Hack Challenge: The best way to win an open source phone? Write plugins for Windows Mobile

October 7th, 2007

Dale Lane walked away with our final prize for the Hack Challenge: an OpenMoko Neo 1973 handset. How did he achieve such a feat? Oddly enough, by developing a series of plugins for Windows Mobile that allow him to search Google, create TinyURLs and post to Del.icio.us:

The aim was to find some more small ways to improve usability in Pocket Internet Explorer – the web browser on Windows Mobile. Anything that we can do to cut out a step, or save the user having to input something, all helps with the overall experience.

Search with Google: Search for the currently selected text in the mobile Google search engine. Saves the user having to copy the text, manually enter “http://www.google.co.uk/m/” in the address bar, paste the text into the search box and hit submit.

The biggest problem with the new Google plugin was in trying to get the currently selected text from the Pocket Internet Explorer. I’ve written up my efforts to do this in a blog post here

Turn into tinyurl: Get the tinyurl link for the current webpage, copying it into the clipboard. Saves the user having to copy the current URL from the address bar, manually enter “http://tinyurl.com/” into the address bar, paste the URL into the box, hit submit, select the tinyurl result and copy it.

Post to del.icio.us: Opens a form to post the current webpage to the del.icio.us bookmarking service, prefilling the page’s name and URL. Saves the user having to copy the current URL from the address bar, manually enter “http://del.icio.us/post”, login, paste the URL into the box, hit submit, wait for the next form, manually type in a title, hit submit.

The plugins can be downloaded from http://dalelane.co.uk/files/blade_pie_plugins.cab

We’re curious to see what Dale starts doing with his new toy ;)

Entry Filed under: HackLab