Archive for the ‘mobile’ Category

Bugzilla Reports for MediaWiki

Saturday, June 28th, 2008 by Ian Homer

Hi - I’ve just released an update to the bugzilla reports extension for MediaWiki - see BugzillaReports @ MediaWiki. We use this internally and find it very useful for generating slice and dice reports of our activities. Feel free to give it a try and contact me if you have any questions.

Bugzilla Reports Screenshot 1

Bugzilla Reports Bubble Last Comments

Step by Step : Create a Firefox Search Plugin for Your MediaWiki

Friday, May 16th, 2008 by Ian Homer

Firefox searching mediawiki with suggestionsI just discovered the benefits of creating custom Firefox search plugins the other day, having hooked up a Firefox search plugin for our internal MediaWiki which I shared with my colleagues. The search plugin integrates with the MediaWiki apis which can be used to provide suggestions. This suggestion functionality is pretty neat, since it allows you to quickly scan what pages are available on your wiki (without hitting the search button) and then select what you’re looking to go directly to your chosen page. A quick click-to-install link can also be provided for your team. Follow the steps below to find out how.



  1. Create a base-64 encoded 16×16 pixel image to appear next to the search engine input box so it’s always clear which search engine you’re searching. You can use an online utility such as Antonin Foller’s
  2. Create an OpenSearch description XML file and include your base-64 encoded image, e.g.
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/"
                       xmlns:moz="http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/">
  <ShortName>my wiki</ShortName>
  <Description>my wiki</Description>
  <Image width="16" height="16">data:image/x-icon;base64,
    (put your base 64 encoded image here)
  </Image>
  <Developer>Ian Homer for bemoko</Developer>
  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
  <Url type="text/html" method="get"
    template="http://wiki/index.php?title=Special:Search&amp;search={searchTerms}"/>
  <Url type="application/x-suggestions+json"
    template="http://wiki/api.php?action=opensearch&amp;search={searchTerms}"/>
  <moz:SearchForm>http://wiki</moz:SearchForm>
  <moz:UpdateInterval>8</moz:UpdateInterval>
</OpenSearchDescription>

where http://wiki is the base URL to your media wiki installation.

  1. Host this description XML file on a server of your chosing.
  2. Create and host an HTML page that links to the absolute URL of your hosted description XML file. The link must use the AddSearchProvider JavaScript API as demonstrated below.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="ltr">
  <head>
    <title>search engine loader</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
    <script type="text/javascript">
      function addEngine(engineURL) {
        if (window.external && ("AddSearchProvider" in window.external)) {
          window.external.AddSearchProvider(engineURL);
          return false;
        } else {
          alert(error_opensearch_unsupported);
          return true;
        }
      }
     </script>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="wrapper">
       <a onclick="return addEngine('http://host/searchmywiki.xml')">
         install my wiki search engine plugin
       </a>
    </div>
  <body>
</html>
  1. Open this HTML file in Firefox and click on the link to install the plugin … and of course circulate the URL to this HTML page with your colleagues so they can do the same.

… now even less excuses for people to say that they “can’t find it on the wiki”.

bemoko’s new web site is live

Thursday, May 15th, 2008 by Ian Homer

bemoko websiteI’m really pleased with our new website. It gives the clean design and warmth that gives you an idea of what bemoko is all about. We’re all really up beat about the next few months and we’ve had some fantastic feedback on what we’re doing. Thanks to all those involved so far.

If you haven’t had the chance to meet up with us, feel free to get in touch and say hello. We’re normally at the momo london events and I’m personally at the MEX conference in a couple of weeks. Really looking forward to that especially having been awarded one of the momo scholarships.

Best Mobile UX : Google Reader

Thursday, May 15th, 2008 by Ian Homer

Google mobile readerI’ve been pretty impressed with the Google Reader which I started using a few weeks ago, especially since it bridges over to the mobile service so cleanly. The mobile site hasn’t got the most flashiest of interfaces, but it is real sticky and genuinely useful. Now why do I think it is so good? Because it does what I want it to do:

  • View news articles from feeds I find interesting. I can see the next 10 headlines on the radar and drill down when I need to. I am even getting to the point where I prefer reading these headlines on my mobile as opposed to on my mac. I know I have the luxury of screen size of the E61i, but whether I’m sitting back on my sofa or waiting in line, I can quickly get my news fix.
  • Mark articles as interesting and share them. I even share them with this blog (see in the sidebar of the homepage of this blog).
  • Filter news based on my mood. I’m either looking at whatever (I’ve got loads of time and am just browsing), feeds I really rate (I’m just quickly make sure I’m not missing out on happenings), mobile related (Let’s find out what the buzz is) or obscure feeds (let’s check through some of the more offbeat news)

So I’ve got into the stage of configuring my feeds and reading trends at my mac and reading the news on my mobile, playing each medium to it’s strengths.

It’s not all rosey though. Some feeds provide lots of content, but others just provide a sentence relying on a click through to the main site. The click through experience is appalling, whether or not I go through google’s own transcoder. Most sites are not mobile ready and just take too long to load and the google transcoding UX is hit or miss as to whether the content I want is on the initial page of the transcoding. At least google give me the choice of which one I prefer - I’ve opted for the transcoded version (for the time-being), but to be honest I don’t click through often, since the experience is typically poor. Also, if the feed doesn’t provide a decent amount of content, then I’m starting to remove them from my reader. I actual would encourage feed providers to include with a decent body of content with the ad (text or image) embedded. I don’t mind seeing the add in the middle of content that I’m enjoying reading. As a service provider myself this does throw up some challenges for analytics :).

I took a quick look at the iPhone AJAX UI which gives you an idea of UIs we may all head towards. It was only partially compatible with my E61i though. Furthermore we can only move towards such UIs if it ready does improve the UX - i.e. not slow and not unnecessary eye-candy that distracts from my primary ask - I want to read relevant news.

Good work Google & thanks.

Vodafone includes 500Mb data/month in standard package

Thursday, May 1st, 2008 by Ian Homer

At last Vodafone is providing more attractive data tariffs. It had to be coming, and the sooner the better. There’s still better rates on the market, but it’s great news for me (I’m with Voda UK) and the 17million other subscribers. The barrier of entry for mobile web usage in the UK is dropping.

If it wasn’t for those pesky users

Sunday, April 20th, 2008 by Ian Homer

Some projects do seem be run from the point of view that the user is simply an irritant.  That’s why it’s been so refreshing to see MomoLondon and OTA paying particular attention to the user experience (or UX) over the past few weeks.   Highlights include Future Platforms’s inspirational astronomy case study led by Tom Hume and Bryan Rieger; Steve Ives on UE testing for Taptu; and Scott Weiss’s pearls of wisdom.   I’m also looking forward to continuing the discussions at the MEX conference in a few weeks, thanks to being offered a MoMo sponsorship placement.  The mobile device, being pitched as being the device to enable the user at the point of inspiration, is ironically constrained by the input interfaces which restrict that inspiration.  The iPhone is pushing the standard, but it’s only early days and it’s not exactly mass market yet.  These constraints and barriers are dropping, but they won’t drop quickly, and they won’t drop at all if service providers do not apply due care and attention to the UX.

A few reoccurring themes emerge:

  • Paper prototypes are very effective.  Nothing beats rapidly knocking up diagrams and notes with just paper and pen.  Sitting in a meeting staring at a screen as another person grapples with some particular tool, capturing everyone’s feedback, is not an ideal situation.  Personally, I think much more creatively with a pen in my hand.  Whack the paper prototypes on the wall and encourage your team to add scribbles and post it notes as required - over coffee or after a heated lunch time debate.   Yes, it’ll eventually end up in your favourite drawing tool, such as OmniGraffle or Visio, but, if you hold out until the paper prototypes are refined, you’ll end up having more focused lightweight documentation and not have so much personal attachment to ideas and thoughts that you’ve discarded along the way.
  • Think about personas and not just abstract concepts such as UML actors.   A persona is a fictitious character which brings a particular user type to life.  Encourage everyone, involved in the solution development process, to put themselves in the shoes of the user.  Give the persona a name, provide a photo of them, describe what they like to see at the cinema and describe what they had for lunch last Sunday.
  • Listen to the user.  Treat the user with respect and pay attention to what they’re saying.  OmniGroup, FileMaker, 37signals and (to jump sector) FirstDirect, naming just a few, are all doing well in this front.  Run user sessions that let the user provide natural feedback, without having words put in their mouth and without putting them under pressure.   That said, don’t be constrained by just the input from your users.   A service provider has the opportunity to show flare and create experiences that users would flock to.  It is within inspirational teams that new radical ideas emerge.  As Henry Ford said - “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”.
  • Don’t led technology drive the UX.  Yes you need to be aware of feasibility and be real, and you will have iterations in which a UX is adjusted according to technological constraints, but the UX must stay primarily focused on what is right for the user.   I’ve seen projects, for example, where the UI is driven from the content model or where the project’s treated as a technological show case.  Resist all temptations to let the technology lead.  Technology enables.

The mobile device is so user focused.  You know your user - location, direct billing - and the interface limitations are such that your UX mistakes are amplified.  The mass market has not yet started using the mobile web, snubbing it as fiddly and ineffective.  If you want food for though enjoy the debate following ReadWriteWeb’s mobile web baiting “Is the Mobile Web Dead?” blog.  These complaints, although justifiable, are more often than not based on the constraints of the mobile, cost confusion and the limited services that are available.   This situation provides a great opportunity for the industry.  When we can tear down the constraints and when we can apply the appropriate attention to the user experience, the uses will come flooding.

Top 10 MediaWiki Content Management Extensions

Thursday, February 21st, 2008 by Ian Homer

I’m a big fan of wikis and MediaWiki is my flavour. It’s a rock solid platform and has never let me down. I’ve picked up lots of best practices, patterns, tips & tricks and little hacks over the past few years and I’ll be sharing them with you over the next few months on this blog. There’s no better place to start things rolling than with a list of my favourite extensions. Extensions are what bring the MediaWiki to life and really allow you to take control of your Wiki content:

  1. Semantic MediaWiki has to come top of this list. To me it is the killer-extension on MediaWiki today. By assigning meta data to your pages you can really slice and dice your content. You can put your content modelling hat on and generate dynamic content, generating pages from contact lists of your team to glossaries to page tagging. It ensures that you only need to enter content once, allows you create different views of the system and really get to grips your content. All that you’d expect from a Semantic web. To top it off the Semantic Media Wiki team have slowly but surely reached the v1 of the extension over the past year or so, maintaining a high level of quality at all times.
  2. Next up is InputBox. Very simple, but elegant extension that allows you to create a new page from a template. If you need to create many pages of the same form, such as system requirements, then create a template from which you can spin off all the pages. Great for encouraging a standard page structure and makes it a lot easier for new comers to the wiki to follow a prescribed work-flow.
  3. Next 4 are some core function libraries that you’ll benefit from on a day-to-day basis as you create ever more sophisticated templates. StringFunctions gives you string replace and substring functions among others.
  4. ParserFunctions gives you such functions as if, ifeq and switch.
  5. VariableExtensions allows you access previously set variables, allowing you to do counters or interact between templates.
  6. I know I shouldn’t, but DynamicFunctions does give you that extra control of URL parameters. Dirty and hacky at times, but it has allowed me to go that extra distance at time, when it’s the last resort.
  7. You should always reference your sources. To help you manage your references and collect them all up nicely up at the bottom of the page try Cite.
  8. Gadgets looks really promising by allowing a little customisation / go-faster stripes on your wiki. A gadget is essentially a JavaScript and/or CSS which is applied to your page. Sysop users can install new gadgets using the standard wiki interface and then any user can choose (via a preferences edit) which gadgets they want to. There’s many out there and the list seems to be growing all the time. I said this is promising, because although I found a few interesting such as the pop-up preview on hover over links or WY(sort of)SIWYG, I couldn’t find any that really assisted on a day-to-day basis and, more importantly, enough to recommend to users of the wikis I manage. I suspect this’ll change soon as I discover new and improved gadgets.
  9. Eye-candy is good - especially when it makes things more usable. This is what SyntaxHighlight does. It brings those code blocks to life with some decent colouring, making them oh-so-much clearer. And what a fantastic list of supported languages.
  10. I leave Semantic Forms to last to end on a high, no means because I value it any less that of the ones above. Semantic Forms allows you to create forms for your data entry. With this in place users don’t even need to write any more wiki text to create pages - in fact you can enforce that they don’t so you really have control over how specific page types get managed. It integrates so well with the Semantic Media Wiki it surprises you. For example it can autocomplete text fields with a slick JavaScript module that lists best fit data as you type. This extension essentially wraps up a lot of the extensions mentioned above to improve the UI and protect the normal user from the sometimes cryptic wiki language.

One thing that always amazes me is the quality of both the MediaWiki core and the extensions provided by the community. It’s always a pleasure to come to either install a MediaWiki system, install extensions or upgrade the stack. It all just works and when I slip up (as I occasionally do) - it invariably tells me what I’ve done and what I need to do.

I’ll continue with this MediaWiki series in a few weeks time. Please let me know if there’s any particular areas you’d like me to cover or perhaps any use cases or samples you’d like me to run through.

Mobile Gaming

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 by Mat Diss

According to the BBC, gaming on the mobile platform is about to take off.
SpectrumBeing from the ZX Spectrum generation, I have been constantly amazed at the way the processing power has increased to allow sophisticated games to run on smaller and smaller devices. In the early days I remember trying (not all that successfully it has to be admitted) to program various games on the Spectrum platform.

Moving from coding in BASIC to machine language made a massive improvement to performance, but you could feel you were stretching the kit to its limits for relatively basic games.

Area 51I remember going to arcades and marvelling at the graphics and power of dedicated games machines, it seemed almost impossible to imagine being able to play games of that quality at home.

Now, of course, you can play the old arcade games in a browser window on pretty much any standard PC. There seems no difference between arcade machines now and games platforms like the PS3.

Putting the games onto a mobile platform seems to limit you to the equivalent of Spectrum games against the arcade machines again. Try playing Call of Duty 2 on the Sony Ericsson K800i - you are moving stick men around a 2D landscape with limited sound and graphics. Whilst even the ability to do this on what is, essentially, a low powered computer is impressive, todays games will require a large increase in power.

Screensize is another obvious limitation - I’ve attempted Lemmings on the K800i as well, but it is not well suited for small screens and small keyboards - a lot of the game revolves around timing and getting the cursor over the minute lemming at the right time and pressing the right key is definitely an art. The new generation of larger screen devices will no doubt help in this area (Lemmings would be good with the touchscreen devices!)Lemmings

The phone does open up one avenue not available to most PC gamers though; and this is Wii style motion sensitivity. The phone is ideally suited to this form of control (although you may get some odd looks whilst playing the games).

So, it’s still early days for mobile games, but unlike when I was programming on my Spectrum, I have no doubt we will soon have PlayStation quality games to play on the train home. It may make commuting almost enjoyable.

Nokia N82 – be the best

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 by Tim Avery

After my major disappointment with the F700, not wanting to be phoneless, I had to choose a different handset quickly. I had originally compiled a shortlist of the iPhone, F700, Nokia N95 (8GB), Sony Ericsson K850i and the Nokia N82.

A colleague of mine was seriously happy with his Nokia E61i but after a trouser test it created a bit too much packet sag for me. I could just buy tighter fitting trousers but thought a different phone choice would be the best way forward.

I’ve been a fan of Sony Ericsson’s for a while, had a K750i for a couple of years and loved it. It even filled in ok when my digital camera broke when on holiday in Italy. So I was leaning towards the K850i but it just wasn’t feature rich enough to compete against the smart phones that are about these days. As a rule I’m not a big Mac exponent, I appreciate the benefits and ethos of the Mac approach but don’t join in the arguments that erupt around Microsoft & Apple. However, I still think the UI on the iPhone is brilliant. The only thing that stopped me getting one is the camera (it’s no better than the K750) and lack of 3G. Oh, and the price! O2 are bringing it in line with normality but that just highlights the initial rip off.

So, that left the Nokia’s, N95 or N82. These babies are packed with goodies. How to choose, the N95 causes some minor trouser problems and who really needs a double slider, also lacks a Xenon flash. I also noticed it has one external speaker, the N82 has 2, stereo, does that really matter? No, but makes you feel good.

So I have an N82. The best bits are:

  • 5 megapixel feature packed camera with Xenon flash. Yes it does make a difference.
  • GPS with maps – it is usable and has assisted GPS. Uses the radio network to help it find satellites quicker and it works indoors! It helped me navigate round Swindon (and to leave nice and quick)
  • It has the nice feature of auto rotating the display depending on the phones orientation
  • Symbian Series 60 OS is good, it’s trying to be like Mac OS X
  • Email support is fine, reading attachments is fine
  • Web browser is fine (HTML) and fast.
  • WLAN – I didn’t think this was really necessary but once you’ve had it there’s no going back
  • Auto voice dialling. No need to record voice tags, it works it out itself. Matches 9 out of 10 times.
  • It even has a bar code reader
  • There is a lot I’ve not explored yet but I continue to be impressed as use it more and more

What’s not so great:

  • Keys are really small, it you’ve got big sausage fingers that may be a problem
  • The key markings are really faint and with the shiny body reflecting lots of light are often invisible
  • The UI navigation isn’t quite as good as the Sony Ericsson (or obviously the iPhone). Takes a few more key presses to do what you want to do.
  • PC synchronisation. If you use Outlook you’ll be fine. If you don’t it’s aggravation. I use Thunderbird. I can export to LDIF and into Outlook express and sync. but this is rubbish. Mainly because only phone numbers go across, no addresses and other contact info. It is possible to play with csv’s but it’s a painful, error prone process and certainly not suitable ongoing. Also synching from phone back to Thunderbird isn’t going to happen. I’m going to experiment with some other approaches to try and iron this out.

I also have a suspicion it’s killing off my Bluetooth headsets. Had two so far that have worked for three weeks then will not stay connected. Spooky.

Conclusion – overall this is a great device, there is a lot packed into a good trouser sized package. I’m seriously chuffed.

Mobile blog - oh so easy - Widset or Wordpress plugin

Sunday, February 17th, 2008 by Ian Homer

bemoko widset widgetI discovered widsets early last year and found it a really enjoyable interface to access my favourite news feeds. It’s been out of beta since last November and has since been polished up well. What impressed me most yesterday was the ease in which I could create a new widget for this bemoko blog and get it published. I had 20 subscribers to the widget within the hour. Many thanks to those early adopters (and of course the Widset developers for making it so easy).

wordpress mobileAn alternative approach is the Wordpress mobile plugin provided by Andy Moore. As with all Wordpress plugins the installation is easy beyond belief. 5 minutes and our blog was optimised for the mobile. Andy does a stunning job in the mobilisation - all in one php and a great light weight device detection. Do take a look at the PHP code that does it all (wordpress-mobile.php) for a little inspiration.

widset dashboardSo how would I access mobile feeds? I’m not too sure whether I prefer the Widset approach or delivering direct to a standard mobile browser. They both have their strengths. The Widset UI is smooth, looks impressive and is responsive, but it does require the user to download and launch another app. The browser route is more lightweight, accessible to more users without an installation and gives extra flexibility to the service provider - you’re not confined by the Widset box. I’ll try both for the next few months and let you know what works for me both as user and a service provider.


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