David Oliver - Freelance web and print designer

I was branding myself as Impel Graphic Design, but have decided to go with my name instead. I'm a freelancer.

http://www.doliver.co.uk/

This is a temporary solution. I'm planning to build a proper site (multi-page rather than just one) with different sections, including a blog, but I'd be interested in your comments and suggestions.

Thanks.

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 7017

I like your site! Your portfolio of print work is particularly impressive

Andrew

Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 4:57 pm Post subject:

Thanks Andrew.

NetHosted Staff Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 7017

It never hurts!

Andrew

NetHosted Customer Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 148

I am currently browsing your site from a corporate desktop and I note that some of your work is done for reasonably sized companies - looks good too.

You might want to alter (preferably remove) the patronising message about IE6 - it doesn't give a good first impression for a number of reasons. Most importantly from your point of view, if I'm from a medium-large enterprise looking to commission a good web designer I'll be expecting them to be able to cope with my requirements or suggest seamless workarounds, not demand that I spend thousands upgrading my desktop estate just so I can browse my own website undistracted.

Nice looking portfolio. I can't imagine what features of CSS2+ you need to make that look any better.

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 1:55 pm Post subject:

Thanks rich_b. I hear what you're saying about IE6. If it was going to stay as my site for a decent amount of time I'd spend the effort on compensating for IE6's lack of CSS rendering and transparent PNG abilities. I'm not using any fancy, new CSS, but IE6 still borks it. The picture of me and my details should be fixed at top right, for example.

By the way, my client sites work ok in IE6.

As someone who is not familiar with working at a company big enough to find using something other than IE6 hard, can I ask why it is so difficult and expensive to upgrade? The browser is nearly nine years old now, and I find it incredibly sad and amazing that it's still in use in these environments. A considerable security risk, surely?

NetHosted Customer Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 148

I know how you feel. IE6 drove me nuts for ages until I learned all the hacks. It still does sometimes and that's just from dealing with the box model. Luckily, Line of Business apps don't need stuff like transparent PNG support.

Aha, very good questions on IE6. I'd like to make it clear that it's not my responsibility first of all.

There, obligatory backside covering out of the way.

Right, where do I start?

What business benefit do we get from upgrading? (Always the first question asked - can't think of much to be honest).
What are the risks of upgrading, and conversely, not upgrading?
Regression testing all the business critical legacy apps we use (VB6, .NET) to make sure they won't break. There must be a 100 of these. That will cost £k's.
Dev costs to fix any that do. Along with ST, SIT and UAT testing, then implementation costs. Again £k's.
COnfiguring the security settings - small cost but it's there.
Building the rollout package and testing that.
Communicating the change to the support desk and paying for extra resource to deal with those who report problems with the new browser.
Planning the implementation, co-ordinating all the teams involved, ensuring comms go out, change management have given approval, etc will take resource.
"There's always something better to do..."
If we did this, what developments would be stopped? There is more work than resource to do it, so everything in progress becomes important.
No-one is going to get promoted because they convinced management to upgrade IE7/8
'Tomorrow' we'll upgrade the whole HO estate (5k PCs on XP) to Vista/Win7 (that becomes the day after tomorrow, and so on) so why bother with an interim upgrade now?
The usual political issues...

I think that's about it. Actually, my list looks a bit short - if we stuck my infrastructure colleagues in a room I'm sure they'd triple it at least. In fact, it's a wonder we get anything done!

On security, our desktops are locked down through group policy so it's impossible to change security settings or install plug-ins, or any other unauthorised software. Microsoft still fix all security flaws in IE6 so that's ok and it's still supported. All critical patches are rolled out very quickly (compared to app deliveries). I'm not privy to all the goings on in the security team but I've never heard of any problem.

Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 5:49 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the insights. It's a terrible situation!

Here's to progress.

Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 8:03 pm Post subject:

NetHosted Customer Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 148

Hi boughtonp,
Perhaps instead of saying that Microsoft fix all security flaws I should have said they still support IE6 for our company (we may be paying extra for it now - I don't know) the same as they would IE7/8. Therefore, lack of support isn't forcing the company to upgrade. The chance of the company upgrading to Chrome or Firefox is practically nil, especially if they don't offer enterprise level support.

Anyway, there are a couple of things to bear in mind about your point that upgrading will save developer time:

Firstly, nobody cares enough about saving developer time. Developers are cheap, and getting cheaper. What's more, the necessary hacks are their problem, or the problem of the company delivering your development (quite often someone in India nowadays). Certainly, nobody cares if they're a bit irritated because they know where the door is if they don't like it and there's plenty more 'contingent resource' available to replace them. This isn't my personal attitude - I'm just describing the sitation as it is in many companies out there now.

The second point is that because the desktop estate is standardised and locked down there is only one browser to develop for which is IE6. So no hacks are necessary.

There's nothing supported in any modern browser that is of much use to a business web app and anyway, because web apps are regarded as legacy technology and being replaced by ERP solutions by many large companies (e.g. SAP), there is no appetite to spend money on upgrading browsers or business web apps when they'll be replaced soon anyway by an ERP solution.

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 7:34 am Post subject:

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 11:18 pm Post subject:

£250 to use Firefox instead of IE6 - bargain!

It's a good thing Bristol is so far away - otherwise I might end up going on a rampage and end up putting the entire Orange management team in hospital.

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