EdgeCloud

Oh, for crying out loud…Firefox 2.0 released.

Let us pose the serious question. How many browsers do we developers need to cross-test in? Here’s the short list…(IMHO):

FF1.5, FF2.0, IE6, IE7, Safari 1.3 - and soon, Safari 2.0 (or whatever ships with Leopard)

Others might want to add Opera to this list (though I don’t). What’s the transition for us? Do we really need to test in all of these for the interim? Given that the updates will be mostly automatic for the recent builds (IE7 via Automatic Updates, for example) then what is the timeframe for the increased testing spectrum? I wonder if there is a user agent list we can sift through over time that can tell us what the penetration is for each of these browser versions for the coming months. That would be most helpful.

Since IE7 is coming via “High Priority” in Automatic Updates it is important to remember to turn them off. In my case, I turned it off in one of the VMs I have in Parallels that I use specifically for IE6 testing. This way you can be notified of updates but not get an IE7 surprise one morning. Alternatively, you can use the IE7 blocker toolkit - which I didn’t even know existed until I googled on this subject.

From the overview:

To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date, Microsoft will distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-priority update via Automatic Updates for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 soon after the final version of the browser is released (planned for fourth quarter 2006). Microsoft is making a non-expiring Blocker Toolkit available for those organizations that would like to block automatic delivery of Internet Explorer 7 to machines in environments where Automatic Updates is enabled.

I wonder how many IT departments will choose to go this route and what kind of penetration IE7 will get (especially with consumsers) via automatic updates. It’ll be interesting to watch the logs on user agent shift over to IE7 over time.

Shaun Inman asks an important question:

Have we really made a career of cleaning up Microsoft’s mess? Sigh.

Yes, Shaun, yes we have…

Firefox is simpy a better platform for development so most folks start there. Just the web developer toolbar alone is worth its weight in gold, but add to that firebug, color pickr (and a host of others) and you have a complete debugging environment for web design as well as tools to help on the scripting side. IE’s toolbar sucks and makes it crash more than usual — and what does it really do? Not much at all. Luckily, and I use this term loosely, IEs quirks are known entities and you can take most things into consideration when generating your layout — which really only ensures that you don’t paint yourself into a corner. Is it sad that the browser that most developers/designers hate to develop with (is ‘abhore’ too strong a word?) may yet be responsible for the extra job security and/or billable hours that keep them going? I’m sure the industry doesn’t intend for this to happen (that’s why we have standards), but the irony cannot be lost on us.

How many hours have you spent on fixing IE specific issues - or for that matter Safari, Opera and others if you support them?

Somehow I feel like IE7 will merely compound the problem. And that’s my optimistic point of of view on the impending release doom. But I will go on dutifully testing to ensure that my sites work well in all the big browsers. Honestly, the advent of Parallels on the Mac (where i can take advantage of multiple Windows VMs for testing IE 6 and IE7 - which I’m already doing) makes this much easier to digest.

Last month, EdgeCloud quietly helped launch picturefit.com. Picturefit was started by Lori MacNeill and Betsy Clements here in Austin, TX and they offer a range of services for those wishing to get their “picture house” in order. From the home page:

…we will develop a plan to organize and digitize your photos that best fits YOU. With our variety of customized photo products, now your cherished photos can be uniquely shared with family and friends for years to come.

We think that Lori and Betsy are on to something given the massive amounts of photos we have lying around flickr (not doing much of anything) and the (literally) closet full of old family photos that need some TLC. We hope know that the site (and the business) will be a success.

We are proud to present the picturefit.com website and hope that our efforts become part of the driving success of their business. Many thanks to picturefit for their hard work, late nights, great content and patience in helping to make picturefit.com become a reality in a very short time.

Visit picturefit.com