Category: Uncategorized

Blogger’s facelift. Not bad at all. Just testing out the interface. Nice templates. I might even try one on for size.

(edit: Hmmm.. comments don’t seem to be working…)

Some interesting data on mobiles.

http://www.canalys.com/pr/r2004041.htm

{edit: this link seems to be dead.. hmmm }

Notice Microsoft’s rise in the voice-centric sector. I believe this growth will double that over the next year, with more and more Pocket PC devices around on phones and WiFi devices.

This will make it really easy, using existing skills and technology, to create compelling content with html, Flash, and windows media. The potential for mobile feedback, comments, opinion polls etc are huge. And at very little cost.

The people behind the product, Flash Studio Pro [http://www.multidmedia.com] (which I have banged on to a few of you about already) have just assured my they will have a Mac output plugin hopefully by end of July… this means ‘Skinkers’ for all!

BUT.. they have said that a PocketPC standalone executable output will be available sooner. (I will be on the beta program)

Stand-alone executables on PocketPC, created using Flash (with a host of extra functions provided by FSP) will enable us to create mindblowingly cool applications for PocketPC devices. News aggregators, voting booths, image/audio/video uploaders and viewers, blogging tools, video consoles, all sorts… oh, and news stories and specials 😉

It would also be very easy to obtain valuable usage and tracking statistics from these applications, based on FSP’s ability to retrieve a lot of system data from the pc or device. MAC addresses (unique to each device) ip addresses obviously, machine ‘names’; all sorts! 😉

God, I want a Motorola MPx ! 😉 [ HERE…. ]

Moblogging from CeBIT. I recently went to the CeBIT technology show in Hannover. With a Sony Ericsson P900 and P800, an iPaq 5450 with WiFi and bluetooth with an SD card slot 1.3 megapixel camera, I snapped away photos and uploaded them using my camoby blog application. BBC News online even used it here!.

I want to develop this further. Watch this space (in your pocket).

WE WON A BAFTA!!!!. Wowee! Just a quick update to mark the fact that the Celebdaq site has won the BEST ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT award at the prestigious 2003 BAFTA Interactive awards ceremony! This is brilliant news! Definitely going on my CV! 🙂

Celebrity Stock Market. Phew! I haven’t posted anything in ages! Well, this is one of the things I’ve been up to recently. Celebdaq is a virtual stock market of Celebrities, based on a system written by a friend of mine for his creation, popex.

Once registered, you’re given ten grand of virtual money to spend (no big money prizes I’m afraid) on shares in Celebrities currently in the public eye. Their share prices go up and down based on the column inches they get in the papers each week. I did the broadband Flash console for the Celebdaq site, which they also turned into a regular celebrity gossip TV show on BBC Three. Great stuff!

Testing News. Hopefully you should be able to read the news coming from BBC News Online’s front page. The Flash here is being driven by an XML feed grabbed from the BBC. I dont think it would work, if the XML file was on the BBC servers.

As I said, this is a test. The original file here was designed to fit onto an iPaq which it does, quite nicely here. This will work over a Bluetooth and GPRS connection, or in your cradle, if the machine is connected and the settings are correct on the device.

Facial hair. Well, a couple of weeks after Glastonbury festival and I have my first shave. First attempt at letting the chin go hairy. Not bad. A bit itchy. But the weather here recently has been too hot for a mandible rug. Maybe I’ll ask it back for a visit in the Winter.

Hmmmm..

Blimey, you turn your back for, ooo, a month, a what happens? You get over 150,000 silly pictures and rants posted on your innocent, pointless, doodle-mad website! I’m planning on doing T-Shirts for them. Perhaps a little system to allow printers to download the picture and process payment for printing a T-Shirt of it?

Posters anyone? 😉 Watch this space for a mosiac-style massive picture made up from the previous posts to Blograffiti.

Also, busy working on a cunning mobile blogging thingy. It has the ability to upload images, audio, video and text to the web, via a mobile device. It works on the P800 on its own. Woo… stay tuned. I’ll get this up and running in two weeks, for Glastonbury Festival! So, I’ll be posting stuff up online for Auntie to filter through and use while ‘in the field’, so to speak. A ‘blog from the bog’. Lovely. Now… where’s my pass?

Nearly 30,000 ‘blografix’ so far on the blograffiti page. Moved it to a new domain and server. Introducing blugg.
Here are some pix that I’ve done 😉

Phew… busy busy busy….!! There’s so much variety on this! It’s really quite incredible. Trouble is, with so many of the visitors it seems, you give them a pen and paper, and all they want to do is draw willies! It varies alot through the day. The huge amount of bandwidth that it’s taking up is beginning to worry me. And it’s only been online a few days!!! Argh!!

I got blugg to ask people to draw the Wacki Iraqi! This is what they came up with…

BLOGRAFFITI