What a great first day!
The sponge analogy explains itself when you take in consideration the amount of information you’re exposed to on your first day in a new company. Dataset acquired, time to parse.
One sure thing is that I lucked out, because this team sure knows how to make someone feel right at home. Can’t wait to be productive, so I can carry my own weight. And then some.
Like good old Stimpy would say: happy happy, joy joy.
Yesterday was my last day as McGill University‘s Web System Architect.
It’s always sad to leave a team you’ve so enjoyed working with for five (long/short) years, but how could I refuse taking on the role of technology director for the dynamic Plank Design?
As Doug, a teammate on the WPhone project, would so elegantly put it: *grin*.
And as Buzz would, since one analogy is never enough (…): to infinity, and beyond!
I’ve just been through most of Apple’s new iPhone Developer Center (ADC membership required), and I find they’ve done a very nice job of aggregating all the info we’ve so far had to dig for, whether through Apple’s own information channels or the countless tidbits published by third parties scattered around the web.
As I’ve voiced through the iPhoneWebDev list earlier tonight, it is great to have one consolidated and dedicated resource to live by in keeping up with the momentum Apple’s mobile devices are reaching.
On the other hand, I would urge the development community to focus on the term guidelines, and not overly fall into design patterns that would ultimately lock them in (just think MSIE/ActiveX). As Apple itself notes, emphasis should be put on accepted standards, which in term allows for greater code and experience portability.
The web is always evolving, and as it does, so will Safari. You’ll want to keep informed of the evolving standards emanating from WHATWG and W3C standards bodies.
Even though the WebKit/WebCore combination is increasingly becoming the mobile industry’s dream team, with examples such as Nokia’s S60WebKit browser and maybe [hopefully] even the yet-to-be-released consumer version of the OpenMoko platform, let’s not dismiss other platforms such as Opera Mini and Mozilla’s revived mobile efforts.
I, on my end, am indeed pretty hyped that our own WPhone app scores very high when it comes to adherence with Apple’s published guidelines, but I’m just as excited by the fact that it in fact support close to any web-capable mobile device released in the last 3-5 years. Unobtrusive Javascript, how I love you so.
This said, now we also want to make the same rich experience available to the Apple user base to the scores of other fun tools and toys that are starting to and will surely flood the market over the next three to five years.
As I often say: fun times ahead! :o)
My team and I released version 1.3.1 of WPhone. This will be the version which will be judged in the little challenge we got involved in/with. Matt, at Automattic, will judge the entries with what is released by October 22nd, so we’re all eager to know how we did.
And now, let the wait and nail biting begin (00:16 in Montreal)… 😉
Thanks to a lot of help from the support and development groups (special thanks to Richard and Adrian), and despite having focused on my upcoming job switch and WPhone in the last month, I finally found some time to release version 1.1 of wpDirAuth, an LDAP authentication plugin for WordPress I also maintain.
The new version adds support for more directory server configurations and vendors by supporting privileged pre-binding. It also adds a few interface and documentation tweaks, and has been tested under WordPress 2.2.x and 2.3.
Thanks to Warren Wilansky, owner of the excellent Plank Design, who was kind enough to lend me his iPod Touch for the weekend, we were able to finally view and use WPhone on an actual Apple device and hammer out most of the display glitches our original releases had. Well, that and a whole lot of tweaks and new features, such as some fixes in the bundled iUI Javascript library for which I started submitting patches upstream, etc.
Sure feels good to not be flying blind anymore! Though I did have to give the iPod back today, which was about as painful as cutting off one of my own fingers… :p
So, if you had downloaded an earlier version, be sure to try the new 1.2.0 release. Or if you’re into the whole living on the edge thing, checkout the development branch of our Subversion repository, where we’ve already started to add some neat new features after 1.2.0 came out (otherwise known as rapid fire development).
Now, since our core focus is actually full support for the widest possible array of mobile, lightweight and accessibility devices (smart and non-smart mobile phones, PDAs, micro tablets, screen and braille readers, etc) what I really would like for the next step is to somehow gain access to some of the other targeted devices.
So if you happen to be in Montreal, have any of the following devices/environments and are interested in helping us out, please drop me a note (comments or wordpress-AT-tekartist-DOT-org) and maybe we can get together for a bit of geeky fun. 🙂
… or anything else that you would like to use WPhone on really.
Who knows, maybe I’ll luck out at one of the countless tech events organized in Montreal, such as the BarCamps, etc.
I’m not an illustrator, but if you are and are interested in moving to Singapore or Jakarta (Indonesia), this might just be a dream job for you.
Imaginary is a studio created by artists for artists. We are looking for people who work hard and play hard, and who have the talent, experience and passion to take things to another level.
One thing’s for sure, their work is beautiful enough for me to feel compelled to point to their job posting even though I really know nothing of them as a workplace. 😉
See, I told you I wasn’t all there today…
I guess it takes a nasty fever for me to have forgotten to mention that Doug Stewart, Viper007Bond and I have jointly released the first version of WPhone last night, a plugin to bring the WordPress Administration to the world of mobile and accessibility devices.
The project was, originally, in response to a challenge sent to the wp-hackers mailing list, but our take on it actually goes beyond the original parameters by trying to support full universal access instead.
We’re now in the debug phase, since we’ve never actually had the chance to preview the souped up iPhone/iPod mode of our interface, but we’re hoping to be in a much better place on this front by the end of the weekend. The lightweight version of the interface, used for all non-WebKit browsers, is a lot more stable and seems to work like a charm on even my feature-deficient Motorola v551 (pre-RAZR, less RAM, about the same browser).
Well, I’m sick as h*ll today, but one thing that brought a ray of sunshine to my day is Radiohead‘s latest album: In Rainbows.
The album is revolutionary because of its distribution method, if nothing else. Radiohead decided to bypass all the middle-men and release it on their own. For an added twist, buyers of the download-only version are prompted to name their own price!
I went with the principle that I’d give the same amount I’m charged on the iTunes Music Store, knowing that my money is actually going straight to the source.
Haven’t formed an elaborate opinion on the album yet, not being all there (nasty cold…), but so far, I definitely like it.
Hot on the heels of another match made in heaven, I too feel I have found a soul mate. The professional kind (I was lucky to find the romantic one early).
I am ecstatic to announce that I will be joining Plank Design‘s wonderful team, as technology director, on October 29th 2007.
Co-founded in 1998 by Warren Wilansky, Plank Multimedia Inc. is an advanced website & digital creation company that focuses on developing websites, with one guiding principle – to do things differently.
Plank has been in a torrid love affair with all things digital for quite some time now, and helped clients such as Michael Moore blossom in their online endeavors. But more than a company, I am honoured and very much looking forward to work with some of the best professionals I have been given to meet.
Talking about great teams, it is not without a bit of sadness that I will bid farewell to McGill University, and most particularly its Web Service Group, another truly fantastic group of people. If you are in the academic sector, you can quote me on this one: watch them, they know what they’re doing.
So on this, 28 days to go (I’m not the 2-weeks-notice type), trying to complete as many McGill projects to try handing over the keys to a clean house, and I’ll be on my way to what promises to be professional bliss. Joy! :o)