Mobile pages

A new mobile service Mobile pages. In some aspects it is very close to our existing mobilize tool – QR code generator. This service also prepares (automatically builds) mobile web pages. And solves actually the same tasks – how to quickly and easily build useful mobile web pages. But the key difference is the target area. Mobile pages service is oriented towards more specialized tasks.

Lets us see the first task solved by this service – how to simplify adding your contact info to partner’s address book.

Suppose I need to give somebody my mobile contact. What is a typical behavior (life hack)? I can just call. As soon as my call is accepted my partner can add phone to address book. But he/she is still need to type my name. How to simplify this task?

What if a special "contact share" page will be available on my phone? It could be a mobile web page just bookmarked in my browser. This page will have my name + phone on it and (that is the first key point) – a hyperlink for adding my data to address book. Just one click adding – after the confirmation of course.

For sharing contact I can open that "contact page" from bookmarks and send it to my partner by SMS. Here is the second key point – a link for page sharing over SMS will be on the page too.

So my partner will get a link to my contact page by SMS. It is just a plain old SMS with a link to web page inside. And now just one click is needed for address book updating. He/she does not need to type anything manually.

And Mobile pages service lets you prepare such a "contact page". Create it here, load to your mobile browser bookmarks (you can do that directly or via QR code) – and that is all. Now you can prevent your partners from manual typing. And by the way be also sure that your phone/name is saved correctly.

It is just a first application. In the nearest time a new set of useful mobile services will be available through Mobile pages.

In general our idea is to how to let users preload own phones with self made mobile services (services build by the users themselves).

Mobile pages - mobile publishing

Mashup Mobile pages lets you prepare mobile pages (curiously, yes ? :-). Our idea is to let users preload their mobile phones with some useful data pages. For example: mobile web page lets you share contact info, mobile web page lets you share some useful (important) link (e.g. price list, contact, resume etc.) and so on. Data pages (data "bombs") could be used ("exploded") by demand and simply bring a set of reusable mobile web applications to your mobile.

Pages will be created on Mobile pages service and transferred right to the phone either from short URL or via QR codes.

Service started just as a desktop version for Mobile share mashup. It has been grown after that so sharing mobile contacts is just one of the available options. Stay tuned, new features will follow shortly.

Your own mobile services

Our mashup Mobile pages has been updated. Our idea is to let users pre-load their mobile phones with some useful data pages. For example: mobile web page lets you share contact info, mobile web page lets you share some useful (important) link (e.g. price list, contact, resume etc.) and so on.

Pages will be created on Mobile pages service and transferred right to the phone either from short URL or via QR codes.

Service started just as a desktop web version for Mobile share mashup. It has been grown after that so sharing mobile contacts is just one of the available options. Right now you can:

- create a personal mobile web page for one click contact info sharing
- copy any long URL right to mobile web browser
- create a shareable bookmark on your mobile and share it later by SMS
- send a long text by SMS right from web site
- create a bookmark with some text content and share it by SMS
- create own mobile portal (collection of links)

Stay tuned, new features will follow shortly.

QR code for mobile content

Mashup QR code maker has been updated. Mashup lets you mobilize any content. Just copy-paste some text (links etc.) and get back two things:

a) mobile landing page for your content. It is a mobile web page your users can access to
b) QR code lets you load a link for this auto-generated page right into your mobile browser. And of course, as soon as such a page is loaded you can share it with your mobile friends/partners/clients etc.

It is probably the simplest way to mobilize your content without any special skills.

Also you can attach your own files to mobile pages. So you can distribute you content for loading into mobiles by this way.

In the latest version you can create also one-time readable mobile pages. Such a page will be automatically destroyed after the first opening. You can share payable content for example etc.
De-facto this option does the same trick for mobile web our old mashup Secure notes does for the "normal" web.
And we will provide a public API for creating mobile pages programmatically. Actually the same way Secure notes is doing right now.

Mobile video pages

Our mashup Mobile video has been updated. It is a tool for creating mobile video sites. Lets you collect on the one mobile web page all the video from Youtube you are interested in. So as a result user will get mobile web page for using directly or as a part of your own mobile site/portal. Mashup presents also a QR-code for loading that page directly into your mobile browser.

Here is an example: puppy channel



P.S. For other mobile development tools check put also mashups Mobile pages and QR code maker

Mobilize your data

Our mashup QR code maker has been updated. It is getting closer and closer to the state he was originally assigned to. From the day one we saw it as the tool for the content mobilizing.

Mashup QR-code maker is an easiest way (as we wrote already – well, yet another attempt to present an easiest way) for the mobilizing of user-defined content. Here are two tasks at least. At the first hand we need to create a mobile view for user-defined data. And what is important of course we need to do that very simply. After that we have to present by some way this view for our mobile users. Actually, QR code generator mashup solves these tasks exactly.

As soon as the web user types (or copy-pastes) some content the relevant mobile web page will be created automatically. Btw, mashup automatically recognizes links in your text and converts them into hyperlinks too.

The latest version of QR-code mashup lets you add some local document to the content (e.g. photo, video, data files etc.). So you can share for example some local saved video data for the mobile users.

And a reference (URL) for this fresh mobile web page will be presented as a QR-code. So as soon as mobile user scans this code, he/she will get your info (an appropriate web page) automatically.

One new element – mobile users can share created mobile pages over plain old SMS. So it is very easy to create some viral distribution.

E.g. the simplest use case: just type (paste) as a content some URL (link) to the page/file (e.g. video, presentation, sales materials etc.) you need to share right from your mobile phone. Mashup creates for you a mobile web page with this link. You can bookmark this created mobile page right in your mobile browser and simply send it by SMS to your friends / partners etc.

All in all it is a simplest way for the content mobilization. As you can see it is just a copy/paste process. There is no need in programming/developing skill at all. And QR-codes solve the distribution problem.

Mobile pages - mobile publishing

Mashup Mobile pages has been updated. In particularly, now you can send SMS with this service. A very long SMS could be send right from the web site (via QR code). Alternatively, you can prepare a draft for SMS, save it on your mobile phone and send it later right from the phone. Draft here is a mobile page ready for sharing via SMS ("bomb" as we wrote). You can load all of them to your phone (actually – just bookmark them) and deploy ("explode") by demand.
In the both cases you do not need to type text on the mobile keyboard. You can use copy/paste on the web page. And of course, you can send a very big text via SMS with this service

How to mobilize your site

Yet another collection of web tools let you create mobile sites (in the most cases - mobile versions for the existing sites).

P.S. and our 2c:

QR code maker - mobile landing pages for any content
Mobile pages - create mobile services
Mobile video - create mobile video-sites

From web to mobile

Let us present one tool lets you copy data right from the web pages to your mobile. It is about transferring web content to the phone. E.g. you are going to copy address info, scheduling, driving directions, prices in the shop etc. published on some page to your mobile phone. How to do that?

In general the idea is very simple. As soon as some text for saving is selected we can create on the fly a mobile page with this text. And that mobile page could be transferred right to the phone via QR code. So right on our phone we will get a mobile web page with the text selected from the web. Now we can bookmark that mobile page in our mobile browser and use it any time we need that info

Let us show it on the practice. We will use QR code maker mashup for creating a mobile page:

1. Just select any text fragment on this page

2. Click on the link below:

Copy to mobile

3. Your selected text will be passed to QR code maker mashup and just in one click you will be able to create a mobile page as well as an appropriate QR code.

4. And for the future usage you can save the link above in the bookmarks (actually, this link is a bookmarklet). So this web to mobile service will be available for any opened web page.

You can get more useful bookmarklets here

Mobile sites creator

We wrote recently about QR codes for YouTube. It is a bookmarklet, lets you copy YouTube mobile page right to your phone. Now let us see a more generic solution - how to automatically create a mobile video site. Our new mashup YouTube mobile video lets you collect a bundle of interesting video pages and automatically create a mobile (XHTML, WAP 2.0) site for them. Could be a good source of the mobile traffic for the telecom operators as well a usefull add-on for the mobile sites developers (designers). For example, just create without any programming a link for the video data your visitors could be interested in and use this link on the own mobile portal (site).

The usage is very easy. On the mashup's page (no need for the registration) just set a link for YouTube page. Than edit the title for this page and add it to the site. Mashup automatically detects a relevant mobile data and returns you a link to the mobile site. You can share this link with email, Twitter, Facebook or even copy it right to your own mobile via QR-code. And it is exactly the same link you can reuse across your own mobile sites.

Technically it is an YouTube API and several of custom tags from Coldtags suite. For example - YouTube mashup taglib.

Mobile contact - MShare

One more mobile service for address share (see also here and here) – mobile site MShare. Mobile link is: http://mshare.linkstore.ru This mobile site lets you create once your own contact share page (your name + phone) and after that use this page for sharing your data. Any time you need to share your contact info just open your contact page (created and bookmarked with this service) and send it to other party by SMS. The link for SMS sending will be right at the bottom of your contact page. As soon as your contact page is received and opened it is just a matter of one click to add your contact to address book.
Technically, it is absolutely the same as our Mobile pages service but adopted for the mobile phones. So you are free to prepare your contact page either from desktop browser or from mobile browser.

You can copy mobile link http://mshare.linkstore.ru right to your phone with QR-code above.

Mobile video sites

Our mashup Mobile video has been updated. It is a tool for creating mobile video sites. Lets you collect on the single mobile web page all the video from Youtube you are interested in. Just copy/paste some URLs from YouTube and get mobile web page for using directly or as a part of your own mobile site/portal. Mashup presents also QR-code for loading that page directly into your mobile browser.

Here is an example: puppy channel



P.S. For other mobile development tools check put also mashups Mobile pages and QR code maker

Smart Card web server programming

This post summarizes a presentation of Web Gate project (Dmitry Namiot, Simagine 2009 Innovation Award).

Web gate for SCWS

Introduction

Web gate project presents a bridge for the mobile Internet and Smart Cards Web Server (SCWS). This bridge provides a "standard" (practically defined and implemented) way for the mobile internet developers (web developers) to deploy smart cards based features in the own projects. All in all, Web gate is a development tool targets web developers and provides for them a smooth access to smart cards features.

Project description

The main idea behind this project is how to mix SCWS and mobile Internet. No doubt, that the mobile internet word is much bigger, than the potential SCWS-alone based projects. So the aim of this project is to bring SCWS-based capabilities to the mobile internet developers. Let them deploy smart cards based projects via the familiar (well known) for them web tools.

As per above-declared goals we have to implement at least the following things:

- propose a set of the components (widgets), provided access to the smart cards features
- propose a smooth integration for the selected components into modern web development tools

As a result web developers will get a tool (it is a key point – we are providing project for SCWS, but our target is actually web development crowd), let them access to smart cards features without knowing any technical details about smart card programming. And even more – this access will be tied to the web development exclusively, so there is no need in the new development skills for the web developers at all.

From our understanding the ability to win developers is a key issue for any new computer platform, including smart cards. Such a win can provide a stream of the new applications from the development community and so make the platform successful. And on this way the web development is becoming the mainstream. At the first hand it is so due to its simplicity and the huge army of the developers. So we are expecting here, that adding for web developers some forms of the convenient access to the smart cards data will be more than simply requested feature. This feature will smoothly enhance the existing development tools without adding a new complexity for the developers. It is the main idea behind our Web gate project.

Main features

Web gate offers a set of web controls (widgets) for the mobile web pages. We’ve decided to provide these controls in the form of custom tag. It is a standard approach for the extending markup languages (e.g. HTML), supported nowadays in all the development frameworks (e.g. JSP, ASP, ASP.NET etc.) These tags, being rendered by the application server (servlets container like Tomcat) provides at the end some piece of HTML code. So the initial page could be loaded as usually into browser on the mobile phone.

HTML code, generated by the components contains links to the SCWS. So the user could activate these links and get access to the appropriate servlets on SCWS. And these servlets (also part of Web gate package) provide access to the smart card features (to the features available via smart cards). So for the user this smart card access is just a click away from the original (loaded) page.

There are two types of code chunks created by the Web gate components. The first type is just a "direct" access to card’s features. For example: make a call, send SMS etc. HTML code chunk created by the component is just a "normal" hyperlink pointing to some SCWS servlet, where the relevant attributes (e.g. phone number to call) could be provided as servlet’s parameters

The second type of the components lets developers personalize forms with the data stored on (provided by) the smart card. It is HTML form that should be submitted to some CGI server (as per mobile web page business processes) where some fields could be filled by the data from the smart card. E.g. read some data file from the smart card and use its data within the form or request a cell id and use it as a value for some hidden form’s field etc. So this chunk of HTML code is a form again but instead of the real CGI it could be passed to the SCWS servlet. This servlet will request data from the smart card and return back the initialized form pointed to the real CGI script again. The drawback here is an extra click (submit the form to the localhost). But the positive elements are prevailing in our opinion: high level of customization (substitute data from the smart card), improved usability (no manual typing), safety (do not memorize keys and id’s – they will be extracted from the smart card), high level of the personalization (telecom operators will be able to provide cards with own data for use them in mobile web). And all of this just for the price of one extra click.

High level architecture

Here is what we did (proposed) from the practical point of view. As per life cycle of the typical web application:

1. Web developers prepare a mobile site (page)
2. Web page may include components (controls) pointed to the smart cards. The word "pointed" here describes either the ability request some functionality from the card (via the card) or the ability to get some data, saved on the card and reuse them (data) across the page (within the web application)

3. Page is requested by the web-browser (as usually) from the mobile terminal. As it is stated above the loaded page may include SCWS related stuff. Due to nature of HTML we have the well defined abilities to present the potential actions. It either a hyperlink or a form. So in our case we could present either some hyperlink, pointed to SCWS resource or some form, where the action attribute pointed to SCWS resource (servlet).

4. User may activate SCWS related things (controls) right from the browser. As per the above-mentioned nature of the components it either simply click on the hyperlink or submitting the form.

5. The hyperlinks will be used for the direct actions: place a new call, send a new SMS.

6. The forms will be used for the access to the data, saved on the smart cards. The typical use case is the following. The original mobile web page contains HTML form, where some of the fields should be filled by the data saved on the smart card.

Smart card is a trusted source. So the operator raised the card could save, for example, some own data on the card. It could be for example client’s id (ids), some preferences, marketing related data (sex, age group etc.) And later, when the card owner surfs the Net with the own mobile, the above-mentioned data could be used within the web applications.

What does it mean "used" here? All the existing web applications at the end of the day do absolutely the same things regardless of their business area – perform HTTP requests. E.g. customer fills out some form and submits it to the server. And here the smart cards data goes to the scene. We can add the data from the card to the form. So, technically the target web application will get via HTTP request some parameters, filled (initialized) from the smart card.
How can we do that? We can do it through the followings steps:

- replace action attribute of the original form with our SCWS servlet
- submit the original form to our SWSC application first
- fill the parameters and return back a new page (with the original form again!) where action attribute will be pointed to the its original destination. And some the fields within the returned form could be filled (initialized) by card’s data

So it is an extra click from the user’s point of view (submit form to SCWS servlet first), but for such minimal usability discrimination we can get a huge advantages. This process let us automatically pickup within our form any data right from the smart card. You can see this process as an analogue of form auto-filling, where data comes right from smart card. So it is a practical way for the personalization in the mobile internet.

And by the way, by the same principles we can save some data right on the card for the future usage.

Also we can mark here, that the described approach is similar by the some manner to the well known approach in the web development called ‘url rewriting’. As you can see above, we also "rewrite urls", but do actually a much more than simply session id adding.

Usage scenario

Now let us see how to incorporate our "smart controls" into mobile web pages. In order to make the easy transition to new components for the web developers we are providing the components as custom tags. Tags are familiar for the web development crowd. And all the modern IDE support custom tags.

So in this project we propose components as custom JSP taglibs. They will work "as is" in JSP and/or Coldfusion projects. The similar approach could be moved practically "as is" to ASP.NET world for example.

As we stated above there are two types of components (controls) pointed (referred) to the SCWS:

1. Hyperlinks, actually requested some actions from Smart Cards. The typical use cases are: place a call, send a new SMS.
2. Forms. Actually will be used for the requesting the stored data right from the cards.

For the actions the JSP inclusion looks so (sc here is a prefix, assigned for the taglib):

<!-- make a call -->
<sc:MakeCall phone="1800976"/>

<!-- send a SMS -->

<sc:SendSMS phone="1800976">how are you</sc:SendSMS>

web developers places a links (of course, the attributes could be generated dynamically) and the actual action (place a call, send a SMS) is just an ordinary link activation.

Let us see how the new (smart) forms looks like.

the original form on the web page looks so:

<form action="your_real_action" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="id"/>
  Name: <input type="text">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

our goal is to obtain a value for ID field (hidden field in the form) from user’s smart card. So we offer to the user submit the form to SCWS, our servlet will calculate ID (e.g. read its value from some file, preloaded by the telecom operator) and returns back the same form with the initialized fields. This “smart” form could be presented so:

<!-- submit form to SCWS servlet at the first hand -->

<sc:Form scws="your_scws_servlet" action="your_real_action" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="id"/>
  Name: <input type="text">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</sc:Form>

this example illustrates the idea with the forms (see above about the components). Code generated by this tag is just a form too, but its action will be described by the attribute scws. So the form could be submitted to our servlet. Servlet will calculate "smart" data and return back the original (here is the trick!) form with the pre-filled data:

<form action="your_real_action" method="post">
  <input type="hidden" name="value_from_smart_card"/>
  Name: <input type="text">
  <input type="submit" value="Submit"/>
</form>

The technical implementation

For the actions (MakeCall, SendSMS) taglib simply generates a link to the appropriate SCWS servlet (the real link to http://127.0.0.1:3516/...)

For the forms taglib creates a form again, changes the action attribute (now it must be our SCWS servlet) and passes the whole original form (tag’s body) as a parameter. Servlet can read this parameter (the original form), replace (substitute) some data within it and return it back.

Conclusion

No doubt, that mobile web area is huge. Smart Card Web Server as per spec is somewhat isolated from the web. The proposed tools fill the gap, combining the best things from the both words: wide adoption of mobile web will meet the high level of personalization. And two tings are especially important here: the personalization comes from the trusted source (smart card) and uses the instruments the web developers are familiar with already.
And what is especially important, that the proposed add-on follows actually to the development model web programmers are already familiar with.

Web gate project suggests the practical approach for the mobile web developers – how to incorporate smart cards features into web projects. The biggest advantage of the suggested method is its smooth (natural) incorporation into the current web development practice. The gate does not introduce a new paradigm for the web developers and leverages their existing skills.
Another big advantage is the openness of the project (the ability to extend it). It is very easy to suggest (add) new components, where new stuff could be added any time without changing the already implemented things.

Share mobile contacts - MShare

An updated version for mobile mashup MShare (see the previous posting here) is ready. Mobile link is:

http://mshare.linkstore.ru

This mobile site lets you create once your own contact share page (your name + phone) and after that use this page for sharing your data. Any time you need to share your contact info just open your contact page (created and bookmarked with this service) and send it to other party by SMS. The link for SMS sending will be right at the bottom of your contact page. As soon as your contact page is received and opened it is just a matter of one click to add your contact to address book.
Technically, it is absolutely the same as our Mobile pages service but adopted for the mobile phones. So you are free to prepare your contact page either from desktop browser or from mobile browser.

This version improves the compatibility with the phones. In particularly, it supports iPhone too.

You can copy mobile link http://mshare.linkstore.ru right to your phone with QR-code above.

Mobile video

Our mashup Mobile video has been updated. It is a generator for mobile video sites. Lets you collect on the one mobile web page all the video from Youtube you are interested in. So as a result user will get mobile web page for using directly or as a part of own sites/portals. Mashup also presents a QR-code for loading that page directly into your mobile browser.

Here is an example: best goals



P.S. For other mobile development tools check put also mashups Mobile pages and QR code maker

Mobile video

Our mashup Mobile video has been updated. It is a generator for mobile video sites. Lets you collect on the one mobile web page all the video from Youtube you are interested in. So as a result user will get mobile web page for using directly or as a part of your own sites/portals. Mashup also presents a QR-code for loading that page directly into your mobile browser.

Here is an example: best goals



P.S. For other mobile development tools check put also mashups Mobile pages and QR code maker

Your personal mobile services

Mashup Mobile pages has been updated. This application let you create a set of the personal mobile services:

- create a personal mobile web page for one click contact info sharing
- copy any long URL right to mobile web browser
- create a shareable bookmark on your mobile and share it later by SMS
- send a long text by SMS right from web site
- create a bookmark with some text content and share it by SMS

See an additional info here

P.S. and here you can create your personal mobile video playlist

Mobile maps

Mashup Mobile maps has been updated. Lets you prepare maps (as static images) for mobile devices.

Just set the marker in the place you are interested in, choose scale and map type as well as the size and click on the marker. You will get a link to the static image. Now you can just send this link to mobile user by email or SMS for example.

P.S. and you can prepare а mobile web page with this image, copy URL to mobile phone, send any link by SMS etc. with services QR code and Mobile pages. And QR map mashup lets you simply transfer a static map to your own phone.

Mobile bookmark for locations

Our mashup Location bookmark has been updated again. It lets you create two things:

1) QR code for mobile map associated with the given address
2) HTML for putting that QR code on your site

So with this tool you can place on your own site (blog etc.) – e.g. somewhere in Contacts or About pages QR code for any given address (e.g. address of your company, office etc.). And any visitor of your site will be able simply to scan this code and load that map right into own phone. So they (visitors) do not need to write/print/remember your address/driving directions anymore. He/she can just load an appropriate mobile map right from your site. Loaded map could be simply bookmarked on the phone (loaded map is just URL).
And driving directions as well as many other interesting things will come automatically with the mobile map (we are using Geo Messages).

Of course, QR code created with this mashup could be placed anywhere. E.g. add it to some article in your blog, print and place it on the wall etc. Also QR – code is just a view that simplify loading of some mobile-friendly URL with map. Actually mashups creates at the first hand that URL and only after that creates QR-code for it. So you can publish in your blog a mobile-friendly URL too. Your mobile readers will be able to open/bookmark that URL directly.

P.S. similar projects:

QR map - lets you create QR code right from the map. This mashup also can create a link to mobile friendly map (iPhone, Android).
Mecard - lets you create QR code for loading address data (contact info) right from your site
Location from Twitter - lets you copy address info from Twitter (via QR-code again)
Tips - lets you copy address data right from social recommendations (Foursquare).

Mobilize your data

Our mashup QR code maker has been updated. It is probably the simplest way for getting your content to mobile web. Simply copy-paste any text and service will create for you:

- a mobile web page with this content (landing page)
- QR-код for the fast loading that page right into your mobile browser
- HTML for publishing this QR-code on your own site (blog etc)

And of course, you can simply print QR-code and stick to the some real object.

You can publish any text with this mashup. For example, in the simplest case you can just publish a link (URL). And QR code generation mashup will prepare for you a page for the mobile downloading.

Mobile pages created with service include social buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Emai). So the content on the mobile page could be simple published to Twitter and/or Facebook for example. From this point of view mashup’s functionality could be explained so: create QR-code for publishing to Twitter (Facebook).

P.S. you can see all QR-code related tools on the dedicated page: QR code how to