Every since I switched to mac, there have been a few unavoidable problems. I had to install Windows XP when I first got it because of two main reasons. There was no Universal Binary for the Adobe and Macromedia suite of products so I needed to boot into windows whenever I did web work. The other reason had to do with synching my windows mobile phone. The only software available to synch my phone was the missing sync which was buggy and lacked pretty much any decent support, and it was like $40. Once the Adobe suite was released in Universal Binary and I found a freeware sync application that works wonders (syncmate), I was able to cut ties from Windows for good.
One thing I seemed to have forgotten about though, until recently is the ability to check the rendering of a website in IE. As anyone who codes websites knows, IE is the devil. They ignore all standards, and just do their own thing. I did some searching for people who maybe could write a plugin for firefox or something to make the page behave like it was rendered by IE so I can debug. Unfortunately most developers see this as a step backwards... why would we cater to IE.. IE needs the fixing, so make them fix their product, not cater to it.
I was able to find this nifty online application (netrenderer). Basically put a site in the box, and what version of IE you are trying to use. They offer IE7, IE6, IE5, and even the new IE8 beta. It returns only a screenshot of a maximized 1024x768 window, so if what you are trying to check is far down on your page, you won't be able to see it, but obviously there are workarounds for that.
Overall, it's free. I don't have to instal XP on my mac, and I don't have to leave a windows computer laying around just for this anymore. It has it's shortcomings, but it's helpful to look back at only one version ago in IE when they didn't render transparent png files...
It also gives me hope that at first glance, IE8 seems to have fixed their box model.
I wish I knew why everyone in the web community used:
Margin - Border - Padding - Object
but IE felt it necessary to use:
Border - Margin - Padding - Object
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