Aug 21 2010
I saw some cool examples of iPad art during the week:
The first is my favourite!
Aug 16 2010
A very humorous article about iPhone users and their sexual partners: Yo, here’s a vulnerable snap of my iPhone.
I particularly like the last paragraph :D
Aug 02 2010
Today is a public holiday in Ireland, so I have a bit more time to write about something that has been on my mind for the last weeks.
I often have to work with companies that already have a well designed website, but they have no content designed specifically for mobile devices. These companies normally have a very strong desire to target mobile users, but they are unsure of the best approach.
In an ideal world, if a website is well written in XHTML then it should be possible to create a separate CSS stylesheet to render the pages well on mobile devices. This solution is usually easy to do, but it only provides a very basic user experience.
Therefore, there is normally a requirement to create new content specifically for mobile users. There are normally three different options, and each of these has its own advantages and disadvantages.
This is probably the most popular option, and it is the option with which most users are familiar. The advantages of this option are:
This main disadvantages of this option are:
There are many examples of such mobile applications :)
This is probably the second most popular options. It involves creating a second website that is specifically designed for mobile devices. This new website can be hosted on a new domain (.mobi for example), and mobile clients can automatically be redirected there based on the HTTP user agent header.
The advantages of this option are:
The main disadvantage of this option is that it does not give a presence in the application store.
The advent of HTML 5 enables another option that consists of developing a skeleton application that is basically a dumbed-down web browser. This application is configured with an application specific title, icon, and start page.
The main advantages of this option are:
The disadvantages of this option are:
Hopefully I have not forgotten anything!
Jul 06 2010
A while ago a friend told me about a company called SimpleGeo that develops a geodata infrastructure. It is a bit difficult to understand exactly what it does, but the blog is interesting, and the founders’ biographies are also worth a look.
The infrastructure itself appears to run on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Apr 24 2010
Sometimes Google Maps gets it incorrect… The Mysterious Google Town of Argleton, Lancashire, England.
Mar 11 2010
Last week I installed the latest version of Skype on my Windows mobile PDA. The effect of this was that I upgraded from version 2.x to 3.0. My main motivation for doing this was that version 3.0 supports file transfers. I thought that this could be useful for when I am travelling and I take photos with my PDA that I want to share immediately with friends. Sending files via Skype has the advantage that everything is fully encrypted end-to-end, so it does not matter if the WiFi connection is not encrypted.
I had some difficulty obtaining the latest CAB files. Unfortunately, Skype has decided to stop supporting Windows Mobile according to Why can’t I download Skype Lite or Skype for Windows phones?. That is a real pity :(
The currently supported mobile devices are listed in Skype on your mobile. However, many of these versions are crippled so that they do not allow you to make voice calls using the telephone network. I guess that it would be too much of a loss to the network operators :o
Luckily, you can still download the CAB file directly from Skype’s website using the following URL: http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-winmobile-cab
If any readers of this blog are unable to obtain a copy of the CAB file, then let me know and I will share my copy ;)
Feb 22 2010
The Irish Times has an interesting article about popular iPhone applications: App-solutely fabulous.
I do not use an iPhone, so I do not know how usefule these applications really are :)
Feb 19 2010
There has been a lot of media coverage of Nokia’s MeeGo announcement this week. The best summary article I read was Nokia and Intel team up on Smartphone development.
I am quite surprised by this development! I would have thought that Nokia would have been better-off to adopt Android!
Feb 13 2010
Google announced its latest offering during the week. It is called Buzz, and it represents Google’s entry in social networking (again).
More opinions of Buzz are contained in Google takes on Facebook and Twitter with network site and Google Buzz - Gmail mod for the Tweetbook set.
I think that it looks like a good idea, and it should certainly appeal to people who already use Google’s other services.
Jan 31 2010
Hacker pilfers browser GPS location via router attack
Even if it is a month late :)
Oh - and Happy New Year while I am posting :D
