In the battle for consistent design there is no more fearsome foe than Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Despite the browser quickly coming up on its eighth birthday, it is still in wide use – particularly in markets where software piracy is more wide-spread and users aren’t able to upgrade to the “Windows Genuine Advantage”-required IE7 or IE8.

As such, it’s important that you be able to test your design, theme/template, or even your blog tweaks to assure that they work alright in the archaic and anarchistic browser.

One problem – due to kernal code differences, it isn’t possible to install Internet Explorer 6 or lower on a machine running Windows Vista. So where handy bundles like the MultipleIE package worked well on XP – they’re a no go on Vista.

There are some great static checks you can do using Web apps like Browser Shots and IE NetRenderer, but sometimes you need to interact with the design to see where things are, or aren’t, functioning.

Enter IETester. Created by the same developer as the IE DebugBar, the free Web browser offers up the rendering and javascript abilities of IE5.5 to IE8.

Not only are you able to test how your layouts will look in various IE versions, with the use of the browser’s tabs, you can test multiple versions in the same browser window.

What’s more – it works on both XP and Vista (sorry Mac and Linux users). It’s not flawless, and preliminary usage showed a couple hiccups in the page loading – but for an alpha release, and with nothing else to turn to, who’s complaining.

With users slowly overcoming their adversity of pushing away from the Microsoft monopoly, there’s hope that IE6 will die the death it so rightly deserves, but until then apps like IETester are a welcome helping hand.

The free desktop client, which resembles any of a thousand messenger programs in looks, gives you quick access to MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, blogs and pretty much anything with an RSS feed. It puts the notifications of updates on any of a half-dozen social networks (with more in the works) right in front of your face.

No longer do you have to log into all the various sites to gain access to what your friends are saying to and about you – 8hands keeps track of it all. Additionally it tracks media updates for both YouTube and Flickr.

What’s more, it can also act as an IM client, allowing you to chat with other 8hands users – update the app’s status bar and it instantly sends the update on to Twitter.

The program is still in “Alpha” stages, meaning it’s far from complete, but it’s off to a very strong start. Planned social site additions include Friendster, Last.fm, Bebo and Xenga. Unfortunately this is currently strictly a PC program, but the 8hands site indicates a Mac version is on its way.

Additionally, I’d really like to see further integration with other popular IM clients (a la Pidgin or Trillian). The program isn’t all that light on memory real-estate, so it would be nice if I could do away with my other messenger clients to make room and keep things running smoothly.

Growing pains and future features aside, 8hands is certainly better than the two genetics gave you and will no doubt save anyone who’s a Web 2.0 junkie a whole lot of time.