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Modern browsers for modern applications

Friday, January 29, 2010 at 2:00 PM
The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible…

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites.

I’ve been watching with some interest how much market share Chrome has been gaining, this could be a tactic to gain a greater user base for the Google browser, although plenty of big players have already dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. Either way, I’ll be glad to see the back of IE6.

Daunt Books Screen Shot

It’s been a long time in the making, just over 3 years to be precise, but my latest design for Ehaus,  the Daunt Book website, has finally gone live. Some elements of the user interface are quite different to most bookshop websites and on the whole I think they work well.

They’ve also made a commendable effort to create their own bibliographic data for the books, largely the reason the site has taken so much time to develop.

Screen capture of the iPhone Flickr application

There’s been a lot of furore about the Spotify app released for the Apple iPhone in the last week or so, but I’m more excited about the new Flickr app which I downloaded yesterday.

Being a bit of a vinyl junkie I seldom use the iPhone for music anyway, and I can’t realistically see me using Spotify away from my computer, the Flickr app, however, is definitely something I’ll use.

Screen shot from the app front page shows a picture of a toilet from my friend Vanbonko, thinking about music it reminded me of the cover to the Rolling Stones album Beggars Banquet.

Policy Press screen shot

My latest work for Ehaus, The Policy Press web site. We also made a Wordpress blog for them.

Screenshot of the new Ehaus website design

Been working away on a new design for the Ehaus website over the last couple of months and am pleased it has now launched. Pretty happy with this one, and a definite improvement on the last design, some nice jQuery touches and I think it showcases what we do really well.

Browser Pain - IE Testing

Microsoft has released some new software that will be of interest to fellow web designers and developers out there, a programme called SuperPreview.

It’s a standalone application (in beta at the moment) that enables you to see how your websites will look across different versions of Internet Explorer without having to set up a Virtual Machine to run IE6, or another computer dedicated to running IE6.
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I didn’t even know that a new version of Safari was coming out, way below the radar on this one. Looks like they’ve pared it down a lá the Google Chrome browser, with some more classic Mac style visual interfaces for browsing history, favourites and tabs.

Safari Web Site

In other browser news: “Microsoft to Offer Competing Browsers in Windows?”

The latest European Commission ruling could force Microsoft to offer alternative web browsers within Windows so the computer giant avoids breaching EU competition rules. According to the Commission, Microsoft are exploiting their dominant position to constrain the web browser market.

I couldn’t agree more, they’ve already been made to unbundle their media player from the Operating System and I think this is a positive move for browser advancement.

The Do Lectures web site has been up for a few weeks now which has given me time to view a few of the videos, some quite interesting talks on there.

The Do Lectures Website Page Capture

The talks were organised by Howies, a clothing company based in Cardigan Bay in West Wales. The concept of the talks is pretty simple, invite people, 20 in all, to talk about what they ‘Do’. The lectures are aimed at spreading innovative ideas about design and living with a strong emphasis on environmentalism.

I particularly liked the talks by Ken Yeang and Michael Braungart.