The Maemo community is demonstrating what it can, and has just developed and launched the first firmware update for our Nokia N900, even though it is testing.
Installation is very simple, although it is advisable to wait for the stable version. The installation steps are:

1. Make sure you’re running PR1.3, Nokia’s last official Maemo 5 update. To see if you have PR1.3, go into Settings > About product, you should see under Version it has the numbers beginning with 20.2010.36.
2. Click on the Install testing button above. (use http://bit.ly/communityssu or http://j.mp/communityssu as a quick link to this page from your Nokia N900)
3. Hildon Application Manager (HAM) will launch and appear to be doing nothing but after a second or three it will display the first installation, so be patient. In all, there are a series of installations for which HAM will prompt you with messages and warnings. Click “accept” and “done” for each and let HAM install all the community packages.
4. Once done (ie. no further install prompts appear after some while), close HAM and go into the applications menu. Look for Community SSU and launch it. This will then automatically run through a series of scripts to ensure HAM will now be using community repository for updates.
5. HAM will re-open and present a system upgrade called Maemo 5 Community SSU. Once installed, your device will reboot.

I don’t recommend installing this update yet, I have had some problems. It is advisable to wait for the stable version.

Changelog of the Community SSU source on http://gitorious.org/community-ssu in comparison to the PR1.3 release:

PR 1.3.3.7-1

hildon-desktop

• TODO

hildon-home

• Added ~/.local/share/applications/hildon to the searchpath for .desktop files
• Fixed a bug where Hildon-home is not responding if theme is changed when all shortcuts are added to home view$
• Tighter D-BUS message matching

hildon-status-menu

• Added portrait mode support

modest

• Modest upgraded from 3.4.8 to 3.90.7.
• Fixed Light pattern
• bug #3700 (Place signature below original text in replies, not above)
• bug #2563 (Replaced “– Original message –” with “On x, y wrote:”)

vte

• Bug #7164

  X Terminal was rendering the “bright black” color as black, which could make certain colored console applications hard to use. The fix makes the color rendered as “dark gray”, as done with other colors.

• Bug #6009

  The Enter key from keyboard presented incorrect behavior on X Terminal on certain applications, such as “less” or Vim running under “screen”. The fix makes sure the key works as expected under any X Terminal application.

Via | Maemo.org

Nokia XpressMusic devices such as the Nokia 5800 or 5530 have a touch button on the top corner to bring up shortcuts to core apps. This functionality has been introduced to the Nokia N900 thanks to MohammadAG from the Maemo forums. The shortcuts are activated by holding the proximity sensor on the Nokia N900.

MohammedAG says this app is more of a proof of concept for now. Head over to the Maemo forum thread for installation and feedback.

MaeModder is a scripts collection written completely in shell inclusive of a simple Python GUI for our Nokia N900 that allows we to carry out the most important mods available in Maemo. Excellent application, but with some compatibility issues with Hildon-desktop.
Once downloaded the application from here, we enter xterm and type (before create maemodder directory):

root
cd /maemodder/
dpkg -i maemodder_0.7_all.deb
apt-get -f install

All the information you need to configure and optimize the parameters of this tool, you can find it here.

We talked about that since NITDroid had promised to release the first version Gingerbread earlier this year for our Nokia N900, and have fulfilled their promise!. It’s not yet stable and is “experimental”, also does not have an automatic installer.

What is working:

• 3D
• GApps
• accelerometer
• lights HAL
• hardware keyboard
• sound
• charging, battery status indication
• modem/data, SMS receiving, USSD, calls/signaling
• A2SD
• wi-fi connectivity
• bluetooth

What is NOT working…

• voice calls
• fakegps
• UMS

For downloads and more information, please visit the official forum.

SPB TV 1.0 application, for our Nokia N900, already is not beta and is available on the Ovi Store. With SPB TV can watch TV with the best user experience and rich functionality, alongside with quick and easy access to more than 150 channels from over 20 countries, with such features as channel preview, picture-in-picture mode, watching TV with low speed mobile network connections, TV-guide with the option to set the reminder in the calendar and more.
SPB TV for Maemo Main Features:

• Full Screen TV player with picture-in-picture mode
• Unique TV browser with fast channel launching and switching
• A wide selection of public live TV channels
• Integrated TV Guide with a list of current and upcoming TV shows
• On-screen control panel
• Video quality switcher
• Advanced Video Codec support

SPB TV can be downloaded from the Ovi Store for free.

Ovi Store | SPB TV

Angry Birds continues betting for the Nokia N900, today the game has been updated to version 1.4.2, which includes support for the new Level Pack 4 and several aesthetic changes.
Remember Angry Birds is available free on the Ovi Store, but each Level Pack costs 2 euros.

Ovi Store | Angry Birds

Vumeter v0.5.2 is an excellent application for our Nokia N900. It’s a VU Meter with which we can measure both linear noise, such as current noise, all in decibels by the use of microphone or other source.
Install | Vumeter

With AutoRemoveSMS application for our Nokia N900 we can automatically clean up sms database by all those calls notification or spam sms, with several filter to customize to adapt to user needs.
The filters are not related to each others, if you pick the text filter and the date one there won’t be a cumulative filter effect. It is written in C++ and Qt, and has several filter to customize to adapt to user needs.

AutoRemoveSMS is available in the Extras-Devel repository.

TwimGo application, possibly the best Twitter client for our Nokia N900, upgraded to version 2.0.15, with improvements over retweets, now includes new and old, and the original tweets, we can view original tweets when viewing reply details..
It runs on Qt Web Runtime so maybe we’ll see TwimGo running on other devices in the future.

Before installing this new version you have to take into account:

1. Uninstall old version before installing new version
2. Make sure that you have Qt Web Runtime on your Nokia N900 before downloading TwimGo. [Via Nokian900applications.com]

Download | TwimGo

Tap zoom in/zoom out buttons to change zoom level by 1 or hold to change by few levels. Hold shift while touching zoom buttons to change zoom level by a fraction. Tap “my location” button (the one with blue dot) to toggle following your current location (and direction in 3D mode and when rotation is enabled in 2D mode). Goggles icon will be used for searching (not working yet). Compass icon shows current view direction and toggles rotation mode in 2D. Rest of screen is used for kinetic scrolling. CloudGPS is available in the Extras-Devel repository.

In 3D mode and when rotation mode is enabled upper part of screen is used for changing view direction.

Keyboard controls:

• Arrows – scroll/rotate the map,
• Dot – zoom out,
• Enter – zoom in,
• Space – toggle “follow me” mode,
• Q – quit application,
• B – [very experimental, new in 0.3.9] download (blocking operation) and show 3D buildings in near area, will work properly only for zoom 17 and higher,
• G – [debug] toggle show grid,
• C – [debug] toggle show current latitude and longitude.
• H – [debug] show tile array and visibility range
• When Shift is pressed zooming behaviour is altered.
• X – toggle accelerometer usage. Accelerometer is calibrated in the moment it is enabled.
• N – switch to next tile provider. See /opt/cloudgps/providers.ini file.