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Recently had a project that required IE6 compatibility,  it was annoying, but wasn’t all that difficult. There are hundreds of hacks out there to target all kinds of browser flaws, most of said flaws have been ironed out, but IE6 is just a big problem. I did my research on it, and apparently in August of this year there were still 6.7% of users using it. That’s 67 out of 1000 visitors, which counts for something. My question is, is that developers testing in IE6 being counted as users? A few screen shots of my ordeal are below.

First,  how it’s supposed to look:
Next, we have IE6:
And now IE7:

As you can see, things became just slightly distorted in different versions of IE. This, believe it or not, was easily sorted out without hacks. I used conditional comments that only target IE, these are available from Microsoft at: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537512%28VS.85%29.aspx . Or, you can check out these examples, they are placed in the head of the page:

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”css/default.css” media=”screen” />
<!–[if IE 7]>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”css/ie7.css” media=”screen” />
<![endif]–>
<!–[if lt IE 7]>
<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”css/ie6.css” media=”screen” />
<![endif]–>

As you can see, you put your main CSS file first, then you add in specific CSS files for each version of IE. Only IE sees these, and they do not invalidate your page.

In my experience, probably only about 50% of developers know about this. I say that because a lot have no clue they should be targeting IE6, they only test in latest browser versions, and the others still use hacks. I personally own a hack book that’s around 200 pages, and not once are conditional comments mentioned, probably because it would reduce the book to about 30 or so pages.

In the end, IE6 displayed the page better than IE7, believe it or not.

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I just noticed it’s been a week since my last posting, and I wanted to follow up. The design for Outer Image is complete and the HTML/CSS template has been created, with a JavaScript image rotation in place, as well.

No, it didn’t take me that long to complete it, I had other things on my plate I was dealing with. Thank you very much.

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It’s been a week or so since my last post about finalizing my design and all, and now here I am, done (for the most part). The bugs have been worked out, but nothing is flawless, so one will probably creep in somewhere.

Some people have told me that my design is too graphically heavy, and they are somewhat right, but it’s the way I wanted to go. Who knows, in a few months, I may change it up to use more “white space”.  Other people have told me the design looks amazing and quite unique. All I know is I like it.

The HTML and CSS weren’t all the difficult to line up with the PSD I created, it was integrating my HTML and CSS into WordPress and its awkward page creation. I actually should say list (menu) creation, because the content in the page was actually fairly simple. With the lists, I actually had to toss in some JavaScript to get it to add some classes to get my CSS to hook in properly.

Now that the blog is complete, I can get the rest of the site up and running with my résumé, portfolio, etc. I can also focus more on learning more about OOP with PHP.

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Designing your own site is one of the hardest tasks you can be faced with. Why? Because you’re also the client. You have hundreds of ideas in your head on how you want it to look, not just one. You aren’t designing around a set product like a soda can, you’re designing around a dynamic product, yourself.

By the time you are ready to start slicing up a PSD file to set it up for CSS and HTML, you’ve thought of another direction you’d like to go with the site. What a pain. It becomes an argument in your head on which direction to go.

bubble_thumbFor instance, I have this bright, bubbly site that I’ve already started coding up, however, I want to change it. I am going to have to come up with a couple more designs to get this one out of my head.

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So, you want to be a web developer…but you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I know that feeling.

I recently lost my job, a job in which I was a jack-of-all-trades, and I was also a telecommuter. I have tons of knowledge in this cranium of mine, but I have very little proof that I can use it. These are all a very bad combination together when you live in a place such as Ocala. This is not a technology town, it’s a horse and retirement town. Jobs pop up and I apply, send my resume, and I hear nothing back. It’s because of that lack of proof I mentioned before, I say I know PHP, MySQL, HTML and CSS, but only have a few old examples of my work. I am a headless chicken, look at me dance.

I am here now, wanting to learn more, and also wanting to showcase my skills. It’s going to start with me skinning this blog, then I will move on from here.