intermorphic.com Blog The world of intermorphic 2008-09-28T21:38:59Z Copyright 2008 WordPress Tim <![CDATA[Two cool S60 mobile apps - Projekt and Mobbler]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/09/28/two-cool-mobile-apps/ 2008-09-28T21:37:57Z 2008-09-28T21:37:57Z cool software Mixtikl S60 Two apps that I regularly use on my S60V3 N95 are:

Projekt by Kylom - a neat outliner and list making app, and;

Mobbler - a really simple looking but fantastic LastFM client (meaning I can WiFi play LastFM radio stations on my mobile around the house). LastFM really comes into its own for me, when it is on my mobile. Sure, for cost reasons I would not use it over my operator network, but if it could be priced right, it would be a killer service. To give this a chance of happening LastFM should really allow a user to decide the streaming quality they prefer (i.e. on mobile 64kbps would be fine).

Anyhow, I would really hope that one day we can get apps into Mixtikl that do these kind of things. But, we have to get Mixtikl out first, and there are a ton of things we would like to add down the road. Ultimately, it will all come down to what users want the most (and what we have the time and resources to build).

Do check out the apps above, they are cool!

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Tim <![CDATA[Intermorphic forum is BACK! (Yahoo Web Hosting / forum problems update 4)]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/09/02/intermorphic-forum-is-back-yahoo-web-hosting-forum-problems-update-4/ 2008-09-02T14:34:44Z 2008-09-02T14:34:44Z website forums Yes, our forum is now live again! We proffer sincere apologies for it being out for so long. The problem was in Yahoo Web Hosting’s court, but they have now thankfully fixed it. If you are interested to know more, then please see our blog posts below. We hope the outage did not cause you any problems, and we welcome you back.

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Tim <![CDATA[Yahoo Web Hosting / forum problems update 3]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/09/01/yahoo-web-hosting-forum-problems-update-3/ 2008-09-01T23:33:24Z 2008-09-01T23:33:24Z website forums OK, more promising news.

We have just heard from Yahoo support that they have investigated our problem at the engineering level, but that they need to continue to investigate the issue.

The good news is that they told us that fixing this is now an urgent priority for their engineering team, and have told us we can expect a resolution or update within 3 days.

We are not out of the woods with this yet… But appears now we at last have their attention, so we have our fingers crossed that they can resolve this soon and we wish them the best of luck in that. We will keep you posted on developments.

I don’t yet know how they are going to make us happy again once this is fixed (AND we simply cannot afford to have this kind of long drawn out saga happen again), but lets cross one bridge at a time.

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Tim <![CDATA[Yahoo Web Hosting / forum problems update 2]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/09/01/yahoo-web-hosting-forum-problems-update-2/ 2008-09-01T21:35:35Z 2008-09-01T21:35:35Z website forums In the interests of keeping our forum members updated, there is a small glimmer of hope.

We had a reply from Guy Yalif, who it turns out is no longer Head of Yahoo Web Hosting, but is now in Yahoo advertising. He said he understands our pain, and has forwarded our message to the head of the hosting support team, as well as the new Head of Yahoo Web Hosting. He also said he would follow up with both of them, which was kind of him.

We have subsequently had another mail from Yahoo support (1 week on from last one confirming there was a problem) saying “Please assured that our engineers are still investigating the problem you reported and trying their level best to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

Sounds promising… But, what was not given, however, was an ETA as to when this would be fixed. At least they say they are till working on it, though. We will be pressing them for an ETA.

What we still don’t understand, however, is how a company as big, powerful and resourced as Yahoo!, can still be trying to fix something that went wrong 19 days ago. Whatever it was that happened has stopped not only our forum working, but (as we were lead to believe by Yahoo) other forums, too. It must be a pretty serious problem not to be sorted by now.

You might be interested to hear of an amusing mail we got from Yahoo last week, telling us our Webhosting fee was going up and “We’re committed to providing you with world-class service, and this increase will ensure we can continue to offer the features and quality you have come to expect from Yahoo!.” We are looking forward Yahoo meeting its stated committments.

We are looking forward to getting our forum back up and running for you! Apologies again from us.

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Tim <![CDATA[Yahoo Web Hosting / forum problems update]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/08/31/yahoo-web-hosting-forum-problems-update/ 2008-08-31T23:42:23Z 2008-08-31T23:42:23Z website forums Well, as you may have noticed, our forum is still down. A very unsatisfactory state of affairs, we know, and we are very apologetic about this. We have had it confirmed on the phpBB Support Forum that the problem is indeed something that Yahoo Web Hosting has to fix - we cannot fix it ourselves.

It is now 18 days the forum has been down, and we believe we have been very patient with Yahoo. In order to further escalate matters we have again emailed Guy Yalif, Head of Yahoo Web Hosting, this time copying Jerry Yang, CEO Yahoo. We can only hope that this will somehow help get this resolved soon. So, please bear with us as we try to get this fixed!

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Tim <![CDATA[Yahoo Web Hosting / forum problems continued…]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/08/23/yahoo-web-hosting-forum-problems-continued/ 2008-08-23T08:31:36Z 2008-08-23T08:31:36Z website forums We reported to Yahoo on 13th August that our Yahoo hosted forum had gone down - we just got an error message when we tried to access it (error message still there). We had done nothing that would cause this problem as we had not modified our SQL database in any way. We did notice that at around the same time, however, that all the file permissions on our website had somehow changed, which Yahoo denied was anything to do with them (as far as we know, the only way for the to be changed would otherwise be by us, but we did not change them). We only noticed this as we tried to update some pages but were not able to overwrite the existing files with their replacement.

Anyhow, back to the forum problem, Yahoo finally confirmed on 20th August (after a lot of chasing, some with no reply) that they had had other forum owners complain about similar problems to ours, and were putting technical resource into solving it.

It is now 23rd August and our forum is still down, and we have no further update from Yahoo as to when this will be fixed.

If you are thinking of using Yahoo to host your forum, think very carefully about it. We are a UK company, so the only way to contact Yahoo support is either an International telefone call (there is only a US number to call), or via email. The thing about this is that the Webhosting service is not a free service, it is something you pay for….

When you email them, they have a contact system where you are given a case number. They say you should get a reply within around 24hours or so. That would be OK, but there is often a real communication problem, and they do not seem to understand the questions asked (this is very very patchy) and sometimes it is days before you get a reply, often one that does not help at all. Also, they can really only handle one problem or question in each email, which is a problem in itself because things are often interrelated. It all means that you end up having an exchange of emails (and thus delays) that stretch on for days and days and days and turn into weeks.

There is no point in giving specifics here, as this is not meant to be a rant. It is just pure frustration with Yahoo Web Hosting. We just want our forum back online!

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Tim <![CDATA[Forum down - update on Yahoo Web Hosting problems]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/08/21/forum-down-update-on-yahoo-web-hosting-problems/ 2008-08-21T07:08:25Z 2008-08-21T07:08:25Z website forums As of 20th August Yahoo Web Hosting have now confirmed to us by email that our forum problem is also an issue for a number of their other customers. The good news is that this means they are at last now devoting some technical resource to fix it.

We are deeply apologetic for this outage, and no-one is more frustrated by this situation than us. Thanks for your continued patience - hopefully it will be up again soon.

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Tim <![CDATA[Forum down with probs as of 13th Aug…]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/08/13/forum-down-with-probs-as-of-13th-aug/ 2008-08-13T09:39:37Z 2008-08-13T09:39:37Z website It appears Yahoo have done something to our forum, and we are now trying to get them to fix whatever it is they have done. We hope to get it up soon, but this is realistically not likely to be until the 14th Aug at the earliest. We apologise for this and appreciate your patience!

NB: We have had other problems with Yahoo web hosting the last week when our website file permissions seemed to be changed for no reason, meaning we could not update the website. Very odd indeed, and has never happened before.

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Tim <![CDATA[Mixtikl for iPhone / iPod touch - Intermorphic postpones development for now]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/08/11/mixtikl-for-iphone-ipod-touch-intermorphic-postpones-development-for-now/ 2008-08-11T13:25:01Z 2008-08-11T13:25:01Z Noatikl development Mixtikl iPhone S60 Windows Mobile Partikl Tiklpak We are really sorry to report this, as we really wanted to get the Mixtikl mobile music creativity system running on iPhone / iPod touch (see Create Digital Music).

There is no intrinsic reason why Mixtikl and its integrated Noatikl generative music engine and Partikl DLS MIDI synth, softsynth, sampler and fx network shouldn’t run very nicely on the iPhone / iPod touch. But, as with porting to any Device/OS, there are many issues to consider ranging from technical to commercial, and Pete’s blog touches on some of the technical issues behind our decision.

After further investigation, however, it turns out that it was not only the technical side that turned out to be a show stopper for us. It was the terms in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement (and as a European developer it took nearly 3 months for us to reach a stage where we got to see them).

Because of NDA restrictions we are not allowed to talk about anything in that long agreement. There was one particular clause that, for us, was a total show stopper (and goodness knows why Apple have that requirement) and another that, depending on interpretation, would also be a total showstopper for us. There were plenty more to really think really hard about, too along the lines of risk vs reward vs control vs who benefits etc.

We were (and still are) very excited by the potential of our software running on these Apple devices, and we love Apple products and all our other software products run on Mac OS X (and Windows XP of course).

So, we have decided not to press ahead with development until Apple can:
- relax a number of (as we see it) overly restrictive terms in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement
- allow apps to share/exchange data/files between themselves and an attached PC/Mac

Will Apple care that a small developer like us chooses to stay away from the party for now? Surely not!

Will Apple change anything and open things up more because we can’t contine? Surely not, cos there will be plenty of other developers that will develop for it!

Will anyone notice our apps are not available on iPhone, and will anyone care? Some people may notice and care, yes, because we know we create products for a niche audience; however, those people may now need to find other devices to use them on (sorry folks!).

Finally, is this sour grapes on our part? Most definitely not, we still hope to come back to it some time in the future.

So, now that the road ahead is clear for the present at least, we will be turning our attention to Mixtikl for S60 after we complete our work on Mixtikl for Windows Mobile.

Pete & Tim

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Pete <![CDATA[Porting Mixtikl to Mobile - Windows Mobile, Symbian, iPhone]]> http://intermorphic.com/blog/2008/07/27/porting-mixtikl-to-mobile-windows-mobile-symbian-iphone/ 2008-07-27T15:03:01Z 2008-07-27T15:03:01Z development Mixtikl While porting Mixtikl, I’ve encountered quite a few issues porting Mixtikl to the various mobile platforms, and I thought it’d be useful to be able to share some of this with those of you interested in writing trans-platform applications. I hope you find this of use! If you have any comments, please let me know!

You can find the blog entry right here:

http://sseyod.blogspot.com/2008/07/porting-mixtikl-to-mobile-windows.html

Pete

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