Entries tagged with ie8 - Channel 10

IE8 Web Accelerator for Zune

sarahintampa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:50:00 GMT

In the new version of Internet Explorer, accelerators, you can get easy access to online services like email, search, maps, eBay, Encarta, facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and so much more all from the web page you’re on – no need to open another tab or window and navigate elsewhere. Now, in addition to the accelerators currently available from the IE8 accelerator gallery, other developers are creating their own accelerators and posting them to their blogs.

One new accelerator that I recently came across is the Zune accelerator created by Sean Alexander. This particular accelerator lets you look up music-related info like Artist or Song info in the Zune Marketplace, all from the right-click menu. He mentions there are other accelerators that do similar things, but they are broken out to look up Artist separately from Song; this one combines both into one. Nice! To install Sean’s Zune accelerator click here.

TinyURL Accelerator for IE8 Beta 2

sarahintampa — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:57:00 GMT

Tim Heuer a program manager for Microsoft Silverlight and published author, has just created a new accelerator (formerly known as an “activity”) for IE8 Beta 2: the TinyURL Accelerator. His accelerator will be especially handy for anyone who makes use of this popular URL-shortening service.

In case you’re unfamiliar, TinyURL is a service that takes a long, unwieldy URL and shrinks it down to a more manageable size in the format of http://tinyurl.com/xxyyzz. This service and others like it have gained in popularity since the rise of micro-blogging tools like Twitter (and other similar services) which limit the amount of text you can type in for each update.

Tim’s TinyURL accelerator, as you may have guessed, integrates with IE8 Beta 2 to shrink down URLs. To use it, you highlight the hyperlinked text and right-click (or choose the accelerator icon in IE8) then choose the “Shrink URL” option. The accelerator will then automatically send the link to TinyURL for you. If you want to see it in action, check out the quick screencast he made and posted to his blog.

If you’re running the IE8 Beta, you can install the TinyURL Accelerator by clicking here.

IE8 “Unboxing” Video

sarahintampa — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:44:00 GMT

In the tech world, “unboxing” videos have surged in popularity over the years as recording and uploading video to the web became easier than ever for anyone to do. As soon as a gadget geek gets their hands on the latest shiny new contraption, a video of them carefully unwrapping and unboxing the gadget and all its little components is soon to follow. In that spirit, the IE team recently posted an “unboxing” video to their Facebook page. However, as you know, there’s nothing to really unbox with a software download like IE8...so what could they possibly record? Well, as you may have guessed, the video is a parody of unboxing videos, this one featuring a “professional unboxer” by the name of Roland Wacker. The video comes across like a bit on SNL and in it, Mr. Wacker gets quite upset at an unseen nemesis by the name of Eugene. The video seems to represent a new direction for the IE8 Facebook videos page – instead of just instructional how-to’s, it looks like the team is going to have some fun too. The next video, “the History of Slices,” looks at slicing through the ages (sliced bread! surgical instruments!) and compares IE8’s web slices to the “awesomeness of samurai swords.”

What’s New in IE8 Beta 2

sarahintampa — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:08:00 GMT

The IE team recently announced the availability of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, the latest iteration of the upcoming browser which is now available for download from www.microsoft.com/ie8. This new version of IE features several new improvements and changes, but we decided to list our favorites below.

Smart Address Bar: Taking a note from Firefox 3’s Awesome Bar, the Smart Address Bar offers suggestions as you type based on website history, favorites, and RSS feed. There’s even an autocomplete feature that will suggest sites based on what you’re typing. Domain highlighting is also used to highlight the domain name. This feature allows for improved security and is especially useful in thwarting phishing attacks.

Colored Tab Groups: When you Ctrl+Click a link to open up a new tab, the new tab will have the same color as the original tab. New tabs that you launch on your own will be in a different color. This feature helps you easily visualize how tabs are related to each other.

Enhanced Find On Page Search: Ctrl+F launches a Find-on-Page Toolbar at the top of the page underneath the tabs. Search terms on the page are highlighted and the number of times they appear are counted.

Switching Search Providers Easier: Now when you enter in a search term in the search box, you’ll notice a row of icons that appear below the search suggestions that appear. These icons allow you to change your search provider on the fly from Live Search to Google to Wikipedia to Amazon, eBay, and more…all with the click of a button.

Visual Search: In addition to being able to change providers quickly, sites that support visual search (currently Amazon and Wikipedia) will display a small thumbnail image of the results which you can view without having to visit that page. What a timesaver!

Crash Recovery/Session Saving: You now have the option to reopen the last tab group when closing the browser. Also, if a tab crashes, crash recovery will restore the tab as well as any info you had filled in there such as in the case of writing an email or filing out a form.

InPrivate Browsing: This new technology lets you browse privately, making sure that history, temporary internet files, and cookies are not recorded on the PC

Other new features include an updated look for the IE chrome, improvements to both web slices and accelerators (formerly called “activities”), tools for IT professionals and developers, and a lot more. You can check out the full list of enhancements here as well as read reviews from both Ed Bott and Brandon LeBlanc, who both take a comprehensive look at the new browser.

Want To Beta Test IE8?

sarahintampa — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:55:00 GMT

Recently, Allison Burnett, Program Manager for IE, posted to the IE Team Blog that they were looking for more beta testers to help them work out the kinks in the new browser. According to her post, she mentions that IE8 Beta 2 is “right around the corner" as she invites anyone interested in checking it out to become an official tester. This is a much bigger deal than beta-testing the latest Web 2.0 web app, I guarantee you. Official beta testers for IE 8 will really be helping the team get IE 8 ready for primetime. If you want to be a beta tester, just email the team at Microsoft Connect. And if you just want to download the beta and check out what it can do, you can download it from here.

Get Ready for IE8 Public Beta

sarahintampa — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:37:00 GMT

A post on Nick MacKechnie's blog reminds us that the public beta of IE8 is just around the corner - third quarter of 2008 to be exact. When this happens, there will be tons of new users trying out the browser for the first time. Thanks to popular demand, IE8 switches on the standards-compliant mode by default, which means sites that have been coded to work with previous versions of IE may display differently. For website owners that means you'll need to make sure your site is ready. To help you prepare, you can access the Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit online, which is a great resource for both web designers and developers. The site offers up information about the new features, the release notes, resources and links, and, most importantly, a great big list of testing tools you can use to make sure your site works with the new IE browser.

IETester Helps You Test Your Site

sarahintampa — Fri, 30 May 2008 22:24:00 GMT

IETester is a free web browser specifically designed for testing web sites in Internet Explorer including IE 8 beta, IE 7, IE 6, IE 5.5 on both XP and Vista. Like any web browser, IETester has the usual forward and back buttons, refresh, stop, home, and favorite buttons, but it also has a special feature that allows you to launch new tabs which render the web site in different versions of IE. With IE8's public beta just around the corner, web site owners need to verify that their sites are going to display properly in the new browser, which runs in standards-compliant mode by default. You can download IETester for free (donations accepted) from here. (via Ajaxian)

WebSlices in Wikipedia

sarahintampa — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Guess who just joined the early adopters of Internet Explorer 8's new WebSlices feature? None other than the open-source, free encyclopedia site, Wikipedia. Thanks to Wikipedia user Soum Yasch and others, Wiki templates have been built to support the new IE8 WebSlices. You can see them in action on this page, which is the only one featuring them just yet.

If you hadn't heard, WebSlices are a new IE8 feature that let you subscirbe to content directly within a web page. You access them from your IE Favorites Bar, where you'll be able to click on them and see real-time rich internet content. (via)

WebSlices Hit the Desktop

sarahintampa — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:24:00 GMT

I just saw a post this morning about Sean Lyndersay's new Sidebar gadget called the "WebSlice Viewer Gadget." This brilliant little creation brings IE8's WebSlices (bits of web content that you can access from the new IE8 Favorites Bar) right to your desktop via a simple Vista Sidebar gadget.

The gadget, currently in alpha (you've been warned!), requires Vista (unknown if x64 supported, but let us know), IE8, and a web page that has some WebSlices. Each instance of the WebSlice Viewer shows only one WebSlice, so you will need to open multiple gadgets to show multiple views.

You can download the WebSlice gadget from Sean's SkyDrive.

Managing Add-Ons in IE8

sarahintampa — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 20:40:00 GMT

In the new version of Internet Explorer, IE8 beta, managing your add-ons is now a lot easier. The new UI looks a lot more like a Windows File Explorer window or the Control Panel, with a list of Add-On Types on the left and Names & Descriptions on the right. From here, you can easily enable, disable, or remove add-ons using the buttons at the bottom right. Most of the changes will take place immediately, but a few (like disabling a toolbar) will require a browser restart.

The new Add-ons window also has new features like support for Ctrl + Click (or drag), if you want to select multiple add-ons at once. Right-clicking on add-ons gives you context menus and the details about an add-on can be copied to the clipboard and pasted into a document or email.

I learned about these features and a lot more over on the IE blog, where developers can read about what IE8's new add-ons mean for them, too.

The Best Activities & WebSlices for IE8

sarahintampa — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:54:00 GMT

Are you running the beta of IE8? With all the new features, like WebSlices, Activities, and the new Favorites Bar, there is a lot to see and try. So, if you want to get your IE8 Beta up to speed with only the best of the new features, look no further - here are the best add-ons for IE8:

Me.dium's Activity for IE8: With the Me.dium Activity for IE8, you can right-click on a web page or highlight text and right-click, then choose "Discover with Me.dium." You'll then be recommended new pages around your selection based on what other Me.dium users are surfing right now, in real-time. (Stay tuned for a Me.dium WebSlice, coming soon)
Internet Buzz on StumbleUpon: This add-on is a WebSlice that shows you the hottest sites on StumbleUpon right now. To subscribe to a WebSlice, click on the purple icon and then click "Add." You can then click on the WebSlice on your Favorites bar and see a list of thumbnails and links to the currently "most Stumbled" web sites.
eBay Search Activity & WebSlice: OK, technically this is 2 add-ons, but each of these are great. The eBay Search Activity lets you highlight text on any web page and then hover over "eBay Search" to see active listings for that item. The eBay WebSlice lets you monitor your favorite eBay items and auctions from IE8's Favorites Bar.
Facebook WebSlice: To access this WebSlice, just log into Facebook and then click on the purple WebSlice icon on your Favorites Bar to see your Facebook friends status updates. (Vista users - if you have an issue with this, launch IE as an Administrator before adding the WebSlice). Pick up the "Share on Facebook" Activity on this page, too.
Mapping Activities: Why have just one mapping activity? From this page, you can get both the Live Search Maps and Yahoo! Local Maps Activities.
News: Get the MSNBC "Related News" Activity here and the "MSN Headline" WebSlice here.
Helpful Activities: There are Activities that help you Define, Translate, Blog, and Email.
ShareThis: the ShareThis browser button works with IE8, too. With this button, you can easily share web content on various services like Digg, Facebook, del.icio.us, facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, etc.

Congrats also to bloggers Alex Lomas, Roman Clarkson, and Colin Walker who have already implemented WebSlices for their blogs! And also check out Andrew Nurses' Reports Module WebSlice.

Learning IE8

sarahintampa — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:21:00 GMT

The guys over at the IE Blog just put up a great post with all kinds of tips and tricks for learning the new IE8 Favorites Bar. They teach you how to use WebSlices and how to add feeds to the Favorites Bar, plus they list a whole bunch of other little tips and keyboard shortcuts. I highly recommend checking out this post if you're new to IE8.

Here's a sampling of the tips:

To put focus on the first item on the Favorites bar, press ALT+B.
Ctrl+Click or Middle-click on an item (or a folder) on the Favorites bar and this item (or the contents of this folder) will open in a new tab (or tabs) in the background.
Ctrl+Shift+Click on an item on the Favorites bar will open up this item in a tab in the foreground.

They've actually been posting all kinds of stuff about IE8, so you can be an expert in no time!

Here are a few other great posts to check out on the IE Blog:

Address Bar Improvements (like domain highlighting)
Learn About Loosely Coupled IE
Improved Developer Tools
Activities and WebSlices

CeBIT '08 - What's New in IE8 Beta?!

lorigros — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:17:00 GMT

Internet Explorer 8 Beta had its premiere on Wednesday in Las Vegas at the MIX. Yesterday in Hannover, Germany IE8 made its debut in Europe at the CeBIT. Shola Aluko, Microsoft Senior Product Manager Internet Explorer, was on hand to do a session on Internet Explorer 8 Beta for Developers. Before his session, I had the chance to talk to him about what is new in the Internet Explorer 8 Beta and get a short demo. While you can’t see many details on his laptop monitor, hopefully his description is enough to whet your appetite to download the IE8 Beta, give it a try and let the IE team know what you think. Localized versions for German, Hebrew and simplified Chinese will be available in the next month.

For more information or to download the IE8 Beta check out the Internet Explorer 8 Beta website…
http://microsoft.com/ie/ie8

Video of Shola Aluko’s session at the CeBIT on Channel 9…http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=388781

Video - Larry Larsen’s first look at IE8..
http://www.on10.net/blogs/larry/First-Look-Internet-Explorer-8/

Give the IE Team Your Feedback on IE8

sarahintampa — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:44:00 GMT

Now that the dev preview beta of Internet Explorer 8 is out, you may notice some bugs here and there, since it's still a beta (translation = not done yet!). But did you know that you can check to see if your bug has been reported yet? And if it hasn't, you can tell the IE8 team about it. On the IE Blog, they give you the details about how to read up on the current known issues and how to let them know about new ones. And here's how:

Read the IE8 Release notes - this is where you can check to see if this is a known issue.
Check the issues listed on Connect - if you find your issue there, rate it! This is how they know how many people find it important.
Found something new? You can visit the IE beta newsgroup - the IE guys will be monitoring this group for new issues and can file bug reports on your behalf.

Oh, and the Windows Live guys want you to know that if you find any problems between IE8 and any of the Windows Live Services, you can just comment on their blog. We're listening!

First Look: Internet Explorer 8

Larry — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:14:00 GMT

Surprise! IE8 beta is going to be available for download starting today at 12:00 PST. Matthew Lapsen from the IE team gave me a spur of the moment demo for you all showing us some of the core features that power users will enjoy. Keep in mind that this is a developer preview of IE8, so the way it looks may change a little.

A couple highlights I think you'll really like include Activities and Webslices. Activities include doing a contextual search from something highlighted on a website. Webslices are the ability to track a specific section of a site, like a custom RSS feed. So you could make a button on the top of your browser that tracks an eBay auction or the status of our friends on Facebook.

Also check out this IE8 video on VisitMix.com, and if you know your DOM from your COM, you might want to check out the IE8 video on Channel 9.