Maemo 5's switch to Xorg from Xomap (based on KDrive) used in earlier versions means much better compatibility with many standard Linux desktop tools. In this case, x2x, a small program that allows a keyboard and mouse to be shared between multiple X displays. Catch the YouTube video after the link for a guide to installing and using it on Maemo 5.
A community developer, jacekowski, has been working on getting Google's Chromium browser running on Maemo 5. Chromium, as opposed to Nokia's Gecko-based MicroB which is included with Maemo 5, is a WebKit based browser that's designed to increase browser stability and speed by pushing separate tabs and plugin processes to new threads. This release is based on the Debian package and is currently available only from the porter's website and will need to be installed using XTerminal.
Nick Leppänen Larsson is pushing improvements to fMMS, the community's answer to the lack of MMS on Maemo 5 out-of-the-box, for version 0.6.2 which brings improvements dependent on the PR1.2 release of Maemo 5. Basically I'm waiting for PR1.2 to hit as this adds MMS settings to /etc/operator_settings file, which will result in a redesign of the configuration dialog (again, heh) and hopefully make it a lot easier for everyone to get it working.Another feature which is holding me back from promoting to -testing is the lack of proper address book-integration, this could be solved in two ways (three, but a full rewrite in C/C++ isn't something I'm looking forward to atm): Someone releases a set of python bindings for libosso-abook OR bug #9865 gets fixed. The latest version is currently available from Extras-devel (standard warnings and disclaimers apply), but users will need to wait for PR1.2 to be released before upgrading.
Talk user "devu" is working on a reimplementation of the Maemo desktop in Flash. The demo features a, Maemo-like desktop - the implemented multi-desktop solution reflects the navigation of Maemo OS; Screen modes - the choice of vertical or horizontal layout adjusts the graphics accordingly in a most visually efficient way; Pop-ups - additional elements as the part of interface for better communication with the user; Device Manager - a class to recognize your OS settings to fit your applications in the best way possible; Blog Widget - small Blog aggregate; YouTube widget - small widget to play external YouTube videos The testing environment is currently accessible through flaemo.com.
Robin Burchell has released the first proper Facebook client for Maemo, Facebrick. I was going to get it into extras-devel, but it's proving a bit tricky, so prebuilt binaries for now. I will do this in the near future. The deb is currently available on his website, testers and contributors welcome.
tgalal has released a new application, Retro Conversations, to help import SMS histories from other devices. Retro Conversations can be used to import and read SMS from other phones. Options like forward, find, filter and sort. An interface that mimics original Nokia Conversation look and feel and another one similar to SMS interface on previous nokia phones. Since importing SMS from old Nokia phones are not supported (yet), I wrote this as my first app. It's in Python and Qt. Retro Conversations is currently available in Extras-devel (standard warnings and disclaimers apply), testers and contributors are welcome.
Marko Mattila is working on a new Qt-based Flickr client using QML. Some time ago I wrote how you can build and run QML applications on N900, but since that I haven't done anything related to QML, until now. I'm not the only one at the moment who is trying to study how QML works and how you can deploy it in your application. I have always learned by doing, so therefore I decided to write a small application with QML.
I like to photograph and I have missed a good Flickr client for N900, so it was a natural choice to write a small Flickr client. I call it QuickFlickr, naturally. :) No code is yet available, but a YouTube preview of the application is available on the blog.
Thomas Perl has proposed the creation of a series of "UX weeks", focusing on user experience in key areas. What about joining forces and picking a new app/widget every week (that gets proposed by someone in this thread here) and then we all work together and post mock-ups, issues, etc.. and come up with some improvement suggestions that we then communicate to the developer (of course, if possible we should involve the developer during the week too)? The proposal is currently taking shape on Talk, if you'd like to get involved, go dive into the thread.
mpd is a distributed music system for your home entertainment. Carol Alexandru has posted a screenshot of some Maemo 5 widgets for controlling mpd from a desktop.