Additional details about IE 7.0 released
Posted by jerothe in 
I was surfing this morning and I came across a follow up to the Internet Explorer 7.0 beta release article from last month.
This announcement basically states what the developers are working on currently, the two most important aspects of 7.0 beta being better support for Alpha transparency and better CSS consistency including floats. They are also working on correcting to major well documented problems, called the “peekaboo” and “guillotine” bugs. I don’t think I have actually ever ran into the peekaboo bug, but I have run into the guillotine bug.
The guillotine bug involves as quoted from the referenced website, “The Guillotine is a bug that chops off the bottom part of floated elements when certain links are hovered over.” Basically, what this meant for me, is adding a clearing object after the floated object, and the main container. Fortunately this whole idea was fixed when the technique for cleaing elements without using structural markup was developed. Either way, let’s hope that IE fixes their stuff.
Go ahead and read the announcement on Microsoft’s site for more details.
Firefox Extensions Part 1 – Flash Got, Bookmark Backup, and Session Saver.
After I wrote about how great some of the features are in Maxthon, it didn’t until this week occur to me to check for Firefox extensions that do exactly the same things.
I found just that. At Roundtwo and Pike’s Firefox Extensions, you can find these three great extensions; Flash Got (Roundtwo) and Bookmark Backup and Session Saver (Pike’s). As I understand it, and read on DSL Reports this week, the founder of Roundtwo used to work on the Firefox project, and it really shows as his site is really professional looking and his extensions are very practical for the everyday designer and user.
Flash Got
Just like the one click icon to save Flash from Maxthon, now Firefox will allow more ease to save Flash files out of websites.
Rating : 4 of 10
Granted, I didn’t look at this extension very long, but I thought it didn’t really help me personally that much. Nested up in the tools menu, a couple of clicks can help you get those Flash movies you really like. But knowing how to find the source, and knowing that when you put in the direct path to a Flash movie in Firefox, it lets you save the movie, this wasn’t any easier for me. I actually like the one click solution in Maxthon better.
Bookmark Backup
Like the site says, this will backup your bookmarks every so often automatically in a local folder so in case you have some sort of corruption, you can back them up at any time.
Rating : N/A of 10
I haven’t had to use this yet, so I will have to write about it once I do. But the premise does sound cool and useful.
Session Saver
The one feature that I really missed from Maxthon, this is a great extension. Install it, and away you go, the browser doesn’t even ask you at shutdown whether you want to save your windows. I may work in up to 30 windows at one time, with different articles I read through the day, reference sites, and other design related materials.
If my system crashes, or I have to force quit for some reason, this will open up all of those windows again for me instantly.
Rating : 9 of 10
The only reason I didn’t give this a perfect rating, is because, nothing is perfect bascially. Plus, if you want this feature, but aren’t a designer, chances are you don’t need your tabbed windows opened again. Althought I am sure there is an option to shut this off, I haven’t found it yet. Because I haven’t looked.
There are so many others out there, that is what is great about open source technology and a browser like this. To have designers and coders contribute a module that will do a task they really need. Making a browser work for them in their habits, that is what the web should be all about.
Go exploring, I know I will. It will be a dark day before I switch favorite browsers again.
New version of Maxthon browser released, version 1.2.2
I used Maxthon heavily from last May to October, but then it got really buggy. I had problems with the tabbed windows limiting me to three windows, my back button would stop working, and then the browser would crash when I closed it. But it appears all of those bugs have been fixed and we can concentrate again on what is really great about this browser.
It is a shell that is built off of Internet Explorer, so you have their base browser which is nice, but is also comes enhanced with many more features.
Plugins : Flash Save and View Source. One press buttons to download flash movies from websites and you can quickly view the site’s source with one button, instead of two clicks to the main view menu, or the right click context menu.
Tabbed browsing : As far as I knew, Maxthon was the first browser that had tabbed windows, or maybe it was the first one I discovered.
Window Save on Exit : That’s right. If you have to force quit, or reboot or something, this is one of Maxthon’s greatest features and isn’t in
any other browser I have found. It will reopen all of the tabs you had up when you closed if you would like.
Mouse Gestures, enhanced favorites, and skins this has all the works. Except, I am pretty pissed that the new version 1.2.2 does no longer support Google Toolbar, which stinks, but I haven’t been using that in Firefox either, so no big deal.
Check this browser out either way as a cool alternative.
Mozilla announces "Seamonkey" version 1.7 is the final release.
I admit, that I never really liked the Mozilla browser. It seemed big, gray, and ugly, and in terms of standards compliant testing, Firefox was much more appealing to the designer in me.
So even though maybe I should be more upset, I don’t really lament that Mozilla has announced that they are turning over development of their browser platform, called “Seamonkey” (Which I did not know until the other day) to the design community for upkeep. Their team will be instead working now exclusively on Firefox.
Version 1.7 was released quite a long time ago, and there was speculation that 1.8 would be released, but then Mozilla would need to support that version release also. Instead they will be working with the current versions and compatibility and will helping the push of Firefox to take over Microsoft in the browser wars.
If you would like to read more about the reasons behind the demise of Mozilla’s Seamonkey, you can visit their site to read the news release.
Internet Explorer 7.0
This past month, Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing version 7.0.
This new release will not coincide with the release of Longhorn scheduled for next year sometime. Originally, Microsoft swore that they would only have new browser releases with the OS, but now seems to be going back on it’s policy.
I think that most designs could care less. IE is ok, but doesn’t have some of the new age ideas that some of the newer, better browsers have. Firefox has integrated term searching, color coded and formatted HTML code, and tabbed browsing. Microsoft hasn’t done anything major to Internet Explorer for a couple of versions now.
The design community also cringes as MS says that it is going to continue with the security updates it started in IE with Service Pack 2 (SP2). We think of a browser that isn’t any better, and is rushed to release, which is supposed to be sometime this summer.
But I will say this. For those who swear up and down to Firefox, the main reason that it is so big, is because it isn’t that big. Microsoft is huge, and is that much more prevalent. If that was the case with Firefox, those developers would be working night and day to try to stay one step ahead of the hackers.
March 15th, 2005
A little bit of a follow up to this article.
Here are some of the features that are speculated in being included in IE 7.0.
March 17th, 2005
Another follow up to this article, here is a IEBlog posting by the lead program manager for IE 7.0 at Microsoft, Chris Wilson. He is calling on all web designers to voice what they would like to see fixed in the newest release of Internet Explorer and to be specific. Want to voice you opinion? Well, head on over to Microsoft and tell them what you want to see fixed or implemented in IE 7.0.
New version Firefox (1.01) Released
Not a major release since version 1.0 was released back in November of last year.
This version fixes some security bugs, hopefully solves any known crashing problems, and fixes problems web users were having with their domains being spoofed, now domain names are displayed in Unicode. Be darned if I understand what that means exactly.
I just know I am pretty psyched about the release of Firefox 1.3 which is scheduled for later this year. In version 1.3, there should be incorporation of CSS 3. Some of uses of CSS 3 are; application of styles to images from one directory, wider implementation of first and last child selectors, and even built in rounders corners on containers.
How can I run multiple versions of Internet Explorer on my Machine?
There were a couple of ways that you could do this unpleasantly, and one of them would have been to partition your system, and load different Operating Systems on each, with different browsers. So in order to view your all CSS website for testing, you would have to logout, and change to Windows 98, for example.
Well, I came across an article on Sitepoint.com, on how to get any older IE browser to run on your system simultaneously with others.
I could go into detail, but basically is came down to this one guy, who downloaded an update of IE 6.0, and looked at the files he got, asked a question, and then set out to answer it.
I know you are hooked, so go ahead and view the article by Joe Maddalone.
Now, this is the advice I would give anyone who is trying to do this. As Joe suggests, you should unzip each set of .cab files individually. The way he explains it was a little confusing to me. I would suggest to go to evolt.org and get the IE browsers you need, then completely unzip all of the .cab files into another directory. Then, I would copy all of the files for the version he suggests into a new folder, and try the browser by clicking on the .exe icon.
This worked best for me. Plus, as he is stripping out so much stuff, the “About” won’t display the right browser, but it does display like the version you are using.
Enjoy. This is a great tool.
New version of Maxathon released!
Everyone’s favorite alternative to regular IE, Maxthon, with it’s tabbed browser windows and fun plugins for one click flash downloads and view source has released an update. On version 1.1.035, you can try this browser out at Maxthon’s homepage..
For those of you who have already upgraded from what was MyIE2 originally, now named Maxthon, you may ask why get this latest update. The new version fixes some bugs you may have it you have installed Windows SP2 with Active X controls. So check it out, super fast and fun this is the browser that makes all of those who want something more than IE, but feel too comfortable to change to something like Mozilla.
Opera 7.54 Released
A new release of Opera has been released. A fun browser that is fast and beautiful, give it a try. Visit Opera’s homepage..
A Google Browser on the horizon?
Came across an article today about Google possibly making their own browser. It wouldn’t be a venture to profit per say, they probably wouldn’t start from scratch in making a browser, instead it would most likely be based off the open source Mozilla project using the Gecko rendering engine. Google has had strong support for the Mozilla project and browsers awareness in the past few months.
The speculation is a result of a registered domain space called Gbrowser. Want to learn more? Check out this link to ZDNet..
Another browser alternative option to Microsoft Internet Explorer known at K-Meleon.
Another browser based off the open source Mozilla project, K-Meleon is a fast browser, but isn’t much for looks. But, I always like to find out about different browsers. Check out more about it at the K-Meleon homepage and try it out.