AvantGo

This article was written for Wired Publications’ Webmonkey. Not quite accurately titled, the tutorial shows how PHP can be used to sniff out the color depth of the device requesting an AvantGo page. Using this information, PHP can then be used to send a corresponding image to the browser; so an AvantGo user with a Palm III would get a 2-bit image with black, white, and two shades of grey, wheras an AvantGo user with a Handspring Visor Prism would get a 16-it, 65000+ color image.

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This article was written for Wired Publications’ Webmonkey. Using freely available software for PalmOS and Windows, this tutorial shows how doodles made on a PalmOS device can be transferred to PC and then vectorized using Adobe Streamline or Macromedia Flash.

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Another consideration was the fact that most PDAs can’t display Flash movies, which were the chief attraction of the main Stanlee.net web site. The natural alternative was a "Comic Strip" format which could be sent to AvantGo as a series of panels turned 90 degrees to the right. The resulting left to right scroll when viewed on a PDA held sideways is more intuitive for reading content in this format.

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In addition to the design and upkeep of the Stanlee.net web site, the Stan Lee Media web department (known as "Squnkwurx" within the company) was also responsible for exploring new technologies and developing new concepts. The so-called Mobile Web was a hot topic at the time, and for a brief time the company toyed with the idea of publishing an AvantGo channel. The project was eventually shelved, but these are some of the concepts I put together.

Mobile Interface Concepts

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