Help for All Users: Levels of Support

Level 1 Support: Ultimate Experience

For the ultimate experience, I recommend using Internet Explorer 9 (for Windows Vista and 7 users), Firefox 4.0 (released in March 2011), Seamonkey 2.1 (released in June 2011), Google Chrome 5.0 (stable channel version) (Chrome autoupdates itself to the latest version), SRWare Iron 5.0 (stable channel version), Apple Safari 5.0 (plus iTunes - just for Safari users) (released in June 2010). This allows you to see my website as intended. Most of this is extra formatting is not necessary for my website to function.

Problem with Firefox 3.6 and Safari 4

The ultimate experience also allows, for zooming in, indefinitely, on the important text, on each page, due to my design making use, of real text, with custom fonts (designed to be readable at small sizes) and vector graphics, for backgrounds, to allow optimum navigation, on a portable device, or for people, who need, to zoom in, on the page, to read it. This also makes the text crisp and clear, as possible, on a device, with a higher, than normal resolution, like the iPhone and iPod Touch 4 and higher, while still having the pages load fast.

There are also 5 different designs, for different contexts: 2 for small screens, depending on device orientation, one for print, and 2 for advanced browsers with big screens, depending on device orientation, as well as a separate mobile site, for even less capable phone browsers. This way, even after zooming in, the text and graphics are crisp and clear, with no distortion, even, at the highest level, of magnification.

Unfortunately, this made my website unreadable in Firefox 3.6 and look horrible in Safari 4.0, due to bugs, in these browsers. Firefox and Safari, in previous, and later versions, works fine. The only way to fix this, without slowing my website down, on mobile devices, and/or having, to update, every page, of my website, would make it incompatible, with Internet Explorer 6-8. As long as you have Firefox 4.0 or Safari 4.1 or higher (comes with iOS 4.0, or higher, and Mac OS X 10.4, or higher, with free all updates applied), you will be able, to take advantage, of these new features.

Ultimate Experience: Apple Users

Mac OS X 10.4 and higher with all updates, Apple iPad   with iOS 4.2 or higher (released in November 2010) give their users an ultimate experience on my website.

iPhone and iPod Touch users can see all the ultimate level of formatting with iOS 4.0 or higher (released in June 2010), and the experience is ultimate, but the specific design is different, because the size is so different.

Ultimate Experience: Linux Users

Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and openSUSE Linux 10.4 give their users an ultimate experience on my website with no updates needed.

Ultimate Experience: PC Users

. There are now 4 total (related) ways to upgrade your Internet experience for Windows Users. There is also another popular browser, that will very likely give an ultimate experience, on Windows: Maxthon 3 in Ultra Mode (but I cannot test for it currently).

Windows users need to install Adobe Reader 5.0 (released in May 2001), Foxit Reader 3.0, or Sumatra PDF reader. For Windows users, most brand name PCs that came with Windows XP and higher already have a new enough version of Adobe Reader already installed on your computer. Keeping up with the latest version of your PDF reader also helps protect you from Internet based worms, spyware, adware, scams, and identity theft.

Level 2 Support: Good Experience

For most of the main features of the website, Internet Explorer 7 (released in October 2006) and 8 (released in March 2009) and higher will work great. There is also another popular browser, that will very likely give an good experience, on Windows: Maxthon 1 (released in 2003) and higher. With one of these browsers, you will see the special fonts and many of the special effects.

Firefox 3.6 and Safari 4 users will not be happy with my ideal website design. I recommend they make the window smaller, until they see the failsafe website design

Windows users need to install Adobe Reader 5.0 (released in May 2001), Foxit Reader 3.0, or Sumatra PDF reader. For Windows users, most brand name PCs that came with Windows XP and higher already have a new enough version of Adobe Reader already installed on your computer.

Level 3 Support: Basic or Minimal Experience

For the basic features of my website, you can use Firefox 2.0-3.0 (released in October 2006) Seamonkey 1.1 (released in January 2007), or K-meleon 1.1-1.5 (released in May 2007). You will not see the more advanced features of the website and you will need plugins for hearing the audio on my site like iTunes or VLC player.

Windows users need to install Adobe Reader 5.0 (released in May 2001), Foxit Reader 3.0, or Sumatra PDF reader. Most Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7 or higher users will likely have this already installed. Safari 3.1 (released in March 2008) and Opera 8 (released in April 2005) and higher support the same level of experience.

This is the same level experience supported on the Nintendo Wii and DS. RISC OS and BeOS are at this level currently, but will likely move up to ultimate experience in the next couple of years.

Totally Unsupported

Internet Explorer 6 (released in August 2001) and lower and all versions of Netscape (final version released in October 2007)  and Mozilla (superseded by Seamonkey in January 2006) are not supported.

Consumer Software Choice is Morally Neutral

Even though I don't like older software or Internet Explorer 6-8, you need to make the decision that is right for you. There is nothing wrong with being satisfied with a basic or minimal web experience. Whichever choice you make, be happy that you still do have a choice. That is the beauty of the web and open standards: you are never locked in or out because of a lack of compatibility. That is why I keep all my work in open file formats.

Nobody has the time to be an expert in everything. For some people, it may not be worth the time to learn what a web browser is. It is not your fault that Microsoft refused to make Internet Explorer 6-8 compatible with the web and it should have never been necessary for you to concern yourself with what browser you use, but that is the situation today. That is why I look forward to new consumer electronics from Apple and web based Google and Microsoft software, because with Apple, Google, and the latest Microsoft products you do not need to concern yourself with things like this.

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.