Author: Chris Harrison

  • Thoughts on CS4

    I’ll be speaking on September 23 at 6:30pm about Adobe Creative Suite 4 at the Columbia County Library in Evans, GA as part of the next Refresh Augusta meetup [info]. The presentation will cover what’s new, what I’ve thought about the Suite so far, and more. (As part of the meetup, Refresh Augusta will be giving away two copies of CS3 Web Design Premium, courtesy of Adobe.) Then, on September 24, I’ll be in Columbia SC at The State Newspaper give the same presentation to Refresh Columbia [info].

    These presentations will come hot on the heels of Adobe’s planned unveiling of CS4 on 9/23 [info].

  • Large Hadron Rap

    Epic. BTW, if the world ends on Wednesday, it’s been nice knowing you guys ;)

  • Wasted on an idiot… My faith in humanity was ruined and restored in a single blog post. Children with special needs are people too. “David” should be ashamed of himself.

  • Death to IE6?

    Is the decision to end support Internet Explorer 6 premature or long overdue?

    There is no doubt that Internet Explorer 6 is the bane of our – web designers and developers – existence. Nathan Smith came up with ten great reasons in “Time to Drop IE6”. Dan Rubin offered “The Final Word on IE6”. 37signals, effective 10.1.2008, is phasing out IE6 support in its products. They all offer good reasons to end support for IE6. But we cannot ignore the reality of IE6: usage hovers around 25-30% as of 9.08 (1,2).

    Can we truly ignore IE6? Could you afford to turn away 1/4-1/3 of the customers that walk through your door? I’m guessing most clients would say no.

    So where does that leave us? Are we destined to support IE6 for years and years to come? I seriously hope not, but it all depends on your audience. If your site is catering to people most likely to be using modern browsers like Firefox 3, Safari, Opera, Camino, Chrome, IE7/8, etc., then it probably doesn’t matter if your site supports IE6. If your site trends towards a lot of IE6 users, well… you’re obviously going to have to support that browser until usage drops below a tolerable level. At which point, it would then be wise to make a decision on whether to support it any longer. (We have these same conversations regarding minimum browser resolutions to target.) The client and the client’s audience and what they are using on your site is what dictates what you should be designed for.

    The idea of using ‘web standards’ isn’t so that designers can make kick ass designs that only the most bleeding edge browsers can render. Rather they’re more about making content viewable in any browser, regardless of its age.

    The logical decision, then, is to use progressive enhancement in designs. If a site visitor is still using IE6, they should be able to see, at the very least, a “low-fi” version of your site. If there are only minor issues preventing a layout from rendering properly in IE6, take the time to write some conditional CSS targeting the browser, and fix it.

    The challenge with progressive enhancement lies in educating a client that there will be variations in the design presented to site visitors. For some clients, variations are unacceptable. For others, they’re likely not going to care.

    Maybe by March 2009 the browser share will change radically, and IE6 usage will drop to record lows. But I’m staying realistic. I might not like IE6 or the extra work it requires to support it, but it’s too early to start ignoring it completely.


    Footnotes:

    1. w3schools – Browser Statistics
    2. w3Counter – Global Web Stats
  • Brilliant

    Are you ready for something brilliant? Yesterday Adobe announced that it will unveil the new Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 lineup in a special web event on 9.23.08. Register today to be among the first to learn about CS4. This is not something you’re going to want to miss. Trust me.

  • Presidency

    Gedeon’s “100 Reasons Why McCain Won’t Be President of the United States” touches on a lot of the reasons I have a hard time supporting McCain.

    For years I greatly admired Senator John McCain. He had a reputation for being a political maverick and seemed to vote with his conscience instead of with his party. When it came down to choosing between what was right and what the GOP wanted, John McCain more-often-than-not chose what was right.

    Then he set his sights on the White House.

    I voted for McCain when he was running against Bush prior to the 2000 elections. He was a different candidate back then. When he lost to George W. Bush, it was like the GOP beat the heart out of him. Now he just feels like more of the same. I suppose that’s why I’m leaning more towards Obama these days. I’m not entirely sure what we’d be getting in terms of a President, but at least I can expect that it won’t fully be business as usual with Obama at the helm.

  • 11 Things We hate About iTunes. They stopped at 11? Granted, they hit most of the major areas where I dislike iTunes, but I would’ve gone much further…