Web Browsers, Bricks and a Sneaky Surf Session

Another busy day yesterday and with such long days I tend to start at around 4:30am as the sunrise wakes me up. It started off with lots of computer work as I have a new website design project that I’m working on. It’s nice to get the creative juices flowing again and I’m quite enjoying it – that is until it became time to check compatibility with other browsers. Although, to be honest, it worked in most – I tested in all the usual suspects and most were just fine, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera on both PC’s and Macs and the site looked lovely. Safari and Chrome on my iPad and there wasn’t a pixel out of place.

You’ll notice however that I haven’t mentioned the notorious Internet Explorer yet. Well, I checked it and to my surprise everything was fine on the PC that I use for the weather station which is running Internet Explorer 10. There were a few little misalignments needed in version of Internet Explorer 8 and below due to the Border Box bug present in Internet Explorer, but they were easily fixed with a conditional stylesheet comment and three little tweaks just for Internet Explorer. I then checked it on Anna’s laptop which is also IE 10 and despite being the same version of IE a few more tweaks were needed.

Things were looking good. Everything was fine on IE8 and below, IE 10 was playing nicely. That just left IE9 which Anna happens to be running on her computer at work. I asked her to check it for me

After working on the site for a few hours I headed off into Penryhncoch to do some work, gardening, painting and treating garden furniture with wood preservative, along with a few other helpful tasks and some computer technical help too and then it was time for lunch and to finish off the carrot cake I made the other night.

Anna then sent me a screenshot of the site Id been working on in IE and guess what? Yep, you’ve guessed it, things weren’t quite so rosy! Looks as though I’ll have to add another stylesheet just for IE9 -Great! I spent a bit of time working on that but haven’t quite got it sorted yet but it was now time to head out for some training.

First up was a 38 mile bike ride out to Cwm Rheidol where I did some 1 mile maximum efforts with 5 minute recovery intervals between them.

It was a lovely day for it, sunny, not too warm and with a bit of wind that affected my times in one direction. Heading out the 1 mile intervals were taking just over 3 minutes, with the wind behind me they were taking about 2 minutes 20. That wasn’t the end of it though as this was supposed to be a brick session so I kept up a good pace on the way home and didn’t cool down at the end of the bike ride. Instead I did a ‘proper’ transition into my running shoes and headed off for a quick 15 minute run around Ynyslas straight off the bike.

Meanwhile Morgan was getting ready to go surfing so as soon as I got back from my bike and run brick session it was time to get into my wetsuit and head over to the beach with him. We haven’t been surfing for ages. I think the last time I was out surfing was when I was surfing in New Zealand back in October and Morgan only went out once or twice last summer. The plan was just to go in for a paddle whatever the sea state and we weren’t really expecting any waves. We were pleasantly surprised therefore to find gorgeous 2-3 foot waves as clean as you like and being held up for ages by the offshore winds. They were a little too big for Morgan really so he played around in the whitewater catching and riding the foam. I stayed with him most of the time but popped out the back every now and then to catch a proper wave. It ended up being a lovely sneaky little surf session in the sunshine and the perfect way to spend an hour before dinner.

Not a bad day, especially for a weekday.

2 Responses

  1. Avatar forComment Author Emily says:

    Must be a pain in the butt having to design for all those different browsers. I’ve heard that’s one of the most time consuming parts of a website designer’s job.

    • Avatar forComment Author Alan says:

      That’s true Emily but I guess it’s also what makes the difference between a professionally designed website and an amateur one. If it weren’t for such things I might be out of a job!

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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