Partner Otaku

I came across this article in PC Magazine about IE8 written by Edward Mendelson. It’s always nice to find tips that can improve your browsing experience.  I’ll list them out for you here, but read the article for more detail. I’ve used IE 8 since it was in beta and these are helpful.

1. Select Text with Keyboard – Useful when you want to copy text within a webpage (my personal favorite of the bunch!)
2. Compatibility View – Helps correctly render web pages that were designed for earlier versions of IE
3. InPrivate Browsing – Browse without storing traces of your visits on your own computer in the form of cookies, history items, or cached pages
4. InPrivate Filtering – This prevents display ads from following you to other sites
5. Add More Accelerators – Provides useful shortcuts when you highlight items on the page
6. Block Ads with InPrivate Filtering and Third-Party Filters – similar to the ad-blocking extensions in Firefox
7. Suggested Sites – Microsoft will send you sights based on your browsing history
8. Customize the Toolbars – Self Explanatory
9. Status Bar – Clicking or double-clicking can reveal short cuts to menu selections

Around the third week April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on WinXP, Vista, Win Server 2003 or 2008 will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This will be a staged roll out over time to the entire user base.

• Windows XP and Win Server 2003, the update will be categorized as High Priority
• Vista and Win Server 2008, the update will be categorized as Important
• IE will not automatically install on their machines. Users must opt-in.

Reference Links:

Prepare for Automatic Update Distribution of IE8

IE8 Blocker Toolkit Available Today!

Blocker Toolkit to disable automatic delivery

I’ve seen a lot of interest about IE8 at the Partner Architect Briefings that we’ve been hosting that few weeks. Internet Explorer 8 displays content in its most standards compliant way and this can cause compatibility problems on websites that still expect the older versions of IE. You can override IE’s default behavior by choosing to view a site in Compatibility View – there’s an icon that appears next to the ‘Stop’ and ‘Refresh’ buttons in the address bar that controls this.

The IE8 team created a landing page on MSDN that discusses the details of the Compatibility View List.Visit the site and it will help answer the following:

• What process did the Internet Explorer team follow to create the list?
• Is my site / domain on the list?
• How do I remove my site / domain from the list?

The IE8 team created a living tracking spreadsheet  including domain name, when the site was added, and the current status. The Compatibility View List is updated on a regular cadence of two months or so. The status field helps site owners determine whether the currently shipping version has satisfied the removal request or whether the removal request will happen in an upcoming version of the list.

http://tinyurl.com/dxsl4s (compatiblity view list)

IE8 has recently been released, and I wanted to let you know that the Internet Explorer 8 sessions from Mix09 are now available on here. 

Here are few sessions to check out:

Dean Hachamovitch’s Keynote

Thursday, March 19^th, 9:00am
Location:  Keynote Room

Sessions Presented By The Internet Explorer Team

A Lap Around Internet Explorer 8 – MIX09-T52F

Giorgio Sardo | Thursday March 19 |10:30 AM-11:45 AM | Delfino 4103

IE is back! In this session, you’ll hear the inside story behind the development of Internet Explorer 8. We’ll show you how to develop innovative user experiences with Web Slices, Accelerators and Visual Search. You’ll discover nearly twenty new security enhancements that make browsing safer than ever, and you’ll find out about performance improvements that will help you build faster AJAX applications. Finally, we’ll show you why we think Internet Explorer 8 is one of the most standards-compliant web browsers on the market.

Securing Web Applications – MIX09-T54F

Eric Lawrence | Thursday March 19 | 1:00 PM-2:15 PM | San Polo 3501

After a quick summary of some of the web attacks in the wild today, you’ll learn how to take advantage of browser security improvements to help protect your web applications and visitors.

Creating A Great Experience On Digg With Windows Internet Explorer 8 – MIX09-C22F

Joel Neubeck | Thursday March 19 |2:30 PM-3:45 PM | San Polo 3501

Come hear how Terralever was able to use the powerful new features of Internet Explorer 8 to change how users interact with the Digg website.  Learn how using Accelerators and Web Slices changed the way users are able to discover, as well as simplify submitting stories.  We’ll look at how taking advantage of these exciting features can improve a users experience, while increasing the number of users visiting your site. 

Internet Explorer 8 In The Real World: How Is IE8 Used – MIX09-C23F

Paul Cutsinger | Thursday March 19 | 4:15 PM-5:30 PM | San Polo 3501

Come see behind the scenes and learn about the customer data that motivated the IE8 user experience design team. We’ll discuss what people are doing in the browser and how that influenced the detailed design of new features. We’ll also talk about the methodology for choosing the subtle refinements to existing features that have a big impact on ease of use and discoverability.

Building High Performance Web Applications and Sites – MIX09-T53F

John Hrvatin | Friday March 20 | 2:00 PM-3:15 PM | San Polo 3504

Learn how to improve your web application’s performance in the browser by avoiding common pitfalls in JavaScript, CSS, and HTTP caching techniques.

I tend to install software and never read the End User License Agreement.  I’m usually too excited to get the program installed! If you download Google’s Chrome Browser – you may want to consider this issue that was posted on “The Register”.

If you haven’t heard yet, IE 8 Beta 2 has been released and is available for download here and the release notes are located here.

I wanted to pass this link along in case you are experiencing compatibility issues with your website and IE8 beta 1:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952030

Note: 3/30/09 this is a dead link due to age. Here are a couple sites to check out:

http://tinyurl.com/2zjwwc - IE8 Compatibility

http://tinyurl.com/dh4hkj – How Do I fix My Site

http://tinyurl.com/dj7hv3 – IE8 Compatibility Center