Nokia Research recently announced the Apache webserver had been ported to run on S60 phones (see my earlier post). The plan had been to “bring a full-fledged webserver to S60 and to make a webserver running on a mobile phone accessible from the Internet using any web browser”. Now the client binary is available for download and you can sign up for an account on Nokia’s gateway and try this for yourself.

Here’s Apache running on my N70.

(I recently upgraded to the N70 from the 6630: I wasn’t sure whether to wait for a S60 3rd Edition phone but in the end the 2 megapixel slide-and-shoot camera, the flash and larger memory won me over even if the tiny keyboard and all-blue backlighting is a considerable step in the wrong direction, usability-wise).

From the Read Me:

Raccoon consists of two parts: a Symbian port of the Apache httpd webserver and a “connector” that together with a gateway provides a mobile phone with a global name in the operator networks of today. In short, you can now host a website on your mobile phone that is accessible from any web browser on the Internet.

There is a lot of (demo) functionality to explore: “there are custom modules for accessing the core functionality of the phone - camera, contacts, favourites, log and messages - and modules for sending instant and inbox messages to the phone, and a module for finding mobile websites in the proximity”.

Now that I’ve got this up and running I guess I need to get to work on my mobsite.

(via Tommi’s S60 applications blog)

Like Shozu, new S60 app Merkitys (Finnish for ‘Meaning’) allows easy upload of images from your phone to Flickr (or your own server). Merkitys however also automatically adds ‘context’, which includes location (i.e. GSM location information: Mobile Country Code, Mobile Network Code, Location Area Code and Cell ID, but also GPS data if you also have a supported receiver) as well as the usual user-defined description and tags etc., and - curiously - the addresses of all bluetooth devices in the vicinity. Although this is only the first beta release, it worked flawlessly for me. The source is also available.

(via the mobile experience)

( Technorati tags: s60 | merkitys | flickr)

In a first step towards allowing users to maintain “personal mobile websites”, Nokia research has announced it has ported Apache httpd and mod_python to the S60/Symbian platform. (The code is so far only free for use within Nokia.)

My head is still reeling from the implications of this last paragraph, which seems completely farfetched and yet perfectly obvious at the same time:

We believe that being able to run a globally accessible personal website on your mobile phone has the potential of changing the Internet landscape. If every mobile phone or even every smartphone initially, is equipped with a webserver then very quickly most websites will reside on mobile phones. That is bound to have some impact not only on how mobile phones are perceived but also on how the web evolves.

(via eriksmartt.com)

( Technorati tags: s60 | apache | python)

Whilst searching the Opera Mobile forums, I came across this fairly comprehensive list of free software for S60 phones. Some of the links are broken and there’s nothing on the development side, but a useful list nonetheless.

Also, if you’re excited by the prospect of Flash Lite 2.0 announced back in November, you’ll also be excited to hear from this official forum post that this will be available to developers from Macromedia Labs in January.

Update: Lost my phone recently. Here’s my list of the first five essential S60 apps I re-installed:

( Technorati tags: opera | s60 | flash-lite | isync | shozu | flickr | salling-clicker | python)

Something that seems unnecessarily cumbersome to me is getting a url from my Mac to my phone (a Nokia 6630). So I knocked up a simple solution using QuickSilver and Framework Labs’ Bluetooth Object Push Automator Action stuck together with a little AppleScript.

After you’ve installed the action, create an Automator workflow using the Push File to Bluetooth Device action, configure it for your device (assuming you’ve already set up your phone for use with your Mac using the Bluetooth Setup Assistant) and save this to your desktop as an application named Push2Phone. (Anything you drop on this app will now get pushed to your phone.)

Then copy this AppleScript for QuickSilver to ~/Library/Application Support/QuickSilver/Actions and be sure to modify the tmp_file_path and app_path properties in the script for your environment.

Now you should be able to select a url - like this:

http://m.gmail.com

Google’s new mobile version of Gmail - and in Safari hit Cmd-% to send this to QuickSilver (in Firefox you’ll need to cut and paste) and then type ‘pu’ or similar to forward it to your phone.

See also Robert Hall’s post on how to use the Bluetooth Object Push Automator Action to enhance Flash Lite development.

Now all I need to do is to figure out how to make Opera the default browser on my phone. Anyone know if this is possible?

( Technorati tags: quicksilver | bluetooth | applescript | automator)

The Opera Platform: is this the Konfabulator for mobile?

The Opera Platform™ SDK is an SDK for developing rich client-side web applications on mobile devices such as Symbian Series60 phones (MS Smartphone support coming soon). With the Opera Platform™ Application Player, developers can create applications that interact with the phone’s native functionality, such as the phone’s address book, calendar or message store. In addition, developers can, using Ajax technology, interact directly with a multitude of web services, both home-grown and pre-existing.

(Technorati tags: opera | ajax | s60)