I recently downloaded Pixelmator 2 without researching it fully online; looking back this was a foolish thing to do!

The search has been on now for a decent Photoshop replacement, Gimp and Sumo paint have been in the running but none of them really felt as easy to use. Then version 2 of Pixelmator started to be discussed via Twitter, so I decided to wait until it’s release and see what the general consensus was.  The initial comments were positive, it seemed to do everything I would need (with no mention of CMYK support) and I foolishly took it as a true Photoshop alternative and promptly downloaded it from the App store. I should also add, that my eagerness to download was not just due to my own impatience, but also to cash in on the $29.99 price offer before it rose to a slightly less appealing $59.

It may sound cheap, but times are hard!

So happily I played with the functions, all was going well and then I decided to colour balance some images ready for a magazine I was working; and that is when I noticed, no CMYK! What!, surely a product offering Photoshop like functionality would be aimed at a market of designers who may get involved with print at least now and again? Well it would appear not, and the $29.99 I spent now feels a little like a silly waste of money as I revert back to using the amazingly expensive Photoshop for all my work.

There are ways of converting images to CMYK outside of the Pixelmator app; but do I really want to be balancing images in Pixelmator and then firing them through Colour Sync to convert them to CMYK? That just feels like a bloated process to me.

So, for now Photoshop still rules for me as far as usability and functionality, even though it is one of the most unstable applications out there.

If in the meantime anyone knows of any good alternatives or processes that can get around the short fall in Pixelmator, then please feel free to contact me; and if I manage to find a solution I will update this article so we can all try and save some money instead of lining Adobe’s pockets.

I am always looking for new and easy ways to test websites I have created in all the modern browsers, and recently stumbled across ‘spoon‘.

In a nutshell spoon gives you the ability to run any app virtually, with no complex setup or install.  Simply download and install the spoon plug-in and you’re ready to run a huge selection of open source apps for free including web browsers, media editors, audio players, office suites and the list goes on.

Obviously this appealed to me and certainly seemed like a great way to test my web projects;  with its support for all major versions of IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera it would make my life so much easier and bring a more consistent look to my designs across all platforms.  The great thing is that once you have downloaded and installed the plug-in you are only a few clicks away from running any open source app virtually, and for cross browser testing I have been hard pushed to find anything better.

As well as running free open source apps spoon does offer a premium service where developers are able to run and test their own applications.

However, as with most things there are always a few draw-backs.  spoon doesn’t support Mac; I made some inquiries regarding the development for this and was given the impression it would be quite some time before this was released, late 2011 was the advised date which is a shame for all those Mac based designers out there. Personally I do own a PC laptop, but this certainly doesn’t give me the best experience when viewing any of my sites.  I also found the service to be inconsistently slow for no reason but in its defence it is still far quicker than any of the alternatives such as browser shots.

spoon is certainly a step in the right direction for both app and cross-browser testing; I would just like to see the support for Mac hurried a little.

A number of web designers have decided to stop supporting some browsers and particularly Internet Explorer (IE6 to be precise), but as IE6 becomes the native browser for a number of smart phones is it right to dismiss what still can be a large and relevant section of your audience.

I have been designing pages for a number of years now and have experienced my fair share of Internet Explorer 6 nightmare moments, however, this has never stopped me supporting this browser along with others.  During the past three years I have tried to support the main browsers, IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari, a decision simply based on the analytics available to me which have shown that IE in all its versions is the most popular followed closely by Firefox then Safari and Chrome, so it puzzles me why some designers and companies have decided to stop support for IE6!

My job as senior web-designer is measured on a number of factors, these are unique users, page impressions and visit duration; all these are affected by how accessible the website is.  Accessability at its essence is making a site easy to use for all users, people are coming to your site with varied skills and technology,  from many geographical locations and cultures so we as web designers have a duty to make our sites for all these people.  It seems however, that an ever growing number of designers want to ‘Kill IE6′ to somehow make the Internet a better place but punishing the ill-informed seems to be a very negative way to do so.

IE6 until recently was the most popular browser, this is  simply because it was the standard install with Windows XP and for many users of PC’s IE6 is just a window to the Internet nothing more; other users of IE6 don’t have a choice, the technology infrastructure in some companies is old leaving their employees no other option but to use this old browser, finally certain smart phones are using a web browser based on IE6 which we can only assume will become more popular over the coming months and years.  With all this in-mind how can anybody seriously think about not supporting what is going to be part of the web for the immediate future at least, I understand that it makes the overall design process more difficult but who said web design was ever going to be easy!

I became a designer to creating designs for all to enjoy, so not supporting at least the main browsers goes against all I am trying to do.  So to help make things less painful with cross browser testing here are a couple of  links to services I have used and would recommend.

Browser Shots is a comprehensive online testing solution (external link)

IEtester – great for ironing out quirks between IE versions (external link)

Don’t forget, as designers or even users of the Internet with knowledge we shouldn’t damage peoples experience, we should educate and advise to help make things better for all!