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Does it bother anyone else that Google has such a strong choke hold on the Internet? Don’t get me wrong, at the same time I think Google is amazingly progressive, but I earn my living through e-commerce. My mortgage payment depends on a mathematical algorithm. It’s a little scary. Sure, I know the ins and outs of SEO, but there are NO guarantees.

I love my job. I wake up, start the tea pot, walk down to my office, and boom, I am at work – no commute, no fluorescent lights, no annoying co-workers or grind to fight. Is it a dream? Maybe, I seem to have found a loophole in the system, for now. The catch? Faith alone keeps me plugging away on a daily basis. I am NOT a laborer, I don’t produce something you can hold or touch.

Like most big companies Google is unreachable, godlike. Do I practice prayer in order to get a high organic ranking? :} AMEN! There is no public contact information of any kind to communicate with Google directly. Yet like a mouse through a maze I run through Google Webmaster Tools whenever I launch a new site. When I order pizza I use Google Search, etc.

The fear is what Google giveth, Google will taketh away, but for now, I’ll just fly under the radar. After all, I’ve made it this far.

Where to begin on this topic is a little unsettling because I feel like I could write an entire book on the subject. Every time I design and build a new website I get a sense of accomplishment as I near a finish product. Oh, but wait I tell myself – “don’t get excited yet”, I still have to view my project in multiple browsers to make sure the masses see the same slick layout that I do. Let’s see here…looks good in Firefox, check, Safari, check, Chrome, check, and so forth and so on. Then I get down the list to IE, not just one version, but three – v6, v7, v8. Each with its own unique quirks, hacks, and bugs, how very special for Microsoft.

In my most recent quest, a fresh make over for ROCKHOST.COM, I found a great designer aid – BrowserShots.org. This little peach takes screenshots of any url and spits out .pngs for download. Between the OS and browser checkbox options seeing your website through about 50 different computer eyes is possible in mere minutes.

Anyway back to my point…INTERNET EXPLORER SUCKS! It renders websites in an unflattering manner in most cases, yet it is widely used forcing coding professionals to be its slave. If you are viewing this page right now in IE I strongly encourage you to download Firefox and utilize a modern browser that functions well on multiple platforms.