Mobile widgets – who wants them? A blog post by Dean Bubley who is asking a very interesting question. Have been thinking the same some times.

When I am asking my self

I have just finished reading Mobile Internet For Dummies.

A brand new book explaining all the magic behind internet on your mobile phone.

It is a good book with thorough explainations at a high level to fit the target group. But interesting to read for people deep in the mobile business as well (you

< ![CDATA[This is not rocket sience but still worth a few lines. This is the most elegant way of handling video on the iPhone I have come accross. Test and view source here.]]>

The “smartfit” feature in newer Sony Ericssons can be a pain in the ass some times. Especially when you want the text to display nicely next to an image. Heres a trick to fix that.

OK table

This text should be be displayed right to the image (left) and not be wrapped.

Not ok table

This text should be be displayed right to the image (left) and not be wrapped.

The secret is to adda “width:” css style to the table cells. For example td{width:50%;}

Best viewed with a Sony Ericsson K850 or similar. Webkits work fine on this issue.

Many parties have done a great effort in making dos and don’ts, rules and best practices when making mobile portals. Here’s mine, only four of them…

Gap, .mob, w3c and more are all good advice! Thats not the point. But it does not matter if you use access keys, tables absolute measures or not. Some times you have to. What matters is understanding the mobile environment and beeing in control of how the service is persented the end user.

So, I have made my own guidelines. Four of them.

Be true to the mobile context

Dont believe that you can copy your content, strategy or design from your desktop portal.

Utilize the characteristics of the mobile channel

Use the unique characteristics to overcome the limitations. Not only device capabilities but also network- and user characteristics.

Take measure to decrease data cost and load time

Datacost is the main reason people are not using your mobile portal. So do all in your power to decrease the ammount of data the user have to download. See my blogpost at dev.mobi for tips and tricks. If fast web applications are important on web, its extremely important here.

Be in control over presentation

Don’t let transcoders, proxies or handsets mess with how your content is presented to the user! You know both your content and your users best! You should decide!

Our old friends Deitel and Deitel have published a free ebook on web 2.0 stuff.nothing is hotter that (mobile) web 2.0 right now. The book is typically American… anyway a good read