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Simures, Display Websites In Different Resolutions

Martin Brinkmann — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:34:56 +0000

As a web developer, you have to make sure that your website displays fine for the most widely used screen resolutions. Doing so ensures that site visitors have a good user experience on the website. We have already covered several programs, like the Computer Monitor Hotkey Resolution Changer or the Resolution Changer, to change the screen resolution on the fly.

Simures however offers a different approach than those third party programs. The online service can display any web page that is available online in any resolution available.

Users can either enter a web page and a desired resolution on the Simures website, or modify the url of the service to automatically display a website in a specific resolution.

Even better is the fact that the resolution can be adjusted in realtime on the page, so that the website is displayed in the new resolution immediately.

Urls use a naming convention, so that the service can be used directly without having to open its web page first. Just use the following syntax to display a website in a desired resolution:

http://www.simures.com/800×600/ghacks.net

The 800×600 part can be modified to any resolution, from 0×0 to 8000×6000 and more. The url can display any website, not just root domains. Just append the whole url without the http:// and the trailing / and it will be displayed by the service.

The best feature of Simures is the fact that it changes the resolution directly, which can save web developers some work. It would be nice if the developers of Simures would add presets to the page to load a specified web page in popular resolutions.

Update: Web developers can bookmark the web addresses to open them again whenever needed. This can be useful if they are working on a project for a long time and need to verify how it displays in a certain resolution regularly.

Quick Resolution Changer

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:14:00 +0000

You might probably like the software Quick Res for Windows XP if you regularly have to change the resolution of the operating system. If you change the resolution manually you have to navigate through a series of menus to finally come to the point where you can select the new resolution for the system.

Once you want to change it again you have to go into that menu again to do so unless you keep it open all the time which is probably not such a handy solution.

QuickRes comes to the rescue. It adds an icon to the Windows System Tray that provides right-click access to all compatible monitor resolutions that can be changed with just another click.

The user selects a resolution and a click on the refresh rate changes the resolution to the selected one. It is advised to make sure that Windows is only displaying compatible modes in the Display Properties because that’s the source where QuickRes is pulling the information from and it can come to errors if resolutions are selected that the monitor or video card are not capable of displaying properly.

Resolution Changer

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:15:36 +0000

Resolution Changer is a neat software for Windows that can change the screen resolution temporarily or permanently. The author created the application at first for his children who were playing around with software that required a resolution of 640×480 and he did not want to change the resolution manually whenever they wanted to run their application.

The software has grown since then and some interesting features have been added to it. Resolution Changer can now change the desktop height, width, color depth and refresh rate on single or multi-monitor systems temporarily or permanently via the command line.

There are two main applications for this software. The first is if the monitor is always starting in the wrong resolution. This can happen with LCD TVs that the computer is connected to for instance. Just run Resolution Changer at startup to force the right screen resolution.

The second is applications that require a specific screen resolution. The temporary switch could be used to change the screen resolution before the application starts and turn it off once it is closed. The game toy.exe could be run in 640×480 using the following command:

reschange.exe -width=640 -height=480 "c:\toy.exe"

Additional switches are -depth=x -refresh=y which set the color and the refresh rate of the monitor while running the application. Monitors in multi-monitor systems are controlled with the -monitor=”name” switch. The program is compatible to most Windows operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows Vista.

Change Display Resolutions Automatically

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:53:09 +0000

Did you ever run an application that was designed for a specific resolution on your new shiny 1920×1200 monitor only to find out that it was almost impossible to work with it in that resolution ? I’m not only talking about old DOS games here but also about presentations for instance or applications that have been developed in house. Basically everything that goes full screen automatically could be affected as well.

Res-o-matic [via Download Squad] comes to the rescue. The application creates program shortcuts that force the desktop to a specific screen resolution, refresh rate and color depth. The minimum screen resolution available is 640×480 while the maximum probably depends on your monitor, mine was set to 1280×1024. Colors Depth can be set to 8,16 or 32 bit and the refresh rate again depends on the monitor and can be completely ignored if you have a LCD monitor.

A shortcut will be created in the end which – when pressed – will change the display resolution accordingly and launch the application afterwards. Exiting the application changes the display resolution back to the original one.

Res-o-matic is a tiny 9 Kilobyte tool that comes in very handy, it’s probably the easiest way to change the screen resolution automatically at every application start.