I used to use Skweezer to go to the USATODAY web site to easily grab a summary of all sports scores. However, it looks like Skweezer recently changed and it's not working nearly as well as before, and scores are harder to get for me. This brings up several questions:
(1) All I really want to do is access the USATODAY site without it automatically determining that I'm on a mobile device and switching me to a special mobile-device view, which basically sux. Is there a way to make something like the USATODAY site think I'm not coming from a mobile device, and give me the normal view, so that I can grab its scores normally?
(2) The same is true for Google when I access it. It seems to format things specially since it's determined that I'm on a mobile device. Is there a way to fool it as well?
(3) Back to sports scores, are there web sites that give you the latest scores quickly and easily? I've done some searches on the web but haven't found any good, simple, comprehensive ones that don't require you to take links for each separate sport. Ideally, I'd also like the site to have few graphics so that the access is really quick.
Is there a way to make something like the USATODAY site think I'm not coming from a mobile device, and give me the normal view, so that I can grab its scores normally?
(2) The same is true for Google when I access it. It seems to format things specially since it's determined that I'm on a mobile device. Is there a way to fool it as well?
I just switched to the Opera web browser from internet explorer. It has an option under Menu\Tools\Settings\General that lets you "Identify As" and the options are "Handheld Device" or "Desktop Computer". Also if I am just surfing I can click on Menu\Display and click next to "Desktop" and it displays all websites as they appear from a desktop computer. It also has a zoom feature so you can zoom in and out. Another cool feature is you can move around the webpage by putting your stylus on the screen and sliding it around. It moves the screen around (sometimes easier than just scrolling up/down or side to side). Those 3 perks ... desktop display, zoom, and dragging on the screen ... have convinced me that Opera is worth paying $24 for. They have version 8.65 beta that is free through 10/1/07. They also say version 9 is coming soon.
I just switched to the Opera web browser from internet explorer. It has an option under Menu\Tools\Settings\General that lets you "Identify As" and the options are "Handheld Device" or "Desktop Computer". Also if I am just surfing I can click on Menu\Display and click next to "Desktop" and it displays all websites as they appear from a desktop computer. It also has a zoom feature so you can zoom in and out. Another cool feature is you can move around the webpage by putting your stylus on the screen and sliding it around. It moves the screen around (sometimes easier than just scrolling up/down or side to side). Those 3 perks ... desktop display, zoom, and dragging on the screen ... have convinced me that Opera is worth paying $24 for. They have version 8.65 beta that is free through 10/1/07. They also say version 9 is coming soon.
Well, I use PIEPlus and there's an option there to identify as IE 6.0 instead of PIE. That also does the trick of getting to the sites normally instead of as a mobile device, so that idea helped, and thanks. So that basically leaves the question whether there are better sites to grab sports scores than USATODAY's, which takes about 300KB to download. Just curious what anyone else might use that's better.
I'm the CTO/lead programmer for Greenlight Wireless, the company that makes Skweezer. I found this thread via Google Blogsearch, and I registered so I might reply and get more information.
We added the mobile site redirect in an effort to improve the user experience, not detract from it. I'm sorry to hear that your experience has been the opposite. Here's a list of many of the mobile sites we silently redirect to on your behalf. I suspect that's not necessarily desired behavior in all cases, however. What would be best? A preference, or perhaps a link at the top of the page that says something like: "here's a mobile version, try this"? I'm interested in your opinion.
I'm the CTO/lead programmer for Greenlight Wireless, the company that makes Skweezer. I found this thread via Google Blogsearch, and I registered so I might reply and get more information.
We added the mobile site redirect in an effort to improve the user experience, not detract from it. I'm sorry to hear that your experience has been the opposite. Here's a list of many of the mobile sites we silently redirect to on your behalf. I suspect that's not necessarily desired behavior in all cases, however. What would be best? A preference, or perhaps a link at the top of the page that says something like: "here's a mobile version, try this"? I'm interested in your opinion.
Barnabas: Thanks for the reply. I'm excited to work with you on possibly improving Skweezer since I considered it to be a really nice product for mobile devices. Today I can only respond via my ppc6700 so I'll be somewhat short, but tomorrow I'll have access to a PC again and a real keyboard. First, though, I'll start with just accessing my Skweezer bookmarks. I used to be able to quickly get to a nice, compacted listing of all of my bookmarks, with many per line, all fitting on 1 screen. Now, I get to an initial screen that shows "Web Search, Image Search, etc." that causes me to take a link to my bookmarks. When that then loads up the list has each bookmark taking a single display line, and goes to multiple screens. To me that's much more difficult to use than before. Also, Skweezer used to keep me logged in almost permanently with a cookie, but it seems as if I now have to log in much more often. As for the bookmarks themselves, ideally I'd like an option on each to either use the mobile version of the site or the std one. Even if the mobile re-directed one was the default that would give the user an option for getting it or the std one, which often is necessary on some sites to get the right data. My fingers are worn out now, so I'll add more later, but I wanted to give you some immediate feedback. - Joel
Some good news: we've updated Skweezer tonight with some changes, two of which are specific to the issue you mentioned here.
1. Instead of automatically redirecting to the mobile version of a website, we leave that as an option at the top of the page (a link that says "Mobile Version"), if it's available.
2. In the case of USAToday.com, they may detect that you're using a mobile browser and automatically redirect you to their mobile site. If this is not the behavior you want, you can change your settings to appear as a desktop browser (specifically IE7). Then you will be able to enter the "desktop" version of that website.
I hope that Skweezer continues to be a valuable resource to you in the future. Please feel free to submit feedback via our website with suggestions. If you create an account and are signed in when you leave feedback, we will be able to reply to you if we can.
This RSS reader is FREE and has a scrolling today plugin, so you're all set!
I love RSS, its badass!
Can someone elaborate on this a little? I'd love to have a scolling Today plugin that contained updated sports scores, but I've never hooked up an RSS feed before.
Login
Panel
