Mobilising a Website, Part 1: The Problem

It hasn't escaped my notice that if one happens to visit Pointbeing.net - this very site - using the browser on a mobile phone, the experience is more than a little painful. In fact, more often than not, the site is simply unusable.

The reason for this is that the site does not adapt itself in any way to the smaller screens, slower connection speeds, and idiosyncratic navigation methods found in mobile devices.

In my defence, this is not unusual right now: many, many sites are in the same position (have you ever tried to visit LinkedIn on a mobile?). However, given my faith in the future of the mobile web, and also given what I do for a living [1], this is something of an embarassment. The time has come to mobilise Pointbeing.net.

Zend_Search_Lucene Quick Start

I recently had a spontaneous urge to add a search form to my weblog - this one you're reading right now - and it seemed like a good opportunity to have a look at Zend_Search_Lucene.

I'm really impressed with the simplicity and power of the module. Sadly the documentation, whilst extensive, isn't particularly clear - so here's a quick overview of getting Zend_Search_Lucene up and running.

My php|architect Article to be Published in June

I purposefully didn't mention this here before now, as I didn't want to jinx anything.

But the time has come, and I'm pleasantly surprised to be able to report that my article - named something along the lines of "PHP Tools for Mobile Web Development" - is to be published in the June edition of php|architect magazine.

This will be my first ever contribution to php|architect, so it's a huge compliment that as well as being published somewhat sooner than expected, it looks like becoming the cover feature for June.

We're currently in the final stages of editing, and I'm really enjoying working with editor Steph Fox to turn this into something worth publishing. Stay tuned for further news.