SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Blogos on a Mobile Device
By Kersley Fitzgerald
Article mode was good while it lasted, but the times are a-changin', often faster than we can keep up. That's why we at Blogos Industries have just finished a major over-haul of the site. Each and every page should be recoded to fit the mobile device of your choice, automatically resizing for tablets and phones, whether in landscape or portrait view.
Try it out. And if you find a page that isn't working on your device, let us know at comments@blogos.org.
Back in the day, Dev bought me a Palm Pilot. Not because I had such a busy schedule. But because he was getting embarrassed by the jelly-cup/salt and pepper shaker sculptures I'd make at restaurants while waiting for my food.
A couple years ago, he got me a second-generation Kindle, which I still have and have named "My Precious." I admit that I am part of the wave that saw to the demise of Borders and is driving Barnes and Noble away.
My Preciou — I mean, my Kindle also has an early version of what is now ubiquitous in tablets — a web browser. I use it in emergencies, but it's really, really, REALLY slow. And web articles are a challenge. This last Christmas, we got an iPad mini as our joint present. It has saved a great amount of time on evenings since we can grab it and look up that actor on IMDB instead of running to the desktop in the other room.
Articles are still a pain, though. Especially set-width articles, as Got Questions tends to use (don't ask me why; I have no idea). And I understand they're even worse on smart phones.
To that end, we here at Blogos are tweaking our format just a scoche. For fellow Kindlites, articles will include code so you can use the "Article" function. Hit "Menu," then scroll down to "Article Mode." You'll get the text and pictures without the extraneous stuff, and you can set the font without having to scroll over to see the text.
Many phones and tablets have an "article mode" built-in. Safari (for iPads and iPhones) has a "reader mode." If you're on a Blogos article, tap the little stack of horizontal lines to the left of the address bar. Firefox for Droid has a little book icon on the right side of the address bar. Silk for Kindle Fire gives you the choice of viewing the page in "Automatic," "Desktop," or "Mobile" view by pushing the little page button next to the search icon and selecting "Request Another View." But to see the text without the header and sidebar, tap "Reading View" to the right of the address bar (although it doesn't apparently let you change the font size). On the Dolphin browser on Androids, you can tap Settings, Web Content, Auto-fit Pages to make the display easier to use.
Another option is an app like Readability or Bookmarklet. Some will even allow you to save the page and read it later when you don't have connectivity.
Apparently Chrome for iPad does not have article mode. I guess they figure the screen's big enough you don't need it.
I hope this helps you read Blogos on mobile devices. If you come across a page that doesn't work, email me at comments@blogos.org and I'll try to get it fixed.
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Published 3-19-2014; Revised 4-6-2015
