Create a vCard mobile bookmark on the fly!
Andy Moore has created a very easy way to create a vCard for your mobile site on the go! Why does your site need a vCard? Because it makes it easy for people to bookmark your site. Here is what Andy Moore has to say:
bookmarker.mobi is a tool that lets you easily create vCards for your mobile web site.
vCards can be saved by your visitors so they can store your details in their address book.
We have a simple API interface so you can create dynamic links to vCards
Just pass URL encoded values to us in a hyperlink and we will create your vCard on the fly.
To use the API, you simply link to this URL (with the variables edited to match your information)
http://bookmarker.mobi/?api&name=NAME&company=COMPANY&phone=PHONE&url=URL¬e=NOTE
You can also create one using the form at www.bookmarker.mobi
I highly recommend linking your vCard from the Bookmarker.mobi server, as the mime types for vCard files is set up properly. I ran into a little bit of trouble putting the vCard on my own server. If you are further interested in how this works, here are some photos from my Windows Mobile device.
Using Device Atlas to redirect Users
I’ve been working on a project that required both a mobile version, and a web version. After countless methods of browser detection, I find that Device Atlas was the only one that worked the way I wanted it to. How do I want it to work? I want it to detect whether the user is on a mobile device, or a PC. When Device Atlas gathers information about the user, it will display a mobileBrowser variable.
First you must download the code from www.deviceatlas.com, which requires you to be a member of mobiForge (free to sign up).
Now, you put your mobile site in a separate folder such as “/mobi” and your web version in your root directory. Upload the “Mobi” folder from Device Atlas to your root directory that your web version is in.
How to Launch a Mobile Website
Get users to bookmark your site
This is a nice little trick that anyone can use to get users to bookmark your mobile site. This post was originally from mjelly.com – Thanks James for the very insightful posts!
The problem is that once you have got people into your mobile site it can be difficult to keep them coming back as mobile bookmarking is not exactly user-friendly, plus, you can’t always see the URL of the site while you are browsing on mobile. Anyway I just noticed a couple of big mobile sites using quite a nice way of getting people to bookmark something on mobile more easily – contact/ VCF cards which load into your phone address book and record the URL.
Table like DIVS in mobile web design
Saw a request on Mobility.mobi for a div that will behave like a table. These are 2 really easy HTML and CSS codes you can use to get a ‘table’ on your mobile site.
Lots of .mobis for sale!
You can see a bunch of mobile websites for sale over at the Mobility forum. Here is a direct link.
http://mobility.mobi/forumdisplay.php?f=84
I’m selling:
MWO.mobi
JKA.mobi
InTheaters.mobi
Rainy.mobi
LondonWeather.mobi
Tato.mobi
and more…
MWO.mobi and DVW.mobi
I had a little bit of down time today that allowed me to create 2 more sites out of my LLL collection.
The first one is http://mwo.mobi. MWO is a mobile web directory, that already has a couple hundred sites posted on it. This is probably one of my favorite designs to date. This site is also for sale, see this link: http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?t=26681. If you wish to make an offer, please do so on Mobility.mobi
The second site is http://dvw.mobi. DVW are my initials, so I figured it would be appropriate to list my portfolio, some of my clients sites, my networks, and my contact information. Enjoy!
A couple of mobile RSS feeds
Just thought I would share a few of these feeds that I have found. You can use RSS feeds on your site to bring in more content, and keep your users interested.
USA Today Mobile
http://asp.usatoday.com/marketing/rss/index.aspx (Mobile feeds are towards the bottom)
BBC News Mobile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/5338006.stm#world
Reuters Mobile
http://www.reuters.com/tools/mobile/rss
I will add more as I find them.
.htaccess, Mod_Rewrite and the Mobile Web
Hey all,
I’ve recently been re-doing all of my mobile sites for a fresh 2009 look! I’ve been using Mod_Rewrite to make ‘clean URLs’. Why you might ask? Well, I’ll come clean, I’m no SEO expert, more of an SEO hack. So using Mod_Rewrite can change my URL structure from:
page.php?var=variable&var2=variable2
to:
/page/var/var2/
I thought I would share with everyone how to do this, since it makes your mobile site look more professionally developed, and helps you out in your search engine results.
Read the rest of this entry »
Big LLL drops & 2 new pages
Tonight and tomorrow night are the nights of the 4,500 LLL.mobi drops. Back order yours now while you can!
On another note, I’ve added 2 pages to the site. The Coder Experiment, will allocate me $100 to spend on a domain, development, and advertising. The experiment is to see how quickly I can make back the $100. I’m hoping this article will further interest people in development, and the mobile web will continue to grow.
The other page is my goals for 2009. I hope everyone set some 2009 .mobi goals.
