h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK I'm awaiting my WAP phone and I've just read a load of old posts detailing what seems to be mobile phone hell. What's the deal now? I'm going to be on BTCellnet; does this mean I can get H2G2 on the move fairly easily? Anyone on this network and or knowledgeable about WAP in general who can put my mind at rest will earn themselves half a week shandy at the Fathom & Forum.

Bob

What kinda phone you getting? Early 7110's had a few 'issues' but I believe they have been sorted now (I should look at getting mine swapped out though it's only locked up on me once).

As an Orange user I can't help you with the specifics of getting online with BT Cellnet but I'm sure I can provide some generic advise.

Neil.

We had our fair measure of teething troubles whilst setting up the mobile site, but I believe most of them are sorted.

h2g2 On the Move should be accessible on most phones in the market at the moment. If you do have trouble, I'll do my best to fix it as soon as possible

As far as I know BT Cellnet has problems making bookmarks from the Motorola and Mitsubishi phones, meaning that it's difficult to get to sites that aren't in the default directory. In fact, if you have one of these phones you might find it difficult to get to h2g2 at all since BT seem to be trying to restrict customers to their own services... I don't have a BT phone, so if anyone can correct me here I'd be really grateful

strangely enough it's me who must correct you I entered in the address (mobile.h2g2.com) as a book mark and it took me there. no trouble. even made a post. I worry too much. Thanks anyway

PS this ended up being on the Trium geo phone
PPS this is the same bob as before....

Glad you got it working Bob. Entering lots of text is a pain though isn't it?

Neil.

it is a bit of a chore. but I'm blown away by the novelty of it all the 'predictive text' thingumy helps though.
now if i could just get it to read the entries is a slightly patronising tone...


bob

Great! Bookmarks and cookies working fine from the Trium Geo!

There must be something wrong with the Motorola Timeport (or maybe just with the setup of the one I borrowed).

Glad you like the service! Did you see the Babelfish Translate option?

Adam

babble fish? I didn't see that. Does it require you inserting the phone in your ear?

also is it not at all possible to post in forums or articles yet? or is it just my phone?
thanks.

Babelfish: under Ask h2g2 there might be a "Translate phrase" option... though sticking it in your ear won't do any good 'cos you won't be able to see the screen.

And no, it's not yet possible to post in forums or articles... not yet at least

I don't know you well enough to know if your winding me up with the "phrase Translation" thing. Suffice to say I don't see anything other than "search the guide"

It would be helpful to be able to search just the Article titles for word matches so as not to get too many topics totally unrelated to what your after. ie a search for London wouldn't just turn up every article that happened to mention London; it would instead only turn up things like "what to do in London" or whatever. this way you could weather to get very relevant entries or just any that brush past it in passing. Just an idea which I'm sure many many people have already thought of...

Oh and while I'm here I saw something about limitations on WAP text input is this true? If so what is it?
Thanks again

hmm I think the word "choose" is missing from the last post... must try to post more carefully. (god help me WHEN I get to post from my phone...)

I certainly wasn't winding you up - if you borrow a Motorola Timeport or fly to the States and look at h2g2 from a phone over there, then you'll definitely see the "Translate a phrase" option.

Unfortunately, this isn't yet available from WAP phones as we're reliant on Altavista for this service. To see a web version of the same technology, visit http://babel.altavista.com/

Oh, and WAP text input *is* limited to a small number of characters: somewhere around 128 and the phones don't cope any more. It's a bit of a limit on writing Entries on your phone, but hopefully we'll move on to more powerful devices in a short while...

Sorry me again...
If I may be so bold as to suggest another idea for WAP...
I know less than nothing about programming but is there some way to allow the user of a WAP phone to post in parts and then have it converted into a large post at the end? When they reach the maximum amount of text the WAP Site could provide two options; Post and finish or Post and continue. The user could then continue to do the maximum amount again and again until he had finished. Once the user clicks Post and finish the WAP site could somehow merge all the posts as one. I know there are probably WAP programmers sitting around laughing at my naiveté but I thought it sounded plausible.

No, that's not so naive and is a feasible way of doing things

Personally, I would like to have some way of editing entries as well, or at least of going back and seeing what you've written previously. This again is possible though it could easily get very cumbersome (remember that not only are you limited in the amount you can send *from* the phone, you're also limited in the amount you can send *to* the phone...)

The question really comes down to whether anyone would want to type large amounts of text on a phone keyboard. Especially as wireless PDAs become available (and these almost definitely won't use WAP).

A more exciting alternative for phones would be speech recognition - check out MIT's Oxygen project [Broken link removed by Moderator]for how this might work.