Hell has a special place for Internet Explorer.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 · 23:29 · 0 comments

I've spent the past few days coding what I hope will become the default theme for Pez. If not, it can always be downloaded later. As a web developer, I remember the, "easy," days (right after Netscape failed) when you only had to design/code for one browser. Then the Firefox builds started gaining traction, and it was common to have two browsers opened. It was also common to have one browser render the HTML differently than the other.

Fast forward to now, where it's pretty common to have four browser windows open, and they all have their own interpretation of the code. Today I had Firefox 3 Beta 4, Flock 1.1, Internet Explorer 7 (can't install IE8 Beta 1 because I'm running Vista SP1 Beta), and Safari 3 going. In the beginning of the, "HTML format fixes," FF3b4 and Safari rendered the page the same way, Flock had it's own version, and IE 7 was way off. The stuff I was doing was probably too advanced for it.

After some tweaking, the Firefox based browsers were in sync, Safari placed the profile picture a little too high, and IE thought the profile photo should be at the bottom of the page, and the header should ignore all margins and padding.

Well, after 10 more minutes of tweaking, the profile page looks the same in every browser except for IE7, where the header is the only thing still jacked because it's anti-margin/padding!

Do you have to be an Atheist about it? My God, man!

Stuff like this makes me want to put on a superhero suit, and install Firefox on people's computer while they sleep.

Or maybe I should just help push for better web standards?

Dropping support for IE all together sounds like my cup of tea, but you can't out the market leader. Doing so makes you look like a pretentious a-hole. People don't like that.

Labels: Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Pez, Safari, web development

Anyone can play guitar and make widgets.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008 · 19:52 · 0 comments

While waiting for his baby to magically appear (I still don't know where those "things," come from) Lee Kelleher has been updating his blog and playing around on the internet. Lee made a blog post talking about a Mozilla project called Prism. Said post reminded me that I had installed it a while ago, and I haven't tried using it since because it told me that there was no program, only XUL error.

So, I reinstalled it. Now it works.

Mozilla's Prism takes those fancy web sites (or web apps), and lets them run in their own stand-alone window. Lee does a better job explaining what it does, and what he uses it for.

But I found a different use for it.

Prism+iPhone facebook site/Wizardry=Widgets!

Widget/Gadget, whatever. It's basically a small application that runs on your desktop, and just about gives you full access to a sexier version of facebook.

It's neat. Digsby notifies me when something happens on facebook, so I move my mouse over to the "facebook mini," window and check it out. No need to search through tabs, or wait for the monster that is Flock (it's built on Firefox) to respond. There are other pros, and even cons, but I'll let the, "Everything has to be in one window," kiddies argue that for you.

Now, most, but not all, sites have a mobile/iPhone formatted version, so you may check it while you're in the bathroom. Once you have Prism installed, run the the program to turn your favorite website into a, "program." Also remember to create a shortcut so you won't have to go through the set up process again and again.

...and again.

Remember to resize the window so it looks right, and not stretched out.

Name of Site - URL - (mobile version)

Note! Standard Mobile versions are dull and boring.

facebook - http://iphone.facebook.com - (iPhone)
Gmail - http://m.gmail.com - (Standard Mobile)
Google Reader -http://www.google.com/reader/m - (Standard Mobile)
Google Reader - http://www.google/reader/wii - (Wii Edition)
iGoogle - http://www.google.com/ig/i - (iPhone)
iGoogle - http://www.google.com/m - (Standard Mobile)


Oh, you get to set an icon for your new, "program," or you can use the standard globe icon, whatever. I spent hours making a desktop icon for my "facebook mini," Prism app, and I'm making it available for you to download. You have three to choose from (256x256), and you can find them here.

Enjoy.

Labels: cell phones, Digsby, Facebook, Flock, Lee Kelleher, Links, Mozilla, Prizm

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