In March 1978, BBC Radio 4 launched a comedy series that would rock the world, tilt it a little and finally blow it up before catapulting one of its inhabitants into a journey to find the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Early on in his journey, the ape-descended human known as Arthur Dent was handed an electronic device, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which allowed him to access all manner of fascinating facts about the universe at the touch of a few buttons.
When Douglas Adams came up with the idea of the Book, mobile phones were still a long way off (and they took nearly ten years to evolve from a house brick to something you could comfortably fit in your pocket), while the home computer was neither as widespread or as powerful as it is now. The World Wide Web was still 13 years away and being able to send colour images across the globe in seconds was the stuff of science fiction.
h2g2 was launched in April 1999 as a real-life, online guide to Life, the Universe and Everything. Playing fast and free with the ideas of Douglas Adams (and why not, h2g2 was his idea too), the site enabled a community to come together, share experiences and work towards building a guide that could be as useful and informative as it was entertaining and inspirational. With over 7,000 entries now available in the h2g2 Edited Guide, we felt it was about time we made Douglas' original vision that little bit closer to reality and brought h2g2 into the palm of your hand...
What is h2g2 On the Move?
h2g2 On the Move is a version of h2g2 specifically designed with smartphones and PDAs in mind so that the Edited Guide can be accessed from anywhere within range of a mobile/cellphone transmitter.
Simply direct your phone or PDA web browser to:
If you're in the UK, you can also text h2g2 to 81010 and receive a text message that includes a link to the h2g2 mobile site. The text will cost you 12 to 15 pence depending on your operator tariff.
h2g2 Mobile Front Page
The Mobile Front Page is divided into a number of sections:
What is h2g2? - a link to the Frequently Asked Questions section.
Life - Enter the Life category for entries about life on Earth.
Universe - Explore the h2g2 category about the world and the universe around us. Find country-specific entries or explore our neighbourhood within the solar system.
Everything - All the rest, Arts and Entertainment, History, Science, Society, Sports and even Deep Thought.
Find an Entry - if you know the name of a specific entry, look it up here.
Surprise Me - Take a chance and pull up a random Edited Entry
New Today - the latest entries from the h2g2 Front Page
On the bottom of each page you'll find the following links:
Help - a link to the Frequently Asked Questions section.
Cost - information on the likely cost of each session.
h2g2 Home - jump back to the mobile Front Page.
BBC Home - the main BBC Mobile page.
Life, the Universe and Everything
The h2g2 Edited Guide is divided into categories based around the idea of Life, the Universe and Everything. On the mobile version of the site, each of the main categories is colour coded and grouped (although entries can be stored in more than one top level). Each category has its own sub-level page, so that you can search or browse within the category. Where the category contains more than six sub-categories, the first six will be displayed above a 'More' option. This will take you deeper into the category.
Search and Sub-Categories
The search tool divides entries up according to the relevance of the search term, but you might still find related entries lower down the scale even if they don't come to the top of the search. You can browse through the returned search with the 'Next' link or change the display to show results in lists of 10, 20 or 30.
When using the Category searches (Life, Universe and Everything), categories containing four or more entries will display the first three and offer you the choice for 'More', which will then display entries alphabetically according to the title. It's worth remembering that some entries begin with the phrases 'How to...' or 'A Guide to...' which might affect your search results.
Guide Entries
Guide entries are displayed slightly differently to how they appear on the website. Each entry is divided into chapters according to its headers, or according to a specified word-count. Some words are linked to other entries in the h2g2 Edited Guide and may appear in a different colour depending on your own device's browser settings.
The number of pages are displayed at the top of the page - 1 of 9 - with arrows to navigate from page to page (you can also use the final page number to jump to the end). At the bottom of each page, you'll find a link to the next section - Continued page 2/9.
At the bottom of the screen there are 'chapter' headings that jump in to the next headed section (the first header, which becomes active once you move to a later page, will bring you back to the start of the entry. This section also includes links to the credits section and to the Entry Categorisation so that you can look for similar or related entries.
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