This isn’t the first time I’m seen something like this, the demos from Jeff Han blew me away last year and earlier this year everyone saw the iPhone demos as well. I don’t think the question is which company will perfect this first, I think the question is how much will new technologies like this impact our lives? Twenty years from now we could all be taking this for granted.

What Do I Know recently touched on Tredosoft’s Multiple IE, which allows you to install IE 6 through IE 3, while allowing Internet Explorer 7 to remain untouched on your system. This is a great aid, something I’ve been using for a few months thanks to a recommendation from a friend. Tredosoft’s solution is much more stable than the archived browsers from Evolt.org, and they seem to run pretty well at the same time if you need to check 2 or 3 browsers at once. I haven’t tried this with Parallels, but I’ve heard it runs well this way, I do know that this isn’t compatible with Vista yet, which would be nice. I have noticed a slight tendency for IE6 to crash and/or incorrectly render some pages, which brings me to my next recommendation.

The other option is to download Virtual PC 2007, which looks like it’s Vista compatible, and the IE Application Compatibility VPC Image, which is a small Virtual PC image with Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. In my opinion, this way is a little more involved, but I’ve seen pretty accurate results on IE6 when compared to an acutal PC running IE6.

Take a look at both options, they seem to work well for me. Though I’m not running Windows XP or Vista on my laptop yet, I have a late model Powerbook so no Boot Camp or Parallels, I plan on picking up a Macbook Pro after the next revision and finally be able to run OS X, XP, Vista and possibly a Linux distribution to become more familiar with Linux systems for a pretty solid web development testing environment,

35 Designers x 5 Questions

I’m going to fix my iBook and give it to my brother, he needs something for school work and the internet, so its perfect for his needs right now.

As for my work load, its been pretty hectic, a couple of great projects at Evolve and a couple of nice freelance projects have been monopolyzing most of my time, but the work has been great.

Additionally, I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.0 and have upgraded to the newest version of K2 which seem pretty solid. I need more time, but the work’s keeping me out of trouble.

Besides that I’ve been pretty busy with various freelance projects and I can’t wait to add some new stuff to my portfolio and get back to cover interesting things.

Now for the worst part, waiting…

I have been using Inquisitor in Safari for quite sometime and enjoy its slick interface and ease of use. Recently, info was released regarding its next incarnation, Inquisitor 2.0 which looks very promising.

I must say that the Inquisitor Instant Search Beta is an online version of the same search interface, working on any platform. Built on the same technology that powers Google Suggest with some AJAX goodness, should prove to be an interesting experiment.

I posted about this before on evolvefuel, but I want to devote a little more time to reviewing the product.

Linotype FontExplorer X is a new font management utility, much like Suitcase X1 or Apple’s Font book. I’ve been using Suitcase for a few years now and it usually works pretty good, though the PC version lacks some additional features that are in the OS X version.

Font Book sounded really good when it was first introduced but I found it difficult to manage a large library of fonts without my system slowing to a crawl or Font Book crashing out right.

In comes FontExplorer, a sleek interface reminiscent of iTunes brushed metal, and easy to use tools. Font organization is quick, featuring multiple preview options, auto-activation with an option to buy missing typefaces directly through the application. Searching for fonts is as easy and quick as using Spotlight.

I’d recommend this alone on the how its features are equal to or better than the competition, but the last selling point is that it is completely free, free forever, no ads or nagging, pretty generous of Linotype in my opinion.