Customising your blog for your business Thursday, April 23, 2009

One of the best things about Google's own blogging platform, Blogger, is the ability to use custom CSS and JavaScript on your free blog. For if you know enough CSS to be dangerous, you can use Google's free website for your business and get away with paying no hosting or domain costs.

For those who want to steer clear of the YAT (Yet Another Template) effect, you already realise that you need some custom work done. You usually have two options - PAE (Pay An Expert) to do it for you, or DIY (Do It Yourself). While the first acronym still sounds like 'pay' and still means money out of your pocket, the DIY option often looks better. And if you know whwat you're doing, it often is, but if you don't, the DIY option will involve a lot more work than it would seem.

Keep re-blog close by and look out for more posts on how you can get you Blogger blog looking more in line with your corporate website (if you have one) or how to just make it look better. And you just might learn how to make it work better too, by connecting it to the boom in social media.

Just add the re-blog RSS feed and stay updated with new posts on how you, not some expensive design firm, can craft you own blog into a world class website. And of course, you can always follow VaughanJ on Twitter.

Enough already, it's time to end the madness and let IE6 die. Friday, April 03, 2009

If you're familiar with the current state of play within the web design and development industry, you will know the bane of our lives that is Internet Explorer 6.

If you aren't, and still use a browser that is over 8 years old, please upgrade immediately!! Firefox, Opera, Safari and Google's own Chrome are all excellent alternatives. Even Internet Explorer 8 has finally come to the standards table.

It is time to bring down IE6. For good. Really, for the good of the internet.

As more and more designers and developers join the push to end the misery that is IE6, a lot are still being pressured by clients to 'make it look pretty in IE6'. Having recently partnered with another Perth web design company, one of the requirements to be met, was to code websites that are compliant with IE6. Despite strong opposition, reality engine has agreed to continue 'hacking' sites for IE6, however, we firmly believe that is time to end the madness.

Jeffrey Zeldman, one of the internet's CSS and Web Standards gurus, has this to say...

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

And we wholeheartedly agree - however, designers comply only to avoid losing business and resort to CSS hacks, workarounds and general jiggery-pokery to get IE6 to behave properly. This is a waste of time and money! We need to unite and educate our clients on the dismal failings of IE6 so we can finally bid adieu to the drain on innovation and resources.

reality engine will however, continue to ensure that sites work in IE6, but any extra time spent getting them to look as they should or fix non-critical issues, is time that can be spent building better sites for newer standards compliant browsers.

So let's unite, and bring down IE6!