OT But a technical question

And I know there are many intelligent people here who may know the answer. I
just bought a tablet. And Motorla Xoom, operated by an Android system.

All seems to work fine and I like it, but there's one strange thing I can't
figure out. When I go to the browser and enter the URL for my own website, which
is www.folkusa.org, when I hit enter, the URL changes to http://m.folkusa.org
and I get a message saying "We are sorry, there is no such site". I can go to
every other website I've tried so far and it works, with one exception, a
website I wrote and run for my Son, www.drivetosurvive.org. I get the same
results. I thought it might have something to do with .org, but I tried
www.redcross.org and www.scouting.org and they both come up. Any idea why these
two sites, mine and my Sons, won't work? Thanks.

wrote:

> When I go to the browser and enter the URL for my own website, which
> is www.folkusa.org, when I hit enter, the URL changes to http://m.folkusa.org
> and I get a message saying "We are sorry, there is no such site".

Somebody who either runs the server, or some part the website, has been
"clever" with user-agent detection from the web browser, and is doing
redirection for what it considers to be small-screen devices, maybe true
for andriod phones and iphones, but probably the wrong choice for
android tablets and ipads.

A quick glance at the source of the website (frames ... shudder) doesn't
seem to show any javascript that could be doing this, so it's happening
server side, perhaps you should have a quick word with your hosting
company, carrierzone?

it might be a feature they can turn on/off on a site-by-site basis.

wrote:
> And I know there are many intelligent people here who may know the answer. I
> just bought a tablet. And Motorla Xoom, operated by an Android system.
>
> All seems to work fine and I like it, but there's one strange thing I can't
> figure out. When I go to the browser and enter the URL for my own website, which
> is www.folkusa.org, when I hit enter, the URL changes to http://m.folkusa.org
> and I get a message saying "We are sorry, there is no such site". I can go to
> every other website I've tried so far and it works, with one exception, a
> website I wrote and run for my Son, www.drivetosurvive.org. I get the same
> results. I thought it might have something to do with .org, but I tried
> www.redcross.org and www.scouting.org and they both come up. Any idea why these
> two sites, mine and my Sons, won't work? Thanks.

"m" stands for "Mobile", so a "tiny" webpage will be delivered to the tiny screen ?

Generally, as a web site owner, you want to code for the latest fad, whatever
it happens to be. Since there are a few million of those tiny gadgets around,
you might want to code for them.

The tiny screen, means changing how you present your info.

The article here, gives a few ideas.

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/what_do...name_mean.html

As to how you stop the browser from prefixing such, I haven't a clue.
I would have expected, carefully entering your own, complete URL,
shouldn't be toyed with by the browser. You'd think "http://www.folkusa.com"
would pass unchanged. Whereas "folkusa.com" allows software to pre-pend
and test various options until it gets a response. A fully developed URL
shouldn't be modified.

Paul

On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:25:30 -0500, Paul <> wrote:

> wrote:
>> And I know there are many intelligent people here who may know the answer. I
>> just bought a tablet. And Motorla Xoom, operated by an Android system.
>>
>> All seems to work fine and I like it, but there's one strange thing I can't
>> figure out. When I go to the browser and enter the URL for my own website, which
>> is www.folkusa.org, when I hit enter, the URL changes to http://m.folkusa.org
>> and I get a message saying "We are sorry, there is no such site". I can go to
>> every other website I've tried so far and it works, with one exception, a
>> website I wrote and run for my Son, www.drivetosurvive.org. I get the same
>> results. I thought it might have something to do with .org, but I tried
>> www.redcross.org and www.scouting.org and they both come up. Any idea why these
>> two sites, mine and my Sons, won't work? Thanks.
>
>"m" stands for "Mobile", so a "tiny" webpage will be delivered to the tiny screen ?
>
>Generally, as a web site owner, you want to code for the latest fad, whatever
>it happens to be. Since there are a few million of those tiny gadgets around,
>you might want to code for them.
>
>The tiny screen, means changing how you present your info.
>
>The article here, gives a few ideas.
>
>http://www.askdavetaylor.com/what_do...name_mean.html
>
>As to how you stop the browser from prefixing such, I haven't a clue.
>I would have expected, carefully entering your own, complete URL,
>shouldn't be toyed with by the browser. You'd think "http://www.folkusa.com"
>would pass unchanged. Whereas "folkusa.com" allows software to pre-pend
>and test various options until it gets a response. A fully developed URL
>shouldn't be modified.

As Andy said, it's not the browser that's changing anything, it's the
server, and it's using the browser's User-Agent header to identify the
device and make the redirection.

The best answer is probably to modify the server config, but the
easiest and fastest answer is to change the browser's User-Agent
string so that it mimics a standard browser such as IE, Firefox, etc.
I haven't checked, but I'd be surprised if there weren't multiple
add-ons available to do just that.

--

Char Jackson

On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:58:31 -0500, wrote:

>And I know there are many intelligent people here who may know the answer. I
>just bought a tablet. And Motorla Xoom, operated by an Android system.
>
>All seems to work fine and I like it, but there's one strange thing I can't
>figure out. When I go to the browser and enter the URL for my own website, which
>is www.folkusa.org, when I hit enter, the URL changes to http://m.folkusa.org
>and I get a message saying "We are sorry, there is no such site". I can go to
>every other website I've tried so far and it works, with one exception, a
>website I wrote and run for my Son, www.drivetosurvive.org. I get the same
>results. I thought it might have something to do with .org, but I tried
>www.redcross.org and www.scouting.org and they both come up. Any idea why these
>two sites, mine and my Sons, won't work? Thanks.


Thanks for the replies. I called my hosting company, A Plus Net, and the set the
sites up for mpbile viewing while I was on the phone with them and all seems
okay now. Thanks again.

Paul wrote:

> "m" stands for "Mobile", so a "tiny" webpage will be delivered to the
> tiny screen ?
>
> Generally, as a web site owner, you want to code for the latest fad,
> whatever
> it happens to be. Since there are a few million of those tiny gadgets
> around,
> you might want to code for them.

Even having separate "www.xxx.com" and "m.xxx.com" sites is a bit
old-hat now, the lines are blurring between large and small screens, the
modern thing to do is use style sheets that dynamically change the page
layout (and drop some of the un-necessary items, or shrink them) when
they detect small screens/windows.

HTML5/CSS/JS and various modern JS libraries might be a bit of a culture
shock for the O/P though, looking at the source of the website now, but
there's plenty of learning material out there :-)