In June 2009 Adobe has announced a limited developer preview of BrowserLab. BrowserLab is online hosted service by Adobe that enable web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand. BrowserLab is a powerful solution for cross-browser compatibility testing, featuring multiple viewing and comparison tools, as well as customizable preferences. Since BrowserLab is an online service, it can be accessed from virtually any computer connected to the web.

New Features

• Save Locally: Save screenshots generated by BrowserLab in either 1-Up or 2-Up views. This lets you capture renderings of your web pages in different browsers, to save for easy reference or sharing with clients and colleagues. Added January 14, 2010
• Additional browser support: Preview web pages in more browsers: Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4, Chrome 3.0 (XP) and Firefox 3.5 (XP and OS X). Each of these additional browsers can be added to existing Browser Sets.
• Rulers and Guides: Pinpoint the exact location of any area within a screenshot. Rulers on the X and Y axes show you precise pixel dimensions, with optional guidelines for added accuracy.
• Move and Pan: Move to any area of a screenshot by simply clicking and dragging your mouse, or using the arrow keys.
• Onion Skin Registration: Tackle precise layout issues within specific areas of your designs, with custom registration of the screenshots in BrowserLab’s Onion Skin view.
• Screenshot Delay: Pause the rendering of a screenshot by up to 10 seconds, so you can preview content that needs time to generate.

Supported Browsers and Operating Systems

• Firefox 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5 (Windows XP and Mac OS X) .
• Internet Explorer 6.X, 7.X, and 8.X (Windows XP) .
• Safari 3.X and 4.X (Mac OS X) .
• Chrome 3.0 (Windows XP).

Viewing and Diagnostics Tools

Screenshots can be viewed in a single view, side by side view, or as an overlay view with variable transparency. Each viewing option features a zoom function. We’ve also added measurement tools like Rulers and Guides, custom Onion Skin Registration, as well as the ability to move quickly to specific areas of a screenshot. You can also save screenshots in 1-Up or 2-Up views.

Browser Sets

Browser Sets allow designers to customize, edit, and save a combination of browsers to test.

The BrowserLab free preview is available to a limited number of users, while we monitor its performance. Please visit our service status page for updates.

Google India blog has posted a really wonderful blog post about to How to make mobile friendly website. Google India blog post described some of key aspects of website designing. Some of key things that Google India blog post say are listed below

• Its a different world / Know thy user
• Screen-size makes or breaks the experience
• Typing is painful
• Up & down is better than sideways
• GPRS is slow, unsteady and costly

Read the Complete Post here Designing a mobile friendly website

We have seen a lot of tools and technologies, to create websites easily, but all these tools require a PC at your disposal. When nearly everything from gaming to blogging is possible using your cellphone, why shouldn’t we have a tool to create websites too. So, Chennai based Akimin Technologies, decided to go one step further than the pack, by creating a tool to design websites while on the move. The service will be started this Independence Day onwards.

Akmin CEO Mr. Prasanth talked about the product with Times of India. According to him, this service will be free of cost. No technical knowledge will be required to use this tool. He also added that in current scenario, mobile phone market is far bigger than the PC segment. That’s why they came up with this brilliant idea.

According to the reports from TRAI, no. of users for GPRS enabled Handsets, is more than 65 million compared to only 14 million broadband users. Soon enough, this number will cross the 80 million mark, as IPhone is about to make an official entry in the Indian market. So, more of PC-specific applications will soon become available for mobile platform too, added Mr. Prasanth.

Speaking more about this application, he told TOI that, this application will require no downloads, and can be directly accessed at Mobisitegalore website. This means to start creating your own websites, you will just need a GPRS activated phone, and nothing else. To know more about the application, you can also visit www.mobisitegalore.com.