Why Spoon.Net Will Change The Way You Work and Develop

Last week, a friend and fellow developer, Nik from the very good dreamleaf.co.uk, introduced me to a new website called Spoon.net, and I have not been this impressed with a website or application for a very long time.

Spoon.net is a website that essentially lets you run a very large selection of useful applications direct from the browser without the need to install them, the only thing you do need is a firefox plugin. The benefits of this are numerous, but if you're a web designer or developer, there is one benefit above all others: The ability to run the demon browser (otherwise known as IE6) without needing an XP virtual machine or a program such as multiple IEs installed on your computer. All it takes is around a minute of buffering time and you have a fully fledged IE6 running on your computer alongside your normal browser. Cross browser testing suddenly got a lot more convenient. It has a good selection of newer browsers too, with IE8, various Firefox incarnations and the latest Safari, Chrome and Opera. I have found that spoon has helped me save considerable time and increase productivity of both myself and my machines (without having the drain of a virtual machine running) considerably.



Applications aplenty on Spoon

Its not just browsers that you can benefit from though, there are all kinds of applications, amongst the most useful Skype, VLC, Open Office and Paint.Net to name a handful. The ultimate dream of many where the browser is all the user needs and the days of a fat, bloated operating system disappear have gotten one step closer with the advent of spoon.net, and I'm sure there will be other sites that will follow in its rather excellent stead.

I thought this well worth sharing with everyone in the battle to make dealing with IE6 that little bit easier, and when we finally do not have to concern ourselves with it any longer, we can enjoy many of the other benefits that Spoon provides.

Theres only one small caveat; At the moment it is not available for Linux users or for Mac so chalk up one for the Windows crowd, I am sure albeit temporarily.

One closing thought, I've used the word spoon enough times during this post that I think any google adsense ads on this page could have some interesting and varied content, time will tell :)