Archives for microsoft
Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer
Long story short, Google released a plugin for IE 6, 7 and 8 that will run Google Chrome (which uses webkit) inside a frame in the IE browser. Now IE6 can be standards-compliant, and all versions of IE get blazing fast javascript and HTML 5 support. Sounds great, but there are some problems, as lifehacker [...]
IE8 Compatibility Mode and IE7 are Not the Same Thing
Just so we’re clear, testing your website in an actual copy of IE7, and testing in IE8’s Compatibility Mode are not the same thing. Compatibility Mode does an acceptable job of imitating IE7, and for the average user who’s just trying to fix a site that looks broken under IE8, it’s good enough. However, there [...]
Intelligent Defaults Save Time
Have you ever been a regular at a coffee shop? The barista knows you by name, and every morning when you come by, she’s already got your Triple Non-Fat Sugar-Free Vanilla Latte waiting for you. That’s an intelligent default. She doesn’t know for sure that’s what you want, or even that you’ll come in today, [...]
Where are all the Mac Developers?
I heard an interesting quote on a recent podcast of RunAsRadio.com, where the guest talking with Richard and Greg said: We’re the second largest Mac development shop in the world behind Apple. We have more Mac developers than anybody except Apple. Who is “we”? Well, Microsoft of course! This seemed counter-intuitive at first, but after you consider everything [...]
Cross-Site Request Forgery
In this post I’d like to explain one of the most common ways the bad guys can steal your information on the Internet today. I’ll use the literary technique of schizophrenial-paragraphs to help explain the hacker’s technique.
My Windows 7 Experience
Early last month, Microsoft released a public beta of Windows 7, their follow-up to Windows Vista. I decided to take the plunge and give this new version a try… Vista’s launch was plagued by poor device drivers, steep system requirements, and the much maligned User Account Control (UAC). Vendors have since developed Vista compatible [...]
Who’s Afraid of HTML Email?
Anyone who tells you creating HTML email is easy has either never done it, or is lying. Inexperienced designers tend to think, “Oh, no problem, it’s all tables and font tags!” Grizzled veterans, however, know all too well the difficulties of getting anything but the most simple design to render well in a variety of [...]
Windows + Space = Backslash
My primary machine, a MacBook Pro running Vista, experienced an ailment the other day: the backslash key broke. So, I was stuck with no pipe character and no backslash. If I needed one, I had to find an existing instance of the character, then copy and paste. Not a good time. Developers like to use [...]
Importing Data From Excel with C#
Behind the scenes, I see a lot of companies run on Excel and duct tape. So it’s common for clients to hand me a slab of data organized into neat little rows and columns. Excel is just a handy way to throw some data over the wall and get things done. This might be a [...]
Mac vs PC Firefox 3 Add Bookmark Dialog
One major annoyance between the Mac and PC versions of Firefox 3 is the position of the “Done” button on the Add Bookmark dialog. On a Mac, the button is on the right. On a PC, it’s on the left. I won’t comment on which is better, just that the difference breaks my muscle memory [...]
IE Double-Float CSS Bug
Has anyone seen this problem before and have any idea how to solve it? In firefox, the text wraps around both floats correctly. In IE6/7, the text only wraps around the second float.
Version Targeting and IE8 Followup
Hooray! The feedback from the web development community convinced the IE development team to change their minds about the default setting for version targeting in IE8 (as I discussed in a previous post). “In light of the Interoperability Principles, as well as feedback from the community, we’re choosing differently. Now, IE8 will show pages requesting ‘Standards’ [...]
Version Targeting and IE8
Previously on Web Developer Controversies: Aaron Gustafson from the Internet Explorer development team announced that IE8 will use a META tag to kick the engine into standards mode by targeting a specific browser version, something that was previously done by using a valid DOCTYPE. A lot of people, including Jeremy Keith, think this is a [...]
The Email Standards Project
In 1998, Jeffrey Zeldman co-founded the Web Standards Project to fight for better support of web standards from the browser manufacturers and web developers. It was a success, if for no other reason than it provided a flag to rally behind. This year, the Email Standards Project was founded to rally support for web standards in [...]
Efficiency Magnifier
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” – Bill Gates
How I Married Into Mathematics
I’m working on a solution that requires a special type of chart to visualize results from some elaborate number crunching algorithms. Dundas Chart for .Net has an implementation of the standard polar chart. That’s the closest “buy” option I could find and it might very well do the job. I’m a big fan of using existing [...]
IE7 has ClearType
Dave Shea pointed out back in August that IE7 will ship with ClearType enabled, even on XP!
An Event Apart Seattle
"It's a myth that you need a great client. It's possible to do great work for a terrible client — if you're willing to extend the scope of the project indefinitely." – Jeffrey Zeldman I already blogged about An Event Apart over on my personal blog, but I figured I should at least mention it here. Pop [...]
IE7 Priority Update
In case you haven't heard, IE7 is going to be released as a priority upgrade, which means that it will be automatically downloaded for most users. Not everyone installs all priority updates, of course, and there will be usual tool to allow businesses to block the download if they're not ready to upgrade. Nonetheless, this [...]
Slashdot Interview with Hakon Wium Lie
Ryan pointed me to an excellent interview with Håkon Wium Lie, the man who proposed the concept of CSS to the W3C. The interview covers a wide range, from why certain things work certain ways, to his enthusiasm for microformats. He also places the blame for CSS difficulties squarely in Microsoft’s court for not fully supporting [...]
June Accomplishments
SelecTrucks We launched four new sites this month: Grand Rapids, Little Rock, Miami, and Nashville. Miami is a particularly striking design, heavily inspired by old cigar and fruit boxes. We were playing a bit of catch-up this month, but we managed to get back on our feet with a new production process that's resulting in these [...]
Few CSS Reboot Sites Validate
Sean Fraser from The Elementary Group Standards reveals that more than 70% of the sites participating in the most recent CSS Reboot don’t validate. He provides lots of interesting details, such as the breakdown between XHTML and HTML doctypes, and whether or not the CSS validates. After installing the HTML Validator extention for Firefox, I managed [...]
Moved Older Blog Posts Here
Since this will be my new blog home, I moved some of the more meaningful MSDN blog posts from when I was at Microsoft to here. I’m sure that blog will be deleted in due time. They are marked under the category blogs.msdn.com and retained thier original date. No, I didn’t write an application to do [...]
Time Breakdown of Modern Web Design
Hilarious graph of the time spent on various tasks in modern web design. – “Time spent wishing a slow, painful death on Bill Gates and more swearing.”
Dave Shea Wants You To Stop Using CSS Hacks
Dave Shea from Mezzoblue wrote a nice article over on Vitamin titled “Stop Hacking, or Be Stopped.” It does a nice job of encapsulating the arguments against using CSS hacks to target IE, since IE7 will break most of these hacks. Instead, Shea recommends the same thing Microsoft recommends: conditional comments. Personally, I resisted these for [...]
