More News on Mobile Support

Huzzah! Red letter day!

Is that a British reference which doesn't translate? I'm not sure if it is - but I am still traumatized about asking for a biscuit to dip in my tea in the Carolinas, so we'll leave it and move on.

Anyway, in the manner of the very best LOLcats; we can haz eyeFone support!!11one

(For those of you in a hurry, here is the link to the help file about the new site features. For those you who want a bit of entertainment & more information and think my blog post might provide it, read on.)

Yes, we now have support for a wide variety of Flash incapable devices, mobile devices, screen readers, people who just don't want to install Flash, and people with an unnatural attachment to Quicktime. That's a sizable coalition of people, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Until now, we have had to make vaguely comforting noises at these people but not really given them anything useful. And treating people like the average member of Congress treats his constituents has made us feel bad.

But no longer! Make the clicking onto this link and you shall be taken to a place of wonder! Well, actually, a help page. That might be more or less wonderful; YMMV.

The help page tells you everything you need to know, in pretty dry prose. It is fairly long and complex - I'm sorry about that, because I know people on the internet do not want to read (witness my initial link at the top of this article). BUT this is important and complex information, so this is the way it has to be. Grab a biscuit and a tea, and take a few minutes to read it.

But, to summarize; if you have an iThingie made by the inestimable but mercurial Steve Jobs and his fruit-based electronic empire which has a hatred for all things Flash in the manner of Ming the Merciless, you can now watch the site without problems! You can access a Quicktime-player based version of the regular site, and also a Quicktime version of the site which is smaller and simpler than usual for use on iPhones with their small screens.

For those of you with the Blackberry (a bit of humor from my home state, there), the mobile version should work well. Some of the new Blackberry devices have Flash capability, so you can use the regular site on them.

BUT for Flash-capable mobile devices which have small screens, we have a SimpleText version of the site - this will load faster, display better on a small screen, and generally be truly awesome.

I believe the Android / Droid 'phones are Flash-capable, but I haven't verified this. Still, this SimpleText version of the site would be ideal for them. While you are trying this out, learn the amazing factoid that the word "Droid" is copyright Lucasfilm (George Lucas of Star Wars fame) and that Motorola had to get permission to use it. Seriously; check the disclaimer at the end of the ads. Very small writing.

We also recommend this SimpleText, Flash-based version for those people using screen readers. A very nice lady contacted me (this is a tangential reminiscence, skip a bit if you find it dull) asking about the site. She is blind, and so we emailed back and forth a bit trying to determine what was best for her (this was also what happened with the "Tobit" skin for people who have visual impairments (for more information on the "Tobit" skin, click here).) And the end result was the SimpleText version of the site.

Tangent over. Come back now.

Actually, I feel the blog post itself may be drawing to a close; which is probably for the best. Anyway, we have a series of new options on the site. That is the takeaway here. We have support for iThingies, mobile devices, people using screen readers, and people who are completely adverse to graphics. I daresay I could make it render all the text in bright green SYSTEM font on a black background?

Oh, does anyone remember that? END OF LINE

(Linkage to help file)