S60 Open to new features

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

Here is a guest blog entry by Dennis Knothe, hope you find it useful!

Hello MWS fans,

I work as software architect in Nokia's Services and Software organization. The other day, I sent an email to Jukka describing how the Nokia Podcasting Application (http://www.nokia.com/podcasting) can subscribe to a RSS feed that is hosted by the Mobile Web Server (MWS) on the same device. I'm sure you think "why would I do that?". Well, this way it is possible to load episodes in the Nokia Podcasting Application without the need for a network connection in the phone. You can download episodes using the PCs Internet connection and copy them into the Nokia Podcasting Application. Furthermore, this example shows nicely that any S60 Internet application can be extended by accessing the MWS through a local URL. And because the MWS can be easily customized through Python scripts, this could be used to implement all sorts of exciting features.

Running a web server on a mobile device still seems to be quite, let's say, exotic for many people. And it is understandable, as the technology itself doesn't translate directly into things such as user value. For generating value we need some use cases for the server such as 'read and respond to SMS messages via your browser', or 'publish your presence information on the Facebook automatically'. (Those being simplistic examples on what you can do today, you are free to come up with better ones. And implement them if you have the skills.)

The latest mobile platform to get a web server is Android, as announced here:

The Jetty servlet on Android allows users to serve data stored on the phone such as contact details, system settings and call log within a browser window. It also adds functionality that will let users modify and save changes, view and listen to multimedia files and make phone calls. The goal of these features is to let users access the information on their phones from more familiar web browsers running on their usual computers over wifi, Bluetooth and 3G networks.

Looking on the evidence, porting a HTTP server into a new mobile platform is not that hard, one might even say trivial. However to be able to actually serve clients from the server might prove difficult in a mobile device. Today devices with cellular connectivity don't usually have public, permanent Internet addresses and even if they had any incoming traffic is likely blocked by multiple firewalls. This is why we have developed a gateway-based system that by-passes the nasty real-life obstacles, giving the mobile device a permanent URL and universal access from any network. I haven't seen comparable functionality being implemented and available anywhere else, have you?

Bonus links:
Nokia Research paper describing the original HTTP connectivity solution
Web server for Android
Web server for Windows Mobile
Web server in iPhone

-Jukka

There is at least a couple of hobby projects being develop on Facebook, that use Mobile Web Server technology.

Arthur has made an application that will show a badge in the Facebook profile, to promote your mobile site. It will show the live status of the site. I gathered he has more ideas brewing, so let's stay tuned.

Wai has another approach, where he's showing the actual content from the mobsite inside the Facebook page. I already suggested it would be nice if anybody could take it into use by just giving the domain name for the application.

This is off-topic, but I thought it's just too cool:

Symarctic ExtGPS allows you to use your phone's built-in GPS module externally on laptop via Bluetooth. It is mainly targeted for Nokia N95, E90, 6110 Navigator handsets, allowing you to use existing, more sophisticated GIS applications.

Get it from Symarctic's beta pages.

-Jukka

If you are using N95 (like the majority of our users are) and haven't yet updated your device software via Device software update, I warmly recommend you to do it. The latest update brings something called Demand paging into N95, which increases the amount of working memory (RAM) on the device significantly. This in turn makes running Mobile Web Server even more convenient since there will be even less a chance to get "out of memory" notifications when running multiple applications at the same time. The update also includes battery life improvements as well as other major updates.

Demand paging and other improvements are already built-in in latest devices such as N95 8GB, and indeed the difference is noticeable. I have been using N95 8GB for quite a while now, it's great to see these improvements are brought into the previous model as well!

For advice on how to back up the Mobile Web Server data before updating, see this earlier post.

-Jukka

Just got this from a colleague:

I have figured out that even being closely involved with Mobile Web Server development, I every now and then need to turn back and start to read our user documentation: the User Guide, the Quick Guide, our book, developer documents at Forum Nokia, or the discussions. This is not because I couldn't use my mobile site, but just to figure out things like 'Oh yeah, that's how to do this in a different way" or "I didn't remember we had this possiblity too". This is somewhat common with this kind of technology with endless possibilities. So far it has been a pleasure to to browse through the manual just for fun, and find new non-used corners such as sharing material with albums, how to set the user rights, using WebDAV etc. So really my favourite channel has become RT FM.

Well said, I think. What's your favourite channel? Or would you like to see a completely new one?

-Jukka

Here is a cool and yet practical application for a web server (like ours) running on the phone. With Contacts Browser Plugin you can make a call by simple clicking on a phone number in a web page. You can also add the number into your contacts or send a SMS to a number. All this without needing to touch the phone!

Along with the version 1.1 we now have two SIS packages available in the Download page: Full install and Update. This is because those of you who have already installed version 1.0 might want to keep your existing configuration, content etc. as it is and just update the web server part. If you haven't got MWS installed or don't mind starting from fresh you should always go with the Full install.

We have tried to make the installation process as smooth as possible but there are a couple of issues to be aware of, keep on reading.

Want to do a fresh installation of Mobile Web Server and still keep all the configurations, content etc. you have got in the site? It's possible and not even too difficult. Read on to the steps..