warriormill

decided to post source code and video of homebase working. Download is as is, no warranty or license.
click here for more information

One of the biggest problems facing mobile web developers is making sites share the same level of user experience across all platforms. The approach i recomend is to make your application scalable enough to  adapt to different screen resolution and features. This means you  must know alot about the phone before hand, the response to this usualy “we can possibly collect all that information”. Yes I agree but, we already have people doing this work and donating it as open source.

There are two open source database that i like to use:

• For ASP.NET there is “The Mobile Device Browser File” this is an open source browser file its hosted on codeplex.http://mdbf.codeplex.com/
• For all other Development Platforms I suggesst  WURFL (Wireless Universal Resource File).  http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/

These resource files gives us great control over what type of content can be served out to  the device requesting information. This means that your mobile site has to intelligently make decision on the information that you are now provided, because now you know screen resolutions, if a the mobile device can handle video.  Use this information wisely dont not try to make a use case for everyphone. Group phones based on ability and screen size.

Group  devices into categories for example the nextGen Group can be composed of  iphone, android, and other  touch phones.

Study conducted by Harvard business shows 10% of users generate 90% of the content.

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/06/new_twitter_research_men_follo.html 

It would be nice to intersect this data with are the top 10% Companies pushing out data making it monologue and not 2-way peer-to-peer communication which in the end is the purpose of twitter.

I was out with a couple of fríends recently, geek drinking at best. The group consisted of two generations of programmers, the main theme was Management horror stories.Since I am on the younger end of the age spectrum I guess it is naive of me to think that with all the project management Systems out there that we could pick one and be productive in of.

I think that part of it is plausible deny-ability of accountability. What I mean about this is that if there is no system in place then You can’t be held accountable. Im starting to think if anyone used project management systems properly at all, i know they buy them….but do the really use them.

I recently discovered a iphone app from WildCardNetworks.
This nifty little apps lets you store calling card with access numbers and pin  so that then you only have to pick numbers from your contacts with you ever having to put the pin in ever again. This has improved my frustration when dialing international…since i have to do it every day.

1. code snippet: http://blog.enargi.com/codesnippet/
2. lightbox: http://www.stimuli.ca/lightbox/
3. mobile wordpress: http://crowdfavorite.com/wordpress/
4. google analytics for wordpress: http://yoast.com/wordpress/analytics/
5. google xml sitemaps: http://www.arnebrachhold.de/redir/sitemap-home/

If you think that twitter is infallible then stop reading now…. Ok still with me good. Like many people I know we believe that twitter could be a use full messaging system. But as of late it has become 80% noise, posts about you just getting in your car and arriving at work is really just noise. There is really no use full information there, I call these people the “nit-twits“. Keep that on your facebook/myspace pages because if you make post like the one previously mentioned then most likely you have an account. The idea is short meaning  full messages, and that kinda got lost.

Twobble with Twitters (very funny video and proves the point)

Effective uses of twitter (whether they are evil and using it for financial an personal gains is irrelevant):

News Alerts

While a bad execution because i don’t believe CNN needs 5+ twitter account, the idea of having headlines on twitter is appealing because most of the time when you listen to the news you only take back with you the headlines and then, maybe, sometimes if you are really really interested you will sit down and look it up.

Artists connecting with their fans

Bad example Jessica Simpson “I love La Mer. Is it bad that I want my pool filled with it? I could jump in and just swim.”  …ok so maybe that’s was too easy. Good Example Metallica “A Few Thoughts From Cleveland at 3 am: IT’S BEEN special..”

Software Updates

Companies announcing update, patches or new release  of software.

In the end if you want twitter to succeed help it become more than just a fad, right now they only make money by investors…eventually they want return on investment and there just going to end up owning meaningless noise.

I stumbled upon http://www.hostip.info/dl/index.html…it has a free API or you can download the entire database as a sql script. Very nice if you plan to do Geo targeting. It can even go down to a city level on certain ip’s.

As i was catching up on Scotts Gu’s blog. i came across this posting http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2008/11/24/new-asp-net-charting-control-lt-asp-chart-runat-quot-server-quot-gt.aspx about the new charting control in asp.net. And i thought to myself….finally. With ASP.net mvc going 1.0 and Silverlight3.0 beta announced this probably got very little attention.

download here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EE8F6F35-B087-4324-9DBA-6DD5E844FD9F&displaylang=en

When you come to think of it web2.0 was about rich Internet applications, using platforms like Ajax. Flash and Siverlight. rich in the sense that they could function and animate as well as desktop applications. But web2.0 didn’t necessarily mean that you had a rich user experience. An example is Facebook here is a nice web2.0 application but it still lacked user experience, it was somewhat cumbersome in how I interact with parts of the web site( or web application). 

Rich User Experience is what keeps the user engage. Engaging the user and keeping them engaged is a complex thing to so. Giving In you face content or the BAM! factor will cause some people to engage but not all users will respond the same way. I don’t believe that Rich User Experience has to always be something that is flashy or slick, It measured by the user time on your web site plus the re visiting of the user.

I believe that one can achieve this by building intelligent sites that offer a passive guidance to the user as he/she navigates the web site. Amazon has been doing this for years and are a good example. How good is a web site that I don’t engage with frequently.