March 5th, 2008

More thoughts on the changes in IE8

Filed under Design, Technology on March 5th, 2008 by Chris Harrison

UPDATE: IE8 Beta 1 is now available for download. I’d recommend installing Virtual PC and then grabbing the latest Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image (Virtual Hard Disk Image for testing websites on IE on Windows XP SP2). That way you can conduct browser testing in a more controlled environment, as opposed to eradicating your local install of IE6 or IE7…


Some people will say Microsoft caved; others, that they listened to public opinion; some may even buy the company’s own explanation, which is that, given a company-wide reorientation away from proprietary winner-take-all competitiveness and toward interoperability, “web standards by default” takes precedence over “supporting all those badly made websites that were created specifically to work in IE.” Jeffrey Zeldman

Did Microsoft cave, or did it see the light? It’s hard to imagine a company as large as Microsoft “getting it” all of a sudden, but stranger things have happened. Zeldman’s post gathers many of the arguments for and against IE8’s proposed version targeting. It’s definitely worth a read. I for one am glad that Microsoft has chosen to go the more difficult route and support standards first.

March 3rd, 2008

A step in the right direction

Filed under Technology on March 3rd, 2008 by Chris Harrison

The news that IE8 will now display pages in “Standards” mode, instead of requiring designers/developers to force it… is music to my ears. Granted, it wasn’t that big a deal to use a META tag to force the rendering, as originally proposed… But it IS nice to see that Microsoft is taking web standards more seriously with this new approach.

December 19th, 2007

Big Day for Microsoft

Filed under Technology on December 19th, 2007 by Chris Harrison

MicrosoftToday was a big day for Microsoft. First, IE Desktop Online Web Browser Live Professional Ultimate Edition for the Internet aka IE8 passed the Acid2 Test. Secondly, the Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate is now in the wild.

I’m more excited about the IE8 news, to be honest. Having IE8 passing the Acid Test could mean less trouble for web designers/developers in the future. Sure, IE6 and IE7 won’t go away anytime soon, but if Microsoft were to push the browser as a critical update, it might see widespread adoption fairly quickly.

January 29th, 2007

Microsoft Asking for IE8 Suggestions

Filed under Technology, Work on January 29th, 2007 by Chris Harrison

Microsoft starts gathering IE 8 input - Microsoft has contacted a number of beta testers to seek input it will use to customize Internet Explorer (IE) 8, the next version of its Web browser. IE 8 is expected to ship 18 to 24 months after IE 7, which Microsoft released last fall, making Version 8.0 a 2008/2009 deliverable, if Microsoft sticks to reported plans. - Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet.com