What is a browser?

What is a Browser?

When I ask my high school students this question, the number one answer I get is "Google". Somewhere in the past six years or so most ordinary folks have stopped thinking about the browser. Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera and Internet Explorer don't mean much to most of my students.

This short film asks the same question "man on the street" style and gets pretty much the same answers I get in the classroom. I think this reflects better designed browsers. We are more concerned with the results. Like a good tool, they start to fade into the background. Unless they stop working.

[Image captured from the video: What is a browser?]

ToneMatrix

ToneMatrix is a browser based sinewave synthesizer. I've seen some of these as DIY projects that you can build. This is the first I've seen I can play from my computer. Essentially you click on one of the little squares and it will play a tone. Click on a column and it will play a chord. It sequences from right to left.

From the descriptions of these syntesizers, I thought a device like this would have limited appeal. Once again I was wrong. It quickly ate up a hour of my time as I made up different sequences. It was extremely easy to build a pleasant melody in just a few minutes and then change it on the fly.

Fun. Entertaining. I've bookmarked this one for future moments of "messing around".
[via DavidWilson.Com]
[Image captured from http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix]

Acid Test for Browsers

The Acid3 test page will check to see how compliant a browser is to web standards. If you are teaching web design, your students will eventually run into a situation where a page will open fine on one browser but will not look right on another. The Acid3 test is a fast way to show your kids these differences graphically. The picture shown here is what the page is supposed to look like. My understanding is that at this point no browser is 100% compliant. Try it with your current browser and see how close it comes.

If you want more details about the organization that put the test together or the whole issue of web standards, check out the Web Standards Project site.

[Image captured from ACid3 Test reference page: http://acid3.acidtests.org/reference.html]