When Internet Explorer 7 is released at the end of the year, it will totally abandon support of HTML frames on web sites. Web accessibility geeks are cheering this development, while frame-based Geocities web site owners are in a tizzy.
The Coming of IE7
It was announced yesterday that Internet Explorer 7 will be coming in the fourth quarter of this year, and will be pushed out as a critical update for Windows XP users. This is pretty good news, as it means that the bulk of Internet Explorer users will be upgraded to the much-improved browser automatically, and IE6 marketshare will quickly drop.
The main reason this is a good thing is that IE7 fixes a whole lot of CSS bugs, and when creating web sites, one will no longer have to worry so much about catering to these bugs and providing workarounds. This is because IE7 closely follows web standards, and attempts to be a legitimate player in the web browser market in this regard. At the same time, it’s going to break a lot of web sites that unaware developers created which rely on proprietary IE6 ‘features’.
It will be interesting to watch this all unfold.
Links For You
An update for Firefox was released today, bringing it to version 1.5.0.4. I suggest you go get it if you don’t use Firefox, or use the auto-update feature (Help > Check For Updates) in Firefox if you do.
Harvest is a really frigging cool web-based time tracking application. I have been toying with the free demo account and am going to set up a full account when I am done writing this. If you do any sort of freelancing you should check it out.
Today I launched a site I have been working on for a publisher called Enlightened Ink. Glad to see it get out of the starting gate.
After seeing my golf balls slice off to the right every time I hit them last week, I started wondering about The Perfect Swing: Reality or Myth?. Check out all the links to tips at the bottom of the page.
Former AFCCC co-worker Jason seems to have latched onto the wonderful world of blogging quite nicely, putting together a great site for his family.
For you web developers, Vitamin seems to be coming along quite nicely, with great articles from some of the web’s leading minds. And it looks cool too.
Dell has started shipping their higher resolution laptops using a default 120dpi setting for the display. While this helps the readability of text on these systems, it makes an awful bug in Internet Explorer 6 rear its head. What happens is that IE tries to upscale gif images in addition to fonts, thus rendering them very pixellated and jagged. This frustrated me for about a week recently, until I learned the reasoning. If you want to remain at 120dpi but not have the problem, there is a registry hack you can use.
Man, oh man, I want one of these USB turntables so I can finally convert my record collection to digital format. Actually, just to be able to hear some of my old records on a nice system would be great in and of itself.
Adios.
Internet Explorer
Still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser on your Windows machine? Stop already!
With the most recent critical, unpatched security exploits running wild, reports are coming in regarding otherwise innocent web sites silently installing malicious programs that steal your passwords and other sensitive information.
Do yourself a favor and install Firefox or Opera, both free browsers that provide a much better, safer Internet experience. There is no reason not to do this now, unless you like other people having access to your computer and everything you do on it.
If you are still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer on your Macintosh computer, well, you are missing out on the Internet as it is today. This browser is not subject to the same exploits that the Windows version is, but it is no longer updated or supported by Microsoft, and doesn’t take advantage of many of the newer features of the World Wide Web as we know it. You too can upgrade to Firefox for free.
Targeting Accessibility
The National Federation for the Blind is suing Target for having an inaccessible web site for blind people. This is good. If all goes well, this will lead to the private sector having to take greater responsibility for their web sites and creating them to be accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 compliance isn’t that hard to achieve.
Free Software Utilities Update
My favorite registry-cleaning tool EZCleaner is no longer free. Well, you now have to subscribe to their web site to download the ‘free’ software. However, I found a couple of great utilities that easily take its place. So without further ado, here is my updated list of free Windows utilities software that everyone should use:
- CCleaner – cleans the registry, cleans up sloppy software.
- WinASO RegDefrag 2.0 – Defragments the registry, compacts it and optimizes it. Run this after running CCleaner above.
- WinPatrol – Let Scotty the watchdog monitor your system for applications trying to add themselves to your Startup. Works great.
- AVG Antivirus – Free virus protection. Smooth, lean, and mean. Not bloated and slow like Norton or McAfee.
- SpyBot Search & Destroy – Eliminate spyware.
- 7-Zip – Like Winzip, but free and without annoying registration notices.
- Foxit PDF Reader – We all know it takes Acrobat about 3 hours to launch, if it doesn’t lock up your system. Try Foxit instead.
Know of anything I missed? Leave your comments.
Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5
Thunderbird 1.5 is out, and so far I am very pleased with the free email application. The realtime spellchecker is done quite well. It is unobtrusive but highly usable. The junkmail controls are helpful and allow me to integrate with SpamAssasin, which runs on my web/email server. This version has the improved Updater that Firefox 1.5 got, and it installed without a hitch. Cool!
A Gift For You
Mozilla released version 1.5 of the ever-free Firefox web browser two days ago. You probably know how excited about this.
My favorite things about this new release are:
- Faster page loading (the speeds are, like, two froghairs faster!)
- Improved rendering engine
- Improved Options menu
- Improved tab control
- Support for SVG and the new canvas tag
As for extensions, there are many new ones that do ultra-kewl things previously unavailable in Firefox. Here is what my standard extensions are (for now):
- Nuke Anything Enhanced – Allows you to right-click anything on a web page and hide it. Great for hiding annoying graphics.
- MeasureIt – Draw a box on the screen and get height/width measurements. Great for aligning page elements when designing.
- Web Developer Toolbar – The third most-used tool in my arsenal, only behind Dreamweaver and Photoshop.
- Bookmark Synchronizer – For keeping my 1200+ bookmarks the same between the office, home, and my laptop. Requires an FTP server to act as a go-between.
- Adblock – One of the best extensions ever. This reduces popups and ads on web sites you visit. Includes ability to block pesky Flash overlay ads. Did it miss something? Right-click it and choose “AdBlock This” and poof!
- Adblock Filterset.g Updater – A companion to Adblock, this keeps your list of blockable ads updated behind the scenes. I can’t remember the last time I got a popup ad.
- PDF Download – Lets you choose whether to open or download a PDF when clicked, rather than opening it automatically, which is Firefox’s default behavior.
- Viamatic foXpose – This must be seen to be believed, and is only available in Firefox 1.5. The extension sets up a button that instantly displays screen shots of all of your open tabs on one page, allowing you to click the one you want to jump to.
- Tab Preview – This one displays a little thumbnail of the tab contents when you hover your mouse over an inactive tab. Quite cool.
Know of any other good ones I missed?
IE7 Preview
Neowin.net has a good review of Internet Explorer 7 beta1. The article goes into detail about the pros, the cons, and the bass-ackward interface changes.
“Microsoft is playing the catch-up game with IE7. Nearly every feature included with this build has already been successfully implemented in most alternative browsers. Crucially, the interface is still not up to par with Firefox/Opera; can we honestly back a new version of IE when there are alternative products on the market offering so much more?”
Interesting.
Good News from Microsoft
Ever since Microsoft announced it was releasing an Internet Explorer version 7, web designers and developers have been sitting on the edges of their collective chair, biting their nails, and crossing their toes in hopes that this time, Microsoft will get it right.
So far, it appears they are listening, and through the help of the Web Standards Project’s Microsoft Task Force, the IE development team has announced all of the things they will be fixing in IE7.
Tonight, I shall rest.