Deciding what web browser to use on a daily basis is a very important life decision. Marketing professionals are always plugged in to the internet and I’m curious to see which web browser our readers use the most. Which do you prefer? Why?

Here’s what I do:

Work: Safari > I enjoy the look of the  ”Top Sites” feature and it was the first browser to embrace HTML5, which is a language that designers use for web layouts. Safari can support media rich sites without plug-ins.

Home: Firefox > I’ve built out a complex system of tabs in the bookmark toolbar. My tabs include: e-mail, social media, news, finance, and “cool stuff” among others. I also take advantage of the Add-ons and themes. My latest theme is Noia Fox, which gives my Firefox experience more icons and color.

1st Alternate: Google Chrome > I’ve had Chrome downloaded and rarely use it. It’s my second fiddle if I have the need for it. I know a lot of people really like Chrome. Here is a link to an article that highlights five reasons Chrome should be your primary browser.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

Now that most everyone has a smart phone or tablet, the importance of a mobile site (a layout of your website pages that is designed to work within the smaller screen) is paramount to a good user experience when accessing your web presence. There are many different ways to approach mobile site design, but to limit the amount of time it requires to build an environment that works with all mobile devices can be achieved by using a mobile framework. Here are a few that I have worked with and find useful:

jQuery Mobile, from the developers that make jQuery this is a awesome framework that has hooks for everything mechanically that needs to happen for a mobile web app.

Kendo UI, from the folks at Telerik, uses jQuery, but has its own set of methods that handle page navigation and components.

jQTouch, an open source alternative to the ones above while still using jQuery for its smarts.

Any of these are great to work with, however they do have a learning curve as you figure out how they perform actions and what works best with various platforms.

While these are all based on jQuery there are many others that utilize their own code libraries to develop against.
I prefer jQuery because of my experience with it, what do you find useful or use?

In this microwave day and age where we want everything quick, on-the-go and easily accessible right at our finger tips, it’s important to keep in mind just how crucial navigability is when creating a website. Navigability is defined as “the quality of being suitable for the passage of a ship or aircraft” (Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Navigability). If you think of a web user as a ship navigating the waters of a website, in order to make their experience and passage through the site smooth the user needs to have easy access to the various parts of the site. One of the best ways to make the voyage successful is to make sure users can get to their intended destination in four clicks or less. Any more than that and the user has a higher chance of leaving the site and going elsewhere. So the next time you visit a site, count how many clicks it takes to find what you’re looking for. If it’s more than four, be prepared to steer your ship into warmer waters.

I have written blog posts before about the wonders of Frameworks, which are extensions created by the internet community to help other coders handle common tasks. There are many different types for each of the various flavors of programming languages. As far as choosing the best, its mostly a personal choice of which offers solutions to common tasks that you perform and that make sense to you. I would like to highlight one that I recently became aware of and have been some what intrigued by the development team that created it. Kendo UI, they have three sections to their framework which is an extension of jQuery, a javascript framework (standing on the backs of giants comes to mind).The three sections are Web, Mobile, and DataViz. Web is a set of useful interfaces like calendars, lists and data handlers just to name a few. Mobile is a complete set of utilities that allow you to generate mobile interfaces that appear and function like native apps. DataViz is a group of interfaces that display data in columns, grids, charts and gauges. If you aren’t familiar with this framework, take a look at it and use it in your next project. Great stuff!

What frame works do you use or have looked at that you find intriguing?

I am a very curious person to start with, if I don’t know the answer, my usual response is “let me find out” and off to Google I go. I will say that over the years I have learned that successful web searching is an art. You cannot simply type in  “Everest” and expect to find out immediately that plant life stops growing at approximately 3,700 feet.

Now you probably think that I’m going to launch straight into a post on SEO and web copy, which in theory I should. But it’s Monday, everyone is still tired from the weekend and trying to figure out how a one hour time change can throw one off so much, so I decided we start the week out lightheartedly with a new “game” Google has launched for the month of March.

Go to: http://agoogleaday.com, where you will find a daily puzzle, which you solve, using Google’s search engine. (They have set one up specifically that will filter searches to make sure you don’t accidentally stumble across the solution.) It is meant to help you develop your search skills.

I will warn you though, these searches are not easy, and it is quite addictive when Google tells you “Nope, try again”, but who knows, you could use the fun things you learn along the way on Jeopardy one day!

Happy Searching!