See Your Web Site on a Mac

By Blane Warrene | April 8, 2005 | Open Source

My good friend Felix in Germany runs a great web site with a fantastic service for developers wanting to see their web sites on a Macintosh using either Safari, IE 5 or Mozilla (Mac Screenshot Service).

I myself do not need that service – working on the OS X platform – but I have picked up some very useful CSS, JavaScript and PHP techniques from his work.

Fundisom.com includes:

CSS Tricks – layout and hover techniques
PHP Scripts – a vast number of useful functions and ready-to-go scripts covering a broad array of tasks. I particularly like the MySQL to Excel and Crop Image tips. Felix also includes some excellent methods for working recursively in directories.
A PHP mirror function that allows for server to server copying without an FTP service. I used this one myself as I recently needed something of this sort and moved a site with success using his code.

Along with the Mac screenshot service, one can use a Google position tracker, browse a nice online RSS newsreader, and play with colors using a really cool colorpicker showing all possible hues and shades of every color you input using hexidecimal code.

Last but not least – there are some neat JavaScript scripts including a cool real time preview of CSS and HTML code for testing your ideas (preview as you type in the source editor).

Written By:

Blane Warrene

Blane is a writer and researcher focusing on Apple and Open Source technologies. Prior to this, he helped found a commercial software and consulting venture, and worked in the financial services sector as a director of technology and in varying technical roles. Blane maintains Open Sourcery: SitePoint's Open Source Blog.

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{ 20 comments }

bwarrene April 13, 2005 at 2:21 pm: Great link konky2000!
konky2000 April 13, 2005 at 1:48 pm: Here is another similar service that lets you see your site in Mac, PC and Linux at varying resolutions and then lets you download the screenshots as a multi-layered photoshop document. I have been using them for a couple of years now:
http://www.browsercam.com/
brainlesswonder April 11, 2005 at 7:04 pm: I have to say, this article was riveting, poignant, and elegant. Brevity is nice.
While the screenshots could certainly show what a piece O-crap IE for that make was, they’d still be viewed via crappy PC gamma so in the end, the image will still be tainted.
asp_funda April 11, 2005 at 6:31 pm: something has screwed up!!! ;)
dziner April 11, 2005 at 1:39 pm: Where is the content of this article? I don’t see anything.
ten75 April 11, 2005 at 12:28 pm: yep the entry has gone!! try http://www.fundisom.com/g5/ – thats the one i use :)
Andy Moss April 11, 2005 at 11:29 am: I’m guessing the server load was so high that, to reduce the amount of people using it, they’ve taken the post down.
Si April 11, 2005 at 5:30 am: Where’s the article?! There’s nothing there! :(
computerages April 10, 2005 at 4:54 pm: It’s offline. What a surprise :)
That’s not a surprise at all. It’s online for your information. :)
EmptySky April 9, 2005 at 4:33 am: It’s offline. What a surprise :)
Tim G April 8, 2005 at 7:42 pm: Yes, as charmedlover indicates, the rez is too high. Looks like 1280×1024. A lower rez would give a better idea. That said, very handy.
charmedlover April 8, 2005 at 7:22 pm: Only problem with it is the huge resolution it sets your preview at, which doesn’t help me at all. But judging from the looks it is a promising tool.
polvero April 8, 2005 at 6:56 pm: Thanks a ton for the link on the mac screenshots. I never did quite like the other service that was provided a while back…they eventually made you become members…
let’s hope they don’t run out of bandwidth when more people find out about this service.
jnunemaker April 8, 2005 at 2:18 pm: That mac screenshot tool is amazing. Thanks for the tip. I will definitely get some use out of that until I pony up for a new powerbook.
SRTech April 8, 2005 at 1:13 pm: http://www.danvine.com/icapture/ was probably the one that was too busy.
Thanks Blane! It works great!
Dean C April 8, 2005 at 11:08 am: There was a service like this I found a while ago (not browsercam), but it was constantly too busy to use. Thanks for the heads up on this one :)!
RaS! April 8, 2005 at 10:58 am: Nice service! thanks for tips!
lixlpixel April 8, 2005 at 10:21 am: hi there, felix here…
the problem with the page loading delay is not so much the bandwith but rather the DNS server.
some domainnames have to be looked up and my ISP seems to be pretty slow in regard to that.
if your page hasn’t fully loaded, try another time – once the domainname is in the cache it’s generally pretty quick.
of course there are always these sites where the page is just too loaded or is hosted on a dial up server, where it just would take too long to be taken serious anyway…
and blane – thanks for the “warning” mail, it’s even hard to type this here, between all the screenshottery…
bwarrene April 8, 2005 at 9:53 am: I think that might have more to do with his wrestling match with German telecom than his code. ;>)
dschultz April 8, 2005 at 9:45 am: Yeah this is cool, the only thing is it doesn’t seem to be smart enough to wait until the page is finished loading.