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Tuesday, March 4, 2008

IE 8 - To be its default or not... I still have a point

For the last few weeks there's been a lot of buzz about IE8 and how Microsoft intended to make IE7 the default display as not to break existing websites. Recently Microsoft decided to go ahead and render IE8 as itself and many seem to be relieved. I am still skeptical...

I've been meaning to blog on this topic, but I honestly haven't had time to keep up with all the online chatter about it and hence was unsure I should bother. Perhaps what I have to say has been said before? Oh well, I'm going to say it anyway...

What I haven't yet seen talked about is the possibility that a dot release -- or even a full version -- of IE may be incompatible with a website, leaving the web developer wanting to 'skip' it somehow.

The proposed "version targeting" would allow someone to declare the site's compatibility with a specific version of IE so that it would render as that version, despite what the user had installed on their system. For example, the user has IE 15, but the web developer declared IE 7. The IE 15 user is stuck looking at an IE 7 site.

That seems to be the common example that raises all sorts of concerns about the web, user experience, standards and what have you. But what if...

What if IE 9 renders my site perfectly, but IE 9.1 doesn't. IE 9.2 is also perfect. Fixing IE 9.1 would take 40 hours of work and my client doesn't want to do it. Shouldn't I be able to skip IE 9.1 somehow?

Please don't try to tell me that sort of thing doesn't happen. It's happened to me with other software. (Safari being one and QuickTime being another.) So it is fair to say that Microsoft could release a version (be it major or minor) of IE that I don't want to support.

All users shouldn't be forced to the lowest browser supported by the site. In my mind, users should get the highest browser supported. That is, a browser experience that is equal to or the next lower supported version than what they have installed.

Let's pretend I have a list of versions I support on my website that looks like this:

7,8,9,9.2,9.3

Let's say the user has 9.1 installed. I don't support it, they should get the 9 experience.

How does version targeting propose to handle such a situation? Is it something anyone has even though about or discussed? I don't know, and if Google knows it hasn't pointed me there yet.

So therefore I blog, in hopes to spark some conversation be it in my blog's comments or on other blogs.

I have few other odd-ball ideas around this topic but I'll start with this one and see where it goes before revealing more of my wacky thoughts...






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Saturday, September 23, 2006

Joseph Lowery and Eric Meyer at lynda.com

Joseph Lowery, and Eric Meyer both have new titles avaialable at lynda.com!

Joe's newest book, Dreamweaver 8 Beyond the Basics is available for sale in the lynda.com store. Check out the three free sample movies from the CD, including one that covers Spry. Spry is the latest big buzz word in the Dreamweaver community. If you haven't checked out Spry yet, Joe's movie is a good place to start.

A few weeks ago, Eric spent some time in Ojai recording CSS Site Design, which is now available in the Online Training Library™ and coming soon on CD-rom in the lynda.com store. There are several Free sample movies available, including the following:

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Saturday, July 3, 2004

XHTML 1.1 Validation

Earlier today I received this anonymous comment under my previous post:


Name: praetorian
Email: laughing@liber.als
Date Added: 7/2/2004 8:21:30 PM

Content: this really has nothing to do with your birthday, but your source code claims to be xhtml 1.1 yet it's not even close

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www.dwmommy.com/

happy belated birthday, regardless


Well whoever you are, you were right. I'd neglected to encode the ampersands in the some URLs... such a horrible offense that one was. I forgot to add an alt attribute to the Macromedia affiliate ad image too. Other than that, it was a bunch of encoded characters that weren't recognized within blog comments. (My guess is someone wrote the comment in Word then pasted to the form.) Dreamweaver also converted some onclick events to onClick in my navigation include file -- Dreamweaver bug which I was aware of but always forget to fix.

In any case they were all silly little mistakes, and if I had a transitional doctype it probably would have passed (except for maybe the blog comments). It only took a couple minutes to fix. Whoever you are, thanks for pointing it out to me. You didn't need to hide your identity either. I wouldn't have been offended.

I know there's a chance that the pages won't validate due to comments in posts or a lack of an encoded ampersand in a URL (which I have to say is a really stupid rule). I just need to be better about checking regularly. Thanks for the reminder...

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Wednesday, May 19, 2004

My First Breeze Live Presentation

Yesterday's presentation was my first time presenting using Breeze Live. It seemed the presentation was well received despite that I wasn't as collected in my thoughts as I usually am. Had the hours prior to the session not been so hectic, I'd have been more "together". Although friends present said they couldn't tell anything was wrong, it still affected me to a small degree.

To do a Breeze Live presentation, it is recommended that you have a second computer set up in the meeting as a guest. This computer is used to see what your audience sees so that you can account for delays.

So I turn on my desktop and the mouse is busted. I run out to Circuit City to pick up a new one. I get back, restart, and my keyboard doesn't work! I have a required login, so I can't even get logged in. I try everything, finally resorting to an old keyboard from another computer (that won't start either and can't connect to the internet). Luckily, it worked!

Now it is nearing time for me to join the meeting. I have to be hardwired (as oposed to my wireless connection) during the presentation. I switch over and my entire internet connection dies on the network. I'm frantic by now, thinking I'm not going to make it. With some sound advice and calming words from Dan, I rebooted the router and after a couple of minutes the internet came back up. Phew!

Once I'm in the meeting, I am looking around for the special Presenter controls and I'm not finding them. I buzzed the moderator and didn't get a reply. I'm in the room only as a guest, uh oh. I try to send a message to her, and accidentally send it to the whole meeting...D'oh! Amy called me, and got me hooked up just in time.

I didn't have my usual couple of minutes to collect my thoughts and get in presenter mode, but it went fine. After a few minutes, I was alright.

It's tricky doing Breeze Live, and next time it will be much easier. There is so much to pay attention to. You have to watch the other monitor to be sure it is updating for the audience. You need to remember to click a few buttons (wish it were just one) to share the screen. You have to remember to then switch back to slides. All the while you are supposed to try and ignore the chat window that's whizzing past you. Then your other computer goes to screensaver and you have to wake it up so you can make sure what the audience is seeing is the same thing you're talking about.

As overwhelming as it was, I loved it. I know I could give the same presentation again much better, and hope to have the opportunity to do so. Even if I do a different one, now I know what to expect with Breeze Live and it will go much smoother next time.

Thanks to all who attended for being there, especially the Cartweaver customers who joined us. It was nice to see so many familiar names present. The thanks and grattitude was overwhelming. Thanks again to those who sent private chats and email. You're all so very kind!

Of course, thanks to Dan for helping me out -- both with the internet connection and fielding questions during the presentation.

If any of you have any feedback, I'd be happy to hear it as it really helps me to do better in the future. I'm really looking forward to doing this again.

Posted by ~Angela | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Permalink

 
Sunday, March 28, 2004

Stripper Extensions

Get your mind out of the gutter people... :-) Last week I released a new extension, Strip List Whitespace, which fixes a bug in Internet Explorer on the PC. The download response to this extension has been utterly amazing. I think it is because this is one of those "must have" type of free extensions. There are other ways to remove the whitespace, but it all comes down to personal preference, and this happens to be mine.

I also updated Strip <?xml?> Tag, which removes the XML prologue which throws Internet Explorer into quirks mode. The update was to fix a bug found only in Dreamweaver MX 2004, that kept the extension from running if the document was currently in Code view.

They're both on my Free Extensions page, so you can read more about them there. As always, they're only available for download from the DWfaq Store, where I host all my free and commercial products.

Posted by ~Angela | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Permalink

 
Sunday, October 26, 2003

It's Dan's Birthday!

Happy 28th birthday Dan! :-) Be sure to call your parents and thank them ;-)

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Sunday, August 24, 2003

Studio MX 2004

Macromedia has announced Studio MX 2004. Naturally I'm most excited about Dreamweaver MX 2004. :-)

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