IE6 is the Frankenstein of the net, haunting its creators, misunderstood by the townsfolk, who would sooner burn it and dance around it than make any sense of it.

awesome.

source

As some of my friends and family know, I’m a die-hard windows user.  It’s something that I became accustomed to use since my early years.  As such, I got very much use to developing in my beloved windows environment until my most recent mac experience.

I’ve been somewhat of an Apple fan for a couple of years now, first buying the first generation iPhone and now currently owning a 3GS, and honestly speaking I like what I see so far.  I figured I’d give developing in a mac environment a shot as I saw one of my old co-worker’s “Coda” application and liked it.

The most difficult issue I have been facing is the fact that all of my current licenses are for windows based software.  This was somewhat evaded as I run windows 7 now in a VMWare Fusion window, but still would just like to only bother with only one operating system.  Other than that, I have been patching my way long with freeware software (Filezilla for FTP, and others) however found I bit the bullet on some software like Coda, TextMate, and others.

The one continuing issue I have is debugging for Internet Explorer.  There are a couple of solutions out there for mac developers, “IE4Mac” which runs Internet explorer 6 and 7 through WINE, it isn’t too bad however if you don’t mind it running at 4 frames a second.  Internet explorer still being the prominent browser still (yes, sadly still IE6, even after google killed it) it is absolutely critical to debug for.  Until IE7 falls off the planet completely things will be looking up and I will have to worry *less*, however with CSS3 and HTML5 picking up speed, IE8 will still need to have it’s own hacks and fall-backs.

So with running IE in WINE I found this to be the best *free* solution, (rather than running IE6 in a windows XP VM or bootcamp) though I can get away with IE7 through my Windows 7 VM.  Not too bad, but still a hurdle.

The one thing I’ve been trying to get over and grasp is of course, the OSX “fluffy fonts” as I call them.  I have had multiple issues with things not displaying the same from the Mac Firefox and the windows Firefox, solely due to the “pretty fonts” OSX puts on all of it’s apps by default (which directly effects said displayed web text).  It becomes a pain, and sometimes I find no other viable options other than a) change the style for both operating systems, or if it really ticks me off, find the user’s operating system and browser and redirect to a specified template just for fluffy font mac users .

After that, I still find myself loving developing in my mac environment.  Why?  Because I can run windows in a VM, test Mac’s Safari 4, Firefox and chrome browsers and ultimately test and deploy iPhone / iPad websites from one laptop.  Me being a mobile enthused person that I am, this intrigued me from the start and was one of the main reasons I decided to jump ship.

This does not mean I *hate* developing in windows, by any means.  I still find myself a faster developer still in my windows environment and it does get me frustrated sometimes trying to remember the correct shortcut keys for mac to do things that I’m use too in my old windows environment.  This however will take time to get use too, of course, however there are some critical times which I need to roll things out in a timely fashion.

Am I getting the hang of it?  Absolutely.  I will also go further by saying I will definitely grasp this down and attempt to match my windows-based developing speeds once the pace kicks up.

All in all, an absolute must in terms of being able to troubleshoot web issues, and being able to debug cross-operating system related web issues natively.

QUOTE:

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.

This is hilarious.  It should read:

QUOTE:

As a reminder, if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged pet puppy to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.

We hope you love your pet puppy as much as we do.

I like that version, as it more clearly defines Apple’s evil side.

I do believe they should be giving out their bumper cases regardless (for free, upon proof of receipt) just because of the entire scenario.  But I can’t help but think that their “formula” for calculating cell bars is not only surprising, unexpected and furthermore incredible that they’d admit such a drastic screw up; but that they will attempt to cover this all up with an update.

Listen, I have had Blackberrys, Nokias and HTC phones.  I have NOT noticed any cell bar dropping whilst holding the bottom left corner.

Albeit, there has already been class actions filed.

Which is why, you have my current theme.  Small, precise, and to the point.

I wanted something I could view on my phone, but I also wanted something that looked the same cross-platform.  Something different, new, and innovative.

With my current track record of changing my theme once every year, for now, this will do.  Enjoy my site!