The Big Picture

Y'all have been very gracious in answering my questions lately concerning your computer settings and habits. As a really nosy person webdesigner in training, I'm interested in such things. My husband, who refuses to comment on my blog but set it as his homepage at work, saw my blog last night and said, "So that's how [the new design] is supposed to look!" His screen resolution is set at 800 x 600 pixels (what I call kindergarten settings where everything is big and chunky, like those pencils that kindergarteners use), so he saw only the top of my new header on the screen, not even the "for the holidays" (without scrolling down), and certainly not the blue outer area with white snowflakes for which I downloaded a special set of Photoshop snow brushes. You didn't even see the blue area with the white snowflakes?!!!

This disturbed me all evening, so I asked him to consider gradually (so as not to go into shock) increasing his screen resolution. "Just think of all the other things you might be missing!" I said.

I have my screen resolution set at 1280 x 1024 pixels, so this is what I see:

Do you see something similar to what I see or what my husband sees? If you want to find your screen resolution settings, go to your desktop (no programs open on it) and right-click your mouse; choose "Properties" at the bottom of the list; choose the "Settings" tab and check the Screen Resolution slider bar on the bottom left. The further you drag that bar to the right, towards "More", the more you'll see on your screen. Admittedly, when my 15-year-old bumped me all the way to the right I thought things looked tiny at first; now I've grown accustomed and love it. I feel like I'm really seeing "the big picture." 

Who's your browser?

(WARNING: It is entirely possible that this post will put you to sleep. Don't say I didn't warn you.)

As I plow through my web development book, I am constantly reminded to test my pages in a web browser, more importantly, in multiple browsers. As I am reminded:

Every browser has differences in the way it displays Web pages, and although some of these discrepancies are slight, the differences can sometimes be significant. You might notice differences, even between different versions of the same browser.

Some people use whatever browser is available, and some are passionate about their personal favorite. Personally, I'm a bit of a Mozilla Firefox snob (you've gotta love that cute little fox), so much so that I was appalled in September when I realized that my blog didn't display very well in Internet Explorer. I rarely use it, so I hadn't noticed. I went in and tweaked the template a little until I was satisfied. Conversely, when I was trying to find information about our county fair on the city's website, I found that the pages about the fair were a jumble of code. On a whim, I tested the pages and found that they worked in Internet Explorer (shouldn't they have caught that one instead of me?).

I confess to having no experience or opinion concerning Opera or Safari.

Even if this is a meaningless discussion for you, please be a sport and let me know what browser you use:

What is your primary web browser?
	Mozilla Firefox
	Internet Explorer
	Safari
	Opera
	other
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