With the recent loss of Steve Jobs I felt I needed to write a little something to mark his passing; but with the eulogy that the Internet has become since his death I felt my words would simply be lost, or just not mean enough. A few days have passed and I felt now was a good time…

The thing is, that Steve, whether you liked him or not, had an attitude towards design, technology and life that changed the way the human race interact, communicate and learn with the devices around them. He was able to remove the technical boundaries from his mind and lead the creation of things that became extensions of ourselves, to make the way we create easier no matter what these creations needed to be; and that is why I think there has been such a reaction to his death.

Steve Jobs just knew what we wanted and gave his passion and eventually his whole life to make those needs a reality. Yes, there have been many visionaries before him, Bill Gates for instance has dominated the computer market with the Windows OS for nearly two decades, yet I don’t feel any empathy towards the man who created a system designed for those who had to have at least a basic knowledge of computers, and that is where Jobs differed.

Every piece of technology Apple has released in the last decade has not been made for geeks, they have been made for everyone! That is the genius of Apple and more accurately Steve himself, no matter who you are, what your knowledge, you should be able to use it, just like everyone can use a book or a pen.

And that is how I feel about Steve’s legacy, writing this on my iPad2, checking the responses to this on my iPhone and teaching my daughter how to use technology an her iMac – Thanks Steve

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!

The long awaited release of Microsoft’s latest operating system Windows 7 was last month and finally a few days ago my copy arrived, now I can finally upgrade from Vista and hope that Windows has become what Vista was supposed to be.

First I would just like to touch on the disaster that was Windows Vista -  Awkward, clunky, slow, irritating and depressing to use is pretty much a full review of the operating system; it simply couldn’t have been any further from its predacessor (Windows XP) if it had tried – Right that should be enough comment on Vista!

As I was so desperate to remove Vista from my PC as soon as I could I purchased the reasonably priced Windows 7 Home Premium (obviously I didn’t want to spend too much and end up with Vista’s bigger, uglier brother).  When it arrived I knew that it certainly couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as Vista had proved to be due to the Beta testing I had taken part in,  however, it had been a short while since I un-installed the Beta version and who knows what Microsoft may have done to it in that time!

So I began to install Windows 7 but the nightmare seemed to carry on from where Vista had left-off, ‘Windows cannot install until the following applications are removed’ – WHAT! – I was upgrading from Vista, not Windows ME and the apps in question were drivers surely Windows can handle some drivers,  at this point I was getting that sinking feeling of  “Oh what have I done purchasing this sofware, it is turning out to be a massive mistake”, but after a number of software removals and what felt like a dozen restarts I was finally on my way and from then on the process improved dramatically!

I experienced a slow but simple install but once I was up and running I had no real problems, my laptop had been transformed from the Awkward, clunky mess I mentioned earlier into a machine that did as I asked, when I asked and how I asked  (the shock was nearly too much to handle).  I then started to install a few key apps and would you believe it, no problems! – Microsoft seem to have not only made Windows simple, they had made it work, the ease of use at this early stage feels more like using Apple’s OSX than Windows (And I don’t use that statement lightly).  When you click a window it minimises straight away, browser windows launch immediately and files copy with ease, I assume this is how Vista was supposed to be!

I am in the early stages of testing Windows 7  but just maybe Microsoft have instead of trying to make there OS do everything, have just made it do the things people want quickly and easily.  I plan on putting Windows 7 through more day-to-day tests over the coming months and will post with the good and the bad of Windows 7, but in the meantime I can give it a whole-hearted thumbs up; and maybe, just maybe Microsoft are back on track.