It seems every time we get on a conference call with a new or potential client that has an existing e-commerce site, we discover the existence of yet another shopping cart package, or store template system, and it becomes more painfully clear that someone really needs to start an aggressive campaign of air dropping Xbox systems and 2 liter bottles of Mountain Dew Code Red over Nepal.

As a design and development studio for interactive media, our bread and butter is undeniably building, maintaining and sadly trouble shooting e-commerce sites. As professionals, we encourage clients to abandon the ideals of a quick and seamless shopping cart system that can be integrated into virtually any site "as seen on TV." We are often faced with the unfortunate task of completing a site evaluation and informing the client that the little shopping cart system they bought for $80 bucks out of the back of a van will not handle tax rates, shipping, or actually selling products online.

After years of forcing unfortunate users of Windows to endure the painful shortcomings of IE8 and it's ugly older sisters. Microsoft has finally dipped its toes back into the browser market after the Goliath weighed in with only 56% market share at the beginning of 2011. While 56% percent still sounds like a nice chunk of market share, one must consider that a couple years ago that number was at 70% and even higher before that. Another factor that must be weighed in is the aggressive effort to make the Windows operating system and IE inseparable. Utilizing Firefox, Chrome or Safari on Windows requires slightly more determination than leaving the default IE in place.