VirtualBox (FREE)
MultipleIEs (FREE)
Windows CD (XP recommended)

About

As a designer or a coder, you’ll reach a point when you want to make sure that your design looks consistent across the numerous Microsoft browsers using your Mac.

There are several ways to quickly check if it looks OK using sites like Browsershots and Adobe BrowserLab, however, those won’t actually allow you to browse the site so you can’t tell if your JavaScript is behaving as it should, your animation effects, hover effects – basically anything that moves.  In this case you’d need to get Windows working on your Mac.  There’s a few ways to do this too, including BootCamp, VMWare, Crossover.

The thing with BootCamp, is that you have to go out of OSX, and boot into Windows – which if you’re like me with over 10 applications open, is really inconvenient.
VMWare and Crossover come at a price, and from experience VMWare does use up quite a bit of resources (maybe it was just me).  So, the best solution I managed to find was: VirtualBox.  It’s a similar program to the others – it lets you install other operating systems on your Mac, but the biggest difference is that it’s FREE, and is quite light too (compared to the others).

How-To

1. Install VirtualBox
2. Run VirtualBox
3. Go through the New Machine Wizard and install Windows XP
4. Run the XP Virtual Machine
5. Install IE8
6. Install IE6 from Multiple IEs

Now, on your XP Virtual Machine you have IE8 and IE6, “but what about IE7?” you ask.  Well, Internet Explorer 8 has really handy developer tools which let you emulate IE7 (as if you were running IE7 itself).  To use it, just open IE, and select “Tools” > “Developer Tools”.  On there, you’ll notice the “Browser Mode” option, in which you select IE7!

Conclusion

So basically, all you need to get IE6, IE7 AND IE8 is VirtualBox and a Windows CD – Windows XP is highly recommended because it’ll let you run all 3 Internet Explorer versions on the same OS!  Most of the tools are free, and an XP CD can be bought pretty cheap from the net too if you don’t already have one.

Extra

1. When testing sites, I normally upload them to a development site first – if you want to test a site on localhost such as MAMP or XAMPP on your Mac then I’ve found that visiting: http://10..0.2.2 in your virtual machine will work.
2. When I first installed VirtualBox, the virtual machine would not connect to the Internet.  Now I’m no expert in Virtualization, but I found that by right-clicking my XP machine in the VirtualBox application window, selecting “Settings” and under “Network” setting “Adapter 1” to “PCnet Fast III (Am79C973)”, and attached to “NAT” seemed to get things working for me.

I hope this is useful to you!  For me it’s the best way to test across multiple browsers and it worked out free seeing as I had my XP CD to hand.

The post How To: Check How Your Site Looks In IE6, IE7 and IE8 on a Mac appeared first on Cube Websites.

If you’ve checked recently, AutoTrader have updated their website with a new look, currently tagged “Beta”. Now I know a lot of people are complaining that the new site doesn’t work properly – including problems with how it looks, and other problems such as the JavaScript only working sometimes.

The thing with JavaScript is – it’s always good to use it unobtrusively – that’s to say make a website that works without JavaScript, but then improve the experience for people who have Javascript. Don’t make it so that you block off a large part of your userbase just because they have JavaScript disabled. In AutoTraders case, obtrusive JavaScript is only the smaller issue….

Mozilla Firefox is the second most popular web browser in the world, and AdBlock Plus is one of the most popular addons for Firefox. Now here’s a couple of screenshots comparing how the AutoTrader site looks for users with AdBlock, and for users without it:

Adblock Enabled

Adblock Disabled

As you can see, people with advertisements disabled received a very limited view compared to people without it. Whether or not this is deliberate we can’t really say, but it’s definitely something that should not be overlooked. When I personally visited the web page (my default browsing is Firefox with AdBlock) I saw masses of whitespace and thought “Wow! What an eyesore!”. The whole site looked hideous, with just so much white and bright blue text stuck inbetween.

No doubt AutoTrader are being plastered with complaint emails, but this is a mistake that should never have happened. In the meantime, we can all learn a few lessons from this:

• If you have a new site that you want to test, DONT launch it to the general public. Have a select group of testers who can opt-in to test the Beta version, provide feedback, and only when you know that everything’s working do you make it available to the mass-public.
• Use unobtrusive JavaScript
• Don’t rely on adverts to make your site look right

The post Why you should always test your design! appeared first on Cube Websites.

Some places look good, but its always better to look for ones in the same country as you.  Posting in forums is always good because you can look up a users profile to see their post content – which usually reflects their experience, knowledge and communication skills!  If you’ve not been already, try Web Designer Forum who have a Looking to Hire board where you can advertise your job for free!

2) Do you know what you want?

The more information you give the better – the more details you give means that it’s easier for a designer/developer to estimate the total time required and give you a more accurate quote.

If you miss out something in your initial request, chances are there’ll be additional costs during development.  There’s a lot of features in websites which might just look “standard” or as if “the software” might just make it for them but in fact it’s a lot of work for designers.

3) Do they have experience?

Obviously someone with experience is better than someone with no experience – but even the guy with no experience has to start somewhere! Generally designers tend to do small jobs for friends/family/local businesses to build up a bit of a portfolio and will then offer their services elsewhere. Personally I think when looking at experience, you should look at how much work they’ve done, and the quality of it rather than just numbers such as “10 years web experience” – which could just mean having a personal website for 10 years and nothing else!
Try to find someone who has a bit of experience at least as they’ll be able to quote you from experience, know what they’re doing, and most likely complete your site quicker as well.

4)  Things to look for

A portfolio is always one of the first things to look at. Make sure they accept a payment method you want to use. See where they’re based – it’s easier to deal with ones that are national rather than international. Checkout their homepage – if someone claims they’re a designer, they should have a decent website as proof. Validate their site – use the W3C Validator to validate the designers website – many claim to make standards compliant sites yet even their own homepage isn’t valid! Looking at experience and establishment – in a few months or even years you might want to go back to the designer to get more work done, what are the chances they’ll still be around?

5)  Is it safe to request services from someone online?

As a designer/developer, my experience has only been doing jobs requested online. Generally I’m able to pick out the ones that won’t be a nuisance. Seeing as websites are a web-based product, and most designers advertise their services online anyway I see no harm in getting work done via their website, or a forum or job site. It would be advisable to go for the designer with the portfolio and decent site so you know they can be trusted.

6)  Are you prepared to pay?

Just because you have a new idea and want to go online doesn’t mean that designers will lower their prices for you.  Designers tend to charge a fixed hourly rate whether it’s David Beckham that wants a site, or just your average Joe Bloggs who has some shoes to sell.

Most designers will charge a deposit upfront (amount varies) to protect themselves. The remainder of the cost is charged on completion.

7)  Signing contracts

Try to get a contract signed once you and the designer have made agreed on price and requirements.  A contract is good for both parties as it makes everything more “official” and gives you more protection if something does happen to go wrong.

Most contracts are agreements that the designer is willing to provide their service to you for X amount and that you agree to pay the amount on completion.  When the work is done, it should belong to you – but make sure the contract says so.

The post 7 Things To Consider When Choosing Your Next Web Designer appeared first on Cube Websites.

Preview of Our New Theme Store - click for full-size

Just to let you know that the store section of our website is almost ready – and we’re really excited.  At the start it will contain the 2 Magento themes that we’ve created, but we will be introducing new themes in the next few weeks so stay tuned.

Click the image for a full size view.

We’re hoping to add other things to the store too such as web scripts and possibly applications too.

The post Our Store: Preview appeared first on Cube Websites.

Our launch party with Weezer and some muppets, that you weren't invited to

Today marks the launch of the new dark design of Cube Websites. We’ve upgraded the blog and hosting site to match as well.
We like it a lot, and we hope you do too – if you do notice any bugs, or have suggestions please do let us know either via a comment or using the contact form

This is just the first in a series of changes that Cube Websites is going through. Next in line is a new store interface, and soon after that will be some new Magento themes to sell in the store!

Stay tuned for more updates!

The post Launch Day: New Website Design appeared first on Cube Websites.

We’re happy to announce that we’ll be launching a new and improved version of our site soon, and have many new treats lined up for our existing/potential clients.

Here’s just some of the things you can look forward to:

• Store – we’ll be introducing our own store from which you can purchase themes for Magento.
• New Themes – we’re received a lot of requests for more commercial Magento themes, and we’ve still not forgotten about Amplitude either!  In the next few months you’ll see a series of new (and still low-priced) Magento themes available for purchase (from the new store 🙂 )
• New Design – with all new features, we’ve also redesigned our own website with improved usability.
• Hosting – new price plans and special offers!

We won’t release in the changes in one go, but we hope to have the full update complete within the next month.

Stay tuned for more updates!

The post Just so you know we aren’t sleeping… appeared first on Cube Websites.

We asked our readers, and the Magento community to vote for their favourite design, from a selection of two, which would be released as a free theme.

The winner is design one:

We’ll start converting this design into a full Magento theme soon, and then release it as soon as it’s done!

Thank you to everyone who voted, and bloggers that gave us coverage on the internet!

The post Amplitude Vote Results appeared first on Cube Websites.

Fortunately, we’ve had so much client work to do with Magento, our schedule has been full since about 2 weeks after the first Amplitude post.  Obviously we give priority to client work, which in turn means that unfortunately we’ve not yet been able to dedicate the time to Amplitude that it deserves.

Recently we created a new design for it, and created a vote topic on the Magento forum:
View It Here

Click the thumbnail for full-size!

We’d love to hear your feedback on both designs, so leave your comments either on the forum, or as a comment on here.  Once we’ve received sufficient feedback we’ll start building the winning theme.

To answer a question in the previous Amplitude topic by a commenter, the release date for Amplitude is not yet set.  We’re looking for some feedback first.  If all goes as expected, then we’re looking towards the end of February (but that’s not guarantee).

The post Magento Amplitude Theme – Update appeared first on Cube Websites.