WAP Simplified !

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:44 PM Posted by Anand
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WAP is an open international standard for applications that use wireless communication. Its principal application is to enable access to the Internet from a mobile phone or PDA.

A WAP browser (e.g. Opera Mini) is to provide all of the basic services of a computer based web browser but simplified to operate within the restrictions of a mobile phone. WAP is now the protocol used for the majority of the world's mobile internet sites, known as WAP sites. The Japanese i-mode system is currently the only other major competing wireless data protocol.

Mobile internet sites, or WAP sites, are websites written in, or dynamically converted to, WML (Wireless Markup Language) and accessed via the WAP browser.

Before the introduction of WAP, service providers had extremely limited opportunities to offer interactive data services. Interactive data applications are required to support now commonplace activities such as:

* email by mobile phone
* tracking of stock market prices
* sports results
* news headlines
* music downloads

Long and short of it, a WAP site is a site which you can browse through your mobile phone.

Opera Mini for Dummies

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 1:44 AM Posted by Anand
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What is a Web browser? Wikipedia defines it as:
"A Web browser is a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a Web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network"

Mini technology

Opera Mini does the exact same thing except that it uses a remote server to pre-process Web pages before sending them to your phone. Web content is compressed to reduce the size of data transferred, enabling handling on simpler phones and creating fast browsing at low costs. I've been playing around with Opera Mini (Java ME-J2ME version).

Opera is the Norwegian company who make the browser of the same name for many platforms. All their browsers have a technology they call small screen rendering™ which reformats full desktop web pages for display on tiny phone screens. The reformatting works remarkably well - although reformatted pages aren't likely to be as easy to navigate as well designed mobile pages.


The Java ME part means that you don't need a smartphone to run Opera anymore. Most phones made in the last three years support some version of Java ME (which was called J2ME until Sun renamed it this year). Non-Smartphones generally don't have the processor power and RAM to do all the manipulation that is required to implement small-screen rendering. Opera Mini gets around this by doing the reformatting as a web service, the Opera server resizes images and optimizes the page for the phones screen size and then compresses the resulting mobile page into some sort of binary code which the Java ME app on the phone can easily render. The result is that pages load quickly even on old slow phones. This also means that Opera can easily start charging and shut the service off for anyone who doesn't want to pay the price. But for now at least it is completely free.

Watch the video below to get started:



For more Opera Mini Videos Click here


Opera Mini - News at your fingertips

Google Calendar for Mobile

Monday, June 11, 2007 10:05 PM Posted by Anand
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So whats so special about Google Calendar?

One its from Google, so it definitely has to be the best desktop calender plus much more( read loaded with unique features), second it has bundle of mobile features and hence a mention in my blog .

Obviously you need an Google account to access Google Calendar. You can view by day, week, or month; choose which days to display; import events from other programs like Yahoo calendar etc. Nothing unique!?

Here begins the feast;


1. Gmail now recognizes when messages mention events, so when you get emailed about an event, you can add it to Google Calendar with just a couple clicks. Look for the Google Calendar links on the right side of your Gmail window.

2. You can invite other people to any event on your calendar simply by adding their email addresses in the Guests section of the event. Guests can RSVP to your invitations by email, whether or not they use Google Calendar themselves

3. Event reminders : You can choose to be notified by email or pop up window. Listen to this Hutch and Spice subscribers can opt for text message reminders to their mobile phone free of cost.

4. Calendar sharing: You can share your calendar with your friends, a group or with everyone. You can even merge any public calendar or your friends calendar with yours. I merged "Indian holidays" calendar with mine so as to plan my vacations in advance (really useful).


Google Calender Mobile
Google launched mobile version of Google calendar (Beta). It's elegantly simple both in ease of use and functionality. As expected the desktop and mobile version are in sync.

Mobile calendar's quick add feature which is also part of desktop version is very crisp. The bes part is hat Google understands natural phrases like;

" Lunch with Dad at 2 tomorrow"
It will save the event for tomorrow at 2.00pm.

or "Lunch with dad next Monday at 1.00" will create

" Team meeting every Monday morning" will create a recurring event.

Mobile URL: http://google.com/calendar/m

Happy organizing !!

Do let me you if you liked his site or found something better than this.

Zook.in Indian Mobile Search Engine

8:30 PM Posted by Anand
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There is dearth of good Indian websites, hoping for a good wap site is a distant dream as of now. It seem, we will have to wait for a long time before we can devour on a good Indian websites. I personally think good content is what is stopping India from the real Internet revolution. Think about it, how websites of Indian origin do you really enjoy or login at least once a week.

How about Indian WAP sites?

I recently stumbled upon probably the only Indian Mobile search engine Zook.in,


As the site puts it:
"Zook is a new mobile answer engine which helps you quickly get answers, and act on them, not just pages upon pages of links. It identifies the really clear answers upfront, or interactively narrows down to what you really meant to look for. On the move, wherever you are."

You can search local restaurants and movie listings. A very powerful search engines (at least thats what the company claims) which works on Zivasoft's registered platform Manas Platform™. It also has social networking touch to it, again based on in-house registered platform Peepal Network™ .

I took a quick check whether it really stand for what it claims. I Read zook on my mobile phone by pointing my phone's web browser (mini opera) to http://zook.in/

I typed just PVR to check the intuitive search engines' capability. Following is the result that site displayed:

Zook
1: Movie: Cheeni Kum, PVR
2: Restaurant: Lebanese Point
3: Business: Special Tours Of India, Vikas Puri
4: Movie: Norbit, PVR Naraina
5: Movie?
6: Restaurant?
7: Business?
8: City: Bangalore?
9: Language: Hindi?
10: Show: Night?
Well it wasn't intuitive enough to know that my phone browser was calling the site from Mumbai.
Even search for PVR Mumbai didnt show terrific result, as all the result where from Mulund.

Zook
1: Movie: Shoot Out At Lokhandwala, PVR Mulund
2: Movie: Bheja Fry, PVR Mulund
3: Movie: Ek Chalis Ki Last Local, PVR Mulund
4: Movie: Spider-Man 3, PVR Mulund
5: Movie: Cheeni Kum, PVR Mulund
6: Language: Hindi?
7: Language: English?
8: Theatre: PVR Mulund?
9: Theatre: PVR -Juhu?
10: Show: Night?

Dont want to be too cynical but really got excited about the capability of home developed mobile search engine.

On the whole its probably the best Indian WAP site till date with many fun stuff to do like creating groups and mobile downloads (Charged). Do visit company's getting started page for a quick reference.
Check out the site and let me know your opinion.

Cheers to the Team at Zook for their wonderful effort.


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