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I've always found it a pain to test in the various versions of Internet Explorer. In Windows, there's no easy way to install multiple versions, so whether you are working on a physical Windows machine, or a virtual machine via Parallels, VMware or some other virtualization software, proper testing in IE always required at least two or three separate machines.

The other day a co-worker showed me a cool little setup that will allow you to test in IE5, 5.5, 6, and 7 on the same physical Windows XP machine. I suppose this would also work on a virtualized copy of Windows XP on a Mac, but since this solution involves virtualization, you'd be running a virtual machine inside of another virtual machine, which means you'd need a heck of a powerful system.

Assuming you are running Windows XP, you should already have a copy of IE7 installed. One IE down, 3 more to go. So, here's how to get the rest of them:

1. Download VirtualBox and follow the installation instructions.
2. Grab the .iso for your choice of Linux distro (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Suse, Mandriva, or PCLinuxOS should work at the time of this writing) . I used Ubuntu in my setup.
3. Launch VirtualBox and setup a new virtual machine for your Linux distro.
4. Start the virtual machine and follow the prompts in the First Run wizard, making sure to set your media source to the Linux .iso you just downloaded.
5. Click Finish at the end of the wizard and your Linux distro should start the installation process (this process will vary depending on your distro of choice).
6. Visit the IEs4Linux website and follow the instructions to install cabextract, Wine and IEs4Linux.
7. Once you're done with the install, you should have icons on your Linux desktop for each of the IEs that you installed. Just double-click and point them at the URL you want to test!

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Up until this point, whenever I heard someone from Microsoft start talking about standards, I couldn't help but laugh while thinking of how badly IE has butchered them in the past. Standards compliance was somewhat improved with IE7, but it sounds like Microsoft has finally agreed to step up to the plate and make IE8's standards mode actually standards-compliant.

MS has fought standards-compliance as the rest of the world knows it for several iterations of IE, knowing that it would break a lot of old sites that were specifically targeted towards IE's faults. With IE8 they will admitedly break sites that do not specifically request a special http header/meta tag to trigger IE7 standards mode. It will be quite interesting to see how many sites this affects. I'm guessing a VERY large number.

Since some (but certainly not all) of the rendering differences between IE and standards-compliant browsers have been due to a certain degree of ambiguity in the W3C documentation, Microsoft's definition of "the most standards compliant way possible" may be far different than that of Firefox or Safari. It would be nice if they just used Firefox and Safari's interpretation of the W3C standards, but I'm sure that Microsoft will come up with their own creative way of interpreting them.

So kids, this is why you code to standards and make IE the exception, not the rule. For those who ignored the standards evangelists, let the fun begin...

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Have you ever wanted to test a newly developed site in a bunch of different browsers but didn't have four or five spare computers with various OSs and browser versions laying around? Well, browsershots.org might be the solution to your problem.

Just go to the site, enter your site's URL, then select the browsers you want to test in. Currently supported browsers are:

• IE 5, IE 5.5, IE 7, and Firefox 2.0 for Windows
• Firefox 2.0 and Safari 2.0 for Mac
• A ton of browsers/versions for Linux

Then, choose your other options such as screen resolution, Javascript enabled/disabled and version, Java installed/not installed and version, Flash installed/not installed and version, color depth, media plugins, and the maximum time you are willing to wait for your screen shots. That's all there is to it.

One dissapointing aspect of the site is that it is pretty slow to produce any results. I queued up a request for this site for IE 7 and set my maximum wait time to 30 minutes with all of the rest of the criteria set to "Don't Care". It ended up timing out of the queue before actually giving me anything. Hopefully the creator is working on speeding this up, because I don't think there are too many instances where someone will want to wait 4 hours (the maximum wait time) to see a screen shot. The good thing is that the site caches recent requests, so if a screen shot has been recently taken, you don't have to wait again. To see this in action, request a screen shot for microsoft.com or another popular site.

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Came across this site and thought it was pretty clever. It uses the design from the popular movie "Kill Bill" to get users to switch to Firefox.

http://www.killbillsbrowser.com/

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If you've ever coded a web page and tried it out in Firefox or another standards compliant browser, then opened the same page in IE only to find an entirely different looking page, you'll appreciate this Wordpress plugin. It encourages readers to make the switch to Firefox and puts money in your pocket if they do.

The plugin makes use of Google's Adsense referral program and requires that you setup an Adsense account (a simple process - just click the button below to get started).

Once you setup your Adsense account, just paste the Firefox referral code into the plugin file according to the installation instructions.

By using your choice of three different levels, you can control how aggressively you push the switch. Here are the descriptions from the Explorer Destroyer site:

Level 1: Gentle Encouragement Rating: $$
Visitors using IE see a message encouraging them to download Firefox (with a download link) running across the top of the page.
Level 1 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)

Level 2: Semi-serious Rating: $$$$
Visitors using IE get a friendly splash page encouraging them to download Firefox. There's a download link, and a link to continue on to your site.
Level 2 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)

Update: Xavier sent us this modified version of level 2 that will only show the splash page occasionally. Download it here and see a live demo here.

Level 3: Dead serious
Level 3 will not allow people using IE past a splash page. This level is very useful for sites that are not IE6 compatible. And there's never been a more important moment to switch people to Firefox. Can you handle it? (At least try it for a day to see how good it feels.) Unfortunately, level 3 is a little too intense for the Adsense policies, so for this level you'll have to use a regular, non-Adsense link to download Firefox.
Level 3 Demo >> (the demo will pretend you are using IE)

I'm still contemplating whether or not to use the plugin on this site. I'm a big Firefox fan, and yes, IE is a pain to code for, but some people may be put off, even by the Level 1 method. Let me know what you think.

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