Yet another blog (hopefully a useful one though)
General
MS Internet Looking back at 2010 and forward to 2011
Dec 20th
MS Internet is Birmingham’s premiere digital agency, and is fast becoming one of the Midland’s biggest business success stories. Since its formation in 2007, this young and innovative company have gone from strength to strength, defying the worldwide economic crisis.
In the last three years, MS Internet has grown three-fold year on year and has won several lucrative contracts and innovation awards, beating larger competitors hands down.
What makes MS Internet stand out from the crowd is its incredibly talented and dedicated staff, highly evolved development process, and shared philosophy that no job is too big or too small.
As well as building websites MS Internet employ experts in search engine optimisation, email marketing, SMS integration into websites, and system management. Not forgetting the company’s highly successful mobile application development department.
We asked MD Martin Saunders what sets his company apart from competitors:
“We have a number of expert staff, all in house, who can competently deal with any requests made by our clients. Our office has a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, and we pride ourselves on taking a sustainable approach to our projects.”
MS Internet’s unbridled success during a time where many similar companies have struggled to stay afloat, proves that hard work, enthusiasm and innovation really do pay.
The last year has been difficult for business because of the global economic downturn but, despite this MS Internet has flourished over the past 12 months. We started 2010 with four members of the company and we have finished with 14. We have also managed to triple our turnover and move from primarily small-scale low budget projects to a much wider spread of projects for SME’s, public corporations and even few celebrities along the way. We have also become a significant player in mobile technology and consultancy now having the ability to produce apps for all native platforms as well as our own mobile web framework.
We hope that 2011 will be as exciting as 2010 and we already have a few interesting projects lined up. We will be launching our mobile web framework in the new year and are looking forward to the first MeeGo apps coming through as well. Another area we are starting to work with is Augmented reality and this will amazing technology will hopefully be big for us next year also.
All in all it has been a fantastic year and whatever 2011 brings it is sure to be just as interesting at MS Internet.
So, what’s this Augmented Reality thing then?
Dec 20th
Augmented reality is set to be the next big thing in digital innovation. AR blends physical and virtual reality and allows the virtual and physical worlds to be linked.
Mobile apps are already utilising AR to a certain extent. Several apps have been developed which overlay information on a real time camera view, such as places to eat and shop, or points of interest in the local environment. There are apps which allow you to measure distances, find the nearest tube station, and even shoot lasers at whoever walks into your phone’s camera frame.
The current apps available are an exciting indication of things to come. MS Internet plan to use their technological know-how and passion for innovation to take AR to the next level. For example, MS Internet plan to design an app which will allow you to scan items in a shop and pick up the best offers and bargains. They also plan to utilise AR to allow gamers to animate their favourite photos and videos. AR will be branching out from the games and entertainment world to take in GPS for cars, medical innovations and near field communication, where information can be passed from one device to another by touching them together.
Augmented Reality is set to be next year’s buzz word in gaming and entertainment, and MS Internet are leading the way from the Midlands.
Exciting new apps for two famous faces
Dec 20th
MS Internet were recently contracted to develop two exciting new apps for some famous faces.
Phil Vickery, well known TV chef and author of numerous cook books, challenged MS Internet to create an iPhone app to coincide with the release of his ‘Seriously Good Gluten Free Baking’ book. The app is aimed at people who have Coeliac disease or are gluten intolerant, or those who simply want to create some delicious gluten free recipes.
Our brief was to design an app that features recipes, a ‘how to’ section, information on Coeliac disease and gluten intolerance, a shopping list section reminding users what ingredients are required for each recipe, and information about Phil Vickery’s other products. All this needed to be presented in an exciting, attractive and up to the minute package, whilst being easy and enjoyable to use.
Olly Smith, Well known columnist, author, TV wine expert and star of ‘Iron Chef Uk’, challenged MS Internet to design and launch an innovative new iPhone app offering advice, information and enthusiasm to anyone who wants to get even more enjoyment from wine.
Our brief was to create a quick and handy application which makes learning about wine fun. The software for this app includes a wine guide, which allows users to choose a wine for the meal they are having, video ‘how to’, ‘wine kit’ and ‘wine styles’ guides, a fun and games section, and a wine hunting tool which allows the user to search for wine in their local area or on the web. The design for this app needed to reflect Olly Smith’s fun, light hearted, larger than life persona, whilst being useful, accessible and attractive.
We carried out extensive research into similar apps on the market and utilised our design and programming experience to create two outstanding apps which were carefully tailored to the target market.
MS Internet’s highly skilled developers hand coded all the app information and created bespoke software, ensuring maximum appeal and ease of use.
Both projects took twelve weeks from initial planning to launch, and complied with all legal and coding requirements. The apps were accepted at the App store on the first attempt, and left our clients more than satisfied with the results. Phil Vickery said:
“A huge thank you to the team at MS Internet for their technical brilliance.”
A look back at MeeGo Conference, Dublin 2010
Dec 20th
MS Internet MD Martin Saunders attended this year’s MeeGo conference in Dublin, along with Senior Developer Tom Clayson. The conference took place in the city’s newly redeveloped Aviva Stadium, and brought together digital experts from across the world. We asked Tom Clayson to tell us more about this exciting event:
What is MeeGo?
Meego is a new Linux operating system for digital devices. The newly developed software is the result of collaboration between Nokia and Intel merging their Maemo and Moblin platforms. An easy way to explain the operating system is to say that MeeGo is to mobiles what Windows is to computers.
Can MeeGo only be used on mobile devices?
No, the really clever thing about the software is that much of its core functionality is shared between different applications, which means that you can use the same software on different devices such as on smart TVs and in-car infotainment systems.
What devices can use MeeGo?
Meego will be available on smart phones, netbooks, tablets, media-phones, connected TV’s and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
What does this mean for the future of digital devices?
MeeGo will allow users to switch between different digital devices made by different manufacturers. So you can go from using an app on a Nokia phone, to an in-vehicle infotainment system made by another manufacturer.
Why choose MeeGo?
MeeGo is the first operating system to target multiple platforms right from the start, which will give it the edge over other software development. The great thing about MeeGo is that it’s an open source project which encourages community contributions. Often this is the best way to ensure that an operating system continues to innovate.
Will MS Internet be using MeeGo?
MS Internet plan to be one of the first agencies to develop apps specifically for the MeeGo platform. We plan to produce apps that will be compatible with mobile devices, netbooks, TV’s, in-vehicle infotainment systems and more in the very near future.
Intel AppUp
Oct 20th
AppUp – an app store for netbooks
There has been a recent trend of creating app stores and with our own interest in Meego the Intel AppUp store begged investigation. There has been a certain amount of initial criticism of the AppUp site and I have to agree that there are quite a few confusing points in the references to Moblin etc but overall I did manage to gain an understanding.
The SDKs
I am a developer so I started with the SDKs. First step was to download the sdk. Simple I thought, lets have a look at the one at the top (C, C++). I clicked the “Download” button and … Nothing happened. I tried again. And again. By the thirty eight’th or so attempt I noticed the little “Login Required” note so I found the little “Register” link at the top of the page and filled in a pretty small form, agreed to some terms and voila the button worked!
Then I spotted the Adobe Air Melrose SDK and thought I’d have a look at that as well. Unfortunately this was not so simple. The button at least worked thanks to my logging in initiative but instead of just downloading the SDK I was presented with another registration process. This was a pretty long winded affair including adding an organisation and members. Then completeing another long process to signup to the AppUp developer program. It was made clear that the program was free but I still had to add a paypal ID. Now, finally I was allowed to download the SDK. My immediate thought was that there was some additional licencing issue with the Air SDK but I am inclined to think that this is not the case and rather, the system is just messy.
So, the next thing to do was to look at the SDK itself. So, Start > All Programs > Intel AppUp Software Developement > ??? There is a debugger tool and some libraries. Where is the SDK?
A bit of reading later it seems that I am supposed to use Visual studio and add the SDK scripts to allow my eventual app to live in the AppUp store. I guess this provides the process that allows the DRM and distribution tracking. More than anything it is all just somewhat confusing. There is documentation but it is not immediately obvious what you are supposed to be doing.
AppUp Itself
(I added the grey border in Photoshop)
So, what is the AppUp centre like as an app store? I downloaded the centre for Windows on my Intel Core 2 Duo laptop even though it is supposed to be targeting Intel Atoms only. Still, it installed and ran fine. My initial reaction to the design was that I did not really like the white design framework because I could not see where AppUp ended and my browser (behind AppUp) started. Also, the panels of content seemed to load very slowly. I navigated to a free game and tried to download.
“You must be registered!” It said so I registered and went back to AppUp.
“You are registered in a different country to the store you installed” it said. I couldn’t recall actually choosing a country but hey. “AppUp will restart in the correct country”. Ok, I thought.
A cup of tea later I decided that AppUp had probably lied to me and was not going to restart so I clicked the program again and it all ran fine. I thought I was still in the US store because all the prices were still in US dollars but no, we have now apparently joined a new global super-currency and dollars are used world-wide. Seriously, for a multi-country store to not have multiple currency support is pretty lax.
Anyway, I finally downloaded an app. Next problem – where is my app? Not on the desktop or in All Programs that’s for sure. Oh, inside AppUp Centre. Fair enough, there is a big old “Launch” button. At this point I expected to crash the app or my laptop due to the lack of atom processor but the app ran perfectly. I then spent the next hour and a half trying to figure out what clay combined with to make bricks bringing a slight pause to proceedings!
Conclusions
Well, sorry Intel but it is a bit of a mess. The site content isn’t as clear as it could be but it is not catastrophic. The different access requirements for different SDK versions is pretty sloppy too. Dollars in a UK store is kinda rude and I actually much prefer the design of the AppUp website to the AppUp centre itself. On the plus side the application I downloaded (Alchemy Classic) worked perfectly and was really addictive.
So, will it work?
From a developer’s point of view it does make netbook distribution pretty simple but developers only get “Up to 70%”. So it is at best the same as Apple. Unlike the Apple app store though there are a lot of ways to get apps so developers may favour other routes.
From a consumers point of view it is a bit fiddly but works ok and the apps themselves are fine.
At the end of the day I think that success depends on volumes. Loads of great apps will bring loads of consumers and vice-versa. The problem I see is that there are now a lot of app distribution routes so this dilutes the apps and the customers. Plus trends seem to suggest that the netbook market is shrinking in favour of tablets. This might mature to a hybrid situation with MeeGo but I think we will know either way in 12-18 months. However, for desktop apps I think the perfect system already exists and this is the package management system in Linux. It is just so easy to search for and download all sorts of software and I think that if this process can be modelled more closely a desktop app store actually stands a chance.
But…
Intel, you are really not helping yourselves with the messy system you have. You give the impression of a disorganised, poorly resourced outfit and this reflects badly on the company as a whole. It should be no more than a few days work for a competent development team to straighten out the website issues and it should all be fixed by now. (Sorry but it’s true and I am saying this for your own good).
The future of eCommerce – mCommerce?
Jun 23rd
I was lucky enough to be invited into the Magento Mobile introductory Webinar which was very interesting and very well put together. The content will shortly be available on the Magento website.
So, what is this mobile commerce, or mCommerce to the cool kids, all about? Well for starters mCommerce sales already account for $2.5 billion per year and this is projected to rise to around $24 billion per year within the next 5 years which would lead it to account for almost 10% of all eCommerce sales. With this sort of sales volume it is not just the big players that should take mCommerce seriously.
Obviously the next question for someone thinking about this is how to get this whole mCommerce thing happening. There are a couple of routes and some pretty big pros and cons here. The biggest difficulty with the mobile world is what us geeks call fragmentation. This is that there are several different platforms, all of which operate differently and even use totally different operating systems.
There are two ways that mCommerce can operate. The first is as a website which is presented differently to mobile devices. This has the advantage that one solution can be accessed on all devices but there are some performance and user-interface sacrifices. At face value the native app just works better in terms of giving a high quality experience. However, the native app route means development costs are much higher and development must be done separately for each device. However, if the initial cost hurdle can be overcome the high quality result can give excellent results. Oasis, for example, reported to break even on their app after only one month.
In terms of the different platforms there are currently:
iPhone (and now iPad; it isn’t a phone so is it just a Smart?) – The daddy of the mobile app world. There had been a bunch of smart phones before the iPhone that had supported third party applications but it was Apple’s App Store that first got peoples attention in a big way. Ironically, Apple were against this idea first and wanted everything to be web based originally. There are currently something like 200,000 iPhone apps and there have been over 2 billion downloads from the App Store. Applications for the
Android – This is the newer open source operating system from Google. There are a very large number of handsets from numerous manufactures from Sony-Erickson, through Samsung to Dell. Android is built on Java which is a language with a fairly large developer community already. Also, Android is pretty flexible so all sorts of different things can be done with Android apps. In the first quarter of 2010 more Android handsets were sold in the US than iPhones and Android shows the fasted rate of growth in uptake of any smart phone OS. However, this is just before iPhone 4 was released so time may tell that this is a little artificial in what it means.
Blackberry – The Blackberry is still the mainstay of corporate types. To now, Blackberry apps have been pretty poor and performance is quite variable. However, RIM (the makers of Blackberry) have recently released a new App World and developer tool set so this is likely to change. In many countries the Blackberry is the most popular smart phone type by a large margin so if the apps could be made to behave there is a big market out there.
Symbian + Maemo – These are two smart phone OS’s with daft names (not that the others are much better) from Nokia. Around the world there are more Symbian smart phones that any other type of smart phone device. At the moment there are some major delivery and consistency issues with Symbian apps and teh handsets are fairly low end. Maemo is newer and is based on Linux. I think it is too early to tell if Maemo will take off but from a developer’s point of view apps for both Symbian and Maemo can be build with the same tool.
Windows Mobile (and Windows Phone 7) – Microsoft were a very early provider of smart phones. There are a fairly large number of business oriented Windows mobile apps but not so many casual apps. Windows Phone 7 may see this change (I personally think it will anyway). Windows Phone 7 uses Silverlight for the simple user interface stuff which is a fairly straight forward thing to use and has some developers already. For games etc XNA studio is used which is the same as for the XBox so again a developer community already exists. Knowing Microsoft Windows phone 7 will be a successful mobile platform and I think it will take off but you never know.
Palm WebOS – Poor Palm, they had the next big thing, it was a revolutionary system. Beautiful to use and easy to develop for. Unfortunately no-one bought one though so they folded. HP bought up Palm so we don’t know yet what will happen so this one is a bit of a watch this space.
Samsung Bada – This is a relatively new mobile OS that lives on the Samsung Wave 2. It is quite a nice OS but for app developers we need to know that there will be a decent sized audience before we start committing resources to the system. There is however a pretty large developer challenge with some nice juicy prizes up for grabs and Samsung are pushing hard to make their new mobile OS stick so this is another wait and see.
So, all together we have eight seperate mobile OS’s to look at for native mobile apps. At the moment you would consider iPhone first but also iPad and Android. Blackberry and Windows mobile (maybe just Phone 7 though as it is coming soon) are a pretty safe bet and plausable for app development. The others really need to prove themselves but all have an audience so if you are Facebook or someone similar and want to target absolutely everyone they are worth considering. Equally if you wish to target a certain country then they are worth looking at. For example China is almost exclusively Symbian.
Ok, so we have looked at what mCommerce is, whether it is best to go for a mobile website or a native mobile app but there is a middle way. This is not something that really works well yet but does offer a compromise. I will not go in to too much detail but essentially a transferable web-based core is embedded into a device specific wrapper. A few platforms exist with PhoneGap being my favourite (it’s free and I’m tight) but you can tell where the web content exists which to me is a fail most of the time. It is a bit like the old Geo-cities sites in the rickety way they sometimes work and for a commercial product I don’t think it is good enough (yet).
I think that for most companies a mobile app is the best bet at the moment. They are a bit expensive but an ROI is pretty much guaranteed. There is still a great PR buzz around them so just the publicity will usually make it worth it. The important thing is too look at how your customers are likely to want to interact with your business on a mobile device. If the mobile application is the product (in the case of a game) the return can be highest but so is the risk. Whatever your business though there is sure to be an app for that 
.
As a foot note we are a mobile application development company as well as a web design company and we can offer development on all platforms as well as strategy / consultancy. See our main site for info or contact details. Also, we are in the UK but can operate globally. I would buy the msinternet.com domain but they want $10,000 and as I already said, I’m tight!
Tachodisc iPhone App now available via the app store
Apr 22nd
MS Internet have been working with Tachodisc to develop there new iPhone app for digitach users.
At the April 2010 a CVO Show, Tachodisc unveiled there first iPhone and iTouch App for drivers and operators who want easy and instant access to the latest information relating to Digital Tachographs and Drivers Hours’ Law.
The new ASKTachodisc-Mobile App (now available to download for free from the Apple App Store) has been created by MS Internet to provide users with a handy legal reference guide and a much-needed guidance resource relating to the practical day-to-day operations of digital tachographs.
It will contain bite sized and easy-to-understand reference information on Drivers Hours’ Law, Working Time Regulations and Driver CPC, and will feature Tachodisc’s popular digital tachograph ‘How To’ user guides. The ‘How To’ guides contain helpful information on how to make the transition over to digital and provide a useful referral point for drivers out on the road, and where there is no access to a computer.
The topics featured cover the key operational aspects of using digital tachographs, from a How to Guide to Tachographs which will pictorially illustrate how to operate the three different types of tachographs from VDO, Stoneridge and Actia, to information on Paper and Using Printer Rolls, Pictograms, Data Collection and Analysis. In addition, advice on choosing Downloading Devices and Drivers Aids will be available.
Tachodisc will also send free regular legislative and news updates via the App’s live RSS feed function to ensure users are kept up-to-date with all the latest developments.
In true iPhone fashion, the ASKTachodisc-Mobile App’s navigation will use the famous style slider and incorporate the ‘pinch and stretch’ technology to allow users to zoom in and out of key information.
Karen Crispe, Tachodisc’s Director says; “At Tachodisc we pride ourselves on continually finding new and innovative ways to share our experience and deliver meaningful and beneficial information to our customers. Over the years, especially since all the changes to Drivers’ Hours Law and the introduction of Digital Tachographs, we have given away tens of thousands of printed legislative guides, created www.asktachodisc.co.uk and now, we are very excited about becoming the first to launch an iPhone App solely dedicated to digital tachographs and the law.
We believe, the ASKTachodisc-Mobile App will not only be a valuable ‘one stop’ reference aid for drivers on the move, but it will also be the perfect tool to keep customers proactively informed – it literally will enable us to send the latest Drivers’ Hours Law and Digital Tachograph information right to a drivers finger tips, no matter where they are.” Ms Internet are proud to be apart of such a useful application.
Bt Clicking the link below you will be navigated to the app store to view the iPhone app’s, reviews, ratings and information.
Magento – Show cart quantity
Mar 6th
If you’re putting a shopping cart area anywhere other than the standard cart side block, then you’ll probably want to show how many items are in the cart at any one time. Here’s how:
<br /> $cart = Mage::getModel('checkout/cart')->getQuote()->getData();<br /> if(isset($cart['items_qty'])){<br /> if($cart['items_qty'] != 1) {<br /> echo "You have " . (int)$cart['items_qty'] . " items in your shopping cart";<br /> } else {<br /> echo "You have " . (int)$cart['items_qty'] . " item in your shopping cart";<br /> }</p> <p>} else {<br /> echo "You have 0 items in your shopping cart"<br /> }<br />
“Best in Class” Interactive Media Award for www.ehsmithfacades.co.uk
Dec 18th
Awards are always good and I have to say that an award is a really nice way to round off a successful year. We have won a “Best in Class” Interactive Media Award for the site we made for EH Smith Specialist Facades at www.ehsmithfacades.co.uk.
This award brings our tally to three for the last quarter of 2009 with two for Trident Housing Association’s website.
EH Smith Facades Website
The site is aimed at architects so we planned a very visual website. The usual content management features were required to run the site. We were fortunate that EH Smith had some fantastic photos of some of the buildings that had used their products so we decided to make a feature of these and placed a large image in the background of the site. We also added a fade-down feature for the site to expose the photo fully.
The notification we recieved said:
Congratulations! We are happy to announce that your entry into the IMA competition, the EH Smith Specialist Facades website (entered October 15, 2009), under the category ‘Building/Construction’, has won the IMA Best in Class Award with an overall score of 483.
The Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards. It represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, your site had to successfully pass through our comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each of our judging criteria – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.
I am very pleased with this award as we have worked very hard, not only on this site, this year so it shows we are obviously doing something right. Hopefully we will be able to build on this next year to have a fantastic 2010!
Top 10 Starfish Facts!
Nov 14th
Is a starfish a fish?
No of course it isn’t! But here are 10 true facts about starfish (or more scientifically named sea stars):
1 ) Sea stars are echinoderms, and are close relatives to the sea cucumber and sea urchins.
2 ) There are over 2000 species of Sea Star.
3 ) Sea stars do not always have the standard 5 arms; the sun star (a fairly redundant name) has up to 40 arms!!
4 ) A sea star can regenerate one of its arms! some sea stars drop off their arms as a distraction to predators. not the best idea but it must work to some extent.
5 ) A severed arm can grow into another sea star, as the majority of their organs are placed within the arm.
6 ) The majority of sea stars have a hard protective layer on the top of them. these is made of calcium carbonate which is a common substance found in rock. This protects them from their prey which are birds, large carnivorous fish and sea otters.
7 ) There isn’t a drop of blood within a sea star, they use a ater vascular system. they pull water in through a sieve plate. They also use this to move as they propel water to tips of their arms pushing them around.
8 ) Sea Stars digest their food on the outside of their body. This is incredible. It latches on to a clam or muscle, prises it open, slides its stomach outside its mouth and into the gap in the shell and digests what’s inside. This allows the sea star to eat a larger organism than what could fit into its mouth on its underside. Once the stomach is retracted back into its body, it transfers from the one stomach (cardiac) to another internal stomach (Pyloric) to fully digest.
9 ) Sea stars have eyes at the end of each arm, they do not have great vision but they are used.
10 ) the largest (widest diameter) discovered starfish found was erasterias echinisoma which was measured at over a meter long. thromidia catalai is the world record breaker for the heaviest weighing over 6kg 