Mobile Style

I recently redesigned my portfolio website just to make it more simpler in terms of design elements and xhtml markup so that it scales to render on mobile devices too. What I had in mind was to use separate style sheets for the desktop screen and mobile defined using the media="handheld" parameter. Everything was done and uploaded only to realize that my Nokia E51 browser was a wannabe desktop browser who refuses to use the handheld style sheet and instead use the screen style sheet. I asked some of my friends and confirmed that there is no standard defined among the mobile browsers to use the handheld style sheet and all of them try to behave like the full blown desktop browser. But whatever it was I didn’t want to give up. As usual I decided to ask my friend to help me with this; I was sure that he would have a workaround for this…

Friend: You should recognize the user agent at the server side and serve the appropriate style sheet to the browser to fix this problem.

Me: But how is that done? Can you please help me…

Friend: Ok. So what you have to do is to have two separate style sheets, screen.css and mobile.css in the server but attach style.php to your xhtml page instead of the css file. Style.php will decide which style sheet to serve the browser according the user agent from which the request comes in. ie For all mobile phones, ipods and iphones it will serve mobile.css and others will get screen.css. Also you have to have is-mobile.inc.php in your server which will recognize your user agent and inform style.php.

Me: Oh ok I kinda get it now. Just one more question. Can the iphone/ipod use a seperate css file?

Friend: yeah try to change the logic in style.php

Me: Come on you know that I don’t do coding

Friend: Ok so you use this version of style.php which allows you to use the file iphone.css for iphone/ipods

Me: Thanks a lot man

Yipee now my site works well on my E51 and also iphone, haven’t checked other devices though. There is still more work to be done on the site, little more play around with pictures and more portfolio updates etc.

How good is a camera phone?

I posses a point and shoot Sony Cybershot DSC-P72 camera using which I have been taking photographs for the past 5 years. Not that I’m absolutely happy with the outcome of the camera but as I don’t have a budget set apart for buying a better camera I’m forced to be content with what I shoot as of now. The camera has a very basic set of features which I can play with and the lens is only good enough for a point and shoot. To keep myself happy I concentrate more on interesting compositions, lighting and of course the subject and I think I have been quite successful with that.

As a person who is not even that happy with a cybershot I have never understood the need of a camera on my mobile phone which comes with even lesser features. When I recently bought a phone a camera hadn’t even featured in the priority features I was looking for. But the other day I happened to look out of the window of my office building and saw an interesting sight on the parking lot below. A tiny Reva sandwiched in between two giants; A Tata Safari and a Toyota Innova. The symmetry in which they were parked and also the giants in black color made it look so interesting and unaffordable to miss out uncaptured. For a minute I felt so bad that I didn’t have my camera with me but I quickly remembered my newly acquired E51, pulled it out and shot the sight. Of course the quality of the picture was low but I was happy that I didn’t let the interesting sight go uncaptured. And now I know what’s the true use case of a mobile phone camera.

Where are you? Should be a thing of the past

The other day i was walking aimlessly in the forum mall having nothing much to do. I was hoping to meet some one I know there so that I can kill some time talking to them. Also I was not very interested in a regular time pass conversation, but was more in a mood to discuss technology.

I wished if there was a barcamp social network site on my mobile phone which showed me if any of the barcampers are around wandering like me. I decided to give it some thought. My idea could be achieved in two ways. It could just be a status update on the user profile "I'm at forum and have nothing to do", and me seeing it. The other way could be the phone finding my location and showing it next to my name, so that I don't have to update my status all the time. At the same time it should not show up when I'm with my girl friend.

Say I'm at barcamp and I have no idea if my friend ashwin has reached the venue coz I need to get my comp connection to the wifi. Ashwin is the regular wifi trouble shooter at bangalore barcamps. I look at my phone and it says ashwin is at the venue and I go in search of him. But when ashwin is at home I should not have an idea where he is unless he decides to broadcast that info. But for now I would be happy if it can broadcast specific public places or gatherings like barcamp, conferences or concerts. May be otherwise it can just show my city info.

The mashup program which I'm talking about, may be should use Google Maps with My location which can find my current approximate location using the information broadcasted from cell towers. Upcoming could be used to find out if any event is taking place at my location. May be some other directory could share the information about public places like malls and cinemas. Some kind of a user generated info directly into the program could be also allowed. Like if the map is showing my current location as silk board junction, I should be able to tell the program that's where my office is. Information gathered from all these sources would make up a meaningful info which could help in broadcasting where am I at the moment. It could also send out a Tweet when my location changes.

Am I making sense? Or am I dreaming too much. Anyways I have decided to buy a new phone and am constantly in search of programs which could broadcast my location without using GPS. Loki is one service which is currently coming close to my wish.