Why is this a problem?

Each web browser likes to render a web page differently.  So for example, what looks fine in FireFox may look horrible in Internet Explorer.  Although there are web standards, some browser developers don’t follow them.  This is a headache many web designers face.

As if browsers not showing pages correctly is a problem, viewing web pages in different operating systems can be troubling too.  For example, what may look fine in FireFox on a Windows computer, may look different in FireFox on an Apple computer.

How can you solve this?

Until all web browser developers follow W3C web standards, web designers will need to perform cross-browser compatibility testing to ensure that their designs will look and work fine in different browsers and operating systems.  By testing each web page, they can make coding adjustments or hacks (as some like to refer them), to make the pages work perfectly.  This can be a time-consuming task, but quality should be the number one factor in web development.

Resources:

Browsershots – This is an amazing project.  Just enter your url and select which browsers you wish to test your site on.  Browsershots will then post up screenshots of your web site  from different browsers and systems.

Browser Statistics – W3Schools lists monthly web browser statistics on their web site.

The most prominent mobile device to be using websites can be seen as the mobile phone and its bigger brother the smart phone/PDA. All of these devices are ultra portable, allowing the user to partake many different tasks on the move. Increasingly website usage amongst mobile/PDA owners has gone up and now web authors have to consider this audience heavily.

There are many different things to consider when using a website on a mobile device. Firstly, there is the way it will display – as getting all of the content onto a smaller screen can be a hard task indeed. To keep up with the demand, big companies are providing special WAP versions of their websites, alongside the traditional versions. When designing a site, developers aim for cross browser compatibility – now web authors have to investigate the mobile browsers that are becoming common (a major one, being the familiar Opera browser).
The second major thing you consider is the cost. Stereotypically, using a web site on a mobile device is a costly operation. Most services charge you per kilobyte or megabyte that you download, making graphic intense websites a no go area.

It’s not only the mobile phone or PDA that has been touched by web site usage. Other devices, not even intended for web site usage are being included, the most exciting of which is Sony’s PSP. With a few modifications you can happily spend hours browsing the net on a PSP- as long as you can find a wireless hotspot.

Overall, web site usage on mobile devices has dramatically increased over the recent years. Most devices are coming out with different browsing capabilities, and if not – modifications are becoming available. As mobile devices crave the “everything in one device” crown, internet access and web site usage brings them one step closer.

When looking for a cellphone with web access be sure to check out Cellswapper.

There are many big social networking sites out there, the most prominent being Myspace. Others such as Bebo, Facebook and Virb have all come out, each with a massive success to their name. Social networking websites tend to provide very similar tools/features; profile creation, blogs, image galleries, comments about other people – some even delving into live chat rooms. Despite the main different faces which social networking websites appear, they are all about bringing people together and encouraging communication.

Social networking allows you to interact with different users, who all follow the same links as you. For example, if many people all went to one school, they may create a “school group” on a social networking site. Members of this group would be able to communicate with one another.

Essentially social networking is all about communicating with different people, based on key links. However, to keep fresh and interesting social networking websites have broadened their horizons, linking people together, even if they don’t know each other. A classic example of this would be music. Social networking websites allow users to interact, depending on their tastes in music or their favourite bands. Even though they have never met, members would now be socially linked.

Social networking has become massive and the chances are you already belong to at least one social networking site. As society grows, these websites will grow with it. A new media craze, social networking has already made a big impact on the way we live our lives.