Entries Tagged 'internet explorer' ↓

I really, really wanted to to keep using Windows Vista but I tell you, I’ve had nothing but problems it’s just getting worse with each incremental update from Microsoft. Crash after crash, slow to switch to different users, takes FOREVER to login into my Domain and what a memory hog. It seem like it’s slower now then ever and file explorer keeps crashing and locking up. I actually had a blue screen of death the other day! To be honest I’ve not had one of these since Windows ME and Windows 2000.

Windows Vista on my notebook in the last month or so has stopped Visual Studio 2005 from debugging code! I’ve made no changes to VS2005, but the debugger is broken. It’s made it completely useless and has resorted me to using a Virtual PC version of Windows XP to get any work done!!   I’ll be moving back to XP when the latest Service Pack  comes. The new XP Service Pack is said to make XP just as secure as Windows Vista. Don’t even get me started on how horrible Windows Explorer 7 is! I really hope that IE 8 will fix performance and CSS compliance issues.

As many of you may have heard, Microsoft has released Safari for Windows. You maybe asking yourself why do I care! First if your a web developer that uses Windows XP or Vista as you primary  operating system, you should be excited!

Should you be excited that you’ll get to use a really good browser? Sure, but the primary reason I can think of is that you now have a browser that you can run on your machine that will allow you to test your web applications  for OS X! You no longer have to ask your Apple friend or creative department to do your testing.

Personally I use OS X all the time so this is not a big deal for me. However this is a big deal for the 40+ developers that work the company I run (with my other partners) and it should be for you also!

Think about it… you now have the same browser that 90% of all Apple users have and use on their computer. The other 10% is Firefox,  that you have  already covered. No sane Apple user still uses IE for the Mac. Safari now hold roughly 5% of the total web browser share and this number is going to increase due to the number of people who continue to jump to OS X (I had another friend who just asked me that he is thinking of switching himself and his mother to OS X).  Now that Safari is available for Windows, that number should continue to rise.

It’s a really good browser that is bound to gain acceptance because it’s backed by Apple. FireFox may have the geeks, but Apple has the branding to get people to use Safari if they have had enough of IE. You can bet the bank that Apple will distribute the browser with iTunes as they have been doing with Quicktime. They are getting millions downloading iTunes on Windows each month. If they start distributing Safari with iTunes, and market it correctly, you’re bound to see a huge percentage of users!

Either way you look at it, you’ll need to download it and test your web applications.  Heck you may even begin to use it as your own primary browser!

After using it for the last couple of days I am pretty impressed by the rendering engine, but there is a couple of obvious things that should NOT be hapenning for a product at Version 7. FTP does not work at all!!

The other issue which is very strange is the back button. The history get’s screwed up and and this causes the back button to become completely useless!
For Example:

I type in http://www.nhl.com and check out the hockey scores.

then I type http://www.digg.com and start checking out what’s hot for the day. I click a story that takes me to that site. After I read it, I want to go back to digg, so I click the back button. Guess where it takes me? To Digg.com? Nope! It takes me back to nhl.com! And the history (little down arrow for the back button) for back is not available to select from.

The last thing I absolutlely hate is the interface! It’s terrible. However, knowing Microsoft they are not done with the look at feel (that is how it was for IE 3 and 4’s beta) and will not give us the final look until they release it.

So for now I think its not that useable for every day browsing but as a good tool to test things out.

Today I downloaded Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2 to see if they finally fixed some of the horrible problems with their implementation of CSS. 

 The style tags that were not working in IE 6.0 seem to be working now!  I am so glad that Microsoft has gotten back to getting their browser updated.   I hope that people upgrade as fast as possible when it finally comes out. 

However, I don’t know why anyone would still use IE 6.  There is too many holes in security, no RSS support, does not support tabs and is terrible at rendering CSS.  For now if you don’t upgrade to Internet Explorer 7.0 Beta 2, please use FireFox 1.5 for own safety and to experience web 2.0 to its fullest!

I am creating this new site for my client and we have a ton of javascript functions. The code worked as planned when I tested the code with Internet Explorer and Safari. However when I tested it with Firefox (both the mac and windows), my scripts began to fail. How could this be? Just ten minutes ago it was working like a champ!
Here is a snipet code that was failing:

function Next()
{
nValue = formpost.txtHiddenPageCount.value;
nValue++;
formpost.txtHiddenPageCount.value = nValue;
formpost.submit();
}

Then it hit me. I needed to include the document object in front of each element! It’s good to see Firefox enforcing the proper use of the DOM. Next time, I will begin testing with Firefox instead of IE.

One can only hope that Microsoft will follow suit with IE 7. Internet Explorer has always been too foregiving with the way interpets HTML and javascript. Their HTML/Javascrript engine has also allowed us developers to be lazy and to get away with hacking HTML and javascipt. With Firefox and Apple’s Safari gaining market share, the days of designing your site to only work with IE is over!