Tools & Resources

DotMobi Tools & Resources

• Mobile Web Developer's Guide - our comprehensive guide to mobile web development
• DeviceAtlas - dotmobi device capabilities database
• Ready.mobi - dotmobi compliance and MobileOK Basic page and site tester
• XHTML mobile templates - dotmobi compliant mobile templates for your mobile webpages
• Virtual Developer Lab - use REAL devices remotely from your desktop. 5 hours free!

DotMobi-compatible Authoring and Publishing tools

Emulators

The following emulators are very usful for testing mobile applications without incurring data charges.

• dotMobi Online Emulator - mTLD has an online emulator that you can use to quickly see what your site will look like on a common phone
  
• Nokia Browser Simulator - this simulator simulates a generic Nokia phone and WAP gateway
• Openwave Phone Simulator - Openwave's browser simulator
• Opera Mini Simulator - simulates Opera's popular J2ME browser
• BlackBerry Simulator - multiple different BlackBerry simulators
  

Developer Fora

• Forum Nokia - one of the largest mobile developer fora, Forum Nokia contains lots of very useful information about Nokia phones and browsers
• Ericsson Mobility World - the Ericsson developer community
• SonyEricsson Developer World - developer forum for SonyEricsson handsets
  
• Openwave Developer Network - one of the original mobile developer communities
• Telefonica's Movilforum - Spanish language developer forum
• Betavine - Vodafone's new R&D site
  

Mailing Lists

• wmlprogramming - mailing list dedicated to mobile web and WURFL in particular
• Mobile Design - discussion list to provide a better of level of interaction for the mobile design community

World Wide Web Consortium Mobile Initiatives

In keeping with its mission to "develop interoperable technologies to lead the Web to its full potential", the World Wide Web Consortium has recently taken a strong interest in the mobile web and associated technolgies. The main initiatives are listed below.

• Mobile Web Initiative - the World Wide Web Consortium has a number of initiatives aimed at trying to bringing the web to mobile devices. mTLD is a sponsor of this group.
  
• Best Practices Working Group - this group devotes its efforts to coming up with a set of best practices for mobile web content
  
• Device Description Working Group - this group is creating a standard way to describe mobile devices so that web applications can adapt content dynamically
  

Other Resources

• W3C's Mobile Web Best Practices - version 1.0 of the document published on November 2nd
  
• WURFL - WURFL is the de-facto standard in device recognition databases with support for thousands of device variants and APIs for a number of common languages
• GAP - Luca Passani's Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web - list of some very useful practices for mobile web authoring
• GAP Templates - templates to help people with creating good mobile pages in accordance with GAP
  
• Luca Passani's Switcher - can be used to direct web traffic to mobile or PC versions of your site based on the type of device accessing the site
  
• The Wireless FAQ - useful FAQ for mobile web developers
• Google Mobile Sitemap - guide to creating a map of your mobile site that will help the Google crawlers to find your mobile content.