixing this as Quim Gil from Nokia clearly stated that:

“According to the developers, testing with the upcoming update the number of
new/unread emails displayed correctly.

About not displaying email subjects, at this point of Fremantle we are not
going to change the UI specs, sorry.”

I really hope they change there minds and fix this as this email can easily one of the most useful.

Would you like this Widget fixed?

The latest PR1.3 update for the N900 is now available to download. No surprises here as the existence of the PR1.3 repository hinted at the up coming release. An official announcement indicated that the update was just days away, 12 days to be exact.

The update itself (version 20.2010.26-2 or PR1.3 for short) is available as both an 87.5MB OTA update or a very large 200MB full firmware update through Nokia Software Updater. The difference is that the first just ads the necessary pieces, while the second option is the complete new firmware. There’s another option which I’ll discuss below.

What’s new?

-Ovi Suite support to access and sync files and messages

-Ovi Music Store is now accessible through the N900

-Performance Improvements

-General bug fixes

-Aligns the Qt application and UI framework with the planned version for the MeeGo 1.1 platform (Qt 4.7). Qt Mobility 1.0.2 APIs for mobile development are also included.

-Email widget now displays the number of unread messages in Nokia Messaging

Overall, the N900 feels much faster and the slow down after heavy multi-tasking doesn’t seem to come at all. But I’ll have to see how it holds up after prolonged heavy multi-tasking.

Manual Update

After a major firmware update it’s always a good idea to start clean, and do a hard reset, which can lead to faster performance. After installing or uninstalling programs, updates and now a major update on top  can lead to OS slow downs. That’s why we highly recommend doing a hard reset. As always remember to backup! Instruction on how to do this can be found here.

Did you see any new features? Let us know!

These are perhaps the best bits of N900 related news a N900 user could hear. The official MeeGo website is announcing that the N900 will soon be getting the PR1.3 update that will hopefully fix bugs, increase performance and add new features. Maybe there is still some chance for that Flash 10.1 on Maemo or even some OVI Maps 3 love.

What’s an even better news, is the fact that todays announcement leaves no doubt about the N900′s future: the final public release of MeeGo is coming to the N900, hopefully by the same time the first native MeeGo devices are released.

We’re extremely happy with these bits of info, as things were starting to look a bit sad for the tablet device. It looks like good times are ahead for N900 users.

While at Nokia World 2010 I had a little talk with the OVI product manager. One of the burning questions was whether OVI Maps with voice-guided navigation was coming to the N900. The answer was simple: they are currently focused on bringing this feature for the MeeGo platform and if the code is easily transferable/compatible with the N900, they will make the update available to the N900. If it’s something that takes huge amounts of effort to “convert” to get it working on the N900, they simply won’t do it. In short, it all depends on the compatibility and the amount of time required to transfer this to the N900. 

What’s your opinion on Nokia decision?

By now we know that N900, probably won’t be getting Flash 10.1, even though it can support it and was one of the first devices to do so. Some sites require Flash 10.1 to run the Flash content, even though they should run just fine on devices with Flash 9.4 such as the N900. If they detect a lower version they simply refuse to run.

TweakFlashver alters the Flash plugin so that it reports a custom version to sites, basically fooling them into detecting Flash 10.1 installed on the N900. As result sites that required version 10.1 run just fine on Flash 9.4. The application has a few preset profiles like Flash 10.1 for Android or Flash for the Linux OS, but also the ability to set custom version. The application can be downloaded from the standard Maemo repository, a must-have if you watch a lot of Flash videos online.

When you’re done, point your browser www.playerversion.com to check your Flash version.

It’s been a while since the N900 got its last PR1.2 update. The N900 was a very rough black diamond, but the last firmware and updates to several applications have made the N900 quite a polished device. As always, there’s room for improvement. Last year we wrote The N900 Fix list and we’re happy that several items were fixed in one way or another: OVI Store for the N900 has been enabled through the firmware update, Nokia Messaging now works in more regions and even though we didn’t get the full portrait mode support, the browser now fully supports it.

We also asked for Better Podcast support in the Music Player. On Symbian devices like the N97 the Music Player correctly identifies Podcasts and creates a Podcast folder. With the N900 there is no way this can be done other than using Playlist. What’s also missing is a resume feature, for Podcasts. Technically it wasn’t a firmware that fixed this, but rather an update the best podcasting app for the N900:gPodder. It now fully supports auto-resume, so we can remove that from the list. Lastly support for more IM services was our the list and even though we didn’t get that either we did get superb Skype video support. We have been hearing rumors that another update is in the  works. One year later,here are a few updates that could make a big difference on the N900:

1. Flash 10.1: The official word was that the N900 won’t be getting the Flash 10.1 update, but we’re still hoping that it will. Flash 10.1 means support for more Flash sites, hardware acceleration for Flash content and several enhancements for mobile devices. The N900 was actually the first device to run the Flash 10.1 before it’s official release. We don’t see why this can’t be added now that the final version is out.

2.OVI Maps with voice guided, turn-by-turn navigation. It’s seemed almost to good to be through. Free, voice guided, turn-by-turn navigation, for life. All the latest Symbian devices have it, except for the N900. The N900 does have OVI Maps and it does show you your exact position, finds you places and gives you direction. Sound good right? Except that it lacks voice guidance and many other enhancements that have made OVI Map a must-have feature.

3.Email Widget should work with Nokia Messaging. PR1.2 introduced us to the Email widget, but unfortunately it doesn’t work with Nokia’s own Nokia Messaging service! It’s a well documented bug that Nokia is aware of and hopefully they’ll get it fixed soon.

4.Equalizer: The N900 has a great finger-friendly and beautiful Music Player, and good sound quality and volume headroom that could make an audiophile proud,but strangely missing is one of the most basic features: the Equalizer.

5.Support for Live Messenger and Live Drive: Would it be great to have built-in support for Live Messenger and the ability to upload files to Live Drive’s 25GB storage?

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