Browsers
Most coders and designers will tell you Internet Explorer (Especially IE6 below) is a pain to work with, but I tend to disagree. What most people forget is that even though IE is full of bugs and oddities everything can be fixed, with just a few lines of code.
How to use Conditional Comments
Conditional Comments let you execute sections of code in just IE, so you can import custom CSS sheets (to deal with IE’s weird rendering engine) or special JavaScript; here is how to use conditional comments:
<!--[if IE]>
This will only show for Internet Explorer (IE)
<![endif]-->
<!--[if !IE]>
This will only show if the client is not using IE.
<!--[endif]>
<![if IE 6]-->
Only shows on IE6
<!--[endif]>
<![if lte IE 6]-->
Any IE browser less than or equal to version 6.
<!--[endif]>
<![if gte IE 7]-->
Any IE browser higher or equal to IE 7
<!--[endif]>
Just place snippets of the above code anywhere in your code. If you want more information conditional commenting take a look at the Conditional Comment Wikipedia page.
Posted April 8th, 2009
Browser Statistics
IE6 is dying slowly; maybe it’s time we drop support for it.
Biggest Rise: Other (2.29%)
Biggest Fall: Safari (-2.45%) Possibly due to new version of Safari, or that a hacker said Apple Safari is ‘easy pickings’.
OS Statistics
WinXP is still a very dominant. Maybe Windows 7 will be its downfall.
Biggest Rise: Mac (0.9%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-0.51%)
Internet Penetration
Latin America/Caribbean internet penetration has grown by 4.5%
Internet Usage
Asians seem to have a high internet usage and is expect to grow even more!
Related Links
W3C Browser Information
Global Market Share Statistics
Internet Traffic Report
The ISC Domain Survey
*This data is an average from approximately 25 differently sources (Some listed above). Feel free to use the graphs and pie charts; however a link back would be appreciated.
Posted March 10th, 2009
Here is an overview of add-ons I consider essential to any web developer or designer who uses Firefox.
ColorZilla
Have you ever seen a really nice colour on a website and thought “That is exactly what I need”. This add-on allows you to get the details about the colour.
Firebug
Websites can be very annoying to code (especially if you use notepad), this excellent add-on for Firefox allows you to edit, debug and monitor code on a web page. It’s so useful it almost needs its own post.
YSlow (For Firebug)
Ever wondered why a website is being slow? This cute little add-on (made by Yahoo) analyses a web page and tells you (in simple English) how to make it load a little faster.
Normally when I use this, I notice a big improvement in rankings on Google and Yahoo.
MeasureIt
Sometimes (especially when coding websites) it’s important to know the size of various elements. Essentially this is like an on-screen ruler.
Web Developer Toolbar
An essential add-on for all web masters (and power users). This useful little tool bar adds everything a web master really needs to keep on top of a website.
Google Gears
I hate JavaScript; luckily the geniuses down at Google seem to know how I feel. Google Gears makes time consuming JavaScript run at least 40%* faster.
Tamper Data
View and Modify HTTP/HTTPS headers, very useful when analysing a web page and working with CURL.
* Based on my benchmarking. Performance may vary from user to user. In general Google Gears is fantastic and should be used on all computers.
Posted March 4th, 2009
Browser Statistics
FF (33.27%) and IE7 (36.51%) are almost equal in market share.
Biggest Rise: Safari (1.46%)
Biggest Fall: FF (-1.81%), but closely followed by IE6 (-1.18%).
OS Statistics
WinXP is still a very dominant OS even though it had a -1.53% fall.
Biggest Rise: Vista (1.13%)
Biggest Fall: WinXP (-1.53%)
Internet Penetration
North America currently has the largest penetration percentage (73.6%)
Internet Usage
Asia currently has the highest internet usage.
Posted February 9th, 2009
Internet Explorer 8 RC1 has just been released. You can download it here.
Downloading/Installing
At a miniature 16.2mb IE8 RC1 took me 30 seconds to download and it took in 9 minutes + 1 restart to get to my first web page.
It also imported my FireFox feeds and bookmarks, which was useful.
Extensions
I couldn’t check what add-ons where available as the IE add-ons website was down (see screenshot). However, IE did open a nice tab showing some “accelerators” I could use (I think they are like google gears, but MS style).
Speed
Overall, IE8 seems faster than IE7 however compared to Opera, Firefox and Safari it’s just does not feel as snappy. However in most speed test done by professionals it’s a marginal difference, if you enjoy statistics take a look here.
Backward Compatibility
A really neat feature of IE8 is a built in “compatibility button”, which essentially means if a website is not working correctly in IE8 you can run it as if it was IE7.
Rendering
I love how it renders my pages, IE8 seems to render exactly the same as FF3.
There still seems to be some different padding/margin differences, but maybe something to look forward to in IE9?
Overall
I’m a firefox fanboy at ther end of the day, so i will not be moving to IE8. However, I will have it installed and I may use it from time to time 
Posted January 31st, 2009