the latest hardware and tech
for mobile media makers
in the field.

Hi – I’m Rob B, also known as subwolf, I’m a web geek and tech junkie, maintaining a blog on and off. I’ve known Phil for over 10 years now, he’s been over to visit a few times while I was in America – see blip.tv. He’s a great friend, I value his input and experience both at home and out in the world, a great guy.

In July of 2007 I suffered a stroke, a carotid dissection caused by whiplash a few months previous. While it took out my left side, doctors have spoken favourably of a near-full recovery, which is currently underway. As we travel further afield in the coming weeks I will bring you news and reviews of the hard/soft-ware that powers these adventures. Stay tuned.

I’m traveling soon and wanted to make sure I could post to the ammoboxproject while on the move, so this evening I have quickly downloaded and tested four iPhone apps for mobile blogging and sent a test (draft) post with each. I also added a photo from the camera roll to see how the app handles size, upload and position.

Here is a screen grab from the Wordpress app:

It’s quite fast and easy to use with folders for local drafts. The photo uploaded straight to the ammobox server and exists in the uploads folder. The app is free and it does everything you would need and even has landscape mode. The only downside I can see so far is that it only supports WordPress … But it’s free!

Here is a screen grab from BlogWriter Lite:

Firstly, it has adverts – but it is the free version (full is £1.19) it supports multiple services such as Blogger, Live Spaces, WordPress and others. Setup was quick to the ammobox blog and it did what I wanted. I couldn’t test the photo upload as the lite version doesn’t support it. But for some reason it doesn’t feel slick and I’m sure the text is blurred?!

Here is a screen grab from iBlogger:

Firstly, this app is £5.99 and that was a real put off for me. It supports most blog services but strangely does not support photo upload to Blogger (yet) it also does not support landscape mode which I feel is a must for mass typing on the iPhone with any speed and accuracy. However, it is slick and is under active development, so buying it now could mean more features in the future.

It has nice support for adding URLs and also a neat button to add a GPS location link. For some reason it would not post a photo to ammobox as it gave a message of ’server busy’ each time I tried. The ‘text only’ test flew up with no problems so this may just be a glitch on the server side.

Here is a screen grab from BlogPress:

As I am writing this post on BlogPress you may of already gathered it is my favourite. At £1.79 it’s a steal, it supports multiple services and I have already used it on my own Blogger blog. As you can see from above it allows multiple photos to be added and uploads them to Picasa. I know this won’t float everyone’s boat, but personally I like my images in an album that might not be on my own server – I think it comes from my flickr addiction.

I’m finding it surprisingly easy to type on the keyboard with two thumbs in lanscape mode – I’m actually finding it easier than my netbook as that has tiny keys that are also difficult to see in the dark (I can’t fully touch type) holding the iPhone this way is quite comfortable.

So I’m going to come to a quick conclusion tonight – I will be using BlogPress for a while when mobile blogging and I’ll let you know how I get on. If anyone has any experiences with these apps or others, please let me know by leaving a comment below … I love testing new stuff

@richardmackney

– Post From My iPhone

I just wanted to say a quick ‘YO’ and introduce myself on the Ammobox blog.

My name is Richard Mackney, I live in Derbyshire and I’m really keen to find out about emerging tech, especially in mobile communications and digital imaging. Since joining twitter in July 08 I’ve found it the perfect place to keep up to date with cutting edge developments and have always been keen to jump on the band wagon and get testing as soon as possible. I’ve only recently worked out how I should personally use twitter effectively and a change of account to @richardmackney was the catalyst in ensuring I am being feed the information that floats my boat on a daily basis.

You could say I’ve been MicroBlogging since 2002 on my personal blog as I’ve always sent out brief updates on what I’ve been up to in the world of tech – even if there were no readers back then (and there is only a few now – mostly bots) I’m keen to blog about mobile developments that are within my reach and report my findings while out and about travelling the UK with my family in my caravan! … the Ammobox blog looks like a great place to share and learn and I’m pleased I can be a part of it thanks to @philcampbell

If I’m not blogging here, you can usually find me on twitter or flickr … just follow the links from my personal homepage http://richard.mackney.com

We just had a fab email from Guy Degen regarding these uber custom made cables for the nokia mobile phone and the sennheiser ew100 wireless system.   We have dabbled here before at the ammobox with custom microphones with the nokia phone but never really thought about the interconnects.  Guy emailed us to tell us about them and has donated a couple of the cables for review and to go in one of our ammoboxes where the nokia external microphone might be concerned.

Guy had this to say

I’ve worked with Jesse Versloot  from yourcustomcable www.uwkabelopmaat.nl to make a better cable for external microphones for Nokias and iPhones over the Nokia TV out cable hack. Jesse has made something very robust for field reporting.

we can see ourselves ordering some cables from jesse too! – Contact Guy @fieldreports via Twitter if you would like to find out more

Sorry it took a little longer to throw something up for a nice design.    If you want to follow us over on twitter head over to @theammobox and while your at it your should add some of our guest bloggers (i’ll update this post as they build up) – we will be autoposting the blog entries to this account for each blog entry and they will also go out on su.pr and stumbleupon.   we would be greatly for posts you really like to retweet or stumble if your a stumbler.

dave goodchild @buddhamagnet
giannii @giannii
david terrar @dt
John Sargent @sitewriters
Rupert Howe @twittervlog
Caron (CJ) Lyon @pcmcreative

So over the weekend i have stood back and looked at what we have and what we need to move forward.   So far we have 5 guest bloggers onboard and i’ll introduce those in another post later on today.    I’m looking for 20 guest bloggers from different places around the globe as a starter.   We want people who are actively using equipment in the field like us.    We will be rolling out a number of fixes over the next couple of days to fix the site in IE (for those freaks that use it) and also we have noticed some bugs with the archives/blogroll selector (it works in safari!) – also i’ll be doing some work on the footer of the site as we need to be able for you to get to previous blogs very quickly and we are considering spending a bit of time on the footer so that it is transportable in look and feel to other sites in the network.

One of the biggest areas we need to work on is the media aggregation theme for ammobox.   This is a rezpondr theme that we will use to show you the latest media that we have brought in from the ammobox travels.   Right now we have one box out in the field that was putting together by us for sleepydog for the amplified09 project.    The content for the different pages on the leftside will be done also in the next few days.    Sorry for the delay on this.    I’m aiming to publish/push at least 5/10 blogposts a day and when we have 20 guest bloggers onboard a lot more than that.

If your interesting in mobile web streaming and small content producing video or audio ‘ontheground’ please get in touch, we want to move past the shiny shiny of ownership of a piece of hardware and actually talk about the hands on nature of the unit and how it performs – quirks and hacks you might have found and things you did to fix it.

I’m sure emerging social sound startup Audioboo are going to be a big part of the Ammobox project, and I’d just like to add my penny’s worth as I have been using the service since its’ inception and have formed strong relationships with the company as a developer and supporter.

I have come to think of Audioboo as my CB radio, a slicker, more high-tech version of the knackered old original CB so many of us were in love with in the 80s. Complete with handles (usernames) and distinct styles (@philcambell’s snappy audiogravity shows for example), Audioboo made me fall in love with sound all over again. Twitter has the speed, the immense networking potential and sheer speed and force in disseminating ideas across the gris, but Audioboo opened up more possibilities in the richness and depth of audible human communication – it is simultaneously a radio station, a bulletin board, a sound museum, a news agency and a snug in your favourite virtual pub.

Audioboo have made many of the right moves – nurtured a vibrant and engaging community first and foremost, and I will pass on as many tricks and techniques for the Audioboo newbie over the coming weeks. Oh, and they have just released their API so expect many exciting web trinkets soon…

Hi there – my name is Dave G, more commonly known as buddhamagnet, and Phil had kindly invited me to be part of this exciting endeavour. I’m happy to, firstly because I have worked with Phil on numerous occasions – he knows his stuff, always delivers, and is constantly pushing the boundaries of new media and its’ associated technologies. Secondly, I’m a word geek – by that I mean I’m deep into language (both human and computronic) and media, and I’m working with Phil to create a suite of tools and sites that push that envelope even further, until the edges are all wet and steaming. I program in Ruby because it’s a Japanese language optimised for programmer happiness with a vivid and dynamic community behind it. It’s fresh, like Phil’s ideas and the whole ammobox approach.

Something tells me we’re into something good. I hope to blog here a lot.

quicklink | video over on twitcam (i would embed but they autoplay!)

Putting my money (or lack of it) where my mouth is on a project and pulling it together in a few weeks seems to be the order of the moment.    In tandom with this new design, first wordpress install and the hosting on the rackspacecloud i have in turn pulled together two great webapp sister projects for the ammobox project which will hopefully give us some lightweight revenue for helping you with smart small content creator functionality we know your going to want – really looking forward to pushing home our ethos about teaching people to become digitally enabled in the field by using mobile recording technology more effectively and making smart choices on what equipment to use and why.

Another of the designs, a first for me with tumblr pulls the business side together of projects webmedia finally with all my concept, client and video work.    Something that i have tried to do on my personal blog me.dm for the last six months and failed to do.     I feel i am getting there now however – getting the business, fun and hobby parts together under one umbrella network of sorts.

we take a walk around a duel usage video streaming web application from sweden that allows you to use your mobile phone or a webcam connected to your computer.