S60 Open to new features

A comment I have heard often is that the content from a Mobile Web Server should be available also via various feeds, to be imported into other services. For Blog entries and Gallery items we have already added these via RSS (see Forum Nokia Wiki for more information). These work for me in Jaiku for example, have you tried the feeds in other services?

One interesting addition would be to add Presence information such as calendar status and location as an embeddable feed. This way you could share your whereabouts automatically from the phone, without having to update or sync anything.

What do you think, is that worth pursuing? Do you have any other comments (technical or not) about the current feeds we have? Also which of the social services would you like to see getting "MWS enabled"?

Thanks for your comments in advance!

-Jukka

One major gripe with the Mobile Web Server user management is adding the access rights for different applications. You know, going through all of the applications (such as Blog or Presence) and adding the rights one by one. In an upcoming release we will finally address this, and you can help us getting it right.

The current idea is roughly this:
- there will be a single 'Add access rights' page under Settings that includes all of the applications and their features
- within that page you can choose Users or Groups, and add rights to some or all applications (or clear all rights to start from fresh)
- there will be another page where you can check the current access rights for any given User or Group

The challenge with these new settings is that the amount of data requests must be kept to a minimum for speed and efficiency reasons, hence the two different pages for adding and checking the rights.

How does that sound? Any further ideas? Thanks in advance!

-Jukka

A fully MWS compatible version of the Personal AMP - Apache, MySQL and PHP - stack for S60 has been released!

This version can be installed directly on top of MWS, after which you can develop mobile sites using PHP and MySQL. And be able to install pretty much any PHP/MySQL based CMS, Wiki or other package alongside the default MWS site. But there are still rough edges, so it's better if you are not afraid of the bleeding-edge:)

As usual, you can download PAMP from SourceForge and installation instructions are provided in our wiki.

In case of any problems or questions, please use the Forum Nokia discussion board.

Have fun!

Johan

Just in time for Finnish summer holidays: Mobile Web Server 1.4 is out!

Head on to the official news item to check out what's new and fixed. Then follow up here, what did you like? Or didn't?

PS. At this point I want to thank all the hard-working people putting on long hours for this stuff. Thank you, and have a relaxing holiday!

-Jukka

The short-list of our challenge finalists is now available at http://mymobilesite.net/news/14/. Check them out and vote for your favorite now!

-Jukka

One of the coolest things in Mobile Web Server 1.3 beta has to be the Location feature. It's a bit hidden down there in Presence application so chances are you haven't even noticed it yet.

By default Presence page shows just the coordinates if the phone location is found. It's fair to say that's not very intuitive but here we are leaving the innovation possibilities for developers and hobbyists. It's very easy to modify the default Presence page to have a link to any map or other service. Hint: the file is Web server\htdocs\Web_Applications\Presence\Viewer\index.psp. You can take a look at our demo device's Presence page, it has some examples on what to do with the location.

If you don't feel like experimenting just start to use our Facebook application. It will translate your location into a map name and country, if you allow that. This way your friends can check out your live location roughly.

The location feature works in S60 devices that have the AGPS feature in software. This includes all the models that have internal GPS module. For some products such as N95 and E90 make sure you have the latest software for the device. Our current implementation only uses network-based location which can be hundreds of meters or even kilometers off depending on the cellular network structure. In our next release we will add an option to use also the GPS information if desired.

Bonus link: The Mobile Web Server brochure describes this and other possible future ideas. If you have new ideas, you know what to do :)

-Jukka

One of the things I find bothersome on Facebook is the need to manually keep my profile up-to-date. With this in mind we have developed a simple application that you can put in your profile and it allows your friends to check your status such as calendar availability and location. Since the data is pulled straight from the device it is always up-to-date.

In addition to status data your friends can send you a free text message directly from the profile. Messages appear on the phone just as a normal text message. What am I seeing right now? Your friends can ask a live photo from your device with a single click on the application.

The application is now available for everybody, and requires the latest Mobile Web Server 1.3 beta to run. Let us know what you think!

Live Status from my Nokia Phone

-Jukka

Just a quick note to those of you are going to Barcelona for the S60 Summit. We have a presence there, in Expo/Reach area. My colleagues Juha and Jorma are happy to show you the latest new stuff in person. You can also drop your comments here as always.

-Jukka

I guess it would be best to start off with an introduction of sorts. My name is Antoine RJ Wright and I write for both the Mobile Ministry Magazine and Brighthand websites. For me, exploring mobile technology has always been about connecting with people and exploring the road not-yet-traveled in respects to use. Its with this perspective that I started investigating the Mobile Web Server, and one day decided to download it and check it out for myself. This piece is largely my reflections on it both as a replacement to the Mobile Ministry Magazine website, and my reasons for moving my personal website to MWS despite my antiquated device (compared to newer Nokia offerings).

Some of the new things available in Mobile Web Server 1.3 beta is a set of RESTful APIs. These APIs provide a direct access to some of the device resources, for example to be used from other web services.

Our first APIs have the following features:
- get Presence information from the device such as calendar availability, time and current profile
- send "free text messages" into the phone inbox

The APIs are documented in our wiki. Go start playing, and of course don't forget to submit your results in MWS Challenge there is still time!

-Jukka