A few things that caught me eye and made me think.
Browsers
Google Chrome Frame - A browser plug-in that enables HTML5 on Internet Explorer.
Why Corporations Don’t Upgrade IE6 and How Chrome Frame Could Help
Google Has A Solution For Internet Explorer: Turn It Into Chrome
Also some talk of accessibility issues with Google Chrome Frame.
ContinuedI put together a quick example of CSS3 @font-face with open-source type from The League of Moveable Type - Junction, Chunk and Sorts Mill Goudy. If your audience uses current browsers this font embedding option has great potential. View the example
Screenshots of how things look in a Firefox 3.5 which supports @font-face and in IE7 which does not.
You've designed and coded a website and now you want to see how it looks across multiple browsers and platforms. What's the fastest, easiest and best way to test? If you have the resources you could install all of the browsers on all of the platforms you are developing for. Another option would be to use a web based service that does most of the hard work for you in a few clicks. The following is a review of four major web based browser capture services.
ContinuedA seriously humorous review of software intended to keep you from the distractions of news and social-networking sites.
"You get to your PC every morning with hours of productive time ahead of you. Next thing you know, it’s 5 p.m. and you’ve frittered the day away on Digg, Hulu, Wikipedia and your fantasy football league. And no wonder — how can anyone expect to get anything done when you’re plying your trade on one of the most distracting machines ever invented?"
Read the complete article - Taming Your Digital Distractions
I read web design related articles daily via the usual sources (google reader, twitter, etc.) and feel I have a good pulse on the community. Most of these articles are positive and say great things about a website, designer, product or service. An equal amount are negative and critical of a company or service. Rarely is an article critical of an individual website or designer.
There seems to be an unwritten rule to avoid honest opinions if they may be perceived as negative which unfortunately is at the expense of some real insight and understanding. Lets face it, there is less risk in saying nice things, following the popular opinion and sugar coating things. At the same time it's always open season for negative articles towards easy targets like Microsoft and Google. Overall everyone plays is safe - "your the best.. no, your the best" or "Microsoft is evil." So when I come across a real article that cuts through the niceties and tells it like it is I read it many times, add it to delicious and post it on my blog.
The following article by Noah Stokes is that "reality check" article. The successful Web Designers are doing well for themselves and not grumbling about bad clients and IE6. These same Web Designers are successful because they are professional - they consistently do great work, they share their knowledge, they add to the web design community and they promote the profession. No whining and excuses. They actively look to make things better rather than sitting around complaining about things that are not going to change any time soon. Prime examples are Dan Cederholm (as mentioned below), Jeffrey Zeldman and Paul Boag to name just a few.
Read The State of the Web Design Profession by Noah Stokes