RSSFeb 19 2009
A year ago I was in Thailand. Sigh.
So I’ve had this project at work for the past few months. And by “this project” I mean a P.R.O.J.E.C.T. One of those life-sucking, eyeball-gauging, hair-pulling projects where you work non-stop at every single moment, and even in the moments you’re not actively working on it, you’re thinking about how you should be working on it, and you can’t sleep because you’re trying to solve the problems of the project as you lie in bed, despite having to wake up at 5:30am to work on the project, and because you’ve invested so much time in it you become obsessed with the perfection of the project, even though it’s impossible to achieve perfection, mostly because this project involves working with Internet Explorer.
Let me break it down for you: INTERNET EXPLORER IS THE SPAWN OF SATAN.
I won’t go into the technical/boring reasons why IE is the devil. Basically: you can work for hours on a website making sure everything pretty and perfect and functioning, and then open up the site in IE where it looks like you threw up all over the page. It’s time to lodge formal complaint.
DEAR the 65% of my employers’ readership that obstinately continues to use Internet Explorer for their web browsing needs:
You are putting me in an early grave. Get with the times. You know how Tinkerbell taught us that every time you clap your hands you save a fairy’s life? Well, every time you download and switch to Firefox, a shriveled-up, sleep-deprived, comatose web designer somewhere in the world can avert their glassy stare from the computer monitor, stand up from the office chair, and LIVE. Do your part, people.
Love,
Brittany
I haven’t had to work or think this hard since…well, ever. But, over the course of the past week, something has changed: I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I can feel a faint breeze. Do I detect the slightest scent of roses in the air? A few more days’ hard push and maybe, dare I say, the worst will be over?
And once I’ve sufficiently recovered, I just might redesign EAMD. Because I hate myself.
Tell me about it!
I’ve stopped supporting IE6 on all of our projects and feature-fade on clients work. There’s no way you can/should expect pixel-perfect design across multiple browsers.
Yeah I have to deal with this a lot too. Where I work we mainly do work for local councils. They are really stuck in the past and all our websites & applications have to work perfectly in IE6 and there’s nothing we can do to get out of it
They are so reluctant to change.
Interesting, there’s a bit of a wave of “ditch IE” spreading round the internet at the moment. A lot of big sites in Norway have all put up messages asking users using IE6 to upgrade their browser (more info on that) and a lot of people are starting to follow the trend and do the same. So fingers crossed!
Oh God, I hate IE. I used it exclusively until September and then switched to FF, and now I’m amazed by all the crap I didn’t realize I was doing. I’m working in web design now, and cross-browser compatibility is likewise sending me into an early grave.
Because IE7 is bad enough, but let’s not forget – IE6.
(Also, web design AND travel? You win. I am totally subscribing to your feed right now.)