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**Note: This is an ongoing article.**

With the release of the Apple iPad web developers have jet again take a look at Adobe Flash and mobile web browser Safari, the debate of whether Adobe Flash is too processor intensive for small devices has revived and some tech-driven people are making more noise than usual. Back in 2007 when the iPhone was released, Apple even had class actions suits about the phrase “the internet in your hands” because of the widely use of Adobe Flash on such device.

The story is repeating all over again, this time with the focus being the new Apple device, it looks like Apple has no plans to include Adobe Flash on their portable devices and whether they end up doing it or not, a good web developer should look at other alternatives to properly place code on websites.

I’m not an expert on the field but I have work enough as a web developer to know that you can set browser specific content on a web site to load separate code depending on the web browser used to visit your site. We see this everyday when you visit a site on your iPhone and it looks different from when you visit the same site from your computer. With this in mind I ask myself, how hard is it to code browser specific content to load beautiful websites on the iPad, iPod touch, and the iPhone.

The idea is to load non-flash objects on your site when they are visited from and “i” device and regular Adobe Flash when not. With WordPress, more than often, developers use browser specific hooks to display different design elements or “CSS” files depending on whether you are smart and use a regular web browser or you are locked into using IE6. The simple code looks a bit like this:

With this example in mind we can tell exactly that what I’m proposing is not far from reality or a crazy idea. Instead of arguing about whether Apple is going to allow Adobe Flash on the iPhone, iPod, or even the iPad, we can create an environment of good developer skills and fix the web to our advantage.

In the next installment I will be explaining the idea in more detail, give a few examples of the implementation, and discuss any comments that we have from you, our readership. Expect to have the 2 part of this article in the next couple of weeks. I’m creating a forum to discuss any ideas you may have or you can simply leave your comments here on this post.

I recently moved from a state to another within the Unites States of America and consequently got new numbers with different area code for my iPhone. When you transfer from states AT&T called this a relocation of service and they usually close your account and open a new one. In this process, AT&T reset your account and everything on it causing your voicemail to be reset as well.

After setting up my iPhone I noticed that my visual voicemail was not working on my iPhone 3G, I proceeded to call AT&T and they customer representative that helped me exhausted all possible options on his handbook before he decided to escalate the issue to tech support or whatever the next line of help for voicemail is. They reset my account a couple of times until the lady told me to reset the network settings on my phone and that did the trick. Read the rest of this entry →

Productivity, that’s what is all about, when I initially purchase the iPhone I wonder if I really needed the device. Spending $200 and paying a hefty data plan for the iPhone is something you should consider seriously before you get into it. After some time now, the feeling of being connected all the time is priceless, I can’t leave without my iPhone.

How good is to have a device like the iPhone if you are not going to use it for what it is intended? This is not just a phone, if all you need is to make phone calls, get something else, the interactivity you get with the iPhone is far more advanced than that of any other phone, and that’s just my opinion.

I don’t need to carry my MacBook everywhere, except when I do and my wife complaints about it, the extensibility of the iPhone allows you to be productive anywhere, anytime. Here are some examples of applications I use everyday: Read the rest of this entry →

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows you to update people on what you are doing as well as see what others are doing instantly, all in 140 characters or less. The main use of twitter has been described as the office water cooler, which is where you stop to take a break and talk to others.

Much like Facebook, twitter is causing sensation, everyone in social media understand the importance of using twitter regularly. If you own a brand or you simply want to stay updated about what’s happening around you, then being on twitter is the way to go.

Ever since I got on twitter I’ve tested a number of applications on the Mac that allows you to update twitter and read your feed instantly without the need to visit their website. Some of these applications are Twitterrfic, TweetDeck, Twhirl, etc., I’m not telling you what I didn’t like about those applications, but I will tell you what I like about Tweetie.

Tweetie lets you be up to date on what’s happening on your twitter feed, much like other applications, it lets you post, reply, and re-post any tweet from your friends. This is very convenient because you don’t have to stop what you are doing and launch a web browser to check what your friends are up to, the application is sitting right there on you desktop.

A large number of twitter applications for the iPhone were released the minute the iPhone SDK was available, but one of them became an instant hit. Tweetie for the iPhone was a hit despite being one of the applications for the iPhone that had no free version, everyone who tried it loved it, I never got my hands on it but people like Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.tv has talked about the applications numerous times on their show.

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If you don’t know what emoji is then here it goes, back when Apple was trying to get in the Japanese cell phone market they noticed that a big feature all cell phones had was emoji. Emoji is the Japanese term for the pictures characters or emoticons used by Japanese wireless carriers (Wikipedia).

I felt so envious when I saw them for the first time, why in the world we can’t have the same emoticons here in the US market. It doesn’t seem to be incompatible with the cell carriers, the only problem I think is preventing this from happening is the fact that not all US phones are emoji capable. Read the rest of this entry →

In a move that was expected by some, rumored by a bunch, and desperately awaited by me, Amazon released the Kindle software for the iPhone this morning (March 4, 2009.)

The application is free to download, you must have an Amazon account to be able to add books to it. I downloaded the application, logged into my account and head to Amazon.com to purchase a book.

When I got to the book I wanted (a free one to test the app), I clicked on purchase and I was surprised to see that Amazon had my iPhone listed on their list of devises already, pretty fast. Read the rest of this entry →

I won’t have time to write about this but it’s so exciting that I’m forwarding you to an article from 9 to 5 Mac about the release of iPhone 2.2 software. Go ahead and read the full article using this link.

I’m downloading the software, will comment back on this article if I have any problems. Have a good day (it’s 6:18 am EST for me)

Google has lunched an update to their iPhone application for search that gives the iPhone the ability to search their database by using just your voice. The application was officially released on yesterday (Monday, November 17, 2008) and since its launch the blogosphere hasn’t stop talking about it.

[amazonify]B000S0B9ZC[/amazonify]For those that don’t know, the iPhone allows users to install third party applications, some of these applications are free and others have a price associated with it. Google is very good at making good application available for free and the iPhone is not exception. Google made available an application for search and I remember that back when they release it many people where questioning its use.

Google amaze me with the addition of the speech to search option and I think is the best way to search for anything using the iPhone. Let say you are driving, and suddenly you feel like to eat some Chinese food, in this example you are out of town on a not so familiar city. Grab your iPhone, launch the Google App, and just say Chinese food.

The Google application uses the iPhone’s location services to bring up the closest options for you to visit, you have the option to call the place or just call the map iPhone’s map application to get to where to need to be. This is a killer feature and I don’t really care if it’s new or not, this is the first time I have this functionality on a phone and I’m loving it.

I read a very interesting post via Daring Fireball on waxy.org, about the application, these guys are trying to reverse engineering how the application works and the conversation in the comments area of the post is awesome.

On my testing the application is working as advertise, disregarding how they do it, I think is genius. Of course that if you try to test its accuracy, I’m sure that you will be able to get it to be confused but if you are realistic about it, you can get a lot use from something that first of all its free and second of all is adding functionality to a product you already own.

I decided to take a big step in my geeky life and become a programmer, my biggest interest is to learn to program for OS X. My motivation is right on the money, if OS X keeps growing the way it is today, in the near future we will probably have a shortage of programmers for the Mac platform.

The iPhone is another platform of my interest, in fact I have layout plans for two iPhone applications already. All I need is to learn programming, I won’t be going to school for this, unfortunately I don’t have the money to pay for school all over again. I do have the motivation and desire to begin a change in my career and to do it right.

I started looking around and it seems that the beginning of all programming languages is C++, I may be wrong but all the books I try to read kicked me back to this programming language as the base of knowledge to understand other programming languages. I bought a book already, I’ve built my first “hello world” application, and I’m dedicating a good deal of time to learn whatever this book can teach me.

After finishing this book, I plan to pick up Java, Objective C, Cocoa, and HTML books. Each should help me become a better programmer. I want to have the knowledge to program, maintain programs, apply security policies to programs, design my own web site, maintain my own website and secure it. I wont totally change the focus of my blog to programming, I will still write about my everyday experience with technology.

I will gladly accept any help anyone can give me in terms of getting where I want to be, if you know of a good site to learn my way through programming, or if you have book recommendations or any other help you can think of, write to me. You can leave a comment on this post, participate on my forums, or contact me directly using my about page.

I hope to complete my first iPhone app by the end of this year, that is my goal. I won’t tell what the app will be about but it’s surely a simple one. It will go for free in the Apple App Store and we will all enjoy seeing it grow and become my baby step into programming, leading me to great new adventures in my geeky life.

Subscribe to my blog, or follow me on twitter, pownce, facebook, MySpace, wherever a social network site is, I can be found. Thanks for reading and until next time.

I got my Mobile Me account as soon as it became available on the web, I signed up for the free trial and started using it right away. My problems only started when I sign up, at that moment the site was down all the time and most of its features weren’t working. I activated all the sync features and pray for it to work.

Steve didn’t hear my prayers, the first annoyance was the disappearance of my contacts, they didn’t go away forever, but they were missing from my phone for a while. I logged into Mobile Me on the web and notice that my contacts were in fact right there in the cloud but they were not syncing to my phone.
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