The hardest part of designing a new website is making sure it looks correct in all internet browsers. Not only that, but making sure it looks right in all versions of all internet browsers. It's a pain in the butt, but doable, with the exception of Internet Explorer.

Without alot of workaround nonsense it's not possible to have more than one version of IE on your computer at a time. The problem is that there is a huge difference in the appearance of websites between IE6, IE7 and IE8. They might as well all be considered as different browsers, since they share little in common other than a name and sloppy coding.

I have two incredible time savers and helpers for making any website look as good in IE as it does in Firefox. First, use Firefox to develop the design of the website. Most designers pick a browser to start with, create a design, and then view the site in other browsers. They make changes or add special files specific to each browser in order to make the look cross browser compatible. For the first fix, start with any browser other than IE to create the design. I use Firefox.

Once the design looks right add this code between the and tags of your template or webpage.

Here's a link to more information about the above code - http://code.google.com/p/ie7-js/.

This particular fix does miracles!! I no longer have to create separate CSS files for IE (or each version of IE), and the code above will even make transparent PNG images (with alpha transparency too!!) work correctly in IE! No more weird blue boxes in Internet Explorer where your cool transparent shadows and images used to be.

Now that you've created a great design and have added this handy code to make it look nice in IE too you need a way to make sure it looks nice in all versions of IE. How to do that? This website - IE Net Renderer - is FABULOUS for just that purpose.

It's free to use, and it's FAST. No waiting for a screenshot or an email file. It's as close to real time as I can think of. From their website:

IE NetRenderer allows you to check how a website is rendered by Internet Explorer 7, 6 or 5.5, as seen from a high speed datacenter located in Germany. Just type in a URL in the field above and try it out - it's free!

Unlike other screenshot services, we are able to process a large number of capturing jobs in parallel and in realtime, making it the fastest service that we know of.

Hope these help any other developers our there that have spent way too much time in the past just to play nice with IE!

Ok, so I have this necklace with a large glass pendant. The past couple of days I've worn it, and my daughter at first called it a phone. Now, my daughter is pretty bright, so I couldn't figure out why she'd make a mistake like that. In fact, she kept insisting it was a phone.

It took a few days of gentle encouragement to convince her this was a glass bead. Not a glass bead little phone. Not a bead phone. Not a little phone bead. Just a glass bead. Now she'll tell you, with an "ok, if you say so" look on her face, "It's a glass bead. Not a phone bead. A glass bead."

If only I were as bright as she is. Today I figured out the reason for the confusion.

My phone:

My necklace:

Hate stickers but your kids love them? Me too. I hate scraping them off of car windows, mirrors, walls, whatever. And storybooks with stickers are stupid. Kids don't realize they can't remove and adjust stickers so pages get ripped, stickers get folded up funny. In short, they look alot more fun in the package as opposed to the actual playtime.

But there's one way to have fun with stickers that's easy and cheap. And appropriate for any age group that can use stickers. What you'll need is a photo album with magnetic pages to start. They are not really magnetic, I mean the cheap photo albums with the peal and stick photo display pages with the plastic cover that sticks over the whole lot. Besides stickers and the photo album you could add washable markers or dry erase markers.

Using this type of photo album for sticker display allows stickers to retain much of their stickiness so they can be repositioned and used again and again. Once a page has been decorated press the clear cover over the stickers like you would for photos.

If you want to get real crafty let the kids use the markers on the clear cover of each page to create full coloring scenes for their stickers that can be washed off or dry erased.

I still have my sticker book from 25 years ago, one that held my treasured stickers from elementary school age. Believe it or not, the scratch and sniff stickers all retained their smell from being stored this way. Fun!

So, some product reviews. First, the Western Digital WB MyBook external hard drive sucks. I purchased the 1TB Home edition, hoping to avert data loss disaster should something happen to my laptop.

Once home, I moved all of my documents to it. Less than a month later, it crashed. Talk about disappointing! 90 GB of data having already been transferred to it, I was devastated. We did purchase a program that recovers data, but it did not preserve the directory structure, or even file names. So, that's 90 GB of data I'll never look at unless some emergency required I find Word Document XYZ from my list of recovered word docs named 1 - 5000.

Nevertheless, my laptop had been slowing down, and so I decided to replace the whole thing with a new computer. I purchased an HP TouchSmart computer. These things don't disappoint, at least so far! (It's been a few weeks)

Not only are these fun computers to use, but for a few hundred dollars more than the computer I was already considering, it was a great value. This computer is a 64 bit model, which my other choice was not, and compared or excelled in all other areas to my other choice. So all in all, I didn't even feel I was paying for a touch screen, but rather a better computer for just a few extra dollars.

If you're considering buying one, I highly recommend it. While I don't allow game use on my machine, I have allowed my 2 year old a few precious minutes on it, and it was much more intuitive for her to use. In fact, she was delighted to find that for once a computer did what she intended it to do.

I've found it's also more intuitive for me to use. I find myself reaching for friend's computers before realizing theirs is not a touch screen. It's just a more natural way to interact with a computer.

However, they aren't easy to find. The model I purchased was (at the time) the last one available at any local Best Buy. Even if you have to buy online though, you won't be disappointed!

Wow, have I been neglectful of my blog. I swear it wasn't intentional! I've had oh so many blog post ideas that somehow never made it into type. Tonight I'm kicking that bad habit and am determined it won't happen again!

We're good, nothing earth shaking to report. Well, that's not entirely true. Timmy is in need of some prayer. He's once again expected to need a hospital stay to clean him out. It turns out he quite possibly has Hirschsprung's disease. If that is the case he'll most likely also need surgery to remove the defective section of bowel. Poor sweetie.

So, like any other night, I'm up late, but this time with a little extra reason to worry about tomorrow's upcoming doctor appointment for Timmy.

Anyways, I'll be back shortly, promise! And drop a note letting me know how you are doing!

This past month I've been working on a Joomla 1.0 component that does something I've yet been unable to find anywhere else (hence the reason I wrote such a program myself) - it's something akin to an online time clock and billing system. I've named it Trio Billing.

What does it do? At first it seems like many other support ticket or project management systems. I should know, I've spent a considerable amount of time over the past few years trying to find one that will do what Trio Billing now does. But there's one thing all other ticket systems lacked, be they open source or several hundred dollars to purchase - they didn't have a timer! Seriously! Oh sure, you could keep track of your time yourself and they might include a place for you to make a note of how long the task took you. But seriously, for those of us that charge for our time, we need precision! I wanted a time clock that manages those details for me!

I found in my searching Task Hopper for Joomla 1.0. It seemed pretty great, and its only downfall was that it had several bugs and was no longer supported or maintained by its writers. It also lacked a billing system. After several years of using this program, limping as it were through invoicing and bug problems, I finally decided to fix those bugs and add to Task Hopper. The result is Trio Billing. Wish I'd written the program years ago! What a great time saver!

So, if you're looking for a time card system where you or employees can "punch in, punch out" and then bill for the time spent, this might be the perfect thing for you too. I use it to manage my clients and their projects, and when they have a support issue both they or I can add a ticket, and Trio Billing manages the time and cost to the client.

You can learn more at my professional website Trio GrOTO (which was recently relaunched with a new look!).

My son's kindergarten class created a book called "How to Cook a Turkey". Each student filled out a page that outlines their idea of how you cook a turkey. Here are a few of the good ones:

"I will shoot him in the woods. He will weight 2 pounds. I will cook him at 1 degree for 1 minute. I will stick a toothpick in the oven and if it is red it's ready and it is black it's too hot. If it's plain it's too cold. I will eat the meat in the tummy. It will taste just like meat."

"I will buy it at the grocery store. He will weigh 100 pounds and cost 6 dollars. I will put the oven at 100 degrees and cook him for 98 minutes. I will eat the whole thing!"

"I will shoot my turkey and he will weigh 2,000 pounds. I will bake him at 1,000 degrees for 20 minutes. I will know when he's done when the timer beeps. I will eat the leg and it will taste like a burnt turkey!"

and my son's page:

"I will buy my turkey at Walmart. I think he will weigh 15 pounds and cost 60 dollars. I will cook him for 10 minutes at 88 degrees. I will look at the timer to see when he's done. I will eat his legs and they will taste like meat!"

Those of you with a less than stellar sense of humor can skip to the bottom...

The Project Valour-IT Fundraiser has experienced a thermometer'napping!
(~Done)

*Late at night, as the few members of the Coast Guard team sat in shock watching their donation thermometer barely move while the Army and Navy sailed by, they hatched an ingenius plan...

Typing wildy on their computers, cutting letters from magazines, and hijacking the other teams' fundraiser gauges (while on a strict diet of Hot Pockets and Diet Coke)... they planned their overthrow and coup! No longer will the world be able to ignore their valient efforts,
heroic actions on behalf of the country, and formidable mass of bloggers (ok, well we give on that last one).

With plan in motion and nothing left to do but hit the big red button, they counted down under their breath: three... two... one... *

And here we are! With our LIST OF DEMANDS:

1. Publicly admit the Coast Guard team is a formidable competitor (trackback to this post for proof)
2. Watch The Guardian (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406816/)
3. Have 4 new donations to your team today (use links below), and encourage donations to the Coast Guard team for the rest of the day today.

When our demands have been met (as monitored by the Soldiers' Angels website team), your team's thermometer will be released.

Never underestimate the Coast Guard team! We may only have 3 members (so far...and what's up with that?!), but we can dominate! Want to be on the cool kids' team? Join the Coast Guard team today (we'll even accept team transfers - this IS a coup)! Want to help the Coast Guard team win this competition? Donate today on behalf of our team.

BOTTOM:

DONATE TO THE ARMY TEAM

DONATE TO THE NAVY TEAM

DONATE TO AIR FORCE TEAM

DONATE TO MARINE TEAM

Find it here: http://www.dbs.kneedeepinthehooah.com/clickme/november-14-2008/

(Even though they're on the Army team, kudos to them for the original funny)

The annual Project Valour-IT fundraiser started again this year on Veterans Day. It will continue throughout the next 2 weeks until Thanksgiving. In the past, I always joined the Marines Team, (well, lead the team - same thing) because they were the underdogs. Last year however, we almost won! In fact, for a short period of time we were in first place - the first time ever to be in first place (if even for only a day).

This year, for the first time, there are 5 teams instead of 4. The US Coast Guard is the newest team, and as the newest underdog I've switched loyalties to help the Coast Guard team ("help" being used loosely). And, other than the team leader, CG Blog, I'm the ONLY member! The Coast Guard team is also last place in donations, with only $225. You can view all team standings on the fundraiser page here:
http://soldiersangels.org/index.php?page=fundraiser

So...I'm putting out an alert! We need bloggers willing to join the newest Valour-IT fundraising team - the US Coast Guard! You can join the team here. It's quick and painless to join, and all you need to do as the newest teammate is blog about the fundraiser. Encourage your readers to visit the fundraising page and learn more about this wonderful program Project Valour-IT!

And, of course, you can add a donation button to your blog's post or sidebar to make it easy for readers to donate to the team you are supporting. I love a challenge, and it sure would be nice to recover from last place and give the other 4 teams a run for their money!

JOIN THE COAST GUARD TEAM!