Thursday, May 30, 2002

A quick update on the Freelance Gig
If you're looking at it in Netscape 4, I have two tips:
1/for Pete's sake, upgrade to Netscape 6. Or Mozilla (which I was able to download on my 56k modem in less than 30 minutes). Or anything but Netscape 4.
2/Take another look -- even in your old, deprecated browser if you must. Extensive testing revealed that the site was less than attractive -- and less than readable -- in Netscape 4, especially on the Mac. I think I've fixed most of it. I know I haven't fixed all of it, but I'm getting what I can.

In our "soft launch" period -- which means we're showing it to friends, family and you -- we've had about 200 visitors. Only six have come with Netscape 4. But, this being my first dip into web design, it means a lot to me to have 1/reasonably fast downloads, not an easy feat for a photography site and 2/accessibility across all browsers. I tested this thing in Opera. I tested it in Netscape (although, obviously not enough in version 4; I have version 6 on my main machine.) But still, 96% of our first 200 visitors are using some version of Internet Explorer. And we wonder if Mr. Gates is running a monopoly.

Please pardon my absence from this neck of the Internet. Chasing Netscape 4 bugs has taken up a good deal of my free time and creative energy. Plenty has been on my mind; I just need to take a few minutes to put it into actual words. I will, soon.

No comments: