So this morning the Nokia Mobile Web Server app was released through Nokia Beta Labs. First off, I want to say that I’m a huge fan of Nokia Beta Labs. I like that things are tossed out there for us to try and they encourage feedback. Bravo, Nokia, Bravo.
Anyways, Nokia Mobile Web Server. No one remembers, but one of Ollywompus’ first posts here on Symbian-Guru was back in December, and detailed precisely how to do this from your S60 device using Raccoon and Python. Cool, huh? Now we have Nokia Mobile Web Server, and it’s easy as pie to do. Just install the app.
I’m not going to go into detail about how to get signed up. If you want that you can check out Darla or here or Tommi or Rafe. I’ve got mine setup. You can go to symbianguru.mymobilesite.net. The login info is "Guestaccount" and "rickycadden". If it’s up, you’ll see it. I have it pretty wide open, and want to touch on some things that I’ve noticed, both currently and where I could see this going…
I REALLY like that users can access my phone’s camera. Unfortunately, it’s only the main camera at this time. Users have 2 options, either to take a photo right then, or to send me a message (that pops up on the screen of my phone) and ask me to take a picture for them. They are given a small space in which to write a message, say "Can you snap a picture of your dog?" or whatever. This seems trivial at first, but let’s go a bit deeper into that:
1. It needs to be able to access the front-facing camera, as well, if present. For phones such as the N73 and N95, if the shutter is closed, they have to ask me to take a pic. Not nearly as much fun. Also it would be nice if it would record the pictures taken into the device memory, in addition to uploading them.
2. My first thought was "what about video?" This would essentially allow me to do a few things:
1. Setup a video calling thing. Friends and Family could access my phone’s video camera and see me or see what I see, which leads me to
2. Video sharing. For instance, the Night With S60 event. How neat would it have been to setup an interactive webcam, so users could IM my phone and ask me to go back and focus on something else, or send in questions as I was talking to someone? Kinda like Justin.tv, only on your Symbian, and not always-on. Really neat.
Those are just a few of the things that I could see this having relevance for. The biggest thing, in my opinion, that I think would REALLY make this cool (and I’m sure, since it’s an open platform, that someone could do this) is live presence badges. I could toss that into my sidebar, and you would know in real-time if my mobile site was up. If it was, you could hop on there and see what I’m seeing. Or look at the pictures I’m taking of my trip AS I’M TAKING THEM!
I’m still very much playing with this whole thing, but I wanted to toss out some real life usages for what I have seen thus far. What do you think? Have you set yours up yet? What uses could you see for hosting a website from your mobile?
