FFXI Reading on your Mobile Phones!

MaiTalu MIA?

I’ve been quite busy in general… work + run FFXI events + only 2 days for holiday doesn’t really leave me any time left to write a blog entry. Regarding my past weekends… I was like helping a friend (who I knew from FFXI), moving her place and… this week was totally just like.. gone :D (went to Go-Kart :D smashing my Friends :D)… so that doesn’t leave me too much time infront of a PC surfing etc…

So below is just how I move my world of FFXI to my mobile device so I can enjoy FFXI content on the go (no, I don’t mean exp party on the go =_=;)

Mobilizing FFXI News!

1. LBR to BlackBerry

The first thing gotta be putting Limit Break Radio to my BlackBerry :) I’d used to listen to it more like as entertainment while waiting for events etc… but didn’t realize they actually even do… Update Podcasts :) You don’t really notice these little things until you actually hear it when you need it… if it was before (like half a year ago), I’d probably just flip through it since I’ve already read the patch notes before I even started download the patch… just makes LBR more enjoyable and resourceful.

In case you don’t know what to do… when you connect your BB, it detects it as a mass storage device. (If it doesn’t, BB Menu –> Options –> Media Card and find a line where it says enable mass storage etc and put a check box in it).

I sometimes do wish LBR also covers a little bit of BG’s latest update without the drama one of course… similar to Digg Podcasts (eg. talk about how LS people can chat via Website UI through something like this), but I guess since they are err.. under SE’s community website agreement.. they can’t really talk about 3rd party stuff :3

RSSing your FFXI Community

RSS stands for really simple syndicate, a way to deliver content to your devices as they become available. There are a few things you can RSS like Blogs…Webpages… FFXIAH (no release date…). There are plenty of ways to have them delivered.. but I’m just going to go over the 2 methods that I use. RSS or HTML Emailing.

First method is just use Google Reader as your RSS reader. The good thing about GoogleReader is it looks very good on Mobile Devices, I mean mobile device friendly! I mean you could use Viigo, a program that is specially designed for BlackBerry but.. I’d also don’t want to keep 2-3 reading lists and not know which one I’ve read so far so IMO I’d just use Google Reader. On the right is Keiffa’s Blog Entry “It’s so big omg” from Keitalu Journal

If you like a more aggressive RSS forwarding method, you can use something call RSSFWD, it emails you in HTML format of their feeds. I use that for the few Blogs that I really enjoy reading… so I get all their real-time updates and talks as they become available. On the right is an example of Jowah’s blog utilizing RSSFWD. I get to read about her adventure even when I’m in the washroom xD!

Email might be better so its already there, and just awaiting for you to read it, whereas GoogleReader requires loading time etc. Well it all comes down to your Data Plan… mines unlimited so =P I can just do whatever I want with it. But before.. I had a 7MB limit so … was really trying to do everything to conserve bandwidth usage.

Surfing the Forum is rather reasonable. I mean there are forums which are optimized for mobile devices.. but definitely not BG forums.. in fact.. BG forums is rather horrible on mobile devices.. you know people that lists like all their jobs and give it a long signature? Well BB don’t really display that much information on the screen.. so I’ve had signature where it fills up my whole screen … lots of scrolling :D

Here’s what it looks like in zoom out mode, in Close-ups.

Google Reader Mobile.

Doesn’t look bad at all :) It actually presents it pretty good, better than Viigo IMO (if you’re using BB, you’d know). Best of all… its free :) I think Viigo caches your reading list though whereas Google Reader actually queries the server as you are reading it. So if your data connection occasionally disconnects like me… I think you’re better off using a RSS reader that can cache :)

Ducks forum looks great on blackberry :) Thanks to vBulletin xD! Well other then that, I guess that’s all for mobile FFXI entertainment. No I’m not going to go crazy and trying to mobile desktop control via my blackberry to play. I’d actually like to cut down my FFXI playtime :) Right now is more reasonable :)

Anyway, hope you enjoy this random article lol… and by the way, hound LBR to do some new podcasts :/ they have been slacking :/