about expressions
Both of us have a blog, and both blogs aren't updated too often. Usually, things to blog about happen when we're not online, and then we think we'll blog about it later – but usually we don't. So we thought, if we could blog using our cell phones, or our laptops even when there's no Internet connection around, our blog readers would be happier ;-).
So much for the motivation. We then discussed things over lunch and came up with a scenario.
We will develop two clients, one for cell phones/PDAs and one for desktop/laptop computers. Both clients can post to a blog. Both can save entries so that they can be posted later. The desktop client keeps an offline copy of old blog postings (made through this client or any other way the blogging platform supports). Both clients can synchronise with each other, so that it is possible to write an entry with the desktop client, synchronise it with a cell phone and post the entry from there, and vice versa.
We already have a few ideas for some technical details (shown in blue in the scenario.
- Both clients will be implemented in Java, so that they can run on as many operating systems as possible (hopefully...).
- We want to be as open as possible regarding which blogging platforms are supported, but we might favor WordPress slightly.
- The desktop client will use the Blogger API (and/or the other blogging APIs) to communicate with the blog. For the cell phone client, we might have to write a server-side plugin.
- The two clients will synchronise via Bluetooth and maybe via IR.
Do you have any comments about the scenario? Let us know via the development mailing list or the forum.