Tomorrow morning I'm going to do just that by setting my default browser to Internet Explorer 5 Mac.

Got a Mac? Download IE5 Mac and do the same. (If you use that other operating system, install MultipleIE and use IE5 for Windows.)

Stuff and Nonsense on IE5Mac

For A Beautiful Web on IE5Mac

Hardboiled Web Design on IE5Mac

Take screenshots of the sites you visit and upload them to the IE5 Mac Flickr group. How long will you stand it? My money is on less than an hour.

After spending any time with IE5, I bet you’ll feel a whole lot better and more confident about explaining that web sites don’t and can’t look the same in every browser.

Published in Loose talk.

— Expect Hardboiled Web Design to be like no other CSS book you’ve ever seen.

Published in External links.

I’m over the moon to announce that my next book, “Hardboiled Web Design”, will be published by Five Simple Steps. I could not be more excited.

Working with New Riders over the last four years has been a dream come true. Without them, their patience and their support, Transcending CSS would never have been written, nor would it have helped my career in the positive ways that it has. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for everything that they have done for me and I sincerely hope that we will work together in the future.

So why choose a smaller independent?

For a number of reasons.

Hardboiled Web Design will be more than just a CSS book. It will cover so many of the exciting possibilities offered by CSS3 (and HTML5) in ways that I know will be unique and I hope will inspire people to eagerly grab hold of them with both fists.

Design and quality really matters to me. I want everyone who buys the book (in whatever format) to gasp when they see it. So working side-by-side with the team at Five Simple Steps and Mark Boulton Design means that I know that the book’s design will be everything that I imagine it will be.

Being independent, we have the opportunity to control every aspect of design and production from layout and illustration through to printing and packaging. Mark’s Designing For The Web is a perfect example of how being small and focussed can help to create something amazing.

I get to pick the team too. Working with Mark and his team will be a privilege, but for me it only gets better. Tim Van Damme, whose design and technical skills I admire enormously, has agreed to come on board as design and technical reviewer, backed by editor Chris Mills. Simon Collison has kindly agreed to write the introduction, with a foreword by Jeffrey Zeldman.

Only a few years ago I couldn’t have imagined that physical, printed books would be only one of many ways that people like to buy and read technical books. That is why Mark and I have decided to publish Hardboiled Web Design as a beautifully bound reference book and in PDF and ePub formats.

Later in the year, we will also be creating a Hardboiled interactive iPad version of the book complete with built in demos and video tutorials. This ability to publish in innovative new formats and to work with a small, focussed team on creating something that no one has done played a huge part in deciding to publish with Five Simple Steps.

It would be dishonest not to mention that there is also a strong financial motive behind the deal. As someone who runs a small business, this deal allows me to spend more time on making Hardboiled Web Design everything that I want it to be. I hope that will be great news for everybody who buys and enjoys the book.

So now it’s back to writing and designing. The Hardboiled Web Design site is live (with Easter eggs) and you can keep in touch with its progress and see sneak previews by leaving your details on the site or following @itshardboiled on Twitter.

Published in News.

Published in External links.

Published in External links.

— Couldn’t agree more. Speak The Web was a triumph.

Published in External links.

Published in External links.

Published in External links.

Last year, RIM bought browser-design firm Torch Mobile Inc. That move makes Webkit the dominant rendering engine for mobile devices with all of the advantages that brings for designers and developers who want to embrace progressive CSS3 properties and more.

On the desktop, Internet Explorer may still be dominant, but taking into account the widening of the overall browser landscape, one that includes Webkit (Safari, Google Chrome, Shira and more), Gecko (Firefox, Camino and others) and Presto (Opera), it’s clear that the days in which we base our designs around the capabilities of Internet Explorer as the benchmark are growing shorter.

Still, every day I hear from designers and developers who say, “my clients won’t let me use progressive CSS it is not supported by IE” and “I will have to wait until IE6 diminishes and IE renders CSS the same as other browsers”. The comments section of any Smashing Magazine CSS3 article are littered with similar comments.

This is depressing for those of us who believe we should be basing our designs on the capabilities of the best browsers and not the capabilities of the worst. But it’s also an argument that can be easily solved if you handle it correctly.

So tomorrow, next week, next month, but as soon as you can, I want you to try this experiment with your clients, whether they be external or internal at your organisation.

Ask them outright,

What would you prefer me to do?

Spend my time hacking around issues in older technologies like Internet Explorer 6 or would you like that time spent making the site look the best that it can on better desktop browsers, as well as on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry and a whole host of other mobile devices?

I have a feeling I know what the answer will be, but I don’t have your clients or your day job or your approach to dealing with people. I have my own.

Do try this at work. And please tell me what happens.

Published in Cascading Style Sheets.

Published in External links.