Testing in Browsers + Mutiple IEs on your PC

While building our Pet Store wire frames into real web sites I thought to mention how I test on multiple browers. If you haven't experienced it yet you will soon find out that there are some frustrating differences between all the browsers and how they render your XHTML and CSS.

I personally have bitten the Mac apple and therefor don't have much to do with the PC world until it's time to test. So how do I test all the main browsers during development?

Set-up for PC

Q: How to have multiple IEs on one computer?
A: As far as I know you can't have more than one IE installation on the default set-up of a PC. I have found a solution around this at this article on tredosoft.com which explains the multiple IE installation available at the bottom of page. I had no issues following the installation.

Set-up for Mac

If you have a newer Intel Mac you are in luck. Well, you still need to buy Windows but at least you don't have to buy a whole new computer set-up. If you have an older Mac computer you can get Virtual PC but the software isn't supported by Microsoft anymore.

My computer: MacBook Pro (Intel)
Windows Installation: Windows XP Home Edition
Additional Mac software: Parallels (to run Mac OS and Windows concurrently)

Then install the multiple IE installer to get all the stand alone versions you would like to test for.

Now that you have the hardware

Q: What browsers to test on?
A: Looking at the browser stats on W3 you see you should test for IE7 and IE6. IE5 is still out there but the stats for use are dropping fast so I'm personally not testing for that browser. Then the obvious is Firefox with high numbers. After that I test for Safari which ships with Mac computers. You may have thought there was an IE for the Mac but that browser is no longer supported by Microsoft. In short that browser list is:

• IE7 PC
• IE6 PC
• Firefox PC & Mac
• Safari PC & Mac
  

Questions I still have about testing. Perhaps you know the following.

• Does the PC version of Safari render like the MAC version?
• Any good on-line testing web sites and how much do they cost?
• What other solutions are there for MAC people to run PC?

Remember you are a student right now and can get some great discounts on computer software. If you are going to be developing for the web I would get what you will need in the near future now.

feedback welcome