Easily Create Mobile Websites with MoFuse

I’ve been sampling a new mobilization service called MoFuse lately and I have to admit, this web application is awesome. If you ever wanted to create a mobile version of your site, MoFuse is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Using MoFuse’s grow page, you can easily create a mobile version of any web site in a matter of seconds. And I mean literally seconds.

MoFuse in Action

MoFuse works by mobilizing your feeds. Sounds simple huh? Well, I assure you that the guys behind MoFuse are diligent to ensure that this application tickles your mobile fancy. They’ve included all kinds of features including an SMS widget, an automatic redirect script, automatic image resizing, fully compliant .mobi sites hosted entirely on MoFuse’s servers, and even the ability to brand your mobile site with your own logo.

Even if you don’t have feeds (but who doesn’t these days) MoFuse has provided a way…just create an account and add your static mobile content.

Customize your Mobile Content

Maybe you’re like me, and just not satisfied with the vanilla wrapper. Get your customize on!

Want to change your default “grow” generated domain name? No problem, sign up for an account and you’ll be able to change your URI to something more appropriate. Not enough? Keep customizing you can even add things like static text, links, RSS feeds and comments. They’ve even included the ability to change the colors of everything from the text to the header background. If that’s still not enough, you can now add your logo (scaled down to under 200px wide and 30px in height) to be the default header.

MoFuse also has an automatic redirect script you can place in the top of your website that will redirect mobile visitors to your MoFuse site automatically with no fuss. They’ll think you’re just that good, but you’ll know the truth…MoFuse’s handling this for you.

Little Quirks

When creating the mobile site for MakeUseOf.com, we ran into an issue with the redirection script not working. Through many-a-emails, and ultimately talking with David Berube (MoFuse’s Founder & Chief Architect) via IM, we figured out that there was indeed an issue with the way PHP was setup on the MakeUseOf server.

The MoFuse API (which is used to determine mobile devices) uses the PHP directive “allow_url_include”. Many hosts either disable this feature, or don’t allow this directive at all. Since MakeUseOf.com is on a dedicated server, we have the ability to enable this for this feature to work. If you have it, there are two methods to turn on this PHP directive.

• .htaccess - Edit your .htaccess file on your webserver and add the following: php_flag allow_url_include On
• php.ini - This will either require you to be a server admin, or require your host to turn this feature on for you in your php.ini file.

If you don’t have access to this, you might just ask your host for this. All they can do is say no, right?

Wrap-Up

MoFuse gets an A+ for ease of use and in the end result product. While I had a little bumpy ride trying to get the mobile MUO site going (the whole redirect issue), the end result is great. If you browse to www.makeuseof.com from a mobile device you’ll see the mobile site automatically. Those of you who just want to see it, can visit m.makeuseof.com in your normal browser and the good guys at MoFuse will emulate a mobile device for you.

(By) Travis is a husband, engineer, entrepreneur, technology swami, visual communicator, WordPress lover and writer in his spare time. You can check out his personal blog at TQuizzle.com.

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