steve,

you can also try http://browsershots.org/. this free service allows you to see (by way of an image file per selected target browser) how your page looks on a variety of popular browsers. well worth a try, especially if targetting multiple platforms as well (i.e. mac/linux etc).

hope this helps

jimi

http://www.originaltalent.com

There is also BrowserCam, which allows you to use a VPN to log onto actual machines to fully browse and interact with your site using a wide variety of hardware, O/Ses, and browsers, in real time. This way, you can go beyond the "look" and check client-side functionality, like javaScript, AJAX, Flash, etc...

Not free, but well worth it if you're serious about cross-platform.

Guys,

Thanks for the suggestions. I fixed the Firefox problems and am working with the free testing site.

Thanks again for the referral to the free website testing website. Just a little editorial here:

I'm fairly new to web development and have read so many complaints about IE compatibility issues and it just rolled off my back. I thought: 'complainers'. Now I am looking at my website in IE6 and it is absolutely hopeless. I can only hope that those who reach my site via IE <= 6 will be so used to seeing extremely poor results that they will ((take it in stride) || (upgrade)) || (do both).

If I may be so bold, I don't think there's any good reason one can't achieve good compatibility with IE 6, IE 7, and FireFox at the same time. I admit it takes a lot more work and a good command of CSS, but it's very doable.

Sorry to say this, but quite frankly, I think your assessment that your users will " ((take it in stride) || (upgrade)) || (do both)" is a bit naive. You very well may find that most will do option 4 -- leave.

P.S. I still use IE 6 all the time, and I'm certainly not used to seeing poor results at all.

Again, I hope you don't take any offense here. Just trying to be helpful.

Lee,

No offense taken and thanks for the needed reminder. I can probably work out the positioning problems but I'm not sure that I can figure out how to make the header images transparent. But I'll google around on it.

Thanks again.

Steve

Thanks again Lee. I got the site cleaned up and although it is not going to win any beauty contests, it is presentable in IE6 and I'm glad I took the effort.

In case anyone else is dealing with this problem, here is a good starting point for making your site compatible with IE6:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms537509.aspx

steve,

another thing worth noting, is the stats sliced each month across the browser market. they serve as a good illustration as to the rate of change across any given browser. interestingly, IE6 still has a 25% mkt share, so it's a sizeable chunck:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

firefox is of course, the current 'leader' on 42%, so definately worth making sure that your site functions well on that beastie as well...

jimi

http://www.originaltalent.com

Who did http://www.dayinblackhistory.com/?
I really want to know how you did the navigation tabs at the top!

Simple Javascript and CSS.