I enjoy good movies. A lot. Even better, I enjoy movies on the big screen more. The big screen, the group reactions, and the company of one or more friends simply make the movie experience better.

If you are a cinema buff like me, then you will appreciate a handy app on your mobile to check movie locations, listings and special deals; right? Right.

Enter SeeNeeMa

SeeNeeMa is a home-grown application that makes checking movie listings on the go a whole lot easier.

The user interface is neat and easy – anyone can use this app.

Launch it and the home screen presents you with options to check:

• What’s Hot – currently showing movies
• Coming Soon – upcoming movies
• Cinema Info – listing of cinemas across the countyry
• Movie Reviews – weekly movie reviews
• Special Discounts – where you check which cinemas are offering special deals

That’s it. Simple. Net. Straightforward. Useful. Very.

Multi-Platform Too

Guess what? SeeNeeMa is available for several platforms, including:

• Blackberry smartphones & PlayBook
• Android 2.1 & above
• iOS (still in development)
• Java/J2ME
• Mobile Web

The version that I tested is the Android version, and it works as I have described in this review. It is possible that the different versions for other platforms work slightly different.

Verdict

This one gets a 4-star rating from me. Why did I leave out one star? If the developers, Quadtech Mobile, can add a way to book movie tickets right on the app…. HALLELUJAH! 5 Stars promptly.

Download SeeNeeMa

Notice from the Bolt browser website:

Dear BOLT User,

The free BOLT mobile browsing service will be discontinued. Unfortunately, the economic circumstances prevent us from running a free service going forward. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your loyalty and support.

The BOLT Team

I hope that our developers and internet entrepreneurs are reading between the lines. The freemium free model doesn’t always work. Actually, very few succeed. We are hearing of this because Bolt became well-known before being discontinued.

As always, the “motivators” point at an exclusive and very short list of successful services e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc, but the statistics are available for anyone who cares to take a look below the surface of the hype. The vast majority of freemium free services die out in a few years. Those success stories are the exceptions.

It is even worse under the current economic circumstances. If you don’t find a way to charge for your services or products, perhaps they are not worth much and we can do without them eventually.

‘Nuff said.

Back in September, Etisalat Nigeria launched Easyblaze, a mobile broadband 3.75G/HSPA platform. Since then, I have used Easyblaze consistently. Here is a brief account of my experience with the service.

Where’s the 3G?

One of the first issues I ran into after the launch was that I couldn’t get an Etisalat 3G signal on my mobile. Nothing that I did worked. All I got was a GSM/EDGE connection.

I eventually complained to a staff of Etisalat, who enlightened me that 3G is not activated on lines until a plan has been subscribed to. In other words, I needed to subscribe to one Easyblaze plan to get the 3G service.

Of course, I wondered why this piece of information was not made public or put on any FAQ document then.

Anyway, I subscribed to an Easyblaze plan, and just as explained, 3G came live on my Etisalat line.

Subscribing to Easyblaze

Subscribing is easy. You load the required amount of airtime and dial the specified code for the package of your choice.

Speed

Easyblaze is fast. Very fast. I have been blown away by the speed. It beats anything I ever got from MTN, Airtel, Visafone, Multilinks, Zoom, or Starcomms.

Notice that I left GloMobile out of that list. Yes; the only other mobile internet service that has delivered that kind of speed when it works is Glo. The operative phrase there is “when it works”. You see, QoS on Glo’s mobile internet (and Glo’s everything) has been really bad of recent that.

Reliability

Easyblaze is good for everything you need to do with an internet connection – web browsing, email, social networking, downloads, the works!

For the most part, Easyblaze works. However, once in a while, it simply goes AWOL (Absent WithOut Leave) and does not connect. One time, it went AWOL all night, which was rather frustrating.

Another time, it was several hours. The annoyances have increased of recent, though contacts in Etisalat cite cut cables and the like for the disruptions and say things are being fixed.

I hope that things get fixed. Subscribers will be delighted to have one network that they can depend on.

Conclusions

This is an account of my experience with Easyblaze. Your experience may differ, depending on your location.

I am still using Easyblaze as my primary mobile internet service, which is saying something. It is less schizophrenic than any of the other mobile internet services that I have used – and I have used all of them.

Do I recommend that you give Easyblaze a try? Yes; I do. Can I guarantee a good experience at your end? That would be between you and the guys at Etisalat.

Opera Mobile for Symbian has received an update to version 11.5.1 with the following features:

- Added predictive text input and language choice in search field
- Improved stability in out of memory situations
- Fixed issues with browser freezing
- Fixed issues with browser when Opera Link is enabled
- Fixed issues with text selection and cut/copy/paste
- Fixed issues with reappearing search engines after deletion
- Fixed issues with selecting text using Up/Down navigation keys
- Fixed issues with third-party input keyboards (QQ, Baidu, Sougou)

This update is available today for download from m.opera.com, and will shortly be available in the Nokia Store.

Source

Quick Rant
Since last week’s news of Adobe stopping further development of Flash Player for mobile and embracing HTML5, as is typical in this day and age, some fellas have been screaming, “Flash is dead!”

I don’t get it: is it that we have become so numb and lack basic use of English or we have become so numb and don’t want to think?

First, the development work that was stopped was specifically mobile. Work goes on with Flash on the web.

Second, even if all development work on Flash were stopped today, hundreds of thousands of developers will still continue to churn out Flash products for a significant time.

similarly, we hear people scream, “Symbian is dead”; yet that platform sells tens of millions of devices quarterly, and has new apps being developed for it daily.

Yes; Symbian may be on its way out, but that’s a long journey.

People should just stop being shallow. Its not dead until its dead. Flash is not dead. Not by a long shot.

Rant over. Now on to HTML5.

What Is HTML5?

HTML stands for “Hyper Text Markup Language”. Basically, HTML is a set of rules that tell device browsers how to interpret code to display websites.

We can say that HTML5 is version 5 of HTML.

HTML wasn’t good at making interactive websites, so developers had to use Flash and a host of other tools for those. HTML5 brings HTML up to speed in terms of rich web content and interactivity.

With HTML5, we can include multimedia and graphical content in web pages and applications without the need for proprietary plugins and APIs. With HTML5, we can do not just video for mobile browsers, but rich web-based applications that do not need an internet connection to run.

HTML5 – Mobile Friendly

Flash had to be optimised for mobile, and even at that you have to throw really powerful processors at it for the best experience. But HTML5 has been built ground up so that it is able to run on mobile phones.

HTML5 – Ready to Replace Flash and Native Apps?

Not yet. HTML5 is not fully developed yet, so many of the functionality that currently obtains in Flash and native apps on your mobile are not available yet.

But once complete, HTML5 will be hard to beat. The need to develop native apps for each different platform will be mostly gone. One HTML5 app simply runs across multiple devices that support the standard.

HTML5 – Current Mobile Browser Ratings

Modern mobile browsers are all being built to support HTML5, some more so than others.

Among desktop browsers, the current HTML5 browser test top dog is Chrome with 340 points. Bearing that in mind, take a look at the table of mobile browser scores below:

1. Firefox Mobile 10.0a1 – 314*
2. iOS – 296
3. MeeGo/Harmattan – 272
4. Opera Mobile 11.10 – 269
5. BlackBerry OS 7 – 260
6. Firefox Mobile 6 – 254
7. BlackBerry OS 6 – 252
8. Android 2.2/2.3 – 177
9. WebOS 2.1 – 155
10. Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) – 140
11. Symbian Belle (Unofficial) – 96**

Source

*Firefox Mobile 10.0a1 on my Nokia N9 scores 314, but its not a public release yet, it hasn’t been scored on the test page.

**Symbian Belle on my Nokia N8 scores 96. Not sure why no Symbian scores are included on the HTML5 test site.

Wrap Up

I hope that this article helps the non-tech person understand HTML5 better. Feel free to request any further clarification in the comments section below.

Adobe Flash

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

In the news item by ZDnet, Adobe is reported to have stated in an email that they are stopping development work on Flash for mobile browsers, and now focussing on HTML5 instead.

Adobe is now focusing their development efforts on:

• Applications for mobile
• Expressive content on the desktop (in and out of browser)
• Increasing their investments in HTML5 in general

Source

Nokia West Africa hosted a conference last tuesday to talkk about their new Nokia Browser that compresses and optimises web content so you can browse faster and save data costs. Here are some vital information about this product.

What is Nokia Browser?
Nokia Browser is a web browser designed to save you money and fit web pages to your device screen. Nokia Browser compresses and optimizes web content for your device, so you can browse the web more quickly and save on data costs. Nokia browser has 3 viewing modes i.e Column, Page view and PC view

How can I save on data costs when using Nokia Browser?
Nokia Browser is designed to save you money on data costs. Nokia Browser compresses and optimizes websites for your device by up to 90%, so there is less data traffic.

Compressed pages also ensures up to 4 times the speed of other browsers when delivering content to the device.

What is the Featured tab in Nokia Browser?
The Featured tab contains links (Social network, News, Entertainment, Information and Web apps) that Nokia recommends to you, such as local websites and services.

Nokia Browser start pages helps the consumer to find the best content, suggesting locally relevant links to deliver relevant content. Within the featured tabs, the WEB APP tab also helps deliver to the consumer web applications that run within the browser, allowing the consumer to access information as he would if the application was resident on the device.

Swipe functionality in Nokia Browser?
The swipe functionality allows the consumer with touch enabled devices to swipe either right, left and down to access the Favorites (shows top sites regularly visited by the user), History (sites recently visited by the user) and Features (content recommended to the user) sections within the Nokia Browser.

Proxy servers take care of the compression before delivering compressed payload to the consumer.

The 1.5 release will include options such as:

Download Manager
– Let’s users browse while they download

– Supports Pause and resume for downloads

Password Manager
– Eliminates the need to type in information every time a user visits a site that requires login

Facebook improvements
– File upload for sharing photos
– Improved rendering
– Faster log-in

Updated toolbar log-in
– Simple, intuitive toolbar
– Single click for common activities

Categories bar: One tap access to Options, Current Page, Favorites and Web

One field for Search and web address, which also doubles as progress bar

Full screen browsing, for better user experience.

Compatibility
Nokia browser is compatible with s40 phones, and is default for browsers for C2-03 while also accessible via collections folder for devices such as the C3-00.

Install Nokia Browser
If Nokia Browser is not pre-loaded in your device, you can download it from the Nokia Store or browser.ovi.com/en on your device .

Opera Software has announced the availability of Opera Mini 6.5. This latest version of the server compression based browser is available for java-compatible phones, as well as smartphones running Symbian, BlackBerry and iOS.

Opera Mobile 11.5 has also been released for Symbian users.

To download, point your mobile browser at mini.opera.com.

SMS from MTN:

Yello! For SUPER FAST browsing experience on your mobile phone, download the MTN branded Opera mini browser for free! Go to m.opera.com to download now.

I checked out MTN Nigeria’s website and saw nothing of such in the News Section. However, I found the information on MTN South Africa’s website.

Go to m.opera.com on your mobile to download.

Bitstream’s BOLT browser brings lightning fast browsing, video, and social networking support to Android phones and tablets.

Optimized for small and efficient data transmissions, BOLT features unrivaled compression of Web content and speed – consistently 25 to 50 percent faster than its competitors.

Features of BOLT 3.0 for Android include:

• Flash, HTML5 video playback with compression
• Social Tab – currently dedicated for faster sharing on Facebook
• Web Apps for popular services like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Wikipedia and more
• Easy to use, intuitive user interface, optimized for Android

BOLT 3.0 for Android is now available for free to any user with Android 2.1 or later. Visit boltbrowser.com/android or Android Market

Dennis Bournique of WapReview has an article that addresses some of the frustrating limitations of web browsing on pure touch devices i.e. Devices with no physical navigation keys of any sort.

He details some of the issues with pure touch browsing as follows:

• Important functions that can only be accessed by tapping a tiny image link with a too fat finger.
• Radio buttons and check boxes that don’t toggle reliably when tapped.
• Drop down menus that won’t drop down.
• Problems with hidden links and buttons not appearing as they are supposed to when you mouse over them.
• Accidently clicking links when scrolling.
• It’s too hard to accurately select text to copy from a Web page.
• Difficulties in positioning the cursor precisely for editing in a text box.
• Problems scrolling through text that’s longer than the text box or text area it’s displayed in.

I am in agreement with Dennis that as a rule pure touch browsing does not cut it compared to when navigational controls are present. This is part of the reasons why I still prefer a smartphone with a hardware keyboard. Usability is simply better on such devices.

The uses to which I put my mobile computing devices regularly require tasks that are more frustrating – even if only slightly – to carry out in a pure touch environment.

That’s part of why I’ll take the E7 over the N8 anyday. It is part of why I had to let go of the Apple iPad.

While pure touch may be okay for the vast majority of users, if you use your smart mobile devices beyond the average person, sooner or later you might need to take a look at a device with a hardware keyboard and/or navigational controls.

By way of example, this entire post (including all HTML formatting) was done on a BlackBerry 9300 Curve 3G. While I miss the big display, the presence of navigational controls and a hardware keyboard made production a breeze compared to if I had had to do this on say an iPad.

Actually, I simply wouldn’t bother with a pure touch device with a smaller display like the N8. Not that it is impossible, but that the small display plus the lack of hardware keys would simply make it an even more frustrating experience.

Head over to WapReview to read Dennis’ full article: In Praise Of Mobile Browser Navigation Controls

Nokia Conversations have a blog post about Nokia’s Map application now available as a web app for mobile web browsers that are compatible with HTML5. Compatible browsers include iOS’s Safari and Android’s built-in browser.

To access Nokia Maps on a compatible mobile web browser, just type maps.Nokia.com in your mobile browser and you are in the Nokia Maps page.

Some of the features include:
- You can see where you are on the map, thanks to HTML5 support for positioning

- You can find addresses, businesses and other places of interest, anywhere in the world

- You can get to know the places: all the essential information about a place are presented on one page (pictures, user reviews, popular travel guides description, contact information)

- You can plan the fastest route to your destination by car or on foot

- You can see where the public transport lines go, and where the stops are

- You can share your favourite places with your friends via SMS, email, Facebook or Twitter

The service is still in beta stage but quite usable. If you have an HTML5-compliant mobile browser, feel free to give Nokia Maps a try.

Source: Nokia Conversations.