MREMag website down

It says a lot about web designers technical understanding! And explains a lot of the unusable sites that exist (unusable as in completely uncomprehesible - nice pictures and no content!).

Richard

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If web site developers are only using Microsoft tools to design then they have no idea WHAT is being put into the pages, and it is in Microsoft's interest to make sure that proprietary code is included to that they are in control and can track USE of Microsoft software.

John,

It might just be laziness on the part of the designers - i.e. not checking their web pages on all the browsers that might be used. I can remember some years ago, when I was interested in web design. I subscribed to Compuserve forums which dealt with it, and the major message to everyone was to test your design on as many browsers that you could. At that time, the major source of incompatibility was between Netscape and Internet Explorer, both browsers having their own peculiar deviations from the standard.

Nowadays, it's a lot easier to check things out since a lot of web design software will let you use commercial browsers to check out your work and it is quite easy to swap between IE, Firefox, Opera, etc., to see if things are working OK.

Jim.

The Tower Models site doesn't use Microsoft software.

It's using a free toggle script from a Swedish site:

IE and Opera manage to handle it. Firefox is more fussy and doesn't. On balance, I prefer a browser which is fussy about what it's prepared to display.

Martin.

"beamendsltd" wrote

I don't see how their market share is increasing at the moment. Virtually all new computers are pre-loaded with M$ Windows software (including IE) and these new customers must outpace any switch to other browsers.

Out of the 20 or so people I know who run pcs, all use IE, and do so without problems. If it ain't broke, I don't see the need to fix it.

John.

Linux is catching on - it's converted me! Even Dell are selling Linux machines now. With instiutions like the EU embracing it, non-IE browsing is on something of a roll. I've also always used FireFox on the PC as does the Mem - it's much easier on the eye than IE, and doesn't come complete with security holes (well, nothing like to the extent of IE). On secutrity alone, IE is very broke, so does need fixing! From what I read on news groups, the latest version of IE is also causing major problems forcing users to down-grade, but on that I can't comment.

Of course, everyone is free to use what they want, but should be aware of the alternatives now MickSofts naughty business tricks have finaly been exposed and restricted.

Richard

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On 12/07/2007 00:11, Craig Douglas said,

I think you'll find that it's Tower Models website that is displaying incompatibility. There is a standard for web sites, and both Microsoft and Tower Models have chosen to ignore it. Those websites that don't support non-M$ browsers are potentially losing around 17% (I think is the lastest figure) of their customers.

20%? Where on earth do you get that figure from? Just looking through my Bookmarks folder, out of what must be in excess of 1000 in there, only Tower Models fails. It is extremely rare that I can't open a site properly with Firefox, and that is because the designer is not sufficiently competent in the W3C standard.

Incidentally, in the days when I could analyse visitors to my website, between 20% and 35% were using non-M$ browsers. Not just in one month, but on a continuous basis.

No-one can check with *all* browsers - for as start, few people are going to have Windows, Mac and Unix systems all to hand for testing. And don't forget things which aren't browsers, such as search engines crawling through your site to index it. In many ways being read by Google is more important than being read by someone using an out of the box PC.

Design to the standards. Much easier, and future-proof (which is the bit that got management to start to listen to me. My department wasn't asking for a redesign budget every time IE was updated). It is a bit like writing in English - there is no legal obligation to follow the "rules" of spulling n grama, but in general you need a good reason not to.

Having done some professional web work, the problems I've seen have mostly been down to low-to-middle mangers not have a clue about the web, combined with people who went on a one-day HTML 3.2 course in the late

1990s and so "know about IT". People think IE *is* the internet. They are probably the people who wouldn't buy a Bachmann train because they think model=Hornby. [1]

I'm sure this will change once people who grew up with the web start filtering into positions of power. Or the rest of us gang up and put the people who spew forth IE-only sites up against the wall...

[1] Last weekend a woman walked out of my local model shop empty-handed after the best efforts of the staff couldn't convince her than the products of Revell et al are the same concept as the "Airfix" she wanted.

(close-coupling systems for 00 gauge) doesn't work properly with Mozilla browsers. I told the owner about it several years ago, but it's still the same.

I never use IE, unless I am forced to (e.g. for Windows Updates and M$ Money). I've used Netscape/Mozilla since before Bill Gates started giving IE away. There has been a lot of publicity about Windows/IE security holes, and press reports that Firefox and other browsers are increasing market share. Who to believe?

I've never used OE for mail or news, either.