How to Access Mobile Websites Using Your Desktop Browser

Many websites offer specific interfaces for smartphones, iPads, and other mobile devices. Whether you need to test mobile websites or you’re just curious to see what they look like, you can access them in your desktop browser.

You can do this by changing your browser’s user agent — we’ve previously explained what a browser user agent is. Accessing a website with an iPad user agent may also force it to serve you HTML5 video, which is nice if you’re trying to avoid Flash.


User Agent Switcher Extensions

We have covered how to change your browser’s user agent without installing any other software. However, for ease-of-use, you will probably want to install a browser extension that lets you quickly and easily change your browser’s user agent.

You will want to install either User-Agent Switcher for Chrome or User Agent Switcher for Firefox, depending on which browser you use. For Internet Explorer, you may want to try theUAPick User-Agent Switcher add-on.



Setting a Mobile User Agent


To change your user agent, locate the User Agent Switcher extension icon on your browser’s toolbar, click it, and select a mobile user agent in the list.

(You may need to add the User Agent Switcher icon to Firefox’s toolbar after installing it. To do so, right-click the toolbar, select Customize, and drag and drop the User Agent Switcher icon onto Firefox’s toolbar.)

Refresh the page you are currently on (click the Refresh icon on the toolbar or just press F5) and you will see its mobile version. You can access other websites and you will see their mobile versions for as long as your user agent is set to a mobile user agent.

When you’re done, select the Default User Agent option.





The process is similar in other extensions. Even if you are using your browser’s built-in user agent switcher, it should be a fairly simple process.


Additional User Agents

Some user agent switchers don’t come with a comprehensive list of user agents. For example, the User Agent Switcher extension for Firefox doesn’t include an option that allows you to set your user agent to an iPad’s.

You can download additional user agents by clicking the User Agent Switcher icon and selecting Edit User Agents. Click the Download lists of user agents to import link and you will be able to download and import a more comprehensive list of user agents.



If you would rather enter a user agent string manually, you can find them on websites like theMobile Browser ID (User-Agent) Strings website.

For example, the user agent for an iPad with Safari and iOS 6 is:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 6_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A403 Safari/8536.25


Changing your user agent can also be used for other purposes. For example, you could set your browser’s user agent to Googlebot and bypass the occasional newspaper paywall or use an Internet Explorer-only website without being redirected. 

Thankfully, IE-only websites aren’t very common anymore.


If you have any queries/feedback, please write it in comments section below OR mail me here : Snehal[at]Techproceed[dot]com

Happy Mobile site surfing  :-)

8 solid reasons to have CyanogenMod on your Android device

CyanogenMod is the most popular custom ROM for Android devices. While it’s an unofficial build of Android, it probably provides an experience closer to Google’s original vision than the software on your current Android phone or tablet does!

We used CyanogenMod 11 for this article. If it supports your device, it’s easier than ever to install thanks to the CyanogenMod installer app.


Up-to-Date, Stock Android

CyanogenMod provides you with an up-to-date version of Android. It’s also a pure, stock Android experience. Yes, CyanogenMod adds lots of their own tweaks and a handful of apps. However, they respect Google’s interface. The tweaks CyanogenMod adds don’t feel out of place — many of them are just added to the Settings screen as new options. Because it dispenses with the additional bloat a lot of manufacturers and carriers add, it’s also very fast.

This is the biggest reason to install CyanogenMod. If it supports your device, it will provide you with a pure, up-to-date Android experience. It’s a way to revitalize old Android devices that manufacturers are no longer updating.

CyanogenMod also has integrated OTA (“over the-air”) updates, so you can get new versions with a few quick taps — no ROM-flashing required. There’s a good chance CyanogenMod may update your device more frequently than its manufacturer does!




Privacy Guard

Privacy Guard lets you control which permissions installed apps can use, and which permissions new apps will get by default. This gives you an iOS-style permission experienceon Android, so you can decide whether that app should be allowed to access your location, contacts, and other private data while still using the app. This is based on an Android feature called App Ops that Google removed access to.

Privacy Guard also displays a notification when you’re using an app with blocked permissions. If an app isn’t working properly, this notification will remind you that you may want to re-enable some permissions. You’ll find this under Settings > Privacy > Privacy Guard.





SuperUser

The Superuser screen integrates root permissions into Android’s Settings screen. This interface functions as a traditional way to allow and disallow superuser requests from apps, but it also allows you to enable root or disable it for your entire device. You don’t have to connect your phone or tablet to your computer and run any commands, and you won’t lose root when upgrading. CyanogenMod gives you root access if you want it and allows you to disable root access if you don’t need it.




Themes

The Themes panel allows you to install and choose theme packs, styles, icons, fonts, sound packs, and even boot animations to customize your device. Most of these options are unavailable on typical Android devices. Do you dislike the Holo theme Android uses throughout its interface, or are you just looking for something new? You can change your Android’s system-wide colors and look by installing a CyanogenMod theme pack.

The Cyanogen Theme Showcase allows you to easily browse and download themes.




Interface Tweaks

The Interface settings screen is packed with options. You can tweak the status bar, quick settings panel, notification drawer, and navigation bar. For example, you could reorder the buttons on the navigation bar at the bottom of your screen, or rearrange the order of the tiles in the quick settings panel.

The Status bar pane has a Brightness control toggle, which allows you to adjust your device’s screen brightness just by sliding your finger back and forth on the notification panel at the top of your screen. It’s a great way to increase screen brightness if you can’t see your screen in direct sunlight, for example.





Equalizer

The DSP Manager app provides system-wide equalizer controls you can use to adjust the sound coming from your device, enabling bass boost, activating an equalizer, and selecting presets that match the music you listen to.





Button Options

Use the Buttons screen to control what your device’s buttons do. For example, you could long-press the volume buttons to switch music tracks. This is a great solution for skipping between songs without pulling your phone out of your pocket if you don’t have a headphone cable with an integrated remote.

CyanogenMod even includes the ability to enable keyboard cursor control — your volume keys will move the text cursor when your software keyboard is open. This could make typing more efficient, allowing you to adjust the cursor without having to move your finger a pixel to the left or right on the touchscreen.




Profiles

CyanogenMod includes profiles, which you can find under Settings > Profiles or by long-pressing the power button and tapping the Profile option. Profiles are groups of settings. For example, you might always set your phone to vibrate mode and disable mobile data at work, so you could group those settings into the Work profile and switch to the Work profile whenever you want to change the settings rather than changing each individual setting. You can also activate profiles using Tasker.



CyanogenMod also includes a handful of its own apps, like the Trebuchet home screen launcher, the clock home screen widget, a File Manager with root file access, the Apollo music player, and a terminal emulator. Many of these apps can also be installed on other Android devices, and they can all be replaced with other apps you may like better.

If you have any queries/feedback, please write it in comments section below OR mail me here : Snehal[at]Techproceed[dot]com


Happy CyanogenModding :-)

Eclipse plug-ins every Developer should use

Eclipse Marketplace continues to be the place to discover interesting and relevant Eclipse plugins. There are over 100,000 successful installs/month of Eclipse-based products via the Eclipse Marketplace client. We have a list of the most popular plugins over the last 30 days and all time. I thought it would be interesting to look at what are the most popular new plugins in the last 12 months.


– Maven integration with WTP. Also #4 on the most popular chart
– jQuery autocompletion support for Eclipse JSDT
– Groovy IDE
– Eclipse plugin for ZK framework
– Running a web application in Eclipse should be as simple as ‘clicking run’.
– UML class and sequence diagram editor
7. P4Eclipse 
– Eclipse plugin for Perforce code management
– Extends CDT to show more context around C/C++ brackets
9. Vrapper 
– Imitate vim within Eclipse editors
– Inspect, understand and debug Java bytecode


If you have any queries/feedback, please write it in comments section below OR mail me here : Snehal[at]Techproceed[dot]com


Happy Development :-)