If you happen to be heading to the Gran Canaria Desktop Summit in a couple of weeks then I’d encourage you to come and see my talk on designing Moblin at midday on the 8th July. It’ll be fun.

I’m delighted to say that the BBC launched iPlayer Mobile on the N95 today. It’s one of the projects I’m most proud of working on and it’s still great. So if you have a decent Nokia phone and are on the 3, Vodafone or ‘WiFi’ networks, give it a spin. Well done David Madden and the team.

Moblin is different. If there’s one phrase that sums up what I’ve been trying to do with the last six months or so it’s that. After all, all of the stuff that’s out there right now already exists. Doing the same thing again does not create a compelling reason for people to use your software.

So we set about putting our money where our mouth was and started building something. Starting today you can see where we’ve got to so far with the beta release of the Moblin 2.0 for Netbooks User Experience. Just go to moblin.org, download it, burn it onto a nearby USB stick and you can either just run it live or install it to pretty much any netbook with an Atom chip. I think you’ll like it.

During this project I’ve had the good fortune to work with a whole group of people whose immense technical skills, personal charm and good humour I respect and admire wholeheartedly. Everything that is good about or project is there because they envisioned, supported or improved it in countless ways. Most of these people will not be mentioned in press releases so I’d like to take a moment to thank as many of them as I can personally for making this last little while the most thrilling, tiring and satisfying period of my professional life. So thanks (in no particular order) to: Darren Wilson, Claire Alexander, Hylke Bons, Matthew Alum, Ross Burton, Tomas Frydrych, Mark Skarpness, Paul Cooper, Øyvind ‘Pippin’ Kolås, Michael Meeks, Srini Ragavan, Chris Lord, Neil Roberts, Rob Bragg, Cyrene Domogalla, Jason Casseza, Arjan van den Ven, Anas Nashif, all the guys and girls in PRC QA, Iain Holmes, Damien Lespiau, Josh Lock, Jussi Kukkonen, Patrick Ohly, Thomas Wood, Emmanuele Bassi, Geoff Gustafson, Robert Staudinger, Sharon Murphy and of course, Rob Bradford. Thanks guys, I really couldn’t have done it without you. It’s been fun but it doesn’t end here.

We’re going to continue iterating this platform to knock off as many of the sharp edges as possible (we’re well aware that there’s quite a few) and continue taking our design philosophy to other platforms. Now that our UI is public and properly open source we’d love to chat. I hope you enjoy it.

Love,

Nick

If you’re in and around London on 22nd April I’d strongly encourage you to come along to Mobile Design UK where you’ll see an array of excellent speakers. Hume! Pollitt and Demmel! oh, and some bloke called Richards talking about iPlayer mobile. On second thoughts, I’d give it a miss if I were you. Seren’s office at 55-57 Rivington St is the place to avoid on 22nd April 2009 from 1830ish.

If we, meme like, are just vectors for the continued propagation of tabs into web browsers around the internet. Then Tom Hume is the patient zero. Fight the virus. Close your tabs. Don’t share or be friendly. Look after yourselves, and each other.

Hearty congratulations to the BBC for winning “Best Mobile Music or Video Service” for iPlayer mobile and to New Bay for winning “Best Service Delivery Platform” for LifeCache 2.0 at the recent Global Mobile Awards. Gentlemen (and ladies), it was a pleasure to work with you.

Do you like location? Do you like mobile? Then you’ll love Google Latitude but if you have a UK G1 then the firmware upgrade to build it into the native maps client isn’t available yet. Which is obviously not ideal. So here’s the strangely manual hacky way to get it to work if you really must (I must)

1. set up latitude on your desktop computer.
2. visit http://google.com/ig on your android browser
3. choose ‘classic view’
4. select google latitude from the iGoogle sidebar
5. accept the gears request to use your location
6. profit

As you can see, the Web Wins Again.

I saved the dog.

After twenty or so hours of trials, tribulations, entertainment and saving my life I traded the lives of thousands of innocents I’d never met for that of my faithful dog.

Oh sure, there was my wife Alex and my strangely needy Daughter thrown in with the bargain but they’d never been with me on the Bandit Coast when I was on the narrow winding path. Dead of night, sea crashing against one side; sheer cliff the other. The only real light provided by lightning cracking over the Temple of Shadows looming ahead of me. That and my fire spell, desperately recharging as I was assailed by Bandits, Acolytes, Mercenaries and all manner of foul creatures. I fought them off that day thanks to you.

They weren’t with me, yapping and jumping as I capered in front of the Demon Door at Oakfield until finally I fulfilled its capricious demands and it revealed the riches within. We feasted richly that night on Pie.

They weren’t with me whilst I amassed a real estate empire, working day and night at demeaning, repetitive jobs to pay the mortgage, to pay for our families future, so they wouldn’t have to live the way I did. And after every tenth piece of wood chopped you gave a yap and a jump and I resolved to carry on through.

They weren’t with me as I criss-crossed Albion to dig up the relics of a past I’d once lived, back on the Xbox. And I wonder why? After all archaeology isn’t exactly the most dangerous of professions is it? (Actually it turns out that in Fable 2 it really is) Yet faithful through the attacks you remained until we were standing over the treasure. I’d never have found it without your scrabbling.

All they’d do is sit at home and wait for me to come back, and come back I did. Sure, they’d pat you on the head and pretend they loved you as much as I did but I knew better. Soon they’d be talking to me again, after my money, after my attention. But you didn’t forget me, abandon me, leave me. Even after we spent years apart.

At the end of it all I had the world at my feet. Enemies slain, revenge assured. And then I had a choice. Save everyone enslaved by the mad genius I had been battling; everyone I’d killed. Save my family and dog. Or have unspeakable earthly power. The choice was easy.

Now. I was a nice man, a very nice man according to other people – but they hadn’t seen the bitterness in my heart of being the only one who could save them, the only real Hero. They didn’t appreciate me the way they should. Of course I could avoid the corruption and hate of the sheepish populace. I’m not stupid like they are, prating after some rich celebrity. I’d already managed to obtain dominion over all of them, I owned their houses; controlled their shops; could kill anyone in a fight with only the power of my mind!

I’d outthought the whole country, shown a pretty face whilst being rotten within for over twenty hours and then at the end they beat me. Because, at the end, I really did love the dog. And it broke me. Ten minutes later I’d saved out of the game for the last time.

Damn you Molyneux. Damn you.

I am delighted to say that when we were on holiday in San Francisco I asked Emma to marry me. Thankfully, she said yes.

This makes me an extraordinarily lucky man.

After a very happy and rewarding time I’ve left Fjord and today I started working in the Intel Open Source Technology Centre with the old Opened Hand crew in London. It’s good. We’re going to make some nice stuff. I’ll let you know when you can have a look.