Adobe BrowserLab: test your websites

If you do web site development you’re probably well-acquainted with browser testing*—checking your site in a variety of web browsers to ensure that you know how it’s going to look and behave for the vast majority of users. You especially want to test against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser: it has been one of the worst in terms of rendering consistent with HTML and CSS web standards.

Adobe has a free online tool—BrowserLab—that will let you check your site in a simulated browser session using a wide variety of rendering engines, including IE 6, 7, 8 and 9, various versions of Chrome, Safari, Opera and Firefox. You can specify Windows or OS X versions and quickly check where you may need to fix some coding errors, or even hack your perfectly-compliant code to accommodate IE’s willful ignorance of basic CSS rules.

BrowserLab is really useful, and seems to give an accurate rendering. I fired up Windows in a virtual machine on OS X and did some testing with the Windows versions of IE 7, Chrome, Safari and Firefox, and then checked the results against BrowserLab—the results in Windows looked the same as what I got from BrowserLab, including some ridiculous scrolling issues on Chrome 11. You just need to create an account on the site and log in to use it.

* If you’re not testing against other browsers besides IE on Windows, or whatever development platform you use, give it a try and make sure that your site looks the way you expect it to across different browsers and operating systems. Your users will appreciate it.

Google Chromebook

Simplicity, security and speed. These are the three virtues Google is promoting to the enterprise with their new Chromebook.

Google claims new users can be up and running on the system within four minutes — and that includes unboxing time. Gone are the days when a new employee must wait for an appointment with an IT person to get up and running on the system. Everything can be done remotely.

Whether or not this approach makes sense for many companies will depend heavily on the application needs of the organization. If you rely on Microsoft’s Exchange or Office applications, Chromebook is not for you. But for smaller organizations that have some flexibility in their choice of applications, or those who are giving serious thought to a cloud-based approach to infrastructure, this might be the start of an important shift in equipment provisioning and support.

More info about Chromebook from the FAQ:

What is a Chromebook?

A Chromebook is a mobile device designed specifically for people who live on the web. With a comfortable full-sized keyboard, large display and clickable trackpad, all-day battery life, light weight, and built-in ability to connect to Wi-Fi and mobile broadband networks, Chromebooks are ideal for anytime, anywhere access to the web. They provide a faster, safer, more secure online experience for people who live on the web, without all the time-consuming, often confusing, high level of maintenance required by typical computers.

What is Chrome OS?

Chrome OS is an open source operating system for people who spend most of their time on the web. It is built around the core tenets of speed, simplicity and security.

Who should use a Chromebook?

Chromebooks work best for people who live on the web – spending most of their time in a browser using web applications.

A Decentralized Web?

A report over at ReadWriteWeb about a possible P2P (peer-to-peer) approach to the web, eliminating the need for a web server for certain kinds of applications.

Imagine a web where our browsers connected directly to each other to do voice, video, media sharing and run applications, using P2P and real-time APIs, rather than going through centralized servers that controlled traffic and permissions.

Part of the appeal here is the potential to maintain network channels independent of a corporation or government’s ability to bring them down.

Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon just announced their Cloud Drive service. It’s not an automated file syncing service like Dropbox—it’s (currently) a manual, browser-based upload to a file share on Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3). Dropbox is built on the S3 infrastructure, though, so I wonder what Amazon will do in terms of building their own application or API for syncing. Amazon knows storage and Dropbox knows syncing, so maybe there’s an acquisition in the future here.

Pricing looks very good for what they’re offering. You get 5 GB free to start with if you have an existing Amazon account.

Dashkards: cheat sheets for Mac apps

Dashkards is a site with keyboard shortcuts for some popular Mac apps. This is a good reference tool for learning how to get around your apps quickly, especially for commonly-used functions. They currently have a limited number of apps there, but it’s a good site to bookmark.

20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

From the Google Chrome team, a fun look at web and browser technologies in 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web. Very nicely done, and useful if you’re interested in learning a little more about how these things work.

Some of the topics covered include:

• Cloud computing
• Web apps
• HTML5, Javascript, CSS
• Browser plug-ins
• Malware, phishing & security
• IP addresses & DNS

If you use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) web browser on Windows, take a few minutes sometime to download and install one of the following web browsers (free!) and see how sites likes the one linked to in this post really come alive with a modern browser.

• Google Chrome: www.google.com/chrome
• Mozilla Firefox: www.mozilla.com/firefox
• Apple Safari: www.apple.com/safari

Chances are good you’ll keep using one of these alternate browsers – they’re all better than IE, in my opinion.

Google Refine

Today Google announced Refine 2.0, a “power tool for working with messy data sets, including cleaning up inconsistencies, transforming them from one format into another, and extending them with new data from external web services or other databases.” It looks kind of like an extension of Google Spreadsheets with some powerful data-scrubbing features.

Open source (Mac, Windows, Linux) project is here: code.google.com/p/google-refine

The Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit & Guide

I’m a fan of Dropbox—the cloud data sync service—and if you are too you might find something of interest in The Ultimate Dropbox Toolkit & Guide over on the Appstorm site.

They’ve collected an impressive list of ways to make a valuable tool even more so, including:

• Local Area Network sync (if you have more than one computer on a LAN you can sync directly among them without going to the cloud first)
• Password sync (I use this with 1Password)
• Share photo galleries
• Sync your iTunes library across multiple computers
• Send files to Dropbox by email
• PHP Dropbox uploader
• Website file hosting and sharing

Take your files mobile with Dropbox

Here’s the idea: you’re away from your computer—Mac or PC—and you want to use your mobile device to access folders and files that are saved on your computer. A cloud sync service like Dropbox can fill that gap and provide quick and easy access to your files. I’ve been testing this for a while and it works great.

The way it works:

• You have a Dropbox account (free 2 GB account, or pay for more space).
• The Dropbox application is installed on your computer, which creates a folder called ‘Dropbox’ and syncs this folder (and every folder inside it) to your online account.
• Any folders and files that you would like to be able to access on your mobile device, just move those into the Dropbox folder structure.
• Install the free Dropbox app on your mobile device, enter your login information, and have access to your online account and all of the folders and files you have synced up on your computer.

It’s important to point out that this is not some ‘virtual’ folder—the Dropbox folder and its subfolders actually exist on your computer, so it’s no different than your current folder hierarchy: your data is still stored on your hard drive. The only difference is that once a file is saved locally, a copy automagically gets pushed to the cloud. This serves several purposes:

1. A remote backup of your files. In case your computer were stolen or damaged such that you couldn’t get to your data, you could recover your files from Dropbox. This is reason enough to do it.
2. Remote access for viewing up-to-date copies of all your files when you’re away from your computer.
3. The ability to share a file with someone else, either by using the Public folder or by emailing a link to the file directly from the Dropbox mobile app.

As of this writing Dropbox mobile apps are available for iPhone, iPad, Android, and iPod Touch—according to the Dropbox Anywhere page, Blackberry support is coming as well.

I’ve found the Dropbox service and the mobile applications to be very stable and reliable so far as I have used them on iPhone and iPad. I experimented for a while with a free 2 GB account, but recently upgrade to the 100 GB service for $20 a month.

I’ve mentioned Dropbox in several blog posts—I’m not involved with the company in any way, just a satisfied customer. They’re doing a really good job.

Get a Blog / CMS

This post is focused on blogs and publishing (Content Management Systems, or CMS)—the companion piece to this is Get a Web Site where I looked at some of the products and services for creating your own site without the need to hire web designers and programmers—but there’s not too much difference these days between a web site and a blog, depending on what it is you want to do. It’s easy enough to create a space for both or just combine the two, but before you choose a technology platform it’s important to be clear about your online goals, and plan your approach from there.

Some of the options listed here will provide a hosted environment for your blog, or let you install the software on your own domain. The top blogging systems available today are outstanding in the level of functionality and control they provide, allowing anyone to publish something very sharp and professional-looking. You can’t go wrong with any of the products listed here, they are all good.

Some features to consider when planning your blog/CMS:

• Embedded video, audio, maps
• Photo galleries
• Social media integration (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc)
• Form building & data collection
• Discussion forums
• Calendar of events
• E-commerce (online product sales)
• Site analytics/stats (tracking visits to the site, pages accessed, keywords used, referring sites, etc)
• Polls/voting options
• Blog post comments
• Custom HTML, CSS, javascript, PHP
• Companion mobile-optimized app

WordPress

WordPress.org (www.wordpress.org) is the organization that develops and supports the WordPress blogging software. They don’t offer hosting on their domain, but they provide the free software and templates to install on your own web host. It’s the system I installed for this blog, and I like it a lot.

WordPress.com (www.wordpress.com) provides free hosting for your blog on their domain (yoursite.wordpress.com) if you don’t want to register and maintain your own domain.

Both of the WordPress services above offer the same technology, site templates, plugins for additional functionality (contact forms, image galleries, comment management, site statistics, etc), and support forums. WordPress is probably the most feature-complete and well-supported blogging system available today. They have done a fantastic job, especially considering they are giving it away for free.

TypePad

TypePad (www.typepad.com) is another popular blog system, with lots of well-designed templates and advanced features. They charge for their service but the prices are reasonable, starting at $9 per month which includes web hosting. TypePad supports audio, video, javascript, custom HTML, mapping to your own domain name, site statistics, and much more.

Movable Type

Movable Type (www.movabletype.com) labels itself a “Social Publishing Platform” for creating blogs, websites and social networks. I haven’t used it but it appears to be targeted to more sophisticated needs than just basic blogging and web sites. Their showcase page and client list show some of the people and organizations that publish with Movable Type. Movable Type is free for a basic version and pricing options are listed for more complex needs on this page. I think the pricing is very reasonable for a business site, considering how much this system offers.

Squarespace

I haven’t spent any time using Squarespace but I watched the product tour video and it’s very impressive, and appears to be one of the most popular blog systems going. Pricing starts at $8 per month and goes up from there, depending on feature needs. They have a nice examples page to get an idea of how people are using it.

Tumblr

Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) may be one of the easiest systems to get started with. You set up a site name — hosted on their servers or your own web host — pick a theme (template) and start posting. I like its simplicity: you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Post text, photos, quotes, links, dialogues, audio, video, slideshows, whatever. Keep it private or share it. There are some really nice design themes to choose from. Check out the Why Tumblr page for some inspiration. Cost: free.

Blogger

Blogger (www.blogger.com) was acquired by Google a couple of years ago and has a large user base. Like Weebly it uses a simple drag-and-drop interface to put various elements on the page. Access controls let you decide who can edit and publish to your site, so you can keep it to yourself or share out your blog with family or a work team. Blogger profiles let you look up others who share your interests. They also have a variety of design themes to choose from. Blogger provides the hosting, and it’s all free.

Posterous

Posterous (www.posterous.com) calls itself the “dead simple place to post everything” — for first timers, casual bloggers, social media pros, families and groups. I’ve explored Posterous a bit and it’s really simple to get a casual blog up in a matter of minutes. Free.

2010 Product Reviews and Comparisons

I found some online reviews and comparisons among blog software and CMS systems. I don’t know how authoritative this is, but it seems to be a pretty complete overview of the major systems out there.

Blogging Platforms (blog-software-review.toptenreviews.com)

1. WordPress
2. TypePad
3. SquareSpace
4. LiveJournal
5. Blogger
6. BlogHarbor
7. Xanga
8. EasyJournal
9. Open Salon
10. Vox

Content Management Systems (cms-software-review.toptenreviews.com)

1. eZ Publish
2. Joomla!
3. Drupal
4. WordPress.org
5. Movable Type
6. Expression Engine
7. Mambo
8. TextPattern
9. b2evolution
10. Frog