I just attended the 1st annual MinneWebCon at the University of Minnesota. Part of my ongoing training and education, I sponsored myself to the all day event. Described as a “full-day, three-track continuing education conference for web professionals,” the conference covered broad topics, such as the meaning of being a web designer today and the future of the Web, as well as more specific areas of Google Gadgets and Google Analytics, microformats, modern javascript usage, accessibility, and Internet Law. Turn out was good, and keynote speaker Eric Meyer was very engaging, speaking of the proper role of web designers in the tradition of craftmen. Hopefully the event will continue next year, and continue to grow and improve.

With Internet Explorer 7 out, a lot of Windows users are starting to update their browsers. But what if you want to keep Internet Explorer 6 around for occasional use? Windows doesn’t make it easy to run multiple versions of Explorer on the same computer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way.

Go to a site that has downloads of older browser versions, such as Evolt.com. You can find multiple versions of Explorer 6 and 5.5, along with other browsers, and it’s all free to download.

The key here is to find the “standalone” versions of Internet Explorer, and save those to computer. There’s no install process, you just save a ZIP file to your computer. Once it’s downloaded, you can click on the zipped file to unload the folders contents. Then decide where to save them. I saved mine in a folder called Older Browsers in my documents.

Don’t try to download the regular versions of Explorer (the ones that are NOT standalone versions), because your PC will try to install them and you’ll then be told you already have a newer version of Explorer and it can’t install the old one.

Once you’ve saved the files, you’re almost ready to browse old-school style. Open the folder and find the file named ‘IEXPLORE.’ If you click on it, Windows will ask you if you want to “extract the files,” which mean unzip them so you can use them. Click “extract all” and let the Extraction Wizard do the rest.

Then, locate the folder where the files were extracted (the folder icon without the zipper on it), and click on the Explorer icon. Tell Windows to “run” this file. There’s a checkbox you can click on to avoid seeing the warning message again, and I would check it. By the way, you can delete the folder with the zipper on it, you’re done with that now.

You should be up and running Explorer now, in whatever older version you chose to download. One thing to note, if you look at Help/About Explorer, it will tell you you’re running version 7, or whatever version you’ve officially installed, but for browsing purposes, it’s your older version that’s working.

I use this to test my client’s websites in older versions of Explorer, to check for compatibility, and I suppose it’s mostly a web developer thing to be concerned about. But for whatever reason you’re interested in doing this, here’s a way.

If you want to accept payments online, you need a merchant account. This typically cost money, as you would expect. PayPal lets you do this on the cheap, charging a fee of approximately 3% on transactions. Google is challenging PayPal, however, with an even better offer. Free.

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In case you haven’t heard, you can do away with the jagged looking type while web browsing by following some simple steps.If you are a Windows-user, go to your display control panel, choose the appearance tab, and click on the effects button. Check the box that says “smooth edges of screen fonts,” selecting “Clear Type” in the dropdown, and then ok. The edges on your type will be smoother, easier on the eyes. Why this isn’t the default setting is beyond me. Mac users, this is already a part of your system, known as anti-aliasing.Apparently, Microsoft offers an online tool, for Windows XP users, that will turn on this feature for you with a click. A step by step instruction can also be seen on the digital survivors website.

Every once and a while, I find someone who accepts credit cards online and stores the numbers themselves in their database. I know this is a big no-no, but I’m not always so eloquent in explaining why. A good starting point is an article I came across recently about this very subject, and I’ll try to find some more to add shortly.

I read this interesting article about how to go about acquiring a domain that belongs to someone else. Not stealing it, but picking it up after it expires. It’s actually can be quite a process, and this article tells you how it works.