OK, I’ll agree with you that there are more social networks to shake a stick at already, but I figured that the series of tubes carrying the internet could stand to use one more.
After looking at Ning and kicking the tires as part of getting some background on something that was actually work-related, I thought I’d try it out and see what it takes to set up a network over there. Oddly enough, it was pretty damn easy.
Throwing some of the available options together I christened the fledgling social network The Web Geek Collective. If you’re interested, please join up and stake your claim as a true web geek. Or at the very least, swing by and check it out.
Posted by Raymond // 7 May 2008
Every so often, for no discernable reason, I decide to check out a few of my recent designs or projects by hitting SHIFT + F11 while in Opera. Now if you have ever wondered what your design work would look like if viewed through a blender after pressing the “chop” button, then you really need to give this a go.
I’ll admit that I’m mobile-web-challenged and short of these random fits, I never test my work for handheld devices, let alone develop a specific stylesheet just for them either. Cripes, I don’t even use my phone to access the web. (I’m sure that by saying that, my geek cred has undoubtedly fallen several notches.)
But in all fairness, how should web designers/developers approach the mobile web? Do you stick to the known conventions of the handheld media type and support it with a separate stylesheet? Or do you use a CSS3 media query and META tags to serve up your site to iPhone users because it’s version of Safari ignores the handheld stylesheet?
It’s not so much that designers should be concerned strictly about iPhone users based on their market share alone (because they are pretty much still a minority compared to other devices) but more on how the iPhone may define how the future mobile web is viewed.
I’m not saying that the iPhone is the Holy Grail of mobile devices, but given how Apple and its products are seen by both the industry and general public as the leading edge in “chic” technology, it’s fair to say that the iPhone is a benchmark for how future mobile devices will interact with the web.
Maybe it’s good to look at this aspect of the web like the Wild West. While it’s not exactly lawless, it’s still in enough of a flux that it’s hard to figure out who’s really in charge and there are no solid paths to follow right now.
Undoubtedly the mobile web will evolve and develop beyond what we thought was possible or feasible and this little conundrum of choosing which way to serve up web sites will go the way of the blink tag. I can only hope that it will be based on a single standard and not force designers/developers to wrangle multiple methods like we do now with IE-specific stylesheets.
In any case, we can apply what’s currently at hand (myself included) to make sure the web is mobile-friendly. Here are just a few sources to turn to:
Posted by Raymond // 4 Apr 2008
