On Tuesday, Google revealed it's newest product...G1. Eerily similar in style to Apple's iPhone, T-Mobile showcased the G1, calling attention to it's large touch screen, trackball, slide-out keyboard, Wi-Fi connection ability and quick access to Google's email and mapping programs.

The phone is set to be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third generation wireless data network. On the planned device launch date, of October 22nd, that will include 21 cities. Included in those cities are New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami. The phone will be available in other areas for purchase, and does run on T-Mobile's slower data network, but it is optimized for the faster networks.

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As more and more news on Google's new Chrome browser comes online I find myself wondering what the future of the "Browser" is going to be and which ones will remain after the dust settles. Google's Chrome promises to give Internet Explorer a run for it's money but there are so many large companies with overbearing and controlling IT departments who have yet to upgrade to IE7 from the dreadful IE6, I wonder how many will actually take the leap to browsers like Chrome of my favorite FireFox 3.1.

There's no doubt IE6 should be put out of it's (and our) misery. My concern is not that browsers are getting better, but that we as designers and developers now have more to code for than ever and an even stronger suite for web standards (and browsers that support all of them!).

Here's my take on the whole situation:

IE7 will more than likely remain at the top of the heap, though not one of my favorites it does support all or most of the most recent CSS rendering techniques.

Google Chrome will give IE a good challenger but will probably never have the market penetration that IE has. Currently there's no native Mac support but I have a feeling it's a short wait for this to happen. I've also heard through the grapevine that Chrome very soon will have the ability to use plug-ins and addons the same way Firefox does.

FireFox will more than likely remain my favorite browser for it's addon's alone, as well as it's open source community and it's action to kill IE. The browser runs like it should and renders all CSS properly. It's easy to develop for, especially with addons like Firebug and Developers Toolbar.

Safari, in my opinion, probably will remain one of the top Mac browsers but it's penetration into the PC market will remain relatively small especially with the introduction of Chrome and Firefox's ever growing popularity.

In the end it's all speculation, only time will tell who will go the way of Netscape Navigator and who's here to stay.

I recently went to one of my favorite blogs and saw that the author had posted up a neat little trick to help prevent spammers and bots from crawling your site to gain those oh so valuable emails and begin to send you and everyone else who has an email on your site - spam. It's a spammy spam world of emails and we as programmers need to try to prevent this.

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I guess everyone out there has a list that is used by many. a top ___ (fill in the blank) list of some resource you use. Well why not me? I compiled a list of some cool jQuery plug-ins I found that have been used in our web development here at THAT Agency.

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Sooner than you think.

Sheese, you're argumentative aren't you? I'll tell you now though, despite your fervent vocal objections that this very thing will happen. All other compiled hardware will become merely legacy, as legacy as logging on to a Renegade hosted BBS via your 300 baud modem firing up the ANSI colored text power of LORD, TRADEWARS, and the many, many flavors of MUD you still have active accounts on. Just as they were indispensable utilities that made the very corporate world turn, provided the light for it to see, filled it's lungs with their life giving rich air. Shortly following suit will be our current incarnation of super crutches like "Word", "Photoshop", "Quark", "Dreamweaver".

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When choosing a company to design your Website, you must also consider the other amenities offered in addition to your design package. For example, THAT Agency offers clients a number of custom Web-development solutions. After all, custom packages are what make our agency stand out from others as we try to give clients the most comprehensive package to suit their Web development needs, including application design and/or development, e-commerce ideas, and solutions to give your site an edge over the competition.

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When it comes to Photoshop vs. Fireworks, many people will try to compare these two top-notch design programs, and with good reason. Both have amazing design capabilities and the ability to do similar things in terms of Image-editing, design creation and more. However, as a designer (and a Photoshop loyalist), I would have to say that they are each equally good at what they have been made to do; Photoshop can’t be beat for image editing and there isn’t a better program out there for Web design than Macromedia’s Fireworks (it should be noted that Adobe has owned Macromedia for the last two years).

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Ok, so I have been teetering with the idea of whether using a open-source CMS (Content Management System) or creating one from scratch. Here at THAT Agency we have many clients that we do constant maintenance for their content, SEO and more. So when do we as developers feel the need to actually create a private label standardized CMS instead of the plethora of open-source one's currently available on the market.

One place i found with a ton of open source Content Management System applications was ta da www.opensourcecms.com This site breaks down many of today's CMS applications and shows you their features; even side by side comparisons. But wait one second. What if you can't find one that meets all your personal needs that you need and you really don't want to have a developer tweak an open source one? Then obviously the solution is to create your own right?

In my personal developer opinion, I would much rather create my own and use THAT; then tweak an already existing one. Here is why:

1. With tweaking or adding to an already existing project, you run that risk of your changes being screwed up if a patch is developed for something in the actual application.

2. You can have more control of your application if you develop it yourself.

3. It is easier to tweak your own code than tweak someone else's.



So what to do?


If your plan is to develop a complete system for your clients, why not create your own CMS (Content Management System) and have it ready as an addition to the great work you do!

Recently I've been giving Fireworks a run even though I've been using Photoshop for nearly 10 years and much to Neil's credit, I'm starting to like it. Both applications have their strengths and both have their weaknesses. Though I'm excited to be learning and using a different application there are certain items that I'll most certainly revert back to Photoshop to complete. For now it's just another tool in my ever-growing graphic arsenal. Here are some of the strengths and weakness I've come across so far:

Fireworks: Strengths
1. It's fast and optimizing graphics for web is extremely streamlined
2. Item manipulation as far as layout, graphic placement and overall use of the app for complex UI is very easy and intuitive, reminiscent of Illustrator or Flash.
3. Effect and tools are very similar to Photoshop so a lot of key commands are similar
4. It's made for web graphics, gifs, jpgs, pngs and handles all very well

Fireworks Weaknesses (that I've encountered):
1. CMYK image conversion is awful - changes blues and greens like no other
2. Large files and multiple frame layouts slow the app down to a crawl
3. Limited filters, layer styles and effects
4. No sub category support in the layers menu
5. Awkward paint and draw tools even though they are similar to flash, they fall short in comparison to Photoshop
6. Masking effects are difficult to control or edit without full release of the mask and location
7. No "browse" images feature

I'm still a loyal Photoshop designer but Fireworks is slowly but surely winning me over with it's shear speed and overall performance. The memory leak is very similar to Photoshop's but not quite as severe. Photoshop will probably still remain my primary image manipulation app but when it comes to UI (user interface design) I'll be moving to Fireworks.

Adobe's new Creative Suite 3 is coming out soon and even though Fireworks was a solid Macromedia app I was surprised to see them keep it on the roster and not replace it with Image Ready. The future of Fireworks looks pretty bright, it looks like the app is here to stay.

Most of the challenges when working with CSS and PHP developement are "making it work" in all browsers. Previewing properly is the designers main concern and the difference in browsers makes things a little difficult. Some browsers have all kinds of bugs when it comes to previewing CSS, especially transparent PNG's. Yeah, I'm talking about you Internet Explorer 6. In order to get things to work properly designers are forced to write backwards compatible hacks, IE6 fixes and tons of extra code just to make sure the users experience is as consistent on your office PC as it is on the much beloved office/home Macintosh.

Upgrading your browser is usually one of the easiest things to do but some people love to hang onto what they know. I'm personally not a fan of Internet Explorer but if you must use it, use the newest version, IE7. Most of it's new perks are directly influenced by Firefox and it tends to render most CSS2 properly, making our jobs just that much easier. It's more secure than older versions and seems a bit easier to use all around.

On to my favorite - Firefox. Simply put, it's the best browser out there. It seamlessly renders CSS2 properly, has loads of add ons like Firebug, NoScript, Extra toolbars and plugins and so much more. On top of that you can easily customize the "look" of your browser by downloading Firefox Themes. No more shall you be stuck under Explorers blue thumb! Best of all it's open source so developers are constantly adding new tools and extensions to make life on the web a convenient and enjoyable experience.

Either way, upgrading your browser will help with both useability, security, consistency and performance. Older versions of browsers have been exploited, broken down and buggy and though you may still have some bugs here and there life's only getting better with every new version. So keep up the rest of us and happy browsing.