Internet Explorer, the Web Developer’s Nemesis
Well, it’s mine anyway.
I got a big wake up call yesterday morning. I had placed two auctions up on Flippa a couple days back. They are the two that I’m having a helluva hard time selling. Why? I haven’t figured it out yet. Like I said before, I think it’s because of some missing components such as not having necessary software (mostly for backend link building and SEO), the knowledge of knowing how to drive traffic to sites, as well as the reputation needed to soothe the minds of potential buyers.
Anyway, I received an email from a potential buyer who was looking at one of the sites I had up for sale. He told me that he would like for me to fix the header/navigational area so that he could have a better look at the site. I was dumbfounded. I looked at the site in my trusty (or at least I thought) Firefox browser. Nothing seemed out of order. I checked it out on my hubby’s computer to see if it would look differently since I seem to have a problem with clearing the cache on mine. Again – nothing seemed out of place.
So I took a screenshot and placed it on the auction. I also answered the guy’s email and asked if he would kindly send me a screenshot of what he sees on the computer. A few hours later, I received a response.
I gawked and cringed at the screenshot that the person sent me. The site was broken. The navigation was not there except for a near invisible list of links to pages. The background to the articles were not white like it should be. And the footer at the bottom did not exist. I was so embarassed.
Web design 101: Always check to make sure your site is working across all browsers, not just your favorite one. For those of you who would like to avoid my mistake, always check your site at this site Browser Shots for compatibility.
I wasn’t sure what made the site look horrible in IE. Of course, many web developers know that IE handles websites differently than other browsers like Firefox. I was racking my brain to the point where it hurt.
On a hunch, I checked out all my other sites. I got more and more stressed out and angry when I realized that most of my sites were horribly broken in Internet Explorer. I needed to figure out why they looked like absolute shit.
I ran a mental list to see what they all may have in common. And this is what I came up with.
Most of them:
- Are hosted on Hostgator (it wasn’t the problem)
- Use the Wordpress 3.01 platform
- Used most of the same plugins
- Used themes I created in Artisteer
- are owned and run by me (flawed in many ways LOL)
I immediately nixed Hostgator and Wordpress as they are heavily supported and backed by their respective companies. That left me, my plugins and Artisteer.
I automatically figured it was Artisteer. I didn’t seem to have a problem with the sites when they were using free Wordpress themes. I didn’t want to give it up because Artisteer makes it simple and quick for me to make my own Wordpress themes. I did go to the Artisteer forums to look for answers. But to my dismay, Artisteer support was not up to par. A lot of people asking or complaining about Artisteer support. I was cranky that I had paid for another year’s worth of updates when support sucks.
I was ready to give Artisteer the boot so I started the unwanted search for free Wordpress themes that fit my criteria. Still, in the back of my mind I felt that Artisteer wasn’t the entire problem.
I couldn’t make any changes to the 2 sites that were up for sale on Flippa so I decided to test a christmas site that used Artisteer and plugins. I kept the theme in tact and instead, turned off all the plugins. Voila! The site was no longer broken! I was tickled pink that I didn’t actually have to do away with Artisteer.
So I painstakingly turned each plugin on, one by one. I kept refreshing the IE browser and things seemed ok… until I turned on Hyper Cache. Then the site was broken once again. “Yes!” I thought. I assumed that was the culprit.
It wasn’t. It was only half of the problem. I deactived the plugin from all the sites and they went back to normal again. However, refreshing the page a few times brought the sites to that ugly stage once more. I grit my teeth and wanted to pound my head on the wall.
I eventually figured out that it was both Hyper Cache and WP Minify that weren’t working well on my sites. They don’t work separately either, meaning that if one was deactivated and the other was not, the site was still broken. So I opted to have them both deactivated.
Lesson learned: always check your site for browser compatibility before selling it or sending traffic to it.
Blogs and Adsense
So a friend of mine mentioned that she was thinking of starting a weight loss blog. My assumption is that she is going to blog about her personal experiences from losing weight. I thought that was a great idea. I suggested that she either use Wordpress or Blogger because they both offer blogs for free. I’ve actually used both a long time ago and I think they’re great for beginners.
That got me thinking about my own sites. I used to have over 30 domains, most of which catered to the adult industry. I was an adult webmaster that promoted porn for 7+ years. It wasn’t something that I was proud of because I couldn’t show my family what I did for a living and I sure as hell couldn’t work on my projects with my kids in the same room. So now I only have one adult blog that I rarely maintain, but small checks come in once in awhile.
When I dropped all my adult domains, I had my family blog, the unschooling website, this domain which I’ve had forever, and a domain for my husband’s future landscaping business. The latter has yet to be developed.
After a lot of thinking on different occasions, I bought one for my personalization business, another to turn into an events/info/news hub site for the bay area, and domain that will eventually be used as a repository for my toons. My love of toons and drawing them have been reborn once again.
Currently, all domains that I have are using the Wordpress platform because it’s free, easy to use, and you can download all kinds of templates and plugins to make it more useful and cool looking. I’ve recently started using Artisteer which is a great software that makes creating new Wordpress templates really easy to build. And the best part about the Artisteer software is that you can use it to create templates to sell to the general public. The only stipulation is that you can’t use the images or graphics contained in Artisteer if you plan to sell the templates that you create. You have to use your own. No big deal here.
So most of my sites have Adsense implemented into them with the tips that I read from Adsense experts. Funny, I don’t remember their names. But whatever. My adult blog has no Adsense on it because it would be a direct violation of their TOS. That’s fine. I’m promoting and adult program anyway.
I checked my stats earlier today after I talked to my friend about her blog. I used to make a little over $100 a month from Adsense and the money would get direct deposited into my account. But that was a long time ago. Lots of things had been going on over the past several years that have prevented me from focusing on blogs and adsense. It’s called Life and information overload. Damn those gurus and their constant need to produce more and more products on how to make money. The information overload has gotten me at a dead stand still.
So I checked my stats and it says that I’ve made a little over $60 since my last payment. LOL. I haven’t received a payment from Google in a year or so. I can’t remember. Well I have $40 left to go before I can receive my next payment. If I can make $60 per day from Adsense, that would be progress for me. That would mean an extra $1800 a month to help with bills and groceries. I know hubby would greatly appreciate that. I could think of several bills that could be paid with that money. Maybe that will be my new goal? $60 a day from Adsense. It’s a realistic goal.