A few month ago, after I was saw the impressive web wireframes templates and iPhone stencil created with Google Docs by Morten Just, on Docs blog, I started playing with this Google’s new addition to the Docs family, Drawing, to copycat this idea and made a Palm Pre stencil.

So here you go! You can check out my Palm Pre stencil on Google Docs.
If you’d like to have your own copy, sign in your google account, then:
Choose file > make a copy

You can drag or copy the UI widgets to the white canvas (printable area). To edit text, you need to ungroup the object first, by selecting the UI widget to be editted and go to Format > Ungroup (you may need to repeat ungrouping grouped objects) then double-click the text to edit.

Also, I labeled each UI objects to match the Mojo UI Widget names so developers can reference the stencil and code easily!

Since the last CES announcement, I have been pretty excited to learn about Palm’s WebOS, been to the meetup and DevCamp, and have created 2 homebrews and co-wrote Net2Streams app.

Now I have joined the human interface team at Palm, inc. It’s awesome I can work with a shiny new toys (Pre and Pixi), also I am happy to keep working on WebKit!
(Plus, it’s cool I constantly bump into my ex-colleagues and friends from Yahoo! in the area!)

Today, I am not going to post some CSS3 tricks on Webkit, or stuff like that. Instead, I post a list mobile browsers, since I am often asked about mobile / WAP browsers by engineers, product managers, and mobile-curious or mobile-newbie people.

I gathered 30+ major browsers I have worked with (plus a few I have never even seen), and categorize by the markup that browsers can render – WML, CHTML, XHTML-MP, and HTML4.

So, here you go. If you find some mistakes, let me know!

I have categorized only with the markup type, and did not sub-categorize these browsers. However, if I would, I may want to grade XHTML-MP devices with page memory size (=”deck size”, yes I said deck size), and screen resolution for UI design purpose.

To grade full-HTML browsers, you need to spend massive time and effort on testing rendering capability with CSS, and Javascript DOM compatibility, events, etc. Actually, PPK has done excellent work on mobile browser testing, so you can simply visit Quirksmode.org!

Can’t have enough cute!
Instead of upgrading my previous app, iCuteOverload for Palm, I have created this power-up version of cute app called, PREtty Cute Suite.

This app is more offensively and obnoxiously cute with more cute-related rss feed and flickr pics.
Included feeds are:

1. Cute Overload
2. I Can Has Cheezburger
3. Cute Obssesion
4. Epicute
5. Super Cute Kawaii
6. Cupcakes Take Tha Cake

Also, a bunch of cute picture streams from Flickr.


This app allows you to save the pix/feeds you like as your favorites, also share the links via email.

Currently available as a “Homebew” app on PreCentral.net for free.
I have no plan to submit this to the Palm official app store in this moment, at least for this version 0.9.

As a front-end web developer, also a mobile-web developer, the Palm’s new WebOS SDK for Pre sounds very attractive, and I could not wait to create some applications although I am still a iPhone user and haven’t been convinced to switch a service provider.

Then I felt like, I already got this web app, iCuteoverload for iPhone but yeah why not for Pre? So I decide to re-create the same app from scratch. Sure, the existing app is a web app that wrote with JavaScript framework iUI and PHP, does run fine on Pre’s web browser since Pre is based on Webkit browser. However, I wanted to make this app a standalone client with Mojo framework so I needed to code from scratch.

Anyway, here it is, iCO for Palm is now available at PreCentral. The official store is not yet open, so the installing the app may require a bit of geeky skills, but if you happen to be a Pre user and would like to try, follow this tutorial on how to install homebrew apps on Pre for Mac users (And this is for Windows users instruction).

By the way, I keep this app name begins with i, because I already have named so for iPhone and wanted to keep it for consistency. However, in Pre community, this seems to be a pretty bad thing to do. People see me as a clueless Apple fan

After I was rejected for the early access then struggled with the “leaked” version of Palm Mojo SDK without a documentation, today Palm finally made the official SDK available for all!!!

I haven’t playing around with it long enough to blog much about it, so I just post my “cheat sheet” that I keep on Stickies.

Emulator Key for Mac

• Esc – acts as “Back”
• Left / Right arrows – Switch between applications

Emulator Navigation

“Host” = Right Ctrl in Virtual Box

• Host + F – Toggle full screen view on/off
• Host + N – Display session info
• Host + S – Take a snapshot (will be placed the Snapshot tab of VirtualBox)
• Host + Q – Close the emulator

Commands

Create a package (.ipk file)

$ cd palm-package myapp

Install the .ipk file on emulator

$ palm-install com.yourdomain.app.myapp_1.0.0_all.ipk

Launch the app on emulator

$ palm-launch com.yourdomain.app.myapp

Launch the inspector with the app

$ palm-launch -i com.yourdomain.app.myapp

Then, open Palm Inspector app (comes with SDK) from your Application by double-clicking the icon. This should open the Safari inspector.

The Developing Applications for webOS webcast is now available from O’Reilly.
Mitch Allen, Palm’s Software CTO, gives a preview into application development with the Mojo SDK, explaining the structure of webOS, and demonstrates how to build a simple app with using TextMate and Safari on Mac.

According to the Webcast, the Mojo framework is based on Prototype 1.6.3 is bundled with webOS. (Pssst. the rumor said it also uses Dojo and mootools! sounds pretty heavy. If it is true, this should be rather called Moojo). And apps can be written with simple html, css and javaScript just like any web development, also with HTML5 local db strage and Mojo extension for widget, with a special x-mojo-element attribute.

The SDK will come with Mojo framework and doc, an emulator with DOM inspector and JS debugger (I guess we can just use Webkit), and tool bundles including project generator and package tools.

Also, the first chapter of the book, Palm webOS: Developing Applications in JavaScript Using the Palm Mojo Framework” by O’Reilly is available at http://developer.palm.com. You can read it either html or download pdf.

Links:

• “Developing Applications for webOS” – O’Reilly Webcast
• Palm Developer Network by Palm
• Palm Developer Network Blog by Palm
• Prototype JavaScript Framework
• “Palm webOS Rough Cuts” Chapter 1 free download (pdf)
• Buy “Palm webOS Rough Cuts” by O’Reilly

Happy new year, and happy new government, America!
I am still recovering from flu I got while visiting freezing New York City, and finally feel like blogging again.

The first topic I write in this year, besides Whitehouse 2.0 and Steve Jobs’ health is a whole new Palm.

I know it is not a new news anymore, but I was shocked when they announced Palm Pre at CES (although I have not been there since nobody sends some lowly engineers to Vegas). Honestly, after Blackberry then iPhone, I though there’s no way Palm can win the market again, so it is shocking to see their stock price rising after the announcement.

As a web developer, great news for me is that Palm will switch their web browser engine to Webkit. Since 200 when Palm acquired Handspring, their standard web browser was Blazer, running on Palm OS.
Now Palm OS has become legacy and, will have a completely new OS, called “WebOS”. which is based on Linux.

Palm webOS applications are easy to write using Mojo – a new application framework based on the HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript
Yesh! HTML5! – means you can even use offline database!
Also, reportedly Adobe is working on a Flash plug-in for the webOS browser.

Interestingly, Ajaxian has reported that Dojo is used as a base for Mojo.
The Mojo Framework source code can be found on Palm’s site.

The official Palm Mojo SDK is not available yet, but stay tuned by following the developer’s blog.

Additionally, unlike iPhone, which uses Samsung’s S3C6400 processor, Pre even has wicked fast processor, TI OMAP 3440, which embeds Imagination Technologies’ POWERVR SGX graphics core, suitable for advanced multimedia.

Links:

• Palm Pre
• Palm Developer’s Network (oooh, all the legacy blazer stuff were gone!)
• Palm Developer’s Network Blog
• High-Performance: OMAP3440 by Texas Instruments
• Axaian on Mojo
• The Mojo Framework source code