[Canadaka]

I have thought about making a mobile compatable version of CKA for a long time, but never gained enough motivation to do so. Well I got a fancy new HTC Touch Windows PocketPC phone yesterday, so it gives me motivation! I also got the unlimited internet and email, so I plan to be able to check the site anytime anywhere.

The site will load on pocketpc, but its HUGE for such a small screen. If you set the mobile browser to "fit to screen", its a bit better, since i re-made the site with css/divs the site displays as one super long column.

But i want to make a mobile specific design, optimized for smaller filesize, less images and better formatting for display on a small screen.

I will start with the CKA News homepage, then do the forums second. I will probably make a url like m.canadaka.net to access the mobile version. This is what youtube and facebook does.

Let me know if you have a Windows Mobile device, you could help test things. I am also curious if anyone checks the site with a mobile device currently.

[ridenrain]

I occasionally use my HP ipaq to view the site but it's laborious to type things and the site won't fit in profile or lanscape. It's cool that I can do it but I'd never really want to have to do it.

[Canadaka]

I made a modest start to a mobile version of CKA, still much more to do. Its a lot of work and kinda tricky.

Basically just the homepage is done, most the menu links don't work, and the forums arn't done yet. I also need to work on reducing the overall filesize of the site more.

You can check out the progress here:
http://m.canadaka.net/

It loads pretty good in Windows Mobile 6 IE. No horizontal scrolling. Any feedback would be awesome.

[hwacker]

I got a TYTN II I'll be looking forward to this. Next week I'll try to flame from OZ with it

[Scape]

AvantGo

Will it be made PDA compliant? As most phone browsers are locked to the service provider it would be good to have a text only bare bones version and work up from there.

[Canadaka]

meh i don't think its really worth my time to make a WAP version for old phones. Its on the way out, its a dead standard no longer being developed. Now there is a mobile XHTML, and most newer phones can do html and css. Opera-mini and iphone even do proper javascript and flash.

If you have a Windows Mobile phone, newish blackberry or iphone this mobile CKA i'm making should work. If you have any other kinda cell phone.. why would you want to browse the web on it anyway! lol

One could of course view any of CKA's RSS feeds on a mobile device as well.

As for Avantgo, its kinda a proprietary system isn't it. I don't think many sites use it much anymore. I don't know mucha bout it, its certainly not the way things are going in mobile though.

I found a cool site to view what the site would look like on an iphone:
http://iphonetester.com/?url=http%3A%2F ... aka.net%2F

hwacker hwacker:

I got a TYTN II I'll be looking forward to this. Next week I'll try to flame from OZ with it

I will work on making a more mobile friendly forums this weekend probably. If you view the forums as "one column" in mobile IE, it seems to make it semi-readable on screen.

[hwacker]

The touch is a nice little phone but it was misssing too many features i need, gps 3g..............

The touch slider will be out soon and has some of the features the left out on the touch.

HTC makes the best PPC phones on the market.

[Scape]

Canadaka Canadaka:

If you have any other kinda cell phone.. why would you want to browse the web on it anyway! lol

I'm trapped w/telus. That's a question I ask the craptastic overpriced Canadian service providers every chance I get. That and I always ask they unlock the phone which they never will. I can't even get mini-opera on my phone because they will not unlock. Can't use half the functions of my Nokia because of telus but I know Rogers/Bell/Fido are just as bad.

[hwacker]

Scape Scape:

Canadaka Canadaka:

If you have any other kinda cell phone.. why would you want to browse the web on it anyway! lol

I'm trapped w/telus. That's a question I ask the craptastic overpriced Canadian service providers every chance I get. That and I always ask they unlock the phone which they never will. I can't even get mini-opera on my phone because they will not unlock. Can't use half the functions of my Nokia because of telus but I know Rogers/Bell/Fido are just as bad.

Just buy unlocked phones and scrap telus.

[Scape]

My next phone will be but my wife already had a contract with telus. Love to ditch telus but Rogers (GSM) coverage sucks on the island and if I want a full blown PDA I use the laptop. Trust me, as much as you hate the CBC I hate telus.

[hwacker]

Scape Scape:

My next phone will be but my wife already had a contract with telus. Love to ditch telus but Rogers (GSM) coverage sucks on the island and if I want a full blown PDA I use the laptop. Trust me, as much as you hate the CBC I hate telus.

Where did you get the fact I hate the CBC?

[newfette]

I come to the site on my blackberry 8830 when I'm traveling and i just tried your mobile site and it loads SO much better then it did before.

before i used to have to keep scrolling down through all the links to even see what page i was on and it was cumbersome and make me less likely to visit the site while away.

looks good so far

[Canadaka]

thanks for the feedback, i'm glad it loads much faster. I have the homepage down to 52460 bytes I hope to get it down another 15 KB.

It would have been nice to have GPS, but the special Telus had was ending on the 31st so i got this one.

[Canadaka]

Questio: do people like having the news-links desciptions on the page, or should i not display them to make the page smaller vertical size?

I figured it was good to have them, because clicking the link to find out more about the headline will most likely bring you to a site not optimized for mobile.. so at least this way you can get the jist of a story in a mobile enviroment.

[Numure]

I've loaded it up on my Blackberry Pearl a few times, loaded great. My Girlfriend has a HTC P4000 and it also loads up great on it.