how to check site on Mac and Windows

[jerrynyc]

I use a Mac and design my site on this machine. In order to to how it looks on a windows machine I need to use a friend's machine. This is especially anoying when I need to tweak my site. Is there a site that can give me a screenshop of various browsers?

[too much information]

I ended up buying a PC, but I have found that if my page looks good in Safari it pretty much looks great everywhere else.

That might be a shortcut you could use.

[gonky]

you could use browsercam.

[jerrynyc]

The main problem for me is that IE5 for Mac oftens looks different than IE5 windows. I would rather not buy a PC just for this.

[Chndru]

I never understood this concept properly. Can anyone give me in simple terms, why would each browser show the same HTML code in a different way?

[jerrynyc]

browsercam looks like it might just the solution. Thanks

[jerrynyc]

The problem is that each browser renders the code in it's own way with it's own quirks. IE5 for Mac has a different rendering engine that IE5 for windows.

[txbakers]

I never understood this concept properly. Can anyone give me in simple terms, why would each browser show the same HTML code in a different way?

Well......that's the question of the day isn't it. Can I phone a friend?

Here is the very short answer.

A browser is a computer program. With lots of lines of very complex C++ (probably) code. When you visit a website, the browser has to do all these functions: 1)translate your www. name to an IP address 2) find that IP address and contact it 3)send a request for the page you requested 4) receive the page from the server which is nothing but text 5)figure out what all the little tags, scripts, and other doodads on that text file should look like and how they should function 6) present it to you.

In step 5, there are guidelines on how the language of the web should function - HTML. However, programmers are not automatons - we are creative people working for profit making companies so we like to be creative. Some programmers will interpret scripts and tags differently. Some will be more faithful to the guidelines, others will allow room for syntax errors.

So, a programmer working for Opera will write the code to interpret these little symbols differently than a Microsoft programmer.

That's why pages look and work differently in different browsers.

And that's the short answer.