So I started to do a little snooping. I discovered many of my PHP files had a large string of characters at the start of every file. I also notice server not found errors in my log. I googled the error and server and discovered that this is a known WordPress virus. The solution was to eradicate it from every PHP file. I did, it was present in several dozen files including some plugins. But, things were no better, maybe worse! Now, my admin pages were all OK, editing worked, etc. But my blog’s pages came up empty, nata, nothing. No code at all in the pages. I spent some time on the WP forums and had some things to try but none worked.

I finally did a complete removal of my entire wordpress directory – except my wp-config and my uploads directory in wp-content. I did a manual reinstall of WP 2.9.1 and logged in. Same thing, no blog pages. Frustrated I went back to WP forums but found nothing helpful. Then I had an idea, I went to the Themes admin page and changed my theme to the Classic 1.5 theme. Reloaded, and voila, everything worked fine! I reinstalled my favorite theme – Vesper – and plugins and all is good on the EclecticGuy blog again. What a pain that was though. I changed all my passwords and admin login just to be safe.

Did anyone figure out what that drawing above is? It’s the common cold virus!

Looking east.

Now, compare that to my iPhone 3G experience.

I walked in to my other local Apple Store in the Rockingham Mall where there was a line of 7 people in front of me before the store opened. “No problem” thought I, there should be plenty of phones so it should only take a few minutes.” Boy was I wrong. I timed an average of 20 minutes for each transaction. 4 of them had some sort of activation issue that required calling ATT – myself included. After waiting for 45 minutes, I stepped up to the plate. Got my 3G upgrade for myself and that took 5 minutes. “Cool” I thought. Then it was time to buy an iPhone 3G 8GB for my son and add a new line to my ATT Family Plan. That is where the hassle started. Firstly, the Apple system rejected my line addition so the salesguy had to call ATT. ATT could not locate my record – even with my cell #, billing address and zip code. The lady at ATT could not find my town in MA! I assured her that I lived there with about 10,000 other residents. After 30 minutes, she finally found my record and proceeded to add the line. 20 minutes later, the transaction was complete. The salesguy asked if I wanted him to activate the phones. I asked if I could do it at home, myself, since I had been at the store for 2 hrs and really needed to get back to work. He let me leave the store unactivated.\

At home, I was able to activate the upgrade to my phone with no issues. The new iPhone on the new line was a different story. The voice service activated but the data service did not. I logged in to my ATT Cellular account and saw that the new line was configured with the original iPhone $20 data plan with 200 text messages. I then noticed that my Unlimited Messaging Family Plan was missing from my account. I called ATT. Basically, the activation of the new phone caused a conflict resulting in my messaging plan being canceled! The ATT rep fixed that but could not fix the data issue on the phone. I need to go back to an Apple store or ATT company store to fix that.

Stay tuned…

1) Mobile device manufacturers are keeping tight controls on application development on their platforms

With the exception of Apple’s iPhone and the future possibility of Google’s Android, developers have to jump through hoops and pay for the privilege of developing on the platform. Talk about stifling innovation! These same mobile device manufacturers have not put any significant effort in to improving their Web browsers – the technology that can either make or break the “Mobile Web”. If the mobile browser is inadequate, the mobile browsing experience will suffer and users will not flock to the web. If these platforms were developer friendlier, innovation on the browser would have started sooner. The Mobile Firefox project could provide some relief.

2) The mobile carriers are gouging the market with high cost data services

With the high cost of data services (upwards of $35/month), only hard core technophiles and those with corporate expense accounts can afford/justify it. Think about how ridiculous .25 an SMS message or $10/month for unlimited text messaging is! Text Messaging – the stuff you do for free on IM on your laptop! And with the pitiful browsing support on most handsets, the Mobile Web is not going to drive users to subscribe. The folks at RIM have at least got email “right” and that does indeed drive a lot of corporate usage.

Have the device manufacturers and carriers killed the Mobile Web? I don’t think, so but they have kept it languishing for a long time. Back in 1999, the wireless Palm VII offered the first glimmer of how powerful and simple the Mobile Web could be. The service was $15/month (for the base limited page view service) and special “Web Clipping” apps were required (and there was no fee to develop them). But you know what, they worked really well and a lot of companies jumped on the “PQA” (Palm Query Application) bandwagon. I bought a lot of books from Amazon using the Amazon PQA and finding the nearest Starbucks was dead simple. Without GPS, the Palm VII could locate you based on the cell network – this was in 1999! How cool is that? I finally have this capability again on my iPhone.

I see a change in the tide coming. Firstly, the iPhone is truly spectacular. It tears down the barriers of a closed system – which will allow real unimpeded innovation. It provides an amazing Web browser, the Mobile Safari browser. Granted, Mobile Safari has some limitations in its first release but, wow, what an amazing browser it is. The touch interface is superb and the resolution and colors are spectacular.

Secondly, the carriers are starting to see competitive pricing pressure. Sprint recently announced their Simply Everything Plan that gives unlimited everything – voice, SMS, email, Web browsing, GPS, picture and video messaging – for $99.99/month. Still a big premium to pay but a step in the right direction. Even the iPhone rate plans are attempting to reduce the cost of unlimited data services.

So, what does all this mean? If you’ve ever used a Palm VII, Blackberry or, especially, an iPhone, you know how convenient and powerful mobile Web, email and data services done “right” can be. The iPhone is mere weeks away from ripping down the walls that have held in innovation for too long, Android will (hopefully) follow within a year. We are not hearing the last gasps of the Mobile Web, rather, I am reminded of that scene at the end of Braveheart when William Wallace takes in a breath of air and clearly yells … “FREEDOM”!