bemoko's mobile web

Bugzilla Reports for MediaWiki

Ian Homer — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:50:04 +0000

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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

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

Ian Homer — Fri, 16 May 2008 22:21:15 +0000

I 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.

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
Create an OpenSearch description XML file and include your base-64 encoded image, e.g.


  my wiki
  my wiki
  data:image/x-icon;base64,
    (put your base 64 encoded image here)
  
  Ian Homer for bemoko
  UTF-8
  
  
  http://wiki
  8

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

Host this description XML file on a server of your chosing.
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.




  
    search engine loader
    
    
  
  
    
       
         install my wiki search engine plugin

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”.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

MythTV and MythDora

Mat Diss — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:46:13 +0000

I have been using MythTV since version 0.17 a couple of years ago. Back then the installation process was for the brave/foolhardy only.

I built the computer, plugged in my TV card (a Hauppage PVR-350) and installed Linux. Then the fun really started. I eventually found Jarod Wilsons Myth(TV)ology pages with some excellent instructions to follow. After a lot of fiddling and playing around, I managed to get a TV picture displayed - a joyous moment!

The comments from my family were around the lines of ‘why not just buy a TiVo??’ - at the most frustrating times of my install, this was a good point, but when done it felt much more of an achievement than just handing over the credit card.

The system worked well, with an uptime of over a year until I decided that I needed to make some ‘tweaks’. The tweak I had in mind was to get a DVB card so I could watch and record UK freeview channels.

“Just a quick upgrade” I assured my wife. She was not convinced. At 2am when I finally gave up and went to bed, I wasn’t convinced either - it was not going well.

Next day I discovered Mythdora, which seemed to be a complete ‘Myth-in-a-box’ installation. Now, normally I don’t like these types of solution as I like to do it my own way, but I was getting desperate now. I downloaded the image and created my install DVD. I decided on a fresh install rather than an upgrade and just preserved my recorded programs directory.

What an amazing process - install, reboot and, lo and behold I could view and record the Freeview channels. I was a convert. There was still a lot of fiddling to do, but nothing to the level I had been used to. Only problem was that my remote control wasn’t working, so we had a keyboard in front of the screen. Amazing how you get used to not having to get up to change channels like we had to before remote controls.

I was happy with this arrangement apart from the remote control. Everything worked perfectly. Unfortunately every forum I tried insisted that the remote control worked on their setup - so I was getting nowhere with that.

A few weeks ago I noticed that Mythdora were beta-testing the next release, Mythdora 5 which included a new version of MythTV and a new kernel. My only hope for remote control happiness was to upgrade to a new kernel as the video4linux drivers had been improved, so I signed up as a beta tester and duly received my link.

I downloaded and installed the new software and, incredibly, my remote control worked first time! So I now had a fully functioning system.

Nearly….

I have a VIA EPIA M10K motherboard which has a VIA graphics chipset (CLE266). MythTV will use the XvMC extensions to pass off some of the MPEG2 decoding the graphics chip. This means that CPU usage when showing a recording or watching live TV is about 20-30%. Unfortunately this doesn’t appear to be working in the new version. If I choose a playback profile the uses XvMC, then the frontend crashes (saying that xv-blit is not available). I can use the ’slim’ profile, but the CPU usage is about 80% for playback now and the nautilus process wakes up at regular intervals, using CPU and causing the playback to pause.

This is not a huge problem to anyone else except me. I know it used to work, so will not be satisfied until it works properly again. I have tried many forums (fora?) to try and find the answer to this problem, to no avail. Many problems look like the same issue, but none of the answers solve it. It must be something to do with the way the frontend has been built, but it looks like XvMC is compiled in.

So I have a mostly functional system, with TV, Radio, News, Weather, Internet Streams, DVD, Picture gallery, access to the PVR over the Web etc. Was it worth it? Yes, if only to be able to say I don’t have to use MS media center!

If anyone passing reader knows how to get XvMC working, then I will be a truly happy man!

Once I have a stable version, then I will work on making the web interface mobile. Imagine being able to control the system from your phone…..

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

bemoko’s new web site is live

Ian Homer — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:31:12 +0000

I’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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

Best Mobile UX : Google Reader

Ian Homer — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:12:31 +0000

I’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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

Vodafone includes 500Mb data/month in standard package

Ian Homer — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:03:16 +0000

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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

If it wasn’t for those pesky users

Ian Homer — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:40:30 +0000

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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

Mobile Gaming

Mat Diss — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:51:03 +0000

According to the BBC, gaming on the mobile platform is about to take off.
Being 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.

I 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!)

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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

Nokia N82 – be the best

Tim Avery — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 13:20:14 +0000

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.

Post from: bemoko's mobile web

bemoko's mobile web

Bugzilla Reports for MediaWiki

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

MythTV and MythDora

bemoko’s new web site is live

Best Mobile UX : Google Reader

Vodafone includes 500Mb data/month in standard package

If it wasn’t for those pesky users

Top 10 MediaWiki Content Management Extensions

Mobile Gaming

Nokia N82 – be the best