TimGilbreath.com

Along with the inevitable release of the full, public version of Internet Explorer 8, we as web developers will experience a simultaneous groan as our clients call about how their sites either display incorrectly or simply don’t work in the newest version of Microsoft’s browser.  We’ve started early in our testing, but the numerous hacks and workarounds needed still don’t produce the results we’re looking for.

Not to fear…IE 8 has the ability to render pages in Compatibility Mode, which emulates the rules of IE 7.  We can tell IE 8 to enter this mode by one, simple line of code within the header of our sites:

<meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=EmulateIE7″ />

Save your files (or header include if you’re using include files) after putting in this line, and IE 8 will display your pages correctly.  Obviously, this only applies to problems that are a result of IE 8’s horrible rendering standards; if you screwed up a tag somewhere, you’ll still see the problem there.

If you’re a Mac-addict like me, you’ve no doubt had someone call or e-mail, complaining about how the file you attached in an e-mail didn’t show properly, embedded instead of attached, or didn’t attach at all.  Before you take another proverbial step, think to yourself “It’s ok….they’re using a PC, they don’t know any better”.  This is actually half true.

My Mac-less boss is the one that brought the problem to my attention.  He noticed that he was getting embedded attachments in Outlook on e-mails sent from the rest of us in our office (all using Macs), instead of the usual attachment he was used to.  On closer inspection, PDF’s, Excel files, and Word documents attached just fine when the sender made sure “Send Windows Friendly Attachments” was checked, however IMAGE files would embed into the e-mail, with apparently no way to have those appear as true attachments to our PC-loving counterparts.

After spending an hour reviewing this phenomena online, it was obvious that I wasn’t even close to being the only person having the problem.  Several pages of less-than-impressive suggestions later, I happened upon a simple solution that seemed TOO simple, and it worked: Send the e-mail in PLAIN TEXT format as opposed to rich text/HTML.  I know, it’s a pain, but to be sure that your Bill Gates fan gets image attachments as they expect; take a second to pull down the “Format” menu and select “Make Plain Text”.

This was posted yesterday (Tuesday) on the Tech pages at Yahoo…bottom line, a huge security hole has been found in all versions of IE from 5.x up to 8, and internet security experts are urging users (at least temporarily) to completely stop using Internet Explorer and switch to another browser until the threat is patched.

You can read the full article here:

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/111811

If I were keeping a “Site of the Day” list on here, this would be one for sure; the Wayback Machine at Archive.org.  This time-killer lets you enter a web address, and then pick a month and a year to view that site in that time frame.  Some sites (that were around at the time) let you go back to the early 1990’s, so you can get another glimpse of web design in a simpler time.  I put in a couple of URL’s for sites that I did when I first got in the web game, and wow, am I glad I’ve gotten better.  Try Yahoo, Microsoft, or Netscape and see how primitive (by today’s standards) the sites looked back then.  Too much fun!

http://www.archive.org/index.php

Just a quick rant…on the intricacies of the available web browsers of today. After a hair-raising experience with IE 6 yesterday, it dawned on me just how bad of a deal it is for web developers every time someone gets the idea to create and release the newest and greatest browser. Chrome by Google…bad. Independent browsers? Bad. Not just for us developers, but for users as well. Wouldn’t it be nice if ONE company had ONE be-all-end-all browser, that did everything we needed it to, had extension support, and was loved by the W3C?

I know…..that’s called a monopoly. Well, if internet browsers were about the users, and not about money, that’d be ok in this situation.

Gotta run…….I have 7 browsers, 4 screen resolutions, and 3 platforms to test this new site on.