Mobile Tech Community Rallies to Help Haiti

There’s no question that the people of Haiti need our help. We can all help to make a difference in this time of need.  Many countries and companies are pledging money and assistance to Haiti. You can help too. 

Xavier from Notebooks.com and GottaBeMobile.com is trying to help the Red Cross help Haiti by matching the first $500 in donations. Since his original post early yesterday, Xavier has been able to raise $5770 from various members of the mobile tech community and from companies like ScotteVest (full list of sites and companies below!). I have added $230 to that total to bring it to an even $6000. What’s that mean? Thanks to Xavier’s efforts, the mobile tech community will be matching $6000 of community contributions – bringing the total support to $12,000!!

How can you take advantage of our matching dollars? Easy, send a SMS to the Red Cross at 90999 with the word Haiti in the body of the message. You will then get a confirmation message, just reply with Yes, and $10 will be added to your next phone bill.  Then, head over to this post on Notebooks.com and let them know that you’ve contributed.

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Changes and Updates to MobileJaw

Change is good, right? I sure hope so, because I’ve been busy making some changes over the weekend. But not to worry, none of the changes here are anything to be upset about. At least, I don’t think so. The first change was our mobile template. I had this enabled a while back, but turned if off because I was having some problems with the formatting and didn’t have the time to tweak things. It’s back now and looks much better. There will be some tweaks and additions made to the mobile template, but it’s good enough for now.

The next change is for new users. I’ve added reCAPTCHA on the registration page. I’m sure everyone is familiar with CAPTCHA by now. reCAPTCHA is a service that helps to digitize books and newspapers. They use words that the computer was unable to convert to digital format. You can read more about reCAPTCHA here, if you’re interested. Otherwise, just know that by registering here you’re helping to convert books to digital format. I had to enable this to slow and hopefully prevent the bots that are currently registering.

The last change I made was to implement Avatars. In your user profile, you can now choose to upload a small (60×60px) image to display alongside your comments, or you can setup a Gravatar if you would rather have a global avatar across all the sites you visit. (Thanks to the awesome work by Peter Sterling on his Avatar plugin!)

That’s all the changes I made over the weekend.  There are more changes coming along with lots of reviews and giveaways. So stay tuned!

Just a Mobile Gear Junky

Well, I’m the new guy around here, so I thought I should probably introduce myself. I’ve been a long time mobile gear nut, all the way back to the Handheld PC, version 1.0. My first device was a Casio A-10. Since that time I have used WAY too many devices to list but they included Palm, Sharp, HPC/PPC, and other more obscure OS’s. Currently I drag around an HTC Touch and iPod Touch 2G…and sometimes my Acer netbook with Windows 7.

I’ve had the opportunity to write and speak about mobile technology over the years and had a stint with one of my favourite companies, DDH Software; the makers of HanDBase. After that I was doing consulting on mobile tech for business until I found out that when I go on vacation no one can cover for me. Most of my writing was for my own site a few years back but I did some guest writing on other sites as well.

After seeing the beginnings of mobile technology I am always amazed at where we are now. The newest devices coming out are breath-taking in their power and software is just starting to come into it’s own. The next couple years are going to be incredibly exciting for mobile fanatics like you and I with the Palm Pre, iPhone 3.0, Windows Phone 6.5 and 7.0 all lining up for our attention.

Mike Temporale and I met at a PocketPC user group in Toronto and recently started chatting about having me post on MobileJaw.com. With the goodies that are coming out I wanted to have a voice and throw my opinions out there, for what they are worth.

On the personal side, I’ve been married 19 years (holy crap!) and have 3 fantastic kids! You won’t see a massive amount of content from me mainly because I like to spend time with my family whenever I can; they are my first priority…always.

I’m glad to be joining Mike and am looking forward to sharing my thoughts and opinions with our readers here. I’m always open to hearing your opinions and arguments, so be sure to comment often.

You will find me on twitter as well at www.twitter.com/DarrenHumphries so be sure and follow me.

A big thanks to Mike for letting me hang my hat here. Mike, I promise to not eat all the donuts.

A Fresh New Look At Mobile Jaw – Kind Of

Back when I was first building Mobile Jaw, I had picked another CMS as the backend system to power the site. I also had a site design made up that was specific to that CMS. Due to a number of short-comings in that system, I switched over to WordPress. That switch resulted in many long nights as I ported the site design over to work on WordPress. In the end, I had a working template, but I was never really 100% pleased with it. The original author had used nested tables to a level that boggles the minds of even the greatest HTML designers and I wanted those gone. The port job was “good enough” to launch the site, but ultimately I wanted a faster, lighter, and more flexible design.

Which brings us to today! I’m proud to announce updated look and feel as Mobile Jaw moves to a fully WordPress compatible, fast, and flexible design. There are a couple things that still need tweaking and if you find anything that doesn’t work or just doesn’t look right, please feel free to post in this thread and let me know! The rest of the tweaks are minor and will be coming over the next few weeks.

I hope you like the new layout. It’s not a drastic change by any means. And yes, I realize that if I just listened to Chris from the start, things would have been a lot easier. I will always do as Chris instructs from now on.

Broken Contact Page – Repairman Mike is on the Job

It has been brought to my attention that the Contact form on Mobile Jaw may not be working as expected – bummer. I tested that page out before I launched the site and I know it worked then. So something has changed since I set it up and I’m not really sure what it is. So until I have a chance to figure out what’s gone wrong, you’re just going to have to live without using that page. If you need to contact me you can always email me directly or reply to this post and I can contact you. Sorry if this has caused you any undue stress and I promise to have it repaired as soon as possible.

Welcome to Mobile Jaw!

Mobile Jaw is a site dedicated to talking about mobility. We’re not trying to be another breaking news site – there’s plenty of those around. Mobile Jaw is going to focus on articles, reviews, tips & tricks, and our random thoughts as they relate to mobility. When we say mobility, we’re not just talking about phones – although, that will be a big part of our focus. For us, Mobility is using technology to help keep you connected to the things that matter when you’re out and about. We don’t want to restrict the conversation to any one area.

Got comments? You’ve heard it before. All the normal rules you find in other online communities apply here. It’s quite simple. Be altruistic – help your fellow human beings by using your jaw on this site for the benefit of others. Have your say. But please tell us what you think without using foul language, disparaging or off-colour comments of people, places or things (including the products). If there is something you like, feel free to rave about it. And if there is something you don’t like, you will find that people are generally more receptive to constructive criticism, and appreciate well-positioned viewpoints. This is a forum for person-to-person communication on what is really great (and not so great) about technology. When you engage in conversation, we challenge you to find a way to be candid without being condescending. We know you will find a way.

There are still issues to resolve on the site, but it’s all starting to come together. I know the search isn’t working, and I still need to do something about Avatars. If you stumble across any other issues, please let me know! With any luck we’ll have everything running smoothly in the not too distant future.