View your website in any browser March 22, 2007
Posted by Joe in : Technobabble , add a comment
While I’ve been designing the website for Connections Made Easy, I’ve been particular about making sure most browsers render the site correctly. In fact, most do, minus one glaring submission: Internet Explorer 6.
I only know this from viewing the site on a friend’s computer. I don’t have IE6 anymore (upgraded to IE7) and I don’t plan on using virtual machines or going through the arduous task of installing IE6 next to IE7 (no thanks). It seems IE6 decided to move my pages to the left instead of keeping them center, and it also smudged my menu items closer together. All in all, its not so bad, but since most of the PC services market is probably still using IE6, I’m going to have to go out of my way to make it perfect.
In this situation, I found Browsershots to be extremely useful. As a free, web-based service, you just type in the URL of your site (either your domain or include the page for specific pages) and select which browsers and settings to use. You can select virtually ANY browser across Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms. You can also pick and choose color depth, resolution, and more. In the end, you’re placed in a queue and after 15-60 minutes you’ll be able to refresh the page and see screenshots from the various browsers of your page. The service is a little quirky (sometimes you don’t get all the screenshots) and can be very slow (your site might expire before you even get the screenshots, so be sure to increase the Wait Time).
All in all, Browsershots is a great service, especially since its free. But if you’re like me and you need the shots back on the spot, try url2image. I haven’t actually tried it yet but I’d imagine it is fast since you’re paying for it. Its pretty cheap - you can get 2 screenshots for $1 or 100 for $20. I can’t imagine using more than 100 and for $20, it saves a heck of a lot of time. I’ll try it out and update this post when I do.
Now you have no excuse to ignore cross-browser compatibility ever again!
SimpleFit and CrossFit: Building a Better Body (like the 300!) March 15, 2007
Posted by Joe in : Health and Fitness , add a commentI’ve been working out for a while now trying to build up my body. Everyone is probably in agreement that working out on a consistant, dedicated basis takes a lot of time, effort, and will to get the job done. I’m always looking for new ways of building muscle faster and cutting the fat even quicker. After seeing the kick-ass movie The 300, I wanted to learn what the actors did to get their bodies in to that kind of shape.
As it turns out, they were all conscripted into The 300 Workout. At Gym Jones, an exclusive, invite-only gym, owner Mark Twight put the actors and crew through a rigourous four-month workout to not only sculpt the actors’ bodies to perfection but to give them the range of motion and strength that should accompany such bodies. The basis for his methods appears to be the CrossFit training style. You can read more about the workout Mark Twight put the cast and crew of The 300 through over here at Digg- The 300 Workout.
CrossFit seems to be an up-and-coming method of training that involves a lot of timed, intense, and quick workouts that stress as much of the body as possible. If you just follow the Workout of the Day on their website you’ll see just how intense it is. I’m not in the kind of shape I need to be to follow most of the CrossFit workouts, and I happened to come across something else - SimpleFit. (more…)
