Test your websites in all versions of IE with the same program
It sounds too good to be true. I’ll have to try this when I get home and write an update with the results. IETester claims to be a program that can render your web pages using any version of Windows IE, from 5.5 through 8 beta 1. It is just an alpha, however, with known issues (including Flash not working in IE6).
A little background for the non-web nerds
For those not in the know, Windows Internet Explorer is notorious for making a web designer’s life miserable. It mangles the display of page layouts because it does not correctly support the web standards we use to build websites, like CSS. Its Javascript support is also frustratingly wonky. Because of this, we often have to finish a website, and before we celebrate being done, check it in Internet Explorer, and make a round of bug fixes.
Seriously. An entire step dedicated to bug fixes.
What’s worse, you can only install one version of IE in Windows at a time (with the exception of IE 8 beta 1 allowing you to switch to 7 if you’d like), so the more versions of IE you want to test for, well… the more installations of Windows you’ll need. Quite a hassle.