Browser-based Web Browser Testing: Litmus vs. Adobe BrowserLab

Below is a quick comparison of two browser testing tools. There are others out there, feel free to add in comments. However, since Adobe just made another press push for BrowserLab I thought it would be a good time to compare these two tools that I've been trying out.

Litmus

Litmus is out of the UK, and has been around in some capacity since 2005. They currently offer both an HTML-based web application, as well as a nascent desktop application counterpart.

Browsers supported at this time:

• Short answer - Litmus wins here big time with a very broad list of browsers on both Windows and Mac. Full list here.

Stand out features:

• Not just web browser testing, but also Email Testing - a feature Adobe doesn't have at all
• Browser tests can show both: Cropped, in-browser window; and Full page no browser window bordering image
• Save multiple tests
• Retesting / test history, iterative workflow
• Validation warnings and direct links to validation results
• Ability to download test results
• Ability to mark a test as complied and share the results (ie Social features)
• bookmarkelt lets you test any page you are visiting in your normal browser
• Rich Help and other resources

Adobe® BrowserLab

Adobe BrowserLab is in a limited time preview stage, this Flash-in-browser-based tool covers the website basics that Litmus does and has a few slick features. One immediate 'weakness' in comparison is that at the moment you can only run one test at a time and there is no apparent way to access test history.

Browsers supported at this time:

• Firefox 2.0 & 3.0 for both Win XP and Mac OSX
• IE 6.0 & 7.0 for XP
• Safari 3.0 for Mac

Stand out features:

• Views: single browser, 2-up for comparison, and a very cool "Onion Skin View" that overlays two different captures to show where layout diverges.
• Browser sets, with controls
• Zooming on captures
• BrowserLab Extension for Dreamweaver CS4

Verdict

IMO, Litmus offers a broader more user-friendly set of features for testing multiple sites in an iterative fashion. It's huge browser library and additional support for testing HTML Email give it a clear edge. Adobe may be able to catch up of course, but I also feel that it will ultimately come down to pricing. Both offer free options, but at the moment Adobe allows you to test IE 6 for free, whereas Litmus requires a paid plan to gain access to anything but IE 7 and Firefox 2.0. Adobe has not set pricing, but has stated that it will become a paid service after it moves out of preview release. We'll have to see how the pricing packages compare. For the time being, you could benefit by using both in tandem, which I'll likely do for a while until I feel there's reason not to. No matter what, the advent of powerful browser-based browser testing tools is a huge time, money, and headache saver for website builders concerned with providing the best user experience possible across a large spectrum of web clients.

ArtBistro Ranks their Top 25 Cities for Designers and Artists

ArtBistro.com: "Which cities offer the most overall value in 2009? While all of these communities have a healthy art and design community the emphasis on this list is the cost of living..."

Below is a quick summary. Read the full article here to get all the details:

1. Austin, TX
   
2. San Antonio, TX:
   
3. Salt Lake City, UT
   
4. Oklahoma City, OK
   
5. Raleigh-Cary Metropolitan Area, NC
   
6. Seattle, WA
   
7. Rochester, NY
   
8. Portland, OR
   
9. Denver, CO
   
10. Honolulu, HI
    
11. Nashville, TN
    
12. Virginia Beach, VA
    
13. Kansas City, MO
    
14. Pittsburgh, PA
    
15. Charlotte, NC
    
16. Boston, MA
    
17. Buffalo, NY
    
18. Columbus, OH
    
19. Indianapolis, IN
    
20. St. Louis, MO
    
21. Hartford, CT
    
22. Louisville, KY
    
23. Cincinnati, OH
    
24. Philadelphia, PA
    
25. San Diego, CA
    

Image credit: TheSeafarer via Flickr

How to Optimize for Google, a 3-part Series from SiteProNews

The slashing of paid search advertising is just one symptom of the current economic situation. I'm seeing a lot of questions out there, from Twitter to direct inquiries, regarding the dark art of SEO. While optimizing the heck out of your META tags may never grow your "Organic Search" results to the volume they might have been at when you were spending thousands of dollars per month on Adwords, there are things that can and should be done to move your site up in search engine rankings.

One mantra to keep in mind throughout any SEO effort is: Patience, Analysis, Creativity, Implementation, Repeat. SEO combines many disciplines such as Marketing, Competitive Research, Customer Awareness, and Web Development. It also helps if you are selling/making/talking about stuff that people are interested in. If you build it, it doesn't necessarily mean that 'they' will search for it. Don't try to get it all done in one day, break your site into prioritized blocks, and work to improve successful pages first, then work through the full site over time.

You are responsible for knowing what your customers are looking for, and the terms they associate with that need. Here's a three part roll up by SiteProNews, that covers of a bunch of helpful ideas to help you build an SEO framework that can close the gap between your site and the people searching for what you provide:

How to Optimize for Google:

• Part 1 of 3
  
• Part 2 of 3
  
• Part 3 of 3
  

Top 10 Reasons Why The iPod Shuffle 3rd Gen Is A Design FAIL

1. Controls integrated into earbuds rules out 3rd party headphones (notwithstanding 3rd party headphones w/ new iPod shuffle compatible control$)
   
2. Lose the earbuds and you get to pay $29 to replace them - this kind of defeats the purpose of a 'cheap' iPod - like your kid isn't going to lose or break these headphones in like 4 days
   
3. No click wheel, no screen - it doesn't look like an iPod - this could just as well be mistaken for a bluetooth headset or a really thick tie clip
   
4. Yet another non-iPod-standard USB charging cord
   
5. It appears that it will not work with existing headphone-jack-related car audio solutions 
   
6. Ditto on above for portable or home speaker sets
   
7. Only two neutral colors, one reason you might want to get a bright green shuffle is so you can find the tiny thing when it's lying around the house
   
8. 10 hour battery life claim is 2hrs less than the 2nd generation shuffles
   
9. VoiceOver is a gimmick that can't outshine the flaws above - hooray you have a blind / screen-less iPod, and now it can aid you with voice assistance technology! But where's the brail on the earbud controls? Also, seeing as Amazon just got bullied about text to speech for eBooks, I wouldn't be surprised if the RIAA cries foul about Apple robo-speaking copyright protected band, album, and song names
10. The price jump is lame. It could make someone want to either buy a refurb 2g shuffle or nano.

The only two updates that DO make sense are the 4GB capacity and the ability to finally use multiple playlists. But the reasons above are cause for concern. Perhaps Apple wants to kill off the shuffle, it may have just done so regardless. 

"What Blogger Should Do"

Evan Williams (evhead) has done a nice job at outlining what myself and many others have been pondering - are sites like digg, flickr, Twitter and friendfeed signaling the "death of blogging"?

I for one have been using some of these tools to share links and blurt out thoughts, and have been "neglecting" this poor little blog. Because of this, I'm planning some changes to my own format that will likely use friendfeed to pull in more of my activity on digg, twitter, flickr and the like. Full blog articles will become secondary and less frequent.

That said, you should read this full article. It suggests some interesting ideas that may help blogging platforms stay relevant.

New Report from iLounge Includes Cool Color Chart Section

iLounge.com recently released its 2009 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide. The PDF download is heavy on content (as well as ads), and it's been a yearly tradition for iNerds 5 years now. The 2009 version has a new section called "Know Your Colors" that shows various models, in a color family layout. A new take on the usual color chart.

Get the full guide here.

Twittermaven Survey Results:Users’ perception of brands on Twitter

Twittermaven recently surveyed 240 people with 6 questions regarding interacting with brands. Here are some key findings, as well as a sample chart.

• Most users (89%) agree that brands should engage their customers on Twitter.
  
• almost 90% of users would frown upon poor or inappropriate brand use of Twitter.
• 60% of respondents would recommend a company based on their presence on Twitter and 80% of Twitter users will reward those brands
• More than 60% of respondents have 100+ followers and almost 50% of respondents have posted more than 1000 Tweets

For the full results, including a number of other interesting charts, read the article.

Excellent Example of an Interactive Product "Configurator" from Data Robotics

Drobo is a recently announced product from Data Robotics, Inc. It puts a new spin on high-capacity desktop storage. The way in which the product differs from traditional desktop hard-drives can seem a subtle at first.

Therefore, they have created a very effective product configuration / simulation tool that they call the "Drobolator Capacity Calculator". This is one of the most useful product configuration tools I've seen in a while. It not only helps you simulate different personal storage scenarios, but it also clearly communicates the unique way in which Drobo allocates storage (for various uses) across the multiple installed drives.

It's always great to see user experience designs that help make complex systems easier to understand. Kudos to Data Robotics for leveraging an interactive drag and drop interface in such a user-centered and effective way.

Vote!

Music Download Inconsistency Syndrome (MDIS), and "The Cure"

What's a consumer to do? Here's the scenario, I wanted to buy and download the new album by The Cure. So I started to dig around the top music download stores, and my impulse to buy was drowned out by my aggravation with the Music Industry.

In my quest to figure out which site had the album for the best price, I began to wonder - why should the price vary at all? Shouldn't I just be able to go to my preferred store, buy the album download, and know I didn't get ripped off? There aren't any costs associated with shipping and shelving physical products here.

No you can't, and this appears to have something to do with ill-conceived price manipulation on the part of the music industry to 'level the playing field' for other music download retailers. But it's really just leveling my willingness to commit to a purchase. Here's are the confusing price variations I found when looking for that new album:

Album in question: The Cure, 4:13 Dream
	iTunes	Amazon.com	Walmart.com
Cost for album	$9.99	$8.99	$9.22
Cost per track	$0.99	$0.99	$0.94
Format	AAC	MP3	MP3
DRM?	Yes	No**	No**
Quality***	Medium	High	High
Album savings	$2.88	$3.88	$3.00

For this particular album, it looks like Amazon is the way to go - but that isn't the case for every album. And what if I only want a few tracks? Anyway, it seems disingenuous that Apple supposedly had to threaten to close down the iTunes store to keep the per-track price of music downloads from going up - only to then see Walmart launch weeks later with tracks for as little as $0.74+. And now that other stores offer DRM-free MP3s, why isn't all new music on iTunes offered in a $0.99/track iTunes Plus format? Anyway, sorry for the particularly geeky rant - but come on, you aren't going to win the war on illegal downloads with these kinds of consumer unfriendly strategies.

*not an "iTunes Plus" offering
**Amazon tags it's MP3s with a unique ID code in the metadata, Walmart - unknown
***iTunes Protected AAC is 128kpbs, MP3s can be VBR but approx. twice the bit rate of protected AAC

Video: Jason Fried at "Business of Software"

Business of Software conference September 2008: Jason Fried is founder of 37signals (developers of Basecamp and Ruby on Rails) and Signal vs Noise blogger

I hope the Mac mini goes 'Green', instead of just going away

Rumors are flying that the Mac mini may be on its way out. Such rumors seem to indicate that the mini will either go away, or see a refresh. Let's hope it is the latter.

The Mac mini not only needs a specs refresh, it needs a refocusing of it's market position. Rather than being marketed as 'the underpowered Mac for people too cheap to buy a real Mac', it should be celebrated for its BYODKM (Bring your own display, keyboard, and mouse) heritage.

First off, Apple needs to build the next Mini in line with its improving stance on environmental considerations. Once the manufacturing story has a 'Greener' tinge, then the Mac mini can finally become the recycle-reuse-green-machine it almost is. They also needs to make it truly powerful enough to be worthy of the "Mac" prefix.

In addition, Apple could use its website to help build a community for DIYers looking for ways to locate peripherals from the vast array of hardware that's already out there. This could be as simple as creating an online catalog that help customers connect with local computer recycling centers and similar sources for cheap/free monitors, keyboards, and mice.

Continuously churning out improved machines every few quarters is what keeps Apple products ahead of the cool-curve. But there's definitely a niche to be served by bringing the latest Mac OS to people who would prefer the modestly smaller carbon footprint offered by using pre-owned peripherals.

One more thing, let's not rule out an unexpected scenario like the Mac mini being cross-bred with Apple TV or something.