Twilight, Travel, and Treats

Before I go into the mobile fic thing check out the wonderful gifts I got this week

First from my wonderful friend DQ

love that they sparkle like EC. And she got me 2 boxes so I can actually open one She really knows my hoarding collector ways

Bandages for the doctor - what a good idea!

From my awesome cousin VL who got me the Japanese editions of Twilight - Twilight in Russian! So cool.

what a great 10th anniversary present - for me!

By the way I changed my avatar to my Bella and Edward figurines - I was a bit tired of looking at my own face. Click here for my post about them.


Okay on to the regular post...

So I've usually been saving mobile related things for my other blog Twi-Mobile but this news is just too big.

Those of you who read fanfic and have been following my blog know that I've made it my mission in life to do everything from my iPhone. I've even gone to great lengths to try and get fanfiction.net stories onto my iPhone and iPod touch and written tutorials for you guys as well.

Sunday was the release of the final chapter of Master of the Universe by Snowdragon Icequeens. It's Chapter 87 and this fic has finally finished after 8 months of wonderful reading bliss.

I was so happy when my email alert from fanfiction.net came with this at the end



See the Mobile? Too exciting. It's about frickin time.

If you click on the mobile version this is how the story looks from my iPhone.



To jump chapters you can scroll to the bottom or press Menu at the top.



This even lets you Review, Add Story or Author as Favourite, and Follow Story or Author.



What happens if you go to a regular desktop fanfiction.net URL? Nothing, as in there is no automatic detection and redirection for mobile devices.

But it's easy to get to the mobile version of any fanfiction.net story.

Just replace the www with an m

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5368782/87/
becomes
http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5368782/87/

Side tutorial - How do you do select and replace text on an iPhone?

First hold your finger down on the www part of the URL until you get the magnifying glass.


Then tap on Select, not Select All.


You should get a Cut/Copy/Paste box showing a highlighted www part. Don't click on any of those options.


Now just type m to replace the www and you'll get the correct URL. Then press Go at the bottom right and you're there.

So if you don't mind reading fanfiction.net online this is the quickest way. If you have to read it offline then still follow the tutorial here.

I'm off to Italy in 3 days. I'll try and post a bit in those two weeks.

By the way here are some iPhone wallpapers I made for myself this week.





You can find them and my other iPhone wallpapers at the iPhone Wallpaper Archive.

Lastly, notice my new buttons on the right sidebar for Twitter, RSS, email? Well there's a new button you may not recognize

It's for tumblr - my new microblog - I'll explain it next time. For now just go ahead and click on it to check it out. Don't forget to click the Archive button when you're there - the Archive gallery is so pretty!

**********
It has come to my attention that my post needs some clarification for those of my friends who aren't as techie.

Assumptions:

- about 20% of blog followers use their phones (iphones, Blackberrys, Palms, Androids, etc.) or mobile devices (ipod touch, Kindle) to connect to the internet
- you care about this post because
A) you have a blog and you want your followers to be happy and to keep following you
B) you are a blog follower and have one of the mobile devices above and want your favourite blogs to have mobile versions

- viewing a regular blog on my iphone looks like this

- if you have a mobile theme the homepage looks like this



And the posts look like this


See isn't the mobile version easier for people to read??

- iphones have a desktop like a Windows or Mac desktop where people can bookmark web pages like your blog and it will create an icon for that page
- with a regular Blogger blog the bookmark icon will be boring and generic (see the 2 on the right)
- if you create a mobile blog you get a cute icon for those iphone users and it will remind them of you :)
- it would be awesome if our followers with iphones could have a whole desktop page with just our cute twilight blog icons

See my cute iphone app icons on the left?

iphone app icons and the difference a mobile blog makes

The one on the left is of course my newest Blogger button. The second to the left is my old Wordpress mobile button and the two on the right are my iphone bookmarks for a couple of my favourite blogs Twibite and Twi-sted Edbrella. I am hoping that (hint hint) my bloggy friends will join me in the mobile site world so they can have cute app icons too.
*********************
Back to original post...

If the icons aren't enough and if you don't use a mobile yourself, consider this. Last year over 60 million people used their mobile devices to connect to the internet at least once a week and 22 million of those did that everyday. It just seems wrong to not have a mobile friendly blog.

I'm not sure how many of you have an iphone, ipod touch, Blackberry, or other mobile device that you use to access the internet. I know Honolulu Girl at TrueBloodTwilight and myself love our iphones and I spend lots of time glued to ours. Hence, the ability to play Drunken Mad Libs with you whilst on the road (don't worry Mr.TC was driving).

Before I converted to Blogger it was essential that I could create a mobile version of my blog or I was not switching. One of the things I liked about my old Wordpress blog was that it automatically created a mobile version that was streamlined and easy to use.



So on my new blog have you noticed that I added a "Mobile Version" link? It was a menu tab before but looked too much like a category so I moved it.



I created my new mobile blog at Mofuse and it was free! Go to the bottom of their page to see the free blog link.


This is what my Mofuse mobile blog looks like on my iphone

With white background

Custom colours and logo