Ciaran McNulty

Short URLs are a bit of a hot-button topic amongst devs - some think they're useful (like Russell), some are wary of them (like me) and some, like my friend Simon, rail against them as a waste of time and resource.

Simon, however, is a sensible sort so rather than just making lots of noise about how they suck, he's gone away and tried to think of a sensible use case, then implemented it.

So take a look over at Wag.gd if you're interested in mobile development. Simon's written about it far better than I could and it's certainly an interesting idea.

29th December 2009, 10:21 (tags: mobile web ) Read more »

The unmodified site

The first thing I should probably mention is that yes, despite saying I wouldn't, I got an iPhone 3G relatively soon after release. I'll skip the reasons why for now, that's for a future posting. Naturally the first thing I did upon getting my iPhone was to plug in my own site's URL into the browser and see how it did - you can see the result in the screengrab.

You know what - it's not bad. The site looks roughly as it should, and with a bit of zooming and panning around all the content is accessible. However, on first load the text isn't really legible and it's not making the best usage of the limited screen space on the iPhone. Also, the large header graphic makes loading a bit strenuous over an EDGE connection when I'm not in 3G coverage.

Simon has been blogging recently (here and here), about 'mobilising' websites (and has written a good article on the subject for php|architect) so it's something I've been thinking about lately and I decided to see what it would take to improve the way the page was rendered on iPhone.

28th July 2008, 13:41 (tags: apple mobile web ) Read more »

A few days ago, Apple launched their much-anticipated second revision of the iPhone. Key amongst its new features are 3G (HSPDA) connectivity and a GPS unit.

Steve Jobs announcing the 3G iPhone

As a loyal Nokia user as well as a Mac enthusiast, my loyalty was therefore pretty divided. I was saved from flocking towards the first generation iPhone's hype machine by a reflex reaction of 'if it's not got 3G it can't be any good' and a recent iPod purchase to be bitter about.

I've been happy enough with my iPod and N95 sitting next to each other in my pocket, but the question I've been mulling over the last few days is, would I be happier with one iPhone instead?

12th June 2008, 12:33 (tags: apple mobile ) Read more »

Yahoo! recently launched a beta of their new Fire Eagle service and thanks to the kindness of Simon I managed to snag an invite code.

The main Fire Eagle page

The simple concept behind Fire Eagle is that it's a web service that stores your geographical location. That's it. There are no other fancypants features to get in the way of the central message, everything else is left as an exercise for third parties.

Like Twitter, Fire Eagle straddles a blurry line between a website and an API. The site itself offers very little - a box to write your location in, and a map showing the last known location (see picture).

12th May 2008, 18:44 (tags: mobile web ) Read more »