Help for All Users: Simple Explanation

Trouble seeing things? - Simplest Answer

Then download the free Google Chrome and the free Foxit PDF Reader. This only applies to PC users using desktops, laptops, or netbooks (Windows Users). Google Chrome is faster, takes less memory, has more capabilities for web designers, is the standard for smartphones and tablets, works better on netbooks than Firefox, keeps your browser and Flash Player plugin up to date automatically, and includes a simple built in PDF viewer. Foxit PDF Reader includes everything necessary to view even the most advanced PDF with all their features, but is much faster, more efficient, more reliable, and more secure than Adobe Reader and is also free.

Keeping up with the latest version of your web browser, PDF viewer, Flash Player, and Flash blocker also helps protect you from Internet based worms, spyware, adware, scams, and identity theft. I am also very aware of the kind of features being used by other web designers and have factored that in, so if you stick with what software I recommend, for my website, you will be in good shape, for the best experience, at most other cutting edge websites, as well. Newer Internet software generally give better performance including being much faster on the slowest websites and make better use of the hardware your computer has like RAM and GPU.

Visitors using Macs, Apple iPhones, iPod Touches, or iPad tablets (with iOS 4.0 or higher) will already have an ultimate experience with the included web browser. The same applies for other phones that are in that league including Google branded phones and Palm's latest phones. Blackberry before OS 6 and Windows Mobile before OS 7 users will have a very bad experience and would do best to download Opera Mini and just visit my mobile section. Other users need to see what applies to their device as described in the other devices section.

For the Ultimate Experience

For a whole new fully immersive experience beyond just the new font and built in audio, use Internet Explorer 9 (for Windows Vista and 7 users), Firefox 4.0, Google Chrome 5.0 (stable channel version), SRWare Iron 5.0 (stable channel version), or Apple's Safari 5.0

The latest browsers will provide stunning visual effects involving high impact graphics shapes, light and shadow, and conditional formatting tricks, like: angled rounded corners on images, headings, quotes pages, and select paragraphs; image, page, quote rotation; text drop shadows on headings; drop shadows on images, quotes, select paragraphs; stylized drop caps for quotes; alternating colors for featured links; featured links going to a different website, going to another one of my websites, and on the same page marked as such; featured links to zip files marked as such; faded featured previously visited links; and background gradients.

This is all done without any plugins (including Flash Player), without any additional graphics or slower download times, it keeps the website just as accessible as before, and only needs to be edited in one place to change or update the entire website. Mac OS X 10.4 and higher (with all free updates installed) and Apple iPad (with iOS 4.2 and higher) and higher users have this out of the box, without installing anything.

Everything Already in Newer Apple Products

Mac OS X 10.4 and higher (with all free updates installed) has this functionality (included in Firefox and Seamonkey) plus PDF viewing (equivalent to Adobe Reader) and audio playing (either open source friendly or Apple and standard versions) built in without installing anything else.

iPhones and iPod Touches (with iOS 4.0 and higher) can see and hear everything fine, but you will see a different design. You will have no need to install anything.

Windows Users Ready for a Good Experience

For a basic or minimal experience, Windows users will need Internet Explorer 7 or 8, PDF viewer, and iTunes for my audio content. Most Windows XP and higher users already have all this installed.

Importance

These are all free and are used prominently throughout the web, so if you don't have them installed, you are missing out on a lot, so install them for free now.

See what browser you have currently and what your other options are. Google's Youtube is stopping support for Internet Explorer 6 and other older browsers, as of 13 March 2010.

Internet Explorer 9

Microsoft has just released version 9, of Internet Explorer, to the public, as it has made it through testing. I have been able to test it today, on my website, through a web browser testing service. The simple design, which is mostly yellow and one column works fine, with every version of Internet Explorer version 7 and higher. If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7, then you can upgrade Internet Explorer, to version 9.My website looks fine, in the advanced version, with Internet Explorer 9. It renders the fonts, layered backgrounds, transparency, angled backgrounds, rounded corners, and drop caps very well, but it does not support the text shadow, on the headings. I was unable to test the audio, that works, without requiring another program, on the virtual machine I used.

Another thing to check is the performance of Internet Explorer 9. If you can run Windows 7, with all its special effects, without any lag or slow downs, then it probably will work well, but if you bought a cheap laptop (or netbook), then it is likely that it will be slow (much slower than even the previous versions). One way to get it faster relatively cheaply is to add more RAM. I would recommend that you check the websites, that you frequent, to make sure they are compatible, as this browser has had a complete overhaul. Also the 64 bit version has much worse performance, to the point of being almost unusable, and should be avoided.

Security is improved greatly and the interface is now much more minimalistic - the controls are smaller, which gives you more space, for the web pages. If you use tabs, then you will likely have trouble using more than a few of them at once, because of Microsoft wanting to give extra space, for web pages. Search is now built into the address bar, so that would make me concerned about how the web browser knows, if you are typing in an address, or a search term, without having to type in special commands. The fonts look much smoother, but some people with poor eyesight will find the text harder to read. Things have also been changed significantly, for accessibility features, used by those who are sight impaired, so they might need to update screen readers, for this new version of Internet Explorer.

New Developments: Don't Do Anything

I have learned some new things, after: finding some good design magazines online, having invested in some more software/services, and that some new techniques are now available, that have matured recently. The result of these new developments is, that I was able, to get the custom fonts and many of the special effects, on my website, to work, with Internet Explorer 6-8.

The performance appears fine software wise, bit I don't know how much RAM, or how fast a processor is necessary, for reasonable/usable performance. The custom fonts look much better, on Internet Explorer 7, or higher. I was able to come close, to making the ideal design available, similarly to how it appears, in most of the more popular new browser, in Internet Explorer 6-8, but the performance suffers noticeably, as well as there being 2 many layers, for all the background designs, to show up correctly.

I can now fully test, for every major version of Internet Explorer, from 6 on, and can now support most, of the modern features, on these versions. I still recommend upgrading your browser to a better one, because of the security and performance benefits alone.