What does dropping IE6 support even mean? Well, it means that they’ll stop checking their web sites in IE6 to make sure they look good. When we launch a web site, we check it in a broad sampling of browsers: Safari 3, Safari 4, Firefox 3 and up, IE7, IE8 and, to our frequent dismay, IE6. Each of those browsers interpret how HTML should display in subtly different ways, and we need to adjust your web site’s code so that pages match the designs you approve in all those browsers. You’re paying for your designs and content to reach users regardless of their choice of platform and we support that.
But IE6? Well, two versions and ages old in internet years, it’s broken. To some extent, Microsoft ignored important trends and standards when building IE6, that the web development community and other browsers adopted, so it requires extra elbow grease to make sites work the same there as they do everywhere else. In the majority of cases, IE6 users are fringe users, less than 5%, and the costs of accommodating them outweigh the benefits, leading large web sites to announce they’re dropping support, in part to encourage users to upgrade, move on and get on the same page as everyone else. Web design firms announce new policies that they will no longer support IE6, or that doing so will incur an additional fee.
There are a few reasons IE6 hasn’t withered and vanished yet. The predominant reason is corporate IT departments. Some of them insist upon users staying with IE6 because years ago they built very expensive internal web sites that only work in that browser. Upgrading the browser on everyone’s computer would incur costs in redeveloping those sites. Others, like a financial services client we work for, stick with a specific IE6 release because a significant portion of their corporate security policy is based upon it.
Another client will soon be launching a site that may be accessed in Internet cafes anywhere in the world. We’re not entirely sure what browser might be installed there, so it’s a good idea to stick with supporting IE6 until we see some stats come in.
For now, we won’t be dropping IE6 support. We would certainly, for the sake of the web, appreciate it if you would drop IE6. We will continue to assume that we’re supporting IE6 in our work, but for those clients who feel it’s not worth the effort, we’ll discount the project commensurately and include a message on your site letting IE6 users know that a better experience awaits them in another browser. For the most part, those sites will work fine for those users and they’ll still get to the content. The design might come through a little rough, but we’ll collectively be doing our part for a better web by kindly requesting those users join us in the future.
We certainly aren't the first firm to write about why we've decided to make ExpressionEngine our preferred platform for web sites, and we certainly won't be the last.
Why do we like ExpressionEngine so much?
A few reasons:
Flexibility. Your web site's pages and templates should be built to support the compelling design we create for you and be optimized for search engines. They should be built with only those considerations in mind and your Content Management System should support them without imposing any constraints. ExpressionEngine does that for us and its templating language was what first attracted us to it. It lets us do our jobs.
It's powerful. Just look at this list of features. That's what EE supports out of the box. Add to that over 330* add-ons, plug-ins, modules and other enhancements and you have a platform that is extensible to any project's requirement. If your project poses a unique challenge, add-on development is very manageable; EE's architecture is designed to support it.
It works (nearly) everywhere Unless you're looking to use a Windows server, which isn't impossible but would likely preclude us working with you, ExpressionEngine can be launched on most every typical LAMP hosting environment. We've even launched an EE site on GoDaddy.
Security. We recently launched a site for Fidelity on ExpressionEngine. 'Nuff said.
Community. Those 330+ add-ons? Many of them come from an incredibly enthusiastic and dedicated network of developers who have adopted ExpressionEngine as their platform of choice. They extend EE's support team and not only contribute to a huge pool of resources, but also make EE a pleasant product to work with.
That said, sometimes we're asked to compare ExpressionEngine to an open source platform. There are two reasons for this:
Open source is free. That's true. But we're not putting a $10,000 Microsoft solution in front of our clients. ExpressionEngine costs $249.95** for a license. Put that up against a project budget and it's pretty close to free. And that $249.95 gets us as developers and our clients as license holders access to one of the most responsive, friendly and genuinely helpful support teams I have ever encountered in all my years of development. They're worth it.
What if ExpressionEngine goes away? Who says your open source platform won't go away? If it loses appeal, if its community dries up, who supports your site? The same person that would support your ExpressionEngine site if they went away. An ExpressionEngine server installation is a MySQL database and a collection of PHP files. Your license allows you to do whatever you want with those files, modifying the application to any length for your own use. It's a powerful, modifiable web site platform. And based on its current adoption rate and enthusiastic, ever-growing developer community, it's not going anywhere.
ExpressionEngine's our recommendation. If a client or prospect comes to us with another platform as a requirement and we think we're equipped to make that project a success, we're not ideologues who will rule that out. We build custom applications and platforms where appropriate as well. If you're looking for our choice on a robust platform that can be tailored to your needs with a modest amount of effort, EE's our answer.
We've launched a lot of solid web sites and helped write our share of success stories. That we've adopted ExpressionEngine as our recommendation for content management and banked our business's success on its ability to deliver now and in years to come says a lot about its robustness and longetivity. We are excited and fortunate to work with this product on each project that presents the opportunity to and hope we're successfully conveying that to all our clients and prospects.
ExpressionEngine 2.0 is in development this year and we're looking forward to its release. It's going to take a great product and propel it even further, leveraging EllisLab's CodeIgniter framework for development.
** $249.95 for Commercial License. $99.95 for Non-profit license. $39.95/$19.95 per yearly subscription to access product updates, though for many clients whose site has launched, we don't consider that necessary.
I haven’t yet gotten to the enhancements I’d like to make to the Campaign Monitor Subscribers Pepper for Mint, but I have updated it to work with Campaign Monitor’s API.
If you view the original post for this add-on to the popular stats package, you’ll see what it’s all about. You’ll also see that as of December 2008, the CM Subscribers pepper has been broken, requiring an update to the code to match Campaign Monitor’s new API.
If you’ve generated your API key and accessed your List ID since December, this version will work for you. If you installed the pepper with an API Key and List ID from before December, just visit your Campaign Monitor account, regenerate or access your new keys, plug them in via Mint Preferences, and you’ll be back in business.
We have seen a significant amount of fresh business from startups and new businesses over the last few months, with this past month being the most dramatic. Mark has already written briefly about Your marketing budget and a slow economy, which talks about maximizing your return on investment, and I want to reflect a bit on the entrepreneurial spirit. I see two major factors contributing to our spike in business from this group.
Innovation is Recession Resistant
At a public bi-weekly coffee get-together of smallish business owners and entrepreneurs here in Providence, a grad student asked if any of us had seen a significant hit in our businesses during the downed economy. One business owner turned to him and said that good ideas and innovation will always succeed. He was right on. As we see large sections of our economy crumbling, the pieces that are in high demand are good ideas, refreshing new products and tools that increase efficiencies and add value. History concurs. Wired.com’s Daniel Roth writes that out of the turmoil of the Great Depression rose numerous inventions, including the now ubiquitous nylon and television. The 1969-70 and 2001 recessions saw the advent of the pocket calculator and the ipod, respectively. Innovation never sleeps.
Layoffs and Dead-End Jobs are Breeding Grounds for Entrepreneurship
Sometimes it takes a little shove from the nest for some entrepreneurs to focus back on the things that they were once passionate about, or to implement an idea that has been percolating for some time. There’s also nothing like layoffs of your colleagues and friends in your company to knock creativity and optimism out of you. I went through this with the first .com bubble back in 2001. Try motivating a creative team when they come to work every day packed to be fired and thinking every conversation with your boss is going to end with a pink slip. It just doesn’t inspire confidence. Recessions and layoffs release many undervalued employees to do what they have always wanted to do. They go back to their basement or garage and think up the next best thing.
Slim Kiwi is not in the mortgage business or in investments, and we’re not unionized American car makers. We partner with our clients to bring their idea, their product and their small business to market. From what we have seen, it seems that now is a great time for small businesses to get ahead of their competition. If you know us, you know that we just love working with people starting up businesses. We love their enthusiasm, their pragmatism, their creative thinking, the speed at which they move, and their collaborative spirit. These are the tools for success in a challenging economy.
We paid a visit to the exhibition hall at Greenbuild 2008 in Boston not only to check out the products and thinking on display, but also to make some connections in the architecture community. While there, we captured a few of our thoughts on architect web sites, portfolio design and site management tools on video to share.
1.2.2009 - Please note: In December 2008, CampaignMonitor upgraded their API. While this Pepper will continue to work for any API keys generated before then, it is incompatible with newly generated API keys until it is upgraded. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please watch this space for updates.
1.27.2009 Update: I've finally updated this to work with the new API. See the announcement.
If you use Campaign Monitor to send email blasts and use Mint for site stats, we just built a little plugin you might like.
The Campaign Monitor Subscribers Pepper will display new subscribers to your Campaign Monitor lists for the past 24 hours. All you need to do is plug in your Campaign Monitor List ID and API Key.
Your List ID can be found on your Subscriber List main page.
Your API Key can be found on your Account Settings main page.
Peppers are plugins for Shaun Inman's fantastic and popular Mint stats package. We use Mint on many of our own sites and highly recommend it as an affordable, easy to implement tool for monitoring your site's pulse and traffic.
The current posted version can be found on the CM Subscribers Peppermill page. We have ideas in queue for a future release, so be sure to check back often for new features.
