Ask any web developer about the pain points in their development process, and Internet Explorer is most likely to be high on the list. The greatest challenge has been IE's inconsistent and atypical rendering of css (the code used to control page layout and styling throughout a site). The greatest challenge for developers is maintaining layout consistency between older versions (IE6), the current version (IE7), and other browsers (Firefox, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome).
IE8 will purportedly have new backward-compatibility tools to ensure less things break. It also is supposed to render pages faster and more efficiently.
The verdict is still out. It seems developers are just now beginning to test sites against this new version. With the new RC release, the software's rendering engine is presumably not going to undergo any significant changes, so I will begin testing sites against this version to ensure layout and style compatibility.
Two years ago, when I first began to consider doing full-time freelance web development, I realized that one of the first things I would need to do is establish some marketing materials— a website and business cards, at a minimum.
So I sat down one afternoon and cranked out a website. Over these two years, I've probably modified it about a dozen times— mostly to update the portfolio pages with a few new clients. But somehow it's always felt like the cobbler's kids with no shoes.
Well, I've finally unveiled a new website that does a little better job explaining what I do (web development), who I've done it for, and what I do it with (Joomla!, CiviCRM, etc.). It has a few bumps and scrapes to be cleaned up, but it gets the job done.
Two years ago, when I first began to consider doing full-time freelance web development, I realized that one of the first things I would need to do is establish some marketing materials— a website and business cards, at a minimum.