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 :-)

Micromax YU Yureka vs OnePlus One

Release Micromax YU Yureka smart mobile with Cyanogen has made it complex and is leaving most of the techies and smart mobile freaks in ambiguity to choose a better choice between the One Plus One mobile. Then here we end this ambitiousness with this post which would ensure and helps all the tech freaks and smart device lover who wish to upgrade to the new smart device.

Micromax YU Yureka vs OnePlus One:





Micromax YU Yureka Launch

Indian smart mobile manufacturer Micromax has launched its much awaited and prognosticated smart device YU Yureka which has been classified under YU series of smartphones and operates on latest updated version of Cyanogen OS. What makes it more special of a kind is that its budgetary cost of Rs 8,999 in Indian domestic markets and is a first domestic branded smart device to be launched with Cyanogen OS in India. Though it is powered with Cyanogen OS Micromax YU Yureka appears as Android smartphone with the bewitching and captivating specifications, features and most concerned factor in India budgetary price. For those who aren’t aware of the Cyanogen OS let me make it clear that Cyanogen software is based on the Android operating system, popular for the host of customization and features it provides over stock Android.

Recently there has been a rival between the Indian smart mobile giant Micromax and One Plus One with the launch of Cyanogen OS smartphones in India where Micromax is claiming that One Plus One has been infringing its exclusive rights over Cyanogen in India and filed an lawsuit. Check out the best specifications of these two smart gadgets and find out which gadget has the best aspects of Cyanogen with this review.

Display Specifications

Micromax Yureka has 5.5 inch IPS display with HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels while dissimilar to the One Plus One it is facilitated with the full-HD screen which implies that the number of pixels per inch are less and One Plus One comes with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels in comparison. We sensed that colours to be a little over saturated in the Micromax YU Yureka mobile however we didn’t notice distortion due to lower pixel density and are not pretty sure if it has got to do with the custom icons of the default theme that look a little too vibrant or the display. Other most concerning factor is that both smartphones have a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for added protection against scratches.

Software

Micromax YU Yureka and One Plus One operates on Cyanogen OS 11 based on Android 4.4.4. Cyanogen offers features and options which are not found in the official firmware distributed by mobile device vendors. Cyanogen supports native theming support, FLAC audio codec support, a large Access Point Name list, an OpenVPN client, Privacy Guard – a per-application permission management app, support for tethering over common interfaces, CPU overclocking and other performance enhancements, soft buttons and other “tablet tweaks”, toggles in the notification pull-down (such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS), as well as other interface enhancements. Cyanogen is found to be a key aspect to increase performance and reliability compared with official firmware releases.

Micromax assures stating that their smart device Yureka would turn out as an best and is the first smartphone to to get the Android Lollipop OS based version of Cyanogen on the other hand One Plus One smart device may not get the Android Lollipop OS based version of Cyanogen in India right now.

Memory Storage Specifications

Micromax Yureka has been offered with 16GB of inbuilt memory space and supports an external secondary storage up to 32 GB using a microSD card; on the other hand One Plus One comes with 64 GB of inbuilt space at just Rs 21,999 and doesn’t have any external memory card slot to expand the memory and is double the cost of the Yureka.


Processor Specifications

Mircomax Yureka operates on 64 bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa core chip with 1.5GHz processor cores, Adreno 405 graphics and 2GB DDR3 RAM and sports the latest internals and is one of the cheapest devices to offer 4G connectivity and a chip based on 64 bit architecture. Micromax Yureka has Qualcomm’s latest chip supports dual-mode 4G LTE connectivity with support for both LTE TDD 2300MHz and LTE FDD 1800MHz bands covering most present and upcoming Indian 4G networks. However Mircomax Yureka has 2GB of RAM, which is lower than the 3GB RAM on the OnePlus One which would leave an impact and has effect if you are really concerned of high end performance while it has no noticeable difference in the speeds in the two phones.


Battery Backup Specifications

Micromax Yureka operates and functions with 2500mAh battery while One Plus One functions with 3100mAh battery which makes it clear with less battery power backup although as per most of the smart devices users you can judge the battery power backup unless and until you use it as per your specifications however the battery power test and our personal test with One Plus One was good.


Camera Specifications

One Plus One and Micromax Yureka both the smart devices has 13 MP od rear camera (f2.2 aperture, capable of 1080p video capture) with Sony EXMOR CMOS sensor and a 5MP front camera with 71 degree field of view. What makes Micromax Yureka somewhat special is that its capability to shoot slow-motion videos as 60 frames per second and a future software update will make it capable of shooting slow motion video at 120 frames per second which stands a s fascination aspect for those who wish to explore some sort of photography with their smart device. Micromax Yureka has been offered with the CyanogenMod Camera app that offers granular settings for controls including size, quality, shutter speed, focus duration, focus mode, and ISO, among others. Vertical swipes change the scene mode while a horizontal swipe allows you browse pictures and videos shot with the phone. The app offers Panorama, Burst and HDR modes. Photo clarity varies with both the phones.


On a concluding note, I would like to state that One Plus One which is acclaimed as flagship killer offering high end features is better option while if you are really looking for an mobile with that of similar features then you may opt Micromax Yureka as it is one of the best budgetary mobiles in the recent times with best top notch features in the price slab of Rs 10,000 below price in India. At the Micromax Yureka is assuring a software update with doorstep service and replacements and a great warranty policy this would leave out one of the best mobile with Cyanogen. Stay connected for more tech updates.

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

Happy Mobile Shopping :-)