Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Browsershots and Safaritest - Two Resources for Web Developers

Here's an interesting service for all you webmasters out there. It's called Browsershots, and what it does is it will take a screenshot of your site in a number of common browsers on all platforms so you can test whether your site renders properly in other browsers. It's very useful for those of you who have only got access to one operating system or are unable or unwilling to go installing millions of browsers. The only downside with Browsershots is that it usually takes an hour or more to produce all of your screenshots, so best to set it, bookmark it and come back later. With me being a bit of a Linux geek (hey, I use Windows as well), I get access to most of these browsers anyway, but the one thing I do find it useful for is Safari. I don't have a Mac and can't afford to go and buy dedicated hardware just for Safari. (Yes, I know Konqueror uses the same rendering engine, I'm making a point here.)

However, if you do need an instant Safari check (but only Safari, mind) there is another great service called SafariTest. This has the benefit of being pretty much instant and this does help when you have multiple pages that you want to check. So give these services a look if you're into building your own websites, because you should always build with cross-platform compatibility in mind.

Once again, it's Peter, aka strategyoracle aka hybrid posting again.

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