talkmagic.co.uk

As there are some IE fans here - I thought I'd post the link

http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/



cheers,


Sean

Cheers for the heads-up! I've heard of that site on a podcast a few weeks ago and forgot to check it out when I got to a computer. Excellent stuff, thanks

I now feel the need to wash...

So another version of Internet imbola to screw up and not support standards

Microsoft arent happy with having ie 6,7 and 8 that all need custom coding to make then behave like normal browsers.. They need to come up with version 9 to screw it up even more??

And again they are almost last to the fold in supporting html5 (and attempting to support css3 - badly!)

They are just getting to version 10 as quick as possible so they can call it IE X (The one that works... a little bit)

I'm gonna come out and say it

IE9 is starting to sound good, and IE8 wasn't half bad. I didn't often have to fix any IE8 only problems. Most issues I've seen were related to the browser going into quirks mode (developer error), making a mistake in your markup (developer error), or fixing an IE6/7 bug but not limiting it to those two particular versions (...developer error)

Microsoft are starting to take new web technologies (codename "HTML5") seriously, which I actually welcome. From what I can tell, IE9 is no worse than Firefox when it comes to the new HTML spec, and IE is slowly improving their CSS coverage to the point where they might be implementing a couple of the new CSS features under a namespace (but don't quote me on that)

It's worth noting that the W3C HTML5 spec is still under development, and so no browser is yet expected to support any of it - it's just nice when it does because it means I get more toys to play with

And these little extras are that - little extras. The new bits of CSS (which is worth pointing out is mostly namespaced in both firefox and chrome - so technically they're still not supported in these browsers) are nice to look at, but at the end of the day nobody will die if they don't work in IE. Who cares if you don't have rounded corners? Chrome can afford to add experimental features because it's updated every six weeks (from what I remember) - IE is updated once every couple of years

So, yes. IE8 isn't that bad and from what I've been reading IE9 is even better. It's not quite at the level of Chrome and in some respects it's better than Firefox. But you need to remember, it's better than IE8 (which is turn was better than IE7, which in turn was better than IE6)

So why do I welcome IE9? Because it's better than IE8, and I'm not (yet) aware of any big problems it contains - which is a good thing. Like it or not most people use IE so I would like a nice IE, which it appears to be. And the better IE gets, the more seriously other browser manufacturers take it. Competition is very, very important in the browser market if we want the internet to carry on improving at the pace it currently is. I still have nightmares from the time there was no competition and IE6 was the only browser on the market - and we're still very much paying the price today and we will be for a long time yet


The browser you want to look out for is Firefox. Refusal to implement certain technologies because they disagree with the ideals behind it? Slow as hell? Quickly becoming a mainstream browser getting a big chunk of the market so not trying as hard as other browsers? Remind you of any other browser..?

Who'da thought I'd be backing up Microsoft and IE?


End geeky rant

Talking of geeky stuff...

some quite nice fun stuff here to show off ie9...

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

also, check out http://www.thekillersmusic.com/html5 - dreadful band but a cool HTML5-enhanced website (esp in ie9!)

and... yes... I do work for MS, so I am going to be biased - but just wait til the Kinect is launched. Then you'll all want to be my friends... Oh yes, that'll show you.. Mwah-ha-ha-ha.

Sorry - don't know what came over me at the end there!


Sean

So far IE9 is doing ok here. There are a few things to get used to, but on the whole it seems fast and stable.

At the end of the day, it's just a browser, which shows you stuff that has been served by a machine somewhere over there. For anyone else who remembers Netscape 1 (and even, on a bad day, Lynx) the steady progression over the years in what a browser can do is a warming thing. Things are better now, and they continue to get better. Slamming IE because it's an MS app doesn't win any prizes.

Chrome lasted on my machine for about three hours, Firefox never held any attraction and Safari makes me want to throw things out of the window in frustration. Many of the 'bells and whistles' that were in these browsers are now in IE9, which may be to some a welcome sign (although my wife was not chuffed at being able to search from the address bar - she wanted a Google window like before!)

The only thing that is missing that I would like back is the history drop down on the navigation buttons so that you can jump back several pages at once. That's not good.

Ian

Klangster1971 wrote:and... yes... I do work for MS, so I am going to be biased - but just wait til the Kinect is launched. Then you'll all want to be my friends... Oh yes, that'll show you.. Mwah-ha-ha-ha.

Notice I was all positive in my comments about IE9, and even IE8! *cough*

IanKendall wrote:The only thing that is missing that I would like back is the history drop down on the navigation buttons so that you can jump back several pages at once. That's not good.

I've noticed a trend in that happening. I don't like it...

MSN are now advising that IE9 is ready to download...perhaps now those annoying reminders to check out IE8 will stop popping up......

Does it make your computer immune to viruses and malware?

Or not?

Not immune (the only surefire way to make a computer immune to malware/viruses is to disconnect it from any network connection and yank out any drives or usb stick holes), but it's certainly got improved security

IanKendall wrote:The only thing that is missing that I would like back is the history drop down on the navigation buttons so that you can jump back several pages at once. That's not good.

Can you not right-click the history button for a dropdown? I know you can in Fx, I haven't installed ie9 yet.

So far, I'm liking it.

Hit my first hurdle already - tried to upload graphics for posters and flyers to an online printing service, only to find IE9 thoroughly confused by the upload pages. Worked fine in IE8.

Had to install Chrome and use that instead.

Pete