[d] enclosed in brackets chaotic perfectionist for hire

I posted this on plurk, but wanted to open it up a little more.

Any suggestions on a 1st sock pattern...? I'd like to do toe-up, and have two skeins of Järbo Garn Mini Raggi and size 3 dpns (if that helps).

In looking around, I've seen a lot of different patterns. The part I'm stuck on (which is pretty much how things go for me) is the casting on for the socks. Do I use Judy's magic cast on? Or this one on wiseNeedle?

Once I've figured that out, I think I'm just going to do plain stockinette through to the heel and standard ribbing through to the top. They're for me anyway (my wonderful wife got the yarn and needles for me), so I thought I would start simple... and toe-up, unless there's a compelling reason to start cuff-down instead.

Now that I think about it, any suggestions for the pattern, cast-on, heel, or other parts would be greatly appreciated. I've heard that socks are an addictive project, but I'm willing to find out how true that is.

In working on a couple of web design projects, I've needed to test out what the site looks like on various browsers, on different operating systems, all with different versions. Designers would have a much easier time if browsers worked more like TVs - you don't see a different looking show on a Sony than a Panasonic TV.

Unfortunately, some of the older browsers *cough-IE-cough* were really bad about rendering pages, and people coded for them because they were the most popular. In these cases it's old and outdated code that looks bad on modern browsers, but is in there to help the people who haven't upgraded since Windows 95 and IE3. blech.

Fortunately, there are ways to test these designs out, even if you aren't on Windows, or a Mac, or Linux. On the last project I did, The design looked great on Firefox, IE7, Opera, and Seamonkey. What I didn't know at the time was that it looked atrocious on IE6. I'm working on a new site for someone (more details soon), and finally got the theme together. He went to look at it while he was home and it came out... wrong. Again, I didn't know what it looked like, and couldn't fix it as is.

When it happened the first time, I half-looked for a way to check browser compatibility. At the time, I didn't find something to use, and stopped looking once I had fixed the issue. This time, I needed something... and I (re)found Browsershots.org. Yes, they've (he's?) been around for a while, and many people use them, but I hadn't realized how useful it is.

Now I know that the pngfix for IE 5.5-6 is what's breaking it in those two browsers, and I can work on fixing them. I'll post some screen shots soon, but in the meantime, go visit the site and check it out.

Firefox has been crashing on me lately, probably something to do with the 35+ extensions I use (more on that in another post). I already have IE (yuck), Seamonkey (formerly the Mozilla browser), and Lynx (text browser, through Cygwin)... and haven't used Opera since they had ads built in (although I had it downloaded and ready to go when they stopped with the ads).

The install was pretty standard, but in opening it for the first time, it's improved quite a bit since the last time I fired it up. There are the usual features built in (like tabs and mouse gestures, which I love), but then there are more things - the Speed Dial is great, and Opera itself seems to be quick and light. Maybe too early to tell, but it's winning me over for some sites. This is also the "out ofthe box" version, so I haven't messed it up yet.