I’ve recently been converting a mobile app to be web based and had been noticing a few unexplainable problems with it such as the back functionality being inconsistent and clicks not registering half the time. That was before I noticed that at some point I had moved the source order of my script links in the head of my document.

So I just wanted to highlight for anyone else out there that has had a lapse of sense that this is how it should be:

<!--jQuery to come first-->
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="jquery-1.7.2.min.js"></script>

<!--Then Modernizer-->
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="modernizr.cssonly.js"></script>

<!--Then custom stuff-->
<script type="text/javascript">
       $(document).bind("mobileinit", function(){
           $.mobile.defaultPageTransition = 'none';
 });
 </script>

<!--Then jQuery mobile library after everything else-->
    <script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="jquery.mobile-1.1.0.min.js"></script>

For months now (probably about 6) I’ve been climbing harder, thinking about the routes better, polishing my technique, thinking about where to rest a little if possible, working endurance. With the latest routes going up on the comp wall at Craggy about one and a half months ago I started working a red 7a. It consisted of a pretty solid first half that wasn’t anything special but did it’s job of tiring you a bit before hitting you with quite a technical top half.

For a solid month and a week I’d say I gave this climb real effort. I mean lots of blood, sweat and screams. From not being able to get past the gaston hold half way up I managed to work and work it and refine my approach until finally about a week ago now on a Tuesday night I touched got the top hold but didn’t have enough left in me to stick it.

Although gutted of not getting it I was pretty confident that on the next session on Thursday I’d have! It was that sort of deep confidence that can give you real hope. However here’s the thing that prompted this post. I got down on Thursday only to find that the 7a and a 7b (that I was also trying to work with a friend but was struggling on) had been replaced!

The reason was that Craggy was hosting a national youth competition. Now I love to see young people climbing but here’s the thing. Don’t mess with a climb once it’s on the wall and being climbed on until it’s time to take it down. This applies especially to the front wall that only gets set every 4-5 months. This also applies to a climb having holds added/removed after people have been climbing on it. Whether it’s soft or hard for the grade it is what it is!

To without any notice at all just remove two climbs from the comp wall after a mere month and a bit is totally sucky. I don’t think they understand how much work people put into getting there projects. It’s not all about indoor climbing but for me certainly a big part of the allure is that fantastic feeling of getting a route that you’ve poured your heart and soul into clean. When you get that top clip, there’s not much else like it. This is what craggy took from it’s members when they messed with the front wall and I don’t think they even know it. Quite sad really.

I will of course get over this. I’ll sink my teeth into another project and of course now that the summer is coming I’ll be concentrating more and outside but still I’d love to teach the setters a lesson. How about taking whatever route they’re working outside and smash of a few handhold and foot holds. Maybe then they might feel the same as me, that all there blood sweat and screaming was for nothing.

Firstly let me say if this has happened to you then do make sure and look around as the price variation between different vendors was quite a lot. Why not spend an extra half hour and save yourself £40.

I settled on a company that seemed to be professional whilst not putting one over the table in terms of cost. So I phone them up and enquire regarding how long it should take with there current work load. Let me paraphrase the response. ‘Not more than a few days sir’. Well while I was loath to give up my phone as like most people with a smartphone I really did rely on it and was accustomed to having it wherever I may be I decided to rip of the bandage and send it away a day or two after it dropped hoping to get it back by the end of the week.

Long story short they company I sent it too still had it TWO weeks later. I finally broke when I phoned for the n-th time to enquire about it’s progress and was told yet again that they still didn’t have the parts (front screen) in stock but should be getting them in a few days. I’d heard that before so I promptly asked for a refund and return of my device.

What is galling about this isn’t that they had a supply problem it’s that from my very first enquiry with them they seemed to string me along. Bit of advice for companies out there, never string your customer along!

Anyway I’ve found another service (through eBay god help me) that looks pretty good so hopefully this time it really will be just a few days turnaround.

Oh btw just in case you’re curious the website of the company that I will never use again is www.i-phone-repairs.co.uk.

I thought I’d get my thoughts down while I have the time (I’ve been smacked in the face by a big fat cold virus that’s forcing me to have a break from climbing and well everything. Not nice over the long Easter weekend!).

First up RIM

I thought it might be wise for one to kick off with RIM sense it’s entirely possible that by the time I’ve finished writing this little piece that they will no longer exist. OK maybe I’m being a bit facetious to say it won’t exist but I can guarantee that it will have continued further along  it’s downward trend.

It’s funny to think how far RIM has fallen in the years preceding the iPhone and shortly thereafter Android. I personally thought that they had a brilliant place from which to wage war; that being the absolute centre of enterprise. Somehow they managed to lose it. I say somehow, you can actually pretty much chalk it up to the consumerisation of IT in the enterprise gaining momentum and RIMs inability to ride the wave.

Example. My most recent mobile app was for a client who wanted the app in BlackBerry’s App World as well as the App Store and Marketplace (now known as Play). Thing is the app was designed specifically for modern smartphone screens which we defined as about 3.5 inch with a decent resolution. Not having had to look into RIMs line up for a while I couldn’t recall their devices of the top of my head so I headed over to their product listing page.

What did I find? A product listing that looked like it was from a few months after iPhone and Android emerged. There was only one model that had a minimum of 3.5 inch screen (it actually had a 3.7″) with a decent resolution. ONE MODEL! It’s been clear that people want a big ass slab of glass for their smartphone’s today. There’s a reason why iPhone, Android and even Windows Phone 7 are all (with the exception of a few Android models I’m sure) slabs of glass.

Now I find it hard to believe that RIM’s CEO didn’t know these two facts; the trend of consumerisation of IT and the majority of people’s taste in relation to smartphone’s. So the only thing I can think that happened is that he couldn’t put one and one together and extrapolate.

There isn’t much more to say on this. RIM is losing market share, mind share, developers and staff month over month. The only good thing I’ve heard from them recently is an admission that they really have screwed up these last few years, btw that was from the new CEO.

I think the best thing for RIM to do is to get out of or trim down massively their hardware line and license their OS and services to other manufacturers. I think some other HW vendors would be interested in at least exploring the opportunity to offer a compelling counter balance to Apple and Google.

From a developer point of view. Well I wouldn’t shed a tear should RIM disappear.

Next up choice/fragmentation in Android

Depending on your view it’s either consumer choice or platform fragmentation. Well here’s the thing as a consumer I’m sort of sitting on the fence as to what I’d call it. I might be leaning toward consumer choice in relation to the HW but fragmentation in relation to the platform.

As a developer however it’s a clear cut decision. It’s fragmentation and a whole lot of work! And it ain’t quick iteration thanks to the painful sluggishness of the Android emulator. Of course as I finished the project and get my thoughts out here a new rev of the emulator has been released with the major improvement being hardware acceleration. I haven’t had a chance to update my development machine so can’t comment first hand on how well this works but I have seen some demo’s on youtube and it does look good.

Here’s an example of the fragmentation that we developers face. Take for Google’s mobile homepage for search. How do you think it holds up when viewed across a range of browsers.

You can see higher quality versions of the image here.

Keep in mind this example is only across browsers and not devices and OS versions. I like the openness and flexibility of Android but I really do wish that it was far more consistent.

Lastly; Adobe might be getting back to its ‘we build kick ass tools’ roots with Shadow

As a quick last point I want to highlight a new app from Adobe. It’s called Shadow and it allows you to pair mobile devices with your dev machine and test web apps on the mobile device.

Besides from me liking the tool, it really can speed up workflow, I’m heartened to see Adobe returning to it’s tools heritage. Originally before getting caught up in Flash Adobe made tools and not platforms. I think this is the direction they need to continue.

Adobe I’d love to see more releases such as Shadow that solve real problems.

Update: Adobe have released an update of Shadow that solves some of the major problems I encountered while playing with it. Loving the quick iteration Adobe! Instead of me re hashing the details you can find out more on the release here http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/04/13/adobe-updates-web-app-development-tool-shadow-with-labs-release-2/

More recently… it hasn’t felt like they’ve kept the pace up. It’s understandable, companies grow, start to have vested interests and lose their agility.

However very recently, for the last year in fact Larry Page has been at the helm for Google once again and he has brought a focus back to the company that was sorely missing. For a while I really did think that Google might just quietly slide into the big company trap that caught Microsoft but now I think  they have a fighting chance of staying out of it.

Lately I’ve felt like they’ve been getting back to form in both the big idea playground and in the trenches of everyday life. Lets start with the big idea playground shall we.

Exhibit one. Self driving cars :)

Watch this.

Of course this isn’t going to happen overnight. Nothing ever comes from the big idea playground overnight but it is coming and Google are pushing it forward. I could go on about the massive change self driving cars could have in society but I really just want to highlight a few projects so I’ll forgo.

Exhibit two. Google glasses.

Watch this.

These prototype glasses are powered by the computation power of your Android phone. Of course in their current state they will get you beat up in the playground but just image in only a few years time how small this tech could be. Small enough to be integrated into normal glasses or sunglasses or maybe in a few more years into contact lenses.

After that we would essentially have the wealth of information on the internet combined with the massive computational power of the phones in our pockets able to display almost anything overlaid on top of whatever we are looking at. That means you no longer have to  wonder weather that’s the correct building you are looking for, or if the train you are looking at stops where you need, or in a few more years whether your child just has a rash or something more serious.

Here’s a quick experiment. Next time you travel somewhere new take count of how many times you wonder about something in front of your eyes and then image how big a smile you would have if the answer to your question was displayed right before your eyes!

In the trenches

What about Google trying to solve some of those everyday problems that we have. I recently read an article on Mashable titled; Google Partners With Publishers on a New Kind of Paywall.

What the article describes is how Google is trying to help publishers get benefits from their content. Now normally these benefits would be monetary but sense news has become a commodity if the publisher can’t get the user to pay then they have to make money from other channels. To date this has mostly been advertising but this new type of paywall could let publishers use their readers to collect information which they can then sell as research to various interested parties.

Now this may not work. For one people may not be willing to even answer a few questions to read an article but I’m not currently interest in the validity of the idea, I’m merely glad to see Google working with publishers on innovative ways to make some money and stay in business.

In seeing them do this I’m slightly happier that they are getting back to form

If you have any examples yourself do let me know in the comments or if you totally disagree and think Google is still on route to become MS 2.0 say so in the comments.

Struggling? Let me help you out with some figures. In the last year alone Amazon’s revenues in the UK were £3.3 billion. Any ideas now?

Before I offer up the answer let me ask you to reflect on a few other points. At the time of writing this the global economy is still struggling to free itself from the grips of recession or flat growth. World governments are (supposedly) trying everything they can to jump start each of their economies. One tactic in the many being tried is to become more efficient and less wasteful. To make what we have work harder and last longer.

What this point in reality means is that for the average person things have got a bit/massively tight. Does this sound familiar; No pay rise in work, cost of living increasing, access to finance reduced, having to make do with less whether that be not taking the kids out for the day or trying to get another meal out of your weekly shop. My point here is that the average Joe is making sacrifices to help get the economy back on track, which is pretty fair in these times. I’m sure no matter what country you’re reading this from you’ve heard the phrase ‘We’re all in this together’.

Well we’re not. How much tax did Amazon pay in the UK last month? £0.00. Nothing!

It’s not just Amazon, Google is the same and I’m sure numerous other companies that I don’t have the time or interest to track.

This is probably where you expect me to rant about these companies and how what they’re doing is despicable. Well it’s not. These companies are publicly traded and so they are legally bound to make the most profit they can for their shareholders. Actually I think the more accurate phrase is something like ‘to always act in the best interest of their shareholders’ but I find the former phrase much more honest in it’s wording.

If presented with a method of not paying tax they will take it. It’s called paying the legally minimum amount of tax required. Even if they could pay more tax they can’t really do so voluntarily as that would not be in the best interest of their shareholders.

My question then is why not simply remove the loopholes that allow companies to do such things. Yes I’m sure it’s more complicated than I believe but really I think the effort would be worth it. Don’t you?

I say instead of the government trying to pass legislation allowing them to track us in everything we do without a warrant or working with the massive media conglomerates to try and punish every kid who downloads the new album of his favourite artist or who wants to see the latest episode of Game of Thrones before it’s released months and months later in their own country, we should instead be working feverishly on making these global companies pay their fair share just as we all do every day.

Do you think that if normal people found a loophole to pay no tax it would remain open for long? No. Of course normal people merely have a vote it’s not like we can wine and dine and manipulate MPs and MEPs into working for us.

I believe technology will be the thing that either destroys us or makes our species eternal. Bold statement huh :) I do truly believe it though. Technology is having such a major and fundamental impact on everything and it evolves so fast. It’s advances will either, in my mind, lead us to an unfortunate dystopia or it will allow future generations to set foot upon worlds we currently only glimpse and experience as pinpricks of light. They will expand humanity beyond our tiny, little planet.

It’s all about technology. Period!

Knowing how I think regarding this topic I’m sure you will understand why I was interested in a recent talk Eric Schmidt gave at MWC 2012. He touches on how technology will help the other 5 billion people on the planet who currently don’t have access to it.

There’s nothing profoundly new being said here but if like me you love exploring the big picture in technology and how it really can influence lives in a real way then you’ll probably enjoy the talk.

With my waffling over I present to you (via our YouTube overlords) Schmidt’s musing’s on the importance of bringing the technology we take for granted to the many people without.

Our feature presentation…

Bonus video!

I got thinking and if you really do love the possibilities that technology holds then here’s another more fun glimpse at what could be in store for us. It falls on the superficial fun side of the fence.

A recent mobile phone app that my company got commissioned to design and develop required that the user be able to scroll through content within the mobile view-port. It was decided that the project would utilise PhoneGap + jQuery Mobile. This was to be able to build the app within a short time frame whilst still being able to target iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. The other main reason being that the budget wasn’t large enough to employ an Obj-C and Java programmer. Bet this sounds familiar to you right?

So with the groundwork laid let me get to the point!

Here are the ingredients of the problem which of course you’ll know should you find yourself here from a Google search having already banged your head against the wall in the vain attempt of sustaining a concussion which you hope will dislodge the solution to your problem :)

1. You are basing your project on jQuery Mobile
2. You need to use the pretty great iScroll JS library to give you scrolling elements within your view-port.

My problem came after following the instructions on the iScroll website for how to initialise the library and target it to a specific element I wanted scrolled. The specific symptom was that after I loaded my content into the element dynamically it would scroll but when one lifted their finger the element would snap back to its beginning state rendering it completely useless!

Should you come across this problem you will scratch you’re head and then quickly breath a sigh of relief at reading the heading ‘Mastering the refresh() method’ on the iScroll website. However be careful of the premature sigh! Yes the loading of dynamic content into the scrolling element has been acknowledged and a fix implemented (the refresh method). The idea is to simply call this method post on any updates to the content within the scrolling element. All good in theory right?

The problem is that when I called it in my jQuery Mobile project it didn’t work and it seemed like every search I did to try and find a solution only surfaced more articles explaining how to use the refresh method! That is until I came across this stack overflow post.

If you are struggling do yourself a service and read everything on the page, from the question to the answer and the comments.

Essentially the solution binds (through delegation) the creation or refresh of the iScroll element on every pageshow event in jQuery mobile. It also helped when I came across the methods and events docs for jQuery mobile.

This didn’t quite work for me but a bit of experimentation with the exact event used to attach to got it going in the end.

Conclusion

So getting a scrolling element into your mobile isn’t always super quick or straight forward when your using web technology to build your app… but that will change. Remember we are in the early days! Allow a little time for the technologies and frameworks to mature and things will get better.

By the way if you are reading this a while after the publish date you may want to check out the scrolling solution jQuery Mobile is implementing natively to the framework. At the minute it is experimental but promising.

Update

I thought I’d post up some code samples that are working for moi in the hope it helps others. The code below is placed in the onDeviceReady() function and comes directly after some variables I instantiate. It is the JavaScript. The HTML it affects is below it.

JavaScript

//setup myScroll var to handle scrolling with iscroll
        myScroll = [];

        //handle the vertical + horizontal scroll
        $(document).delegate('[data-role="page"]', 'pageshow', function () {

            //vertical scroller
            if ($.mobile.activePage.find('#wrapper-vert').length > 0) {

                    if (this.id in myScroll) {

                        setTimeout(function () {
                            myScroll['area'].refresh();
                        }, 100);

                    } else {
                       myScroll[this.id] = new iScroll($.mobile.activePage.find('#wrapper-vert')[0].id, {
                            hScroll        : false,
                            vScroll        : true,
                            hScrollbar     : false,
                            vScrollbar     : true,
                            fixedScrollbar : true,
                            fadeScrollbar  : false,
                            hideScrollbar  : false,
                            bounce         : true,
                            momentum       : true,
                            lockDirection  : true,
                            scrollbarClass: 'myScrollbar'
                        });

                        setTimeout(function () {
                            myScroll['area'].refresh();
                        }, 100);

                    }
            }//closing if

            //horizontal scroller
            if ($.mobile.activePage.find('#wrapper-horz').length > 0) {

                if (this.id in myScroll) {
                    myScroll[this.id].refresh();
                } else {
                    myScroll[this.id] = new iScroll($.mobile.activePage.find('#wrapper-horz')[0].id, {
                        hScroll        : true,
                        vScroll        : false,
                        hScrollbar     : true,
                        vScrollbar     : false,
                        fixedScrollbar : true,
                        fadeScrollbar  : false,
                        hideScrollbar  : false,
                        bounce         : true,
                        momentum       : true,
                        lockDirection  : true,
                        scrollbarClass: 'myScrollbar'
                    });

                }
            }//closing if      

        });//closing delgate of pageshow

HTML

<!-- Start of first page -->
      <div class="page" data-role="page" id="environment" data-title="Choose your environment" style="background-color:#414143">

          <div class="header" data-role="header">
              <ul class="main-nav">
                  <li><a data-rel="back" href="#" title="Back"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/back.png" alt="Back" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#home" title="Home"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/home.png" alt="Home" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#about" title="About"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/about.png" alt="About" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#" title="Call us" rel="external" target="_webapp"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/call.png" alt="Call" /></a></li>
              </ul>
          </div><!-- /header -->

          <div class="content" data-role="content">
              <h1>Select your project environment:</h1>

                  <div id="wrapper-horz">
                      <div id="scroll-content-horz">
                         <ul class="environment-nav">
                          <li><a data-environment="env" title=""><img src="assets/images/btns/image.png" alt="alt text" /></a></li>
                          <li><a data-environment="env" title=""><img src="assets/images/btns/image.png" alt="alt text" /></a></li>
                          <li><a data-environment="env" title=""><img src="assets/images/btns/image.png" alt="alt text" /></a></li>
                          <li><a data-environment="env" title=""><img src="assets/images/btns/image.png" alt="alt-text" /></a></li>
                         </ul>
                      </div><!--closing scroll-content-->
              </div><!--Closing wrapper-->

        </div><!-- /content -->
      </div><!-- /page -->    

      <!-- Start of area choice page -->
      <div class="page" data-role="page" id="area" data-title="Choose your environment area">

          <div class="header" data-role="header">
              <ul class="main-nav">
                  <li><a data-rel="back" href="#" title="Back"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/back.png" alt="Back" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#home" title="Home"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/home.png" alt="Home" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#about" title="About"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/about.png" alt="About" /></a></li>
                  <li><a href="#" title="Call us"><img src="assets/images/main-nav/call.png" alt="Call" /></a></li>
              </ul>
          </div>

          <div class="content" data-role="content">
              <h1>Select your area within '<span id="environment_text"></span>':</h1>

              <div id="wrapper-vert">
                    <div id="scroll-content">
                        <ul class="area-nav">
                            <!--Dynamic items placed here depending on area selected-->
                        </ul>
                    </div><!--closing scroll-content-->
              </div><!--Closing wrapper-->

          </div><!--Closing content-->

      </div><!-- /page -->

Update: Thought I’d update on how the injury has gone. It was a pretty bad sprain however I’ve been good and have been icing it for a solid half hour every night for the last three and it has seemed to really help. So it just goes to prove that if you are smart and take care of your injuries it really does shorten the recovery time. Now I’m still not going to be playing badminton on it for another week at least but I should be back to climbing (albeit possibly below my limit) within the next three or four days.

Please take note of when you injure yourself. I include in that statement the times when the injury isn’t so bad as to force you to stop whatever you’re doing. What I was glad I did however and will continue to endeavour to do is to be fully aware of my body so as I can stop before I make the injuries so bad as to stop me.

Take care and stay injury free!

Case in point. The most recent episode of Triangulation had Bram Cohen on. Bram is the guy who built Bittorrent. He’s now come up with Bittorrent live, a peer to peer solution for streaming live video with low latency while lacking the need for very expensive setups to support it.

If one imagines how much bittorrent changed the landscape on the internet for downloading large files I believe bittorrent live will do the same for live streaming over the net.

I’d highly recommend you watch it if you have a spare hour.