Web hacking or something
I spent a very enjoyable evening yesterday in the company of Olle and Fredrik (who blogged it while we were there, but whose link I never got). It was supposedly web hacking, but the closest anyone got to the web was Olle, who tried to build a PHP extension. (So it’s suitable that it’s now changed name to hackmeetup.) Me, I bashed my head against Python for Series 60, building a simple script that would beep once every five minutes if I have any unread SMS messages in my inbox. The actual script that I wanted to write took me approximately an hour, after already having installed PyS60 on my phone but never actually having tried writing anything for it before. The remaining four hours, I spent on trying to build it into a standalone application that could run in the background.
I must have been really tired at the end, though, because when I tried it again this evening all I had to do was to fix one syntax error in my script and then everything worked.
Getting a new phone
Despite having worked with developing services for mobile phones for almost six years, I’ve never been very interested in getting any high spec phones for myself, and I’ve been completely satisfied with my Nokia 6100 for a long time. A former colleague has accused me of being into retro computing because I hold on to old pieces of technology, but the reality is simply that the 1st generation iPod that I used until last year (when the accusation was made) and my now four years old phone have simply done a very good job at the things that I want to use them for.
Now, however, I’m starting to think that it might be time to replace my old phone. Approximately six months ago, it started to sometimes hang up on people when I pressed the button to answer, and since yesterday it no longer rings when I get a call or a message, it only vibrates. So with very little indication that someone is calling me, and an approximate 25% chance that I hang up instead of answering when I notice a call, I’m thinking that it maybe doesn’t do its job so well anymore.
My problem now is that I’m torn between the irrational geek in me who wants a new toy to play with, and the rational part of me who (with a lot of help from my wife) reminds me that I make and receive approximately four calls each week and send maybe ten messages. I also don’t tend to spend much in areas where I don’t have access to computers, so the functions that aren’t call or message related wouldn’t necessarily get much use either. On the other hand, I do have a Wikipedia addiction that does require instantaneous feeding regularly. And the geek does need new toys.
XHTML adoption in the mobile world
Micah Dubinko mentions with a tone of surprise, both in his article Is XML 2.0 Under Development? and in a subsequent blog post, that despite the poor browsers, XHTML adoption is still farther ahead on the mobile web then the desktop web.
In my opinion, it’s the exact opposite. It’s because of the poor browsers on mobile phones that XHTML is ahead on the mobile web. For a mobile developer, there is a clear reward in going with XHTML. You are much less likely to have your page break on a random phone if you stick to XHTML MP than you are if you go with HTML. On the desktop web, there is no such reward. In fact, if you make a mistake somewhere, your page is much more likely to break if you claim in the content-type or doctype that it is XHTML. There is no reward on the desktop web in going with XHTML apart from a general feeling of having upgraded to a later standard.
