With Google recently announcing it is withdrawing support for IE6 from March 1 and YouTube support slated to be dropped on March 13  the web has been alight with celebratory posts, tweets and blog comments. There's even been a funeral arranged. Are we finally seeing the beginning of the end for the webs most hated browser?

There's plenty of articles bemoaning the digital barnicle that is IE6, but not so many people seem to be looking at what's actually happening in terms of actual usage. Yes there's plenty of alternatives such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari (hell- even upgrading to IE8 isn't that bad) but the uptake seems to be slow.

Global browser trend stats from Hitslink tell a slightly more depressing story. At time of writing 20% of users are still using IE6. 10 months ago it was 30%. Its simple maths, IE6 usage is dropping around 1% point every month. Take a look (click the image for a larger version):

At Frame Digital we wouldn't consider dropping support for a browser unless it was well under 10%. At the current rate of decline it looks we'll still be applying IE6 specific CSS and javascript PNG hacks probably until the end of the year. Not to mention the additional development hours testing and supporting the piece of junk dated software.

Fingers crossed with the big online mega-corps starting to withdraw support it will force the remaining IT managers and home users to finally upgrade. 

Even though Flickr has had an API since 2004 its never been very good at showcasing applications built using the API. Until recently, there was the Third Party Flickr Apps list on Flickr, and also lots of other websites took up the challenge to showcase Flickr apps such as Flickrbits and the Great Flickr Tools collection.

Well, this glaring omission is now over. On 3rd of November, Flickr removed the Third Party apps list and launched the Flickr App Garden, an area specifically designed for showcasing third-party apps, its a great repository for Flickr users wanting to find all sorts of cool new ways to show off their photos, whether it be a desktop, mobile or online. Read more »

Yes, its true. We are now advising NASA on overcoming engineering difficulties on their Mars rovers. It seems anything is possible with Twitter - sadly the space-fairing uber boffins never got back to us with how effective our suggestion was. Still, there's always next time.

Click the image to view the full screen version

For a while now we have been playing with heat mapping from a third party company, Click Density.  

It works real well, and you can really see how your users are using your site (else they really wouldn't be users! - ed.).  But with multiple sites under our belt and swathes of sites coming our way we wondered how easy it would be to create something that we could plug'n'play with.

Generic Handlers

.Net comes with a great file type called a generic handler (*.ashx) which allows you to send back to the requestor any type of file that you want to send back to them.  This could be XML, JSON or even an image.  But all we need to send back is Javascript.

At first we thought this would be cross domain scripting which is not allowed, but actually its just popping a URL onto someone's page and the Javascript would run.  

<script src="http://where.your-generic-handler-is-hosted.com/js.ashx?clientId=2" type="text/javascript" language="javascript"></script>

But will we be able to inject HTML and Script tags into the page as well?

Read more »

It's hard being Flash. Living in a world where measurability is one the most basic attributes of everything around you. It's a bit like being the toy that gets left in the box 'cause its not got all the cool bits the other toys have.

But now, thanks to Google (we love you Google), ol' Flash has been given a new gadget and it's coming out of the box.

Earlier this year, Google released Google Analytics for Flash (gaforflash). An ActionScript 3.0 API allowing you to track PageViews and Events within your Flash applications.

It's rather good and if you are anything like us, you'll like it too.

Whether you're planning your next Flash website, creating a new widget for FaceBook or are about to produce a suite of new shiny rich media ads, I'm sure it's something you'll want to look into.

Thanks again Google. You make us feel funny in our xxxx.

I noticed that Smashing Magazine recently posted a pretty epic article about CSS sprites. I've been using this technique for quite a while now, but its still surprises me how many sites (even relatively new ones) still go down the single image rollover state, often using that bloated chunk of javascript code from Dreamweaver that has been around since the dawn of time. You know the one - with the MM_preloadImages() and MM_swapImage() restore functions.

Not a CSS Sprite

I first knew of CSS Sprites as the 'sliding doors' CSS technique posted on A List Apart and there was an article in 2004 that put it forward as well. I like sprites, sprites are cool. Not just because they sound like something you should bump into at Halloween, but because they remind me of designing 8-bit graphics on my ZX Spectrum. Before anybody have even thought of Photoshop I used to design small bitmap images on graph paper then figure out the binary so I could make my custom 8-pixel square space invader boing around the screen in one of the random mini-games I used to make when I was a kid (I've never been one for football) It was all the rage in Your Sinclair. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch this video.

So what exactly is a sprite then?

Sprites are just a collection of small images on one single larger master image arranged in a grid that is then mapped or positioned into a smaller space. When computers had less power than your mobile phone it was seen as a resource friendly way to handle graphics without having to load or search for new images everything something changed on screen. There's plenty of examples on Google. Read more »