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23/05/2002 Interview with Brian Smith- creator of upIRC
Why did you decide to make an Internet Chat Client for the Palm and has it been as successful as you expected?
When I bought my PDA, one of the uses that I could see was connecting it to my cellular phone and connecting to IRC (using PalmIRC, which is the only client I knew about at the time) from the lake or something like that. I tried the two IRC clients that were available at the time, but neither seemed up to serious use. I was trying to get into Palm OS programming anyway, so I decided I would try to create one that was better than both of them. I had plenty of prior experience with programming for IRC-related things in the past, so this seemed feasible. I'd say it's been very successful so far, and that's continuing to grow. It's certainly done better than I expected it to in the beginning. I tend to keep track of referrals to the site and, after 5 months, it was amazing to see the number of searches people were doing specifically for upIRC. Right now I'm waiting on the first review in a printed magazine
What's your favourtie Palm application and game (and why)?
Application: Palm Reader I'm a big fan of being able to carry a couple of books or more with me, in one unit that's clipped to my belt. Game: Bejeweled Do you really have to ask why?
What PDA do you currently use and what was your first PDA?
I currently use a Handspring Visor Platinum, and that is also my first PDA. I chose it because of a set of "toughness" tests performed on various PDAs by some magazine (I forget at the moment which one), where that device came out very close to the top.
Have you written any other Palm programs and if so, what?
No, this is the only one I've done so far. I guess that makes me like the guys behind mIRC... one product, done very well. I do have a couple of ideas for games, but I haven't had the time yet to give them any serious thought or effort.
What improvements are you looking to make to upIRC?
The two biggest improvements, destined for the next major release, are a scripting engine (simple at first, with room to grow) and support for custom fonts. The latter is mainly for Palm OS 5, where you probably won't have something like FontHack to give you the that functionality.
What's the best piece of feedback you have received so far?
I've gotten a lot of great feedback, but the one that stands out in my mind was told to me just after I had made a fix to the shareware reminder screen. It was supposed to appear only when the app started, but instead was appearing whenever the signon form was shown. I fixed this, and when that fix was released someone registered the program, saying that that one particular fix prompted them to register. It was an indication to them of my caring about what the customer (or potential customer) thought.
What's your favourite film of all time and why?
That's a tough one. Recent favorites would be Fellowship of the Ring and Spider-Man.
What one feature would you like to see in future PDAs?
I can't think of any one feature that I'd like to see added, but I'd like to see a few of the better features combined into one. I think a Sony NR70 with a more widely accepted expansion slot standard (like CF or SD/MMC), that could handle more than just extra memory, would be closest to what I'm thinking of.
3 reasons why everyone should own a PDA?
First and foremost, the small size of a PDA. Second, there's a ton of software out there for the more mature platforms (Palm and WinCE) and developers are fast jumping in on newer ones like the Zaurus. With the right hardware and software, a decent PDA can do almost everything that a laptop can do, in a fraction of the size and weight.
What's your favourite PDA and non-PDA related website?
My favorite PDA related site would be PalmGear. As far as non-PDA related, I'd have to say User Friendly.
Thanks to Brian for taking the time to do the interview- if you want to find out more about upIRC please visit his web site.