Official WebOS Support Initiated

Posted July 16, 2009, 11:12 a.m.

Palm has finally made their Web OS software development kit (SDK), including a device emulator, available for free download. As such, I am now initiating official Off on a Tangent support for the Palm WebOS web browser.

Palm launched the ‘Pre’, their first phone running the new operating system, on June 6 without a publicly available SDK or emulator, which prevented me from supporting it at the time. I initiated preliminary support on June 22 after messing around with a demo unit at a Sprint store.

I have to say, I’m very glad to be seeing some convergence in mobile web browsers. The included browsers on Apple iPhones, Palm WebOS devices, Google Android devices, and Nokia (Symbian) S60 devices all run browsers based on the same WebKit display engine. This makes support very easy, since if a site works in one there’s a good chance it works on the others.

I’m also a long-time Palm fan, and am thrilled that the company has started to make itself relevant again. I’m looking forward to the proliferation of WebOS to other carriers and other form-factors (I’m a fan of the ‘Treo’ or ‘BlackBerry’ arrangement with a front-facing screen and keyboard with no sliding or opening required).

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

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Martin Luther

Endure with Christ, suffer for him, if you wish to reign with him.

Thomas à Kempis

Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence was effective with the British precisely because they were not inclined to use excessive force against unarmed civilians. Instead, they behaved in a civilized manner, and they left. Would Gandhi’s tactics have worked with the Nazis?

Ibn Warraq

I find it hard, as a liberal, to see any justification for graduated taxation solely to redistribute income. This seems a clear case of using coercion to take from some in order to give to others and thus to conflict head-on with individual freedom.

Milton Friedman

Building from scratch isn’t too different from building from a kit, except that you have to make your own kit.

H. Ward Silver

The more numerous an assembly may be, of whatever characters composed, the greater is known to be the ascendency of passion over reason.

James Madison

In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Jesus Christ

If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable.

G. K. Chesterton

I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

Jesus Christ

It’s easier to part with a friend than an opinion.

Mignon McLaughlin

It has been said that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. It can also be said that hiccups are proof that God hates us and wants us to be angry.

Scott Bradford

An authentic faith—which is never comfortable or completely personal—always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it.

Francis (Pope)

Western man got rid of God in order to make himself God, and then he became bored with his own divinity.

Fulton Sheen

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. . . .

U.S. Constitution

Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them.

Thomas Sowell

Conversion is a matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.

Josemaría Escrivá

When [civilzation] wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round.

G. K. Chesterton

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity, and humanity.

John Adams

I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.

Erasmus

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson