In a recent post on the Microsoft Internet Explorer blog, Pete LePage announced that Microsoft have released a Virtual PC 2004 image that includes Windows XP SP2, Internet Explorer 6, and the Internet Explorer 7 Readiness Kit. Here’s the kicker: you don’t have to buy an additional Windows license, which was previously the case when running Windows under VPC.

Here’s a roundup of the news articles, weblogs and just-plain-cool websites I’ve been visiting recently and think are worth sharing.

They say pictures speak loader that words. If that’s the case then typeworkshop.com must speak volumes, because its practical lessons in type design utilize both.

Here’s a roundup of the news articles, weblogs and just-plain-cool websites I’ve been visiting recently and think are worth sharing.

I’ve read a few articles recently where the author gives a run down of their top development or office productivity software - the “must have” tools that make you and your computer happy campers. Never one to miss a bandwagon, I’ve decided to create my own list of the web development and productivity tools that I use on a daily basis.

Swift is a new PC web browser based on Webkit, the open-source HTML rendering engine under the hood of Apple’s Safari browser. For web developers this opens up the possibility of testing websites in a decent approximation of Safari, without requiring a Mac on hand.

Podcasts, they’re so darn addictive. I’m even willing to forgive the misleading name (I’m sure I’m not the only podcast listener who isn’t an apple fanboy). But quality web and graphic design podcasts are few and far between, so I thought I’d share a few of my favourite shows with you. Because I’m a geek I’m going to throw my favourite technology podcasts into the mix too.

I recently tried Google Sitemaps, and found it to be a great way to see your website through Google’s eyes. The core purpose of Google Sitemaps is for website owners to feed Googlebot an XML sitemap listing URLs for all pages on their site (including those that may be otherwise inaccessible to robots), but there are many other features that web developers will appreciate.

I recently stumbled upon an archive of podcasts from the 2006 South by Southwest web design conference. There are like a gazillion of them, and they’re a lot cheaper than an international airfare and a conference ticket. In fact they’re free. Enjoy.

Recently I was discussing with my studio-mates what sort of contingency plan we have in place to prevent data loss. We all work as professional designers, and almost 100% of our work for clients is stored in digital format. A hard drive failure, fire, or theft of our computers could be catastrophic, setting us back days - possibly even weeks.