The Web is not a visual medium. Yes, it contains a lot of visual content, but there's also plenty of text content that can be presented just fine in a non-visual manner.
Right. This is like saying "A car is not a means of transportation. Yes I can use it for transport, but I can also use it to house my pot plants." Well of course I can do that, but that is stretching the useage to a new area and beyond it's designed for purpose.
I'm wondering what written text is, if not visual...
Written text is just content. You can present it visually in a dead-tree book or on a computer screen, or you can have it spoken to you, or you can read it using a Braille tactile feedback device.
There's nothing visual about the comment that I'm writing now. There's no reason why it can't be read aloud or through a Braille device.
Tagging a phone number would be extremely useful for the many new smartphones and phone/PDA combos that include a Web browser. Then those browsers could allow you to easily call the number, send an SMS/MMS, or add the number to your address book.
The W3C should also consider the cost of bandwidth. By fully compling with their recs, each html page will increase in size from 25 to 50%.
On what do you base this claim? In my experience, most pages that attempt to comply with W3C Recommendations use less bandwidth than the non-compliant tag soup that dominates the Web. Tag soup pages generally include useless images and bloated markup (<font>, unnecessary tables) that standards-based pages don't have.
This really annoyes me. The web is a visual medium. It should not be compulsory to cater for those that can't benefit from a visual medium, in a visual medium.
The Web is not a visual medium. Yes, it contains a lot of visual content, but there's also plenty of text content that can be presented just fine in a non-visual manner.
As a Web author, your role is to describe the structure of the content. If you use proper markup, such as H1 for headings and P for paragraphs, then browsers can present your content in an appropriate manner whether it be visual or non-visual.
The Web still consists mostly of text content, and there's nothing visual about that. (Yes, I know about porn, but there's still plenty of text content even there.)
When watching television, do you require the TV show to determine the optimal volume for you, or do you set it yourself? If you set the volume too high, do you blame the TV show?
If you're using a windowing system, you can almost definitely resize your browser window to fit the amount of text that you prefer. If you have a mouse, try clicking it on the left or right window border and then drag it sideways until you have the window width that you want.
Our ad server requires us to send ampersand-delimited variables to it which are not URL-encoded and the validator treats any ampersands in your code as invalid.
It's a one-liner in most languages to fix this. If you are using a third-party ad server, then ask them to give you compliant code, it should be part of your contract to reduce business risk anyway.
There's no need to bother with the third-party ad server. Just replace & with & in the href and src attribute values as you would anywhere else in HTML.
We've found the Sanyo 5300 to be worthless for general Web surfing under SprintPCS.
Have you tried Reqwireless WebViewer? It's an HTML browser for the Sanyo 5300 and other Java-enabled phones. Our Sanyo 5300 users seem to enjoy WebViewer. (I work for Reqwireless and helped develop WebViewer.)
I know that the A500 has a bit more functionality than the N400, but if there's a better browser that I can use on the N400, I'd like to hear about it.
Have you tried Reqwireless WebViewer? It's an HTML (not WAP) browser that works on the A500, N400, and most other Java-enabled phones. The Samsung phones don't provide the best experience due to their slow speed and lack of heap memory, but we've still had a number of A500 and N400 users buy WebViewer. (I work for Reqwireless and helped develop WebViewer.)
Look at the Prius. Look at the Insight. Both are HORRIBLY UGLY CARS.
I find my Insight to be very attractive. On multiple occasions, I've had someone shout "Sweet car!" as I drove by. When stopped at a traffic light, people will honk to get me to wind down the window so they can ask about my car.
The Insight certainly looks different from other cars. I consider that a good thing.
You can develop for Siemens J2ME phones without using any Siemens software, as long as you stick to standard MIDP 1.0. Just use Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit and then test on your phone.
That said, it is possible to get free SDKs from Siemens if you can manage your way through their horrible Web site. Start at www.siemens-mobile.com, then choose "Partner Program", then "Developers Village", then "Mobile Phones". The SDKs are then on the left.
The following phones now available in the U.S. allow J2ME development and uploading at no cost (other than perhaps air-time or data fees for over-the-air provisioning):
Hitachi P300
LG 5350
Motorola A388
Motorola T720 (not from Verizon though)
Motorola V60i (not from Verizon though)
Motorola V66i
Nokia 7210
Nokia 9290 Communicator
RIM BlackBerry 5810
RIM BlackBerry 6510
RIM BlackBerry 6710
RIM BlackBerry 6750
Samsung SPH-A500
Samsung SPH-N400
Sanyo 4900
Sanyo 5300
The Nokia 3650 and Sony Ericsson P800 should also be available soon in the U.S. if they're not already.
There's also the Motorola i85s, i50sx, i55sr, i80s, i88s, i58sr, i90c, and i95cl, but you have to jump through a couple hoops to be able to load your own apps, and you have to use Windows.
I dont understand why everyone is trying to jump on the all-in-one unit bandwagon. If I want a cell phone, I want a cell phone, not a bulky handheld that has 50 other functions and is 10 times the price of a standard cell phone.
Not everyone is like you. If they were, camera phones like the Nokia 7650 would be flopping, but in fact they appear to be doing quite well.
Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit is available for Linux and includes an emulator, so Linux is fine for MIDlet development. I do almost all my MIDlet development under Linux, only occasionally loading up the old Windows box to check my MIDlet on other emulators.
What ones have you seen? As I said, I've never seen a Java-based phone that prevents developers from loading their own apps.
You can get the LG 5350, Samsung SPH-A500, Samsung SPH-N400, Sanyo 4900, and Sanyo 5300 through Sprint PCS. There's a developer program at developer.sprintpcs.com.
You can get the Motorola i85s, i50sx, i55sr, i80s, i90c, and i95cl through Nextel. There are developer programs from Nextel and Motorola.
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You haven't stated why you think the Internet is visual. You just keep insisting that it must be so. Can you give any reasons to back up your claim?
The designed-for purpose of the Web wasn't visual at all. That's clear from the first chapter of Weaving the Web: The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by Its Inventor .
Written text is just content. You can present it visually in a dead-tree book or on a computer screen, or you can have it spoken to you, or you can read it using a Braille tactile feedback device.
There's nothing visual about the comment that I'm writing now. There's no reason why it can't be read aloud or through a Braille device.
Tagging a phone number would be extremely useful for the many new smartphones and phone/PDA combos that include a Web browser. Then those browsers could allow you to easily call the number, send an SMS/MMS, or add the number to your address book.
On what do you base this claim? In my experience, most pages that attempt to comply with W3C Recommendations use less bandwidth than the non-compliant tag soup that dominates the Web. Tag soup pages generally include useless images and bloated markup (<font>, unnecessary tables) that standards-based pages don't have.
The W3C is a consortium that includes the makers of IE, Netscape, Opera, and Safari. Check their About page and the member list.
(I know, I've been trolled, but some might find the clarification useful.)
The Web is not a visual medium. Yes, it contains a lot of visual content, but there's also plenty of text content that can be presented just fine in a non-visual manner.
As a Web author, your role is to describe the structure of the content. If you use proper markup, such as H1 for headings and P for paragraphs, then browsers can present your content in an appropriate manner whether it be visual or non-visual.
The Web still consists mostly of text content, and there's nothing visual about that. (Yes, I know about porn, but there's still plenty of text content even there.)
When watching television, do you require the TV show to determine the optimal volume for you, or do you set it yourself? If you set the volume too high, do you blame the TV show?
If you're using a windowing system, you can almost definitely resize your browser window to fit the amount of text that you prefer. If you have a mouse, try clicking it on the left or right window border and then drag it sideways until you have the window width that you want.
Is there a parallel universe in which you used multiple paragraphs so that people would read your comment completely?
& begins an entity or character reference in HTML, so a literal & needs to be escaped as &. Otherwise, you would have confusion in a case such as href="foo.cgi?bar=baz©=yes" (which is valid HTML but probably not what the author intended with that copyright sign in the URI).
There's no need to bother with the third-party ad server. Just replace & with & in the href and src attribute values as you would anywhere else in HTML.
Have you tried Reqwireless WebViewer? It's an HTML browser for the Sanyo 5300 and other Java-enabled phones. Our Sanyo 5300 users seem to enjoy WebViewer. (I work for Reqwireless and helped develop WebViewer.)
Have you tried Reqwireless WebViewer? It's an HTML (not WAP) browser that works on the A500, N400, and most other Java-enabled phones. The Samsung phones don't provide the best experience due to their slow speed and lack of heap memory, but we've still had a number of A500 and N400 users buy WebViewer. (I work for Reqwireless and helped develop WebViewer.)
Since the phone supports Java, you can download an HTML Web browser for J2ME phones.
I find my Insight to be very attractive. On multiple occasions, I've had someone shout "Sweet car!" as I drove by. When stopped at a traffic light, people will honk to get me to wind down the window so they can ask about my car.
The Insight certainly looks different from other cars. I consider that a good thing.
(Emphasis mine. See Symbian Company History.)
You can develop for Siemens J2ME phones without using any Siemens software, as long as you stick to standard MIDP 1.0. Just use Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit and then test on your phone.
That said, it is possible to get free SDKs from Siemens if you can manage your way through their horrible Web site. Start at www.siemens-mobile.com, then choose "Partner Program", then "Developers Village", then "Mobile Phones". The SDKs are then on the left.
The Nokia 3650 and Sony Ericsson P800 should also be available soon in the U.S. if they're not already.
There's also the Motorola i85s, i50sx, i55sr, i80s, i88s, i58sr, i90c, and i95cl, but you have to jump through a couple hoops to be able to load your own apps, and you have to use Windows.
You mean like Nextel's walkie-talkie feature?
Not everyone is like you. If they were, camera phones like the Nokia 7650 would be flopping, but in fact they appear to be doing quite well.
Some people want more than just a cellphone.
The N-Gage FAQ says that it will support GSM/GPRS for multiplayer gaming in addition to Bluetooth.
Check the developer's page. There's a freely downloadable SDK.
Sun's J2ME Wireless Toolkit is available for Linux and includes an emulator, so Linux is fine for MIDlet development. I do almost all my MIDlet development under Linux, only occasionally loading up the old Windows box to check my MIDlet on other emulators.
What ones have you seen? As I said, I've never seen a Java-based phone that prevents developers from loading their own apps.
You can get the LG 5350, Samsung SPH-A500, Samsung SPH-N400, Sanyo 4900, and Sanyo 5300 through Sprint PCS. There's a developer program at developer.sprintpcs.com.
You can get the Motorola i85s, i50sx, i55sr, i80s, i90c, and i95cl through Nextel. There are developer programs from Nextel and Motorola.
You can get the RIM BlackBerry 5810 from AT&T Wireless and T-Mobile. RIM has a developer's site with an SDK and simulator.