The war on IE6

It seems that the decline of IE6 has plateued at around 15-20% which has brought frustration to many web developers around the world. For nearly a year now I stopped supporting IE6 on my personal sites but 99% of my work is for clients who do not want to exclude what is a significant portion of their audience. This has lead to a signifucant portiin of development time taken up by finding hacks for IE6 or worse still dropping features that IE6 won’t support. Most clients wont accept that IE6 users should have a degraded experience and would rather lose a feature than have it only available to other browsers!

CNET Video page was a beast to get working in IE6 as even when it looked perfect scrollong down would cause divs to partially collapse and colours to flicker. IE6 also had issues with Ajax loading in content after the page had been rendered and wouldn’t expand boxes to accomodate the content. The hacks were ugly and made me hate IE6 more than ever. Note the page has been redesigned since these issues but I imagine many haslayout and delayed loading issues still remain.

Until IE6 is gone this is just a daily problem for developers and with the failure of Vista and the apathy/ignorance of users and corp IT departments something more drastic was needed. .net magazines started a campaign a couple of months ago to unite developers in putting IE6 to the sword. Check out bring down ie6 for the details. It has caused some controvecy as many developers feel that if your weblogs and clients say that IE6 is still important we should support it. And to be fair some users have no choice. However, rather than just allowing a page to appear broken in IE6 by boldly stating the reasons why you will recieve a degraded experience if isong IE6 as mobile me and google mail have done you both educate the ignorant users as to the existance of alternatives and irritate corporate IT departments into action. When the company MD cant access certain sites or keeps getting alerted to reduce performance, features and security because of his old browser it wont be easy for the IT department to make excuses for having firefox or IE7 on the users systems.

I think it could be taken 2 steps further. Educate users that you dont need admin rights to install firefox. In fact the first time I used firefox at work I installed it on a memory stick. Scandisk have memory sticks with U3 feature that runs several apps directly from the usb dongle. It’s self contained and so can be taken with you and run on any pc. However, i found memory stick run apps a little sluggish especially on scandisk dongles (I only use corsair now) so installing in the My Documenta folder is my usual recommendation. Where I work I am surrounded by IE6 users, all of them hate it but felt they had no option. A quick demo of a My Documents install and everyone’s converted. If this was added to the advise on upgradeing I am sure uptake would be higher. Note, installation of flash and java support for these browsers does require admin rights.

The next step would be to treat IE6 like a mobile browser. A mobile browser has reduced features and performance so has a cut down version of the site with just the essentials (i know there is more to it than that, screen res, bandwidth etc). So my IE6 site would have the content but not the look and feel of the full site. Again this will probably just be on my personal sites and for pro-bono clients, for the clients that pay the bills the best I can hope for is to include a message advising to upgrade their browser and link to the campaign page.

The more sites/developers that get on board the more effective this will be. Hopefully boosted by a succesful Windows 7 launch and MS dropping support for IE6 will see the browser retired for good.

Tools of the trade

So starting a new job on Monday I needed to set up my rig with the tools/apps that I have learned I cannot live without.

HP EliteBook 8530w

My new laptop is a HP EliteBook 8530w, I’ll be writing a review and a comparision with my Dell XPS m1530 soon.  First major difference is that it’s running Windows XP rather than Vista. A bonus, many may say, but I do miss quick launching apps with a hit of the Windows key and then typing a few letters followed by enter. Fortunately, there is the free, and brilliant, Launchy to the rescue. Alt-space takes the place of the windows key for firing up the launchy text box which works much like Spotlight on mac.

For web development work I found the following tools invaluable:

1) Faststone image capture - the ultimate screen capture tool, does wholepage, video, page portions and even scrolls a page and captures it as one image. The video feature can also be set to only record a portion of the screen which is great for screencasts or demos where you don’t want a massive filesize or a squashed/compressed illegable video from a fullscreen recording.

2) Browsers - firefox and google chrome were one of the first things I installed. I would have also used IE Tester but this seems to be a bit redundant now that Microsoft have released their own version so I downloaded SuperPreview

3) Aptana Studio - My IDE of choice. I code in aptana for html, css, javascript and PHP. It has great tools and features and cuts out a lot of the nonsense that are in some WYSIWIG editors. It is based on Eclipse and so is Java based and chomps though a lot of ram so you’ll want at least 2GB of Ram on XP and probably 3-4GB on Vista if you are running it along side other ram hungry apps like Photoshop. Has great plugins that allow you to preview your page on iPhone or sync with subversion.

4) Vertrigo - This is a WAMP app by a Polish developer that is free and easy to install. You simply run the setup and you have an Apache server with PHP and MySQL ready to go. What’s great about it is that it doesn’t try to be constantly running on your system. Just fire it up when you need and close it when you don’t. Good idea to install this as one of your first apps as I have had conflicts when installing it on systems with a lot of other apps that may have been using ports/resources that it needed.

5) An IM client. In my opinion Skype had the best IM client for a long time (not to sure about the latest design) but seeing as most of my contacts are on Yahoo/MSN now I opt for the YIM client. I may switch this for Trillion or another all in one client in future but having an AIO client usually means features such as file transfer or group chat.

6) VLC media player - Not only is this the best player because it plays the most formats it is also even better at playing those formats than the native players. This is especially evident when playing HD content. HD MOV/MP4 files natively play in quicktime but even on decent spec systems can stutter at times. VLC plays them smoothly even on low spec systems (I’ve seen Hi-res video playing fine on netbooks with VLC). It also playes flash video (FLV) and supports more obsure codecs like HD MKV, which is becoming the standard for distributing large HD video files.

7) Adobe CS4 - no getting round it, although the price tag seems ridiculous and there are some alternatives out there, a serious designer/developer will almost always end up with Adobe software. I’ve given up fighting it and fortunately so have finance so will be getting CS4 installed shortly.

Firefox Plugins - The list of must have plugins seems to have shrunk as I find I am using the same small list regularly and others are just a distraction. I now use Firebug, Web developer toolbar, colorzilla, measureIT, ImageZoom, Delicious, and may get round to installing Scribefire now that I’ve started blogging again.

9) Office - Not too fussed whether it is MS office or Open office plus Thunderbird but best to keep to what everyone else running in the office so have the now ageing MS office 2003.

10) WinRar - For opening everything from ZIP/RAR files to ISO or 7zip - another AIO solution for compressed archives.

For entertainment I could add iTunes and a few other apps but as I’m tight on HDD space on this system I will stick to my iPhone for my music jollies. Fortunately I can now get my podcasts straight to my phone over wifi so PC syncing no longer a daily requirement.

What apps are in your utility belt? What tools can you not live with out?

It wasn’t me! CBSi UK sites go down

If you were up early enough this morning and tried to browse a cnet.co.uk, zdnet.co.uk or silicon.com you may have seen something like this:

Oops 404

Well just saying for the record although it’s my penultimate day at CBS and I was in charge of launching something this morning - IT WASN’T ME

Hopefully things will be back to normal by the time you read this.

This lead me to a useful site called downforeveryoneorjustme.com which can give you an external way of checking your site. Unfortunately this verified the bad news:

cnet down

All should be back up now though - yay.

New Facebook UI - will apps make a comeback

The last facebook re-design saved it from becoming a mess like MySpace was a the time. Users had too much control of their profile pages resulting in no consistency from page to page and over cluttered and annoying pages. Third party Apps ruled and dominated users profiles and spammed everyone with their activity.

The re-design buried the apps and restricted profile customisation so that the design was cleaner, more consistent from page to page and generally a better place to be. It did however, mean all the hardwork developers had put into apps was going to waste as apps were harder to get to and less noticeable. A footer navigation to apps later was added which helped somewhat but was not that prominant.

The new design which most should be able to see today if not within the next couple of days makes further improvements to the general look and feel and apps resurface as a prominant homepage feature.

New FaceBook homepage UI (click to enlarge)

First thing to notice is that the main column has been tweaked with more imagery in rounded corner squares. Instead of “joe blogs” did XYZ we have the users profile pic along with it. The main column is just an updating news feed and feels a bit like Twitter - perhaps what Facebook were aiming for.

The right column has been re-purposed. Moving the alerts to the top of the news feed in the main column and introducing a highlights section which app developers will be pleased to know promotes apps as well as groups which has also been neglected due to their lack of prominance.

The left column lets you filter the items in the main news-feed so you can quickly show only updates related to your contact categories. For example you may use facebook for work and personal and so switching between work and friends categories helps you keep your updates seperate.  The left column also means the tabs on the main column can be done away with and are now part of the vertical nav on that side.

The status update field has been made more prominant and changed from what are you doing to what’s on your mind - opening it up to a wider range of discussions. With the status commenting that has proven popular this is now more of a conversation starter than a an Instant Messanger type “I’m at lunch” message.

Overall the new design looks good, is cleaner and better laid out than facebook of old but still lets you get easy access to what’s hot on facebook whether it be friend updates or apps. It’s new filter is also a great help to users that use facebook for both business and pleasure or simply want to seperate friends and family.

I don’t expect as much of a backlash from users as the last big change but there are always some who won’t be happy - look out for the “petition facebook to undo their redesign” group

Thumbs up to Facebook and watch out Twitter.

New Look CNET UK

After editting virtually every style sheet on the site the new look CNET UK is finished and launched. The garish yellow is gone and replaced with a new black theme. Pages are also more consistent and laid out better.

CNET UK new look

Compared the old look:

Old CNET UK design

The project (code names Tiburon) brings the site more in line with the US version CNET.com and incorporates suggestions from users of the site. The team managed to launch the update which affected every page of the site with little to no down time.

More details and Feedback here:

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029471,49300666,00.htm

Oh no another attempt at 3D web

When I saw an article about Exit Reality planning to make 3D web pages I had flashbacks of some of my first experiences of the web when an £1500 286 computer would crawl along trying to move through a virtual room in netscape navigator. It made web browsing slow and overly complicated. Now it seems that it is being tried again.

Exit Reality’s ambisious goal of making the whole web 3D seemed unlikely but after viewing their video demo it seems they may have pulled it off. Rather than having to use a new web browser/app and being limited to the dozen sites they may have invested time in supporting this feature Exit Reality have managed to render any page in a 3D environment as long as you install a browser plugin. Some sites have more 3D features than others. Exit Reality seem to have focused on social networking sites where the likes of Facebook, Flickr and YouTube all have full 3D environments designed to make the experience even better. Flickr is now a 3D gallery, YouTube a cinema and Facebook/MySpace have your videos on a TV screen and your photos in a frame and wall mounted. If you have a Facebook/MySpace account you can customise the 3D environment for your page adding in furniture and toys of your choice.

This is all well and good and may appeal to the second life generation. However, what interested me is that they are making web browsing a shared experience. You can now not just send a link to a friend for a youTube video you had a laugh at - you can invite them to join you in your own private 3D cinema and watch it together in real time. You can chat an emote while both viewing the same video. This also means I could potentially showcase my portfolio to a potential client in a 3D demo or even show them their own site after work is complete.

Realistically for it to become a useful shared web experience tool it would require widespread adoption of the plugin to the extent of Flash. In most cases speed of browsing will mean that I will want my pages to be viewed in 2D but there is definitely an appeal in viewing your Flickr photos in a gallery or sharing a web page or video with a friend.

Technical issues have made it difficult for me to say how easy/good the actual experience is. Firefox 3 renders the 3D environment but there is no control panel or way to login to either Exit Reality or the websites I visit in 3D. In IE I get the control panel but I am unable to see the 3D environment. I have only tested on my tired old office PC so will take another look on my laptop when I get a free moment.

3D web, exit reality, web browsing, plugin

BBC Music Beta Launches

The BBC have launched their new Music site. It is still in beta but already looks pretty polished. You can find out more about artists that have been played on any of the BBC radio stations. You can see how many times they’ve been played this week, which radio stations have played them and how many times since records began for that artist. You can even see which DJs plays them the most. Apart from a stat fest you can get links to other useful information such as the artists website and wikipedia page and find similar artists that you may like. Artist details also include a discography, photos and more. Much of the content is powered by Music Brainz which the BBC link to for further info or to add your own input.

The styling of the site matches well with the excellent 2008 look BBC homepage but doesn’t have any snazzy, technical wizardy just great content.

There are a lot of music sites out there - many with a lot more artist info and the ability to sample tracks or music videos. In fact the only content BBC is providing is the artists play stats on it’s Radio stations the rest is from wikipedia or music brainz but it is presented really nicely and the unique BBC stats can help you pick a radio station that suits your music tastes or it can help you discover similar artists you may like.

If you are keen to find more artists you may like and suggested artists on BCC music beta aren’t enough check out last.fm
Technorati Tags: BBC, Music, Beta, Feeds

To Dongle or not? Wireless mice for laptops

I recently got a laptop and have fallen completely in love with it. The power of my PC on the move. That said most laptop users will agree however ingeniously the manufacturer has incorporated the mousepad/nub on the laptop it is never as confortable or accurate as a proper mouse. That being the case the 2nd most popular accessory for laptop owners to buy (after the laptop case) is a mouse.

The whole joy of a portable device is being free to move around so wifi is now a must and this extends to the mice - cables are out. There are hundreds of wireless mice to choose from but how to decide. For reliability and performance the top brands have to be Logitech, Apple and Microsoft (probably in that order). This cuts down the list of offerings somewhat but even with just 3 brands to consider there are still many variations to consider.

To Dongle or not to dongle
If your laptop doesn’t have bluetooth than this is a no brainer - your are going to need a rf/bluetooth dongle to link up with your mouse. In my case my Dell XPS m1210 has builtin bluetooth and so I have a choice. I can go for a bluetooth mouse and connect to the built-in bluetooth feature on my laptop (even if it comes with a dongle) or go for a mouse with a rf/proprietary transmitter dongle.

Pros of no dongle
a) Battery life - the built-in bluetooth adapter is designed to work with your laptop and is optimised for efficient use of power. A usb dongle will require the laptop to power the usb port and will always be less efficient than a built-in option
b) Dongles sticks out. This means you probably can’t keep it plugged in when in the case and increases chances of it getting knocked potentially damaging it or your usb port.
c) Can’t lose the dongle. It is easier than you think to lose the thumb size dongles. They can fall out of the bag or get knocked out by passers by
d) Range. RF signals generally give you a range of 2 meters. Adaquate for most purposes but when you use your laptop with a big screen like I do at home having a 10-30m range really helps as I can sit on my sofa watch the big screen and my laptop quietly hums on my desk.
e) Price. You can save money by buying bluetooth mice without a dongle. Logitech and Microsoft both make these. However, this is not a real bonus as bluetooth mice are generally more expensive than RF versions anyway.

Cons
a) Bluetooth was designed to be versatile, a “jack of all trades” - from file transfer, wireless headphones, wireless mice etc. Most will agree it is a “master of none”. Using my Logitech mx5000 bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home I am repeatedly frustrated as it lags behind keystrokes, loses connection or just gets sluggish. It doesn’t happen all the time - in fact mostly it runs beautifully, but when it does happen in the middle of a game or while drawing a lasso shape in photoshop it can be aggravating. Logitech’s solution is to use bluetooth technology to keep the benefits or added range but to not comply to the Bluetooth 1.1 or 2.0 standard. This means the signal is optimised for the mouse and you get better performance, however, it will not work with my built-in bluetooth so I still need a dongle.
b) with a dongle you can hook your fancy mouse up to any computer not just your bluetooth enabled laptop. This is handy if you are going to an area with no wifi and you are forced to use an internet cafe with horrible mouseball mice that just make you want to scream. Or if you want to use it for both desktop and laptop. As most bluetooth mice ship with a dongle too you can probably do this anyway

If you decide to go the dongle route the ultimate laptop mouse would be the Logitech vx Revolution. It’s fast, reliable, has great range, lots of handy extra buttons and scrolling for quick navigation. If you want to avoid the dongle or want more features the Microsoft Wireless Bluetooth Notebook Presenter Laser Mouse 8000 is fantastic. It combines mouse and presenter features and it conforms to bluetooth standards so does not require a dongle (although it comes with one).

I opted for the Microsoft mouse in the end and got it for only £39 (from ebuyer - includes £10 discount for using google checkout). It still hasn’t arrived so I can’t tell you what performance is like but the features are truly impressive. As a mouse it has the usual buttons left, right button, a 4way scroll wheel which also acts as the middle button. It has two additional buttons on the sides (likely for back and forward navigation) an additional 2 buttons on the top which I guess one triggers flip 3D in windows vista. Nothing too special so far but then you pick it up and it becomes a remote control - it can be used to flip through presentations, control music/movies etc. As it is done by bluetooth direct line of sight is not needed and with 2.4Ghz technology it has a range of over 30ft. It doesn’t stop there, there is a laser pointer built-in so if you are hooked up to a projector in a meeting you can point with your mouse. The laser pointer is a great touch as I hate getting up in meetings and trying to point at something on the wall and then casting a shadow so it’s hard to see what I’m pointing at anyway.

Check out the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Presenter Mouse 8000 review at testfreaks.co.uk

I’ll try and add a list of links to the top 10 wireless mice here once I get to the airport (flying to Poland in a few hours). I’ll try and use atlarge.com to find me some wifi.

YouTube killer tries again (vume/eefoof)

When eefoof originally launched it was tipped to be a YouTube killer. It offered most of the YouTube features (user-generated video content) with a twist. Rather than just having the benefit of free hosting and an audience for your work they actually pay you for your submissions. They divide up the income they get (from the ads on the site) to all the contributers. The amount you get will depend on the popularity of the video(s)  you post. So if your videos are very popular and 2% of videos viewed that month belong to you then you get 2% of the advertising revenue - in theory.

The concept seemed great but the unusual name that was not only difficult to pronounce it was tough to remember or spell and so unless you bookmarked it or someone sent you a link you’d likely forget it soon after you visited. Also  during it’s early days there wasn’t that much to look at when you compare the huge database of video on YouTube and Google Video.

Now eefoof is relaunching as VuMe and have built up a more significant collection of content a comeback maybe on the cards. So stop ‘giving away’ your content to Google and make yourself some dosh on the VuMe.

http://www.vume.com

No I’m not on commission. No I have not submitted any video yet, but watch this space.

Reinette De Villiers: The Beauty of Design - FFE interview #1

At long last I’ve pulled my finger out and typed up the transcript from my now not-so-recent interview with Reinette De Villiers. Enjoy.
Download the Podcast here (right-click and save target/link as..)

or Play Here:

Add to iTunes
or read the following transcript.
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