Mobile Web Design and Development on the Palm VII

The Palm VII was the first mass-market PDA with built-in internet access. Rather than provide unrestricted internet access, sites had to be accessed through site-specific applications that ensured the content was tailored for the Palm's screen and UI. These applications were known as Palm Query Applications, PQAs or Web Clippings.

My unofficial Slashdot PQA was the first third-party Palm VII web clipping app, and was demonstrated at the Palm VII launch in NYC. Michel Lambert, who later worked with me on the Unreal Developer Network, threw together a Perl script to scrape Slashdot on the hour and reformat it to the Palm PQA templates I had designed. I hosted the app for nearly two years before an official version was released. I also made several other unofficial apps, functioning in the same manner: scraping and reformatting existing sites for use on the Palm VII.