Finding the best way to insert Flash Wed, Jun 28. 2006
In my earlier days (before I switched from Opera to Firefox, now I use the AdBlock Plus Firefox extension to block ads) I used to surf the web with Flash disabled. I was actually quite shocked to notice how many websites that just didn't display anything when read though a browser without Flash support. This might be fixed by what I am about to discuss here, but it's not my main point.
Have you ever tried validating a page with Flash in it? Chances are it didn't validate. Even Adobes official material on how to embed Flash encourages use of the <embed> tag, which is not a valid tag in any of the W3C specs for markup languages on the web. It's a Netscape invention, and it actually took quite some time until the Mozilla-based browsers managed to support the <object> tag in a satisfactory fashion. Frustrated with this fact, I started Googling, and this opened up a can of worms, as Internet Explorer didn't fully support the <object> tag in a standard-conforming way either...
All I really wanted was a way that...
- Was completely valid (X)HTML.
- Sent the user to the Flash download center if the Flash plugin is missing or out of date.
- Did not require JavaScript running in the browser in order to display the Flash. More and more people (mostly geeks) actually surf with JavaScript disabled.
- Didn't use the IE-specific conditional construct <!--[if !IE]> <--> (I don't like browser-specific coding, even if it doesn't break the standard).
Run several IE versions on one computer Tue, Jun 27. 2006
This is a webdesigners dream... Haven't you wished there was a way to quickly test a page in different versions of IE? If you've tried, you probably know that installing Internet Explorer will overwrite any verion currently installed. One install at a time. Bah humbug!
The rescue comes in the form of IE standalone distributions from evolt.org. Just download (I tried the 9x version under Windows XP), unzip, doubleclick iexplore.exe and off you go! Note that the about dialog will display the version of your current system IE install, so there's no way of knowing which IE you're running without remembering which version you launched or looking at the HTTP headers.
Imagine my relief when I discovered this page works nice in both IE 5.5 and 5.0 (though a slight menu anomaly on the latter). 
Update: Thanks to Yousif Al Saif at TredoSoft there is now an installer that installs IE 3.0-6.0 side by side on your computer! Recommended.
