lukep.net

Please.

I can’t stand testing websites in those wretched versions of Internet Explorer that way too many people still use, you might be one of them. The one thing about being a web developer that I increasingly enjoy less and less is the battle with making sites work on old, piece of crap browsers as well as the nice new ones.

I’m not ridiculing your choice of brower. I’m just pleading that you try something a little more updated than Internet Explorer 6 or less if you are able.

Firefox is nice. So is Opera. Even Internet Explorer 7 makes my life of development much easier. Netscape 9 looks pretty good (granted, it looks like Firefox with a different skin, at least that was my first impression). Any of those are very nice options.

Sure, it might be confusing to switch to a new browser. The menus might look different and things might work a little differently that you are used to with Internet Explorer 6. But, you wouldn’t decide to keep your Ford Festiva if you were offered a free upgrade to a BMW on the basis that the BMW would be different than the Ford Festiva you are used to, would you?

Lets not even get into the security issues involved with using outdated browsers. Just know that you should try to keep updated and your browsing experience will be more secure.

If you do upgrade and like your new browser, do us all a favor and recommend to your friends that they all upgrade too.

A continual crux of developing websites, or at least of developing websites that have user interactivity, is that you always have to input user details to test your applications. It goes with the territory. It has no purpose really, other than to test your applications (but that’s an important purpose, of course). The testing data is therefore not interesting to work with, usually. The same goes with the fake users that end up being put into the system, they are not actual people in most cases.

After having so many users with names along the lines of “asdf Williams”, or street addresses such as “lkjlkj ave. s.”, I figure why not set up a few fake fellows to use during testing. Feel free to use these people for your own testing. I won’t be offended and I won’t feel betrayed if they help you test some forms.

I won’t be giving them email addresses, we all know that it would be stupid to use an email address that you can’t use to receive any messages during testing. And, I also don’t want these fake fellows to be burdened with spam, fake fellows or not.

Enough of the introductions. Here’s the fake lineup of testing lackeys:

Johnathan Walker
9876 Pavement Street, #13
Sometown, GA 44332
P: 555-123-4567

Ralphie McRalphie
432 East West Street, #8743
Wayupthere, TX 54321
P: 987-654-3210

Jeffrey Fancypants
555 Buttercup Way
Imalamo, SD 22551
P: 112-334-5567

Calendelialitus Van Rotheresteradandylittlecar
Van Rotheresteradandylittlecar Family Manor III, Fourth Floor
South Berkenshire of the Great East Gate, West Mountain Union province VII
P: What’s a phone, you say?

That last guy will really put your form through the ringer. If anything, Calendelialitus will remind you that you have to have an automated email response or some kind of on-screen message to let users with user information like his off the hook. If I actually remember to use any of these poor saps during testing I’ll maybe report their usefulness, or lack thereof.

beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

[muddy voice] this is a test of the public internet broadcast system[/muddy voice]

this website is currently broadcasting from lukep.emergeproduction.com due to inadvertent “Sorry, we let your domain name registration lapse accidentally” of the lukep.net domain name by unsaid delinquent domain registration company

beeeeeeeeeeeeeep beeeeeep

Someday this website will be back at Lukep.net

I’m not sure if I might need to decide to get a new domain name to plug into this site, be it for a permanent solution or for a hopefully-not-too-much-longer temporary period. For now this address will have to do.

I have recently subscribed to the idea of utilizing small projects to force myself into learning a new technology that I will need to use to a greater extent in the future.

If not too familiar with ASP.net in C# for example, but needing to use it heavily on a project starting in a few months, why not use it for a couple smaller projects just for preparation? Projects get completed, income keeps flowing, and learning and experience building is happening all at the same time.

To take it a step further, it doesn’t hurt to ride out a few technologies that work well, in an attempt to just flat out keep things quick and effiecient. But, in the web development world there is always something new to learn, so I guess it just comes down to a good balance of both approaches.

This is basically just a plug to get more developers/designers to take the Web Design Survey for 2007, presented by A List Apart. Why not? If you’re in the industry, just do it.

More info, and to do it: http://alistapart.com/articles/webdesignsurvey

I ran across these bad boys today. I’ve had similar types of documents in the past to use for reference while developing websites, but these look much more concise and easy to reference. These are cheat sheets for HTML and CSS. One page a piece. Definitely worth a look if you use HTML / CSS a lot.

http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/cheat-sheets/html-cheat-sheet/

I would also suggest browsing around a bit more in that website, there are some other neato cheat sheets available and it’s a fun site in general.