Entries Tagged 'Mobile' ↓
July 16th, 2008 — Mobile, Updates, Writing and Speaking
Go, the inflight magazine of AirTran Airways carries an introductory article on Mobile Web. The author Lee Gimpel contacted me for inputs a while ago and I was glad to help. Clearly, mobile web is huge, and there is good amount of buzz around it these days. But like Amy Mischler of dotMobi said, it’s important to set your expectations and realize that you’re at the beginning of something that can really differentiate yourself.
Have you tried something on the mobile web yet? Did you read my book on it?
June 13th, 2008 — Mobile, Writing and Speaking
Aliza Sherman reviewed my Mobile Web Development book on the Web Worker Daily - a GigaOm site yesterday. One, it was good to be on GigaOm network (I am impressed with Om Malik and his ventures), and second Aliza had very positive comments for the book.
It was interesting to see her comparison of Mobile Web with the early days of Web. And how fascinating it was to learn HTML! Here’s what she says:
If I were still coding, this book would probably mean as much to me today as Teach Yourself HTML in a Week by Laura Lemay meant to me back in the 90s. Even as the person who hires the coders on development projects, it was an interesting read, particularly getting a glimpse of how far HTML has taken us and where it seems to be going.
She also says, “The gist of the book is to help you create mobile-friendly sites and mobile-ready apps.”
That’s pretty good! Thanks Aliza for your affirmation on the value of the book!
And while on the topic, I must not forget the excellent review Joe Dolson did a while ago. Joe said:
My overall reaction to this book was positive. It covers a wide variety of key issues for mobile web programming in an easily understood manner.
Mehta goes out of his way on many occasions to emphasize the serious importance of considering who (and what!) will be using your mobile web application.
Joe is a good critic, and identifies three problems with the book too. Thanks Joe for doing a thorough review!
For more reviews, checkout MyMobileWeb’s review, Martin’s chapter by chapter overview and the reviews on Amazon.
Also the example chosen is simple but at the same time enlightening. The author has demonstrated that he has done an excellent research on open source tools and standards for mobile web development. The chapter on Mobile AJAX has been also a very good choice, as Mobile AJAX is the future. (from Morfeo / MyMobileWeb)
In this book you find the outline of the mobile web applications development world, some principles for self-study, some useful hints and examples and - last but not least - the inspiration. I would recommend this book to every developer interested in the mobile web. (from Dev::Info)
June 10th, 2008 — Apple, Mobile
Update: iPhone 3G was launched in India. But with exorbitant price tags. 31K and 36K are just too much for this phone. I don’t suggest buying it at this price. Wait a few more months! The price will come down!
(Photo Credit: James Martin/CNET News.com)
The latest version of the iPhone will be launched around 11 July. And it will be available in India. The price will be $199 for the 8GB model, and $299 for the 16GB one. It will have 3G, GPS and much more!
Things look very exciting for the iPhone now! At the same time, Samsung is launching a competitor!
Time to dump Reliance? 
June 6th, 2008 — Mobile, PHP, Writing and Speaking
One of the biggest hurdles in mobile web development is to make the site usable on different devices. You can follow the least common denominator approach and use only those features that will work on all target phones. But many a times you want to take advantage of device specific features in your mobile web.
What do you do then?
Well, you adapt the design and content to the device! And how do you do that?
Read the Chapter 4 of my Mobile Web Development book! It shows you exactly how to adapt your XHTML MP based mobile website to different devices using WALL, WURFL etc.
Here’s the chapter outline:
- What is Adaptation?
- Do I Need Adaptation?
- Can’t I just Use Common Capabilities and Ignore the Rest?
- How to Determine the LCD?
- OK, So How do I Adapt?
- Fancy Pizza Selection
- What are Those <wall:*> Tags?
- Let’s Make Sense of This Code!
- Can I Use All XHTML Tags?
- Will This Work Well for WML?
- Device Detection and Capabilities
- XML Processing can Bog Down My Server, is There Something Easier?
- What About W3C’s DIAL?
- Other Useful Tools for Adaptation
- Dynamically Resizing Images
- Quick and Easy Way to Make Your Blog Mobile
- MyMobileWeb: Going the Semantic Way
- HAWHAW: As Simple as a Laugh?
Click on the image below to download the free PDF.
April 16th, 2008 — Book Shelf, Mobile
Since XHTML MP is based on XHTML, certain syntactical rules must be followed. Making syntactical errors is a good way to learn a programming language, but so that you don’t get frustrated with them, here are some rules you must follow with XHTML MP! Remember, HTML is very forgiving in terms of syntax, but make a small syntax error in XHTML MP and the browser may refuse to show your page!
Overall, XHTML elements consist of a start tag—element name and its attributes, element content, and closing tag. The format is like:
<element attribute="value">element content</element>
XHTML Documents Must be Well Formed
Since XHTML is based on XML, all XHTML documents must adhere to thebasic XML syntax and be well formed. The document must also have a DOCTYPE declaration.
Tags Must be Closed!
All open tags must be closed. Even if it is an empty tag like “<br>“, it must be used in the self-closed form like “<br />”. Note the extra space before the slash. It’s not mandatory, but makes things work with some older browsers. If you can validate within your editor, make it a practice to do that. Also cultivate the habit of closing a tag that you start immediately—even before you put in the content. That will ensure you don’t miss closing it later on!
Elements Must be Properly Nested
You cannot start a new paragraph until you complete the previous one. You must close tags to ensure correct nesting. Overlapping is not allowed. So the following is not valid in XHTML MP:
<p><b>Pizzas are <i>good</b>.</i></p>
It should be written as:
<p><b>Pizzas are <i>good</i>.</b></p>
Elements and Attributes Must be in Lowercase
XHTML MP is case sensitive. And you must keep all the element tags and all their attributes in lowercase, although values and content can be in any case.
Read the full article on Packt Pub
This is an extract from my Mobile Web Development book.
You can read the full article on Fundamentals of XHTML MP over at Packt Publisher’s website, and buy the book too from there.
The book has received great reviews
The book has already received two great reviews on Amazon.
Michael from USA gave 5 stars to the book and said Mobile Web Development is a “Great Book for converting traditional web developer to mobile world“. He further wrote:
I am doing mostly Java, PHP, RoR development. Has never done any mobile web development before. To cater my curiosity of mobile, I ordered this book using 2 day shipping. I was wondering why this book didn’t have a cent of discount. Now I know why, it is a great book which worths all the money.
I read it from beginning to end in 6 hours. I simply could not stop. It covers most important aspect of mobile web development. Now I am very anxious to try build a mobile version of my website.
Examples in the book are deep enough and very easy to understand.
I highly recommend this book
