Pocket PC Thoughts Mobile Site Now Launched

[Jason Dunn]

I'm very pleased to announce that our new mobile site has been launched! The biggest problem with our old template was how bandwidth-intensive it was. Sure, it was great to see all the pictures, but it wasn't uncommon for our mobile site to top 400 KB worth of data - and unless you have a flat-rate data connection, that's a lot of data to suck down. The solution? An elegant, fast, streamlined template that accommodates both users with unlimited data, and those without.<br /><br /><img border="1" alt="" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//spt/auto/1205939863.usr1.png" /><br /><em>(You'll have to excuse the screen-shot, the only device I had handy was my T-Mobile Dash. And look, a typo!)<br /><br /></em>Some &quot;release notes&quot; on this feature:<em><br /></em><ol> <li>For users that have unlimited data and want to keep getting the pictures like before, that first question drops a cookie on their device so they&rsquo;ll see pictures. For others , those without unlimited data, we&rsquo;ve created an incredibly light and fast template that&rsquo;s extremely bandwidth-friendly - but you can still click on the word IMAGE to see the picture.<br /> </li> <li>The photos that do appear have been dynamically resized by a smart server script, so even if they ask for pictures to be shown, we&rsquo;re going to give them a resized version that&rsquo;s friendly for their device. This only applies to JPEG images &ndash; we don&rsquo;t resize GIF or PNG files (which tend to be smaller anyway) due to a limitation in the graphics library we're using on the server.<br /> </li> <li>Windows Mobile 6 has a smaller default font size than WM5, so with two devices set to the default of &ldquo;Medium&rdquo;, Windows Mobile 6 will look smaller. If we made the font size bigger so Windows Mobile 6 users could see it better, it would become huge for WM5 users. Windows Mobile 6 users should change the font size up by one step if they find it too small, and later this year we&rsquo;ll probably bump it up by one size when more users are using Windows Mobile 6 devices. Thank you Microsoft for making this so damn awkward.<br /> </li> <li>Right now it&rsquo;s <strong>VIEW ONLY</strong>. We do not have a posting interface in place: that&rsquo;s actively being worked on and if all goes well, it should debut sometime in late April or early May. The new posting interface will be as light and fast as this new template. Unlike our old posting interface, we won't make you download 200 KB of smilies.<br /> </li> <li>There aren't any ads on it now, but there will be in the future - it has to pay for itself somehow. ;-) One small, low-KB size ad, and subscribers will be able to turn that off.</li></ol>Comments and constructive criticism are welcome - we want to improve this feature and make it the best mobile template of any site out there. Go ahead and hit <a target="_blank" href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com">www.pocketpcthoughts.com</a> with your mobile site and tell me what you think...

[Kassad]

just checked it out and it looks good, loads fast. nice job!

[wouterk]

On my Q9 with a hsdpa connection (which is not always present... ;) ), the loading takes a few seconds but is much lighter then before. :)
I do notice that I see a big black envelope in the article of the rising sun. I don't see the "picture" on top of the black envelope. This in Opera. Is this correct?
Wouter

[royjn]

So much in love with this shiny new website. it's almost unnatural (sorry to the folks over @ G-I-Z-M-O-D-O)... The website loads easily on my trusty old iPAQ rx1950. And navigation is a whole lot better, just as the layout. That's a great piece of art you've assembled here, guys. Excellent job. Hope to see more of it soon!

PS. I also have trouble viewing the Japan flag in Pocket IE. I just get a black envelope...

[Darius Wey]

On my Q9 with a hsdpa connection (which is not always present... ;) ), the loading takes a few seconds but is much lighter then before. :)
I do notice that I see a big black envelope in the article of the rising sun. I don't see the "picture" on top of the black envelope. This in Opera. Is this correct?

It's the same in IE Mobile, which would lead me to believe that the browsers are incapable of displaying certain GIFs properly.

The image appears fine on the desktop, though. Tested in IE, Firefox, Camino, and Safari.

[buzzard]

On the mobile version I have a pull down menu with access to "forums" which the lists them and "view new threads". I do not see a "view new posts" and have not found a way to see a list of new posts to existing threads, not just new threads. These all show on the PC version but not the mobile version.

[Darius Wey]

On the mobile version I have a pull down menu with access to "forums" which the lists them and "view new threads". I do not see a "view new posts" and have not found a way to see a list of new posts to existing threads, not just new threads. These all show on the PC version but not the mobile version.

There are limitations to the mobile version in its current form. It's still only view-only, so tracking new posts becomes a little more complex. As Jason mentioned in his original post, posting functionality is being actively worked on, and once that's implemented, it will become easier to login and check for new posts.

[BevHoward]

>> Black images <<

apparently, all animated gif images are being replaced with an all black jpeg image... this is not a mobile browser issue... you can see this by going to the mobile page at;

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/mobile

hmmm... took another look and, reading between the lines... it appears that while the image extension is .gif, it's actually a jpeg.

>> short scroll <<

Could be my imagination, but seems that the scroll cycle has been shortened... it was already at the point where articles tended to scroll within my own bionic cycle, but more seems to be missed on the new site.

>> mobile discussion participation <<

At the moment, mobile users can only read discussion posts. Mobile posting will be appreciated when it arrives...

In the mean time, you might consider putting the limitation and ppct plans on the mobile discussion page's header.

Beverly Howard [MS MVP-Mobile Devices]

[Darius Wey]

Thanks for the report, Bev. We've taken your points into account and will fix what we can in the near future.