Mobile Phone Development: Detailed list of phone capabilities and technical specifications

Creating a mobile phone application (or mobile friendly website) can be an absolute pain in the ass. Each phone has a slight variation in what it does and does not support.

There is a handy database for mobile phone (or as the yankees call them, "cell phone") specifications called WURFL.

The configuration file they provide lets you know capabilities of a phone such as what HTML support, CSS, Ajax, display size and color depth, image/audio/video formats supported, storage method, streaming support, MMS, J2ME and Flash/PDF support.

Not to mention the basics such as manufacturer name, model, keyboard type, operating system and wireless capabilities.

The documentation page is a bit difficult to find, but linked here (mainly for my own reference).

Be warned, it is a comprehensive list so it takes quite some time to process it. You should not be accessing it on a per view basis.

[ WURFL site ]

Facebook: Photo Uploader Plugin Crashes Browser

The new Facebook photo uploader is nice. Really, it is. However, I've noticed that once I use the photo uploader successfully and then try to add another batch of photos (to either the same or different album), it will cause Firefox to crash in a not so wonderful manner.

Exception caught!

The exception unknown software exception (0xc0000409) occurred in the application at location 0x0944167d.

In that regard, did you guys really have to use a plug-in?

Clicking OK only makes things worse.

The instruction at "0x011f8055" referenced memory at "0x09695e90". The memory could not be "written".

And then... spoiler alert!

FIREFOX DIES!!!

I have noticed it happen on Windows XP and Windows 7, both running Firefox v3.5.9 and the Facebook Plugin v1.0.3.0 (The file which crashes is npfbplugin_1_0_3.dll).

This really is an annoying bug, and I'm pretty tempted to whip up a quick program to upload photos straight from the desktop which doesn't crash after one use and maintains the chronological or filename order.

I would usually suggest posting errors on the Facebook Photo "known bugs and errors" forum, but there never seems to be a response from any Facebook staff at all.

So, I suppose the next best thing would be to send them a direct message using this form.

If that doesn't work, we can always resort to threatening them with psychotic nub-armed and dangerous midgets.

*update - 30/05/2010*:

It appears that Facebook has fixed this problem and it was a server side issue of some sort, because I'm still sporting v1.0.3 of the photo uploader.

I've left the plug-in enabled for now. I wonder if it still crashes on random sites...