First post

Hello all. I'm creating this blog mainly to express my annoyance with my inability to have a good moblog, but also to hopefully provide resources, reviews, tools, etc., about moblogging in general. Let me tell you how it all started...

In the spring of 2004, i got my first camera phone. It's a sanyo 8100, and my provider is bell mobility here in ontario, canada. I had been with bell for years, and didn't really feel the need to switch, and also felt there might be a large burdon changing carriers but keeping the same number. Little did i know the crtc had recently regulated cell phone companies must allow numbers to be transferred to different carriers at no charge. If i had known, i woulda switched to get the best frickin camera phone around. As it turned out, i got the sanyo 8100. It's got a crappy ass camera, 352 x 288 resolution - if i had known, i never woulda got it. Shortly after i titled my moblog based around the crappy pics, find it here.

I had heard about textamerica well before i got my camera phone, hell, it was one of the reasons i got it. I loved the idea of having a camera wherever i went, and moreso loved the idea of being able to push images taken onto the net within minutes. I signed up for my blurryimages moblog, took a pic, and attempted to send it to the moblog. It didn't work. It still doesn't work.

Textamerica, and most moblog engines, have basic requirements about how they want to recieve images. Most define it as the subject of the email will be the title of the moblog entry, the body the details, and the attachment(s) as the images. When you send an picture via email from a bell mobility, it first uploads it to bell's servers, then sends an email to the recipient with an inline link to the image and whole bunch of other crap:

You have received a picture from 6137610461. View
Send and Receive Pictures through Bell Mobility. For more information go to www.bell.ca/mypictures.
Copyright © 2004 Bell Mobility. All Rights Reserved.

I was pissed. I was on support calls with bell, and this is just the way the software works... so for the past 8 months or so, i'd upload the pics, then email them to my moblog. A little assbackwards, but i got used to it.

Over the past few months, i debated writing my own moblog engine. That hasn't happenned yet, nor do i doubt it will. I realized i can use my time better educating, researching, and if need be, writing tools to make moblogging easier for everyone (or just me, that'd be fine too). I'll rant about textamerica in an upcoming post, and hit up some of the other engines and tools i've discovered soon.