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Quick Tip: Use bit.ly for Local Development URLs

Recently I’ve been working on a new Master Class for Think Vitamin Membership on the topic of responsive design. One of the major goals of responsive design is cross-browser compatibility, so as you might expect, I’m teaching a project that works across a broad spectrum of browsers and devices, including 5 different mobile browsers.

When testing for mobile devices, I will usually connect the device to the local Wi-Fi network, then enter in the IP address of my local computer with the path to the project. So for example, my local development URL looked like this when I started:

http://10.0.1.35/~nick/RWD/Web/

We recently purchased several unlocked handsets for all of our testing needs, because it’s always best to test directly on the target hardware whenever possible. However, typing this long URL into 5 different phones on a bunch of tiny keyboards is a pain. Instead, I decided to use bit.ly to shorten my local development path. Using this trick, I was able to create manageable URLs, like this:

http://j.mp/nickrwd

I’m betting someone has already thought to do this, but I’ve never heard of it before, so hopefully the next time you have to develop mobile websites this will come in handy. If you have any mobile development tips of your own, please share!

Exit mobile version