Workarounds web designers should be aware of.

Browser – Webmonkey

Browser-specific CSS hacks have become a taboo among standards-aware web designers for good reason; ideally you shouldn’t need them. However, as long as the Internet Explorer 6 browser continues to hold significant market share, there will likely remain some cases where you need to use unfashionable CSS rules to accommodate outdated technology.

E aí leitor! Você também é designer de aplicações em .NET? Então isto aqui pode te interessar…

É diante de um problema que a gente aprende coisas novas. Eu estive esta semana “brigando” com a meta tag:

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

no sistema de Extranet da SET.

Pra quem não sabe esta tag serve para fazer o Internet Explorer 8 renderizar uma página como se fosse sua versão 7, isto evita o trabalhão de adaptação ao novo navegador por parte dos desenvolvedores, como já sabemos, existem problemas de estética e Javascript que impedem que a página funcione corretamente dependendo do tipo e do versão de navegador.

O que ocorre é que em aplicações mais robustas e que possuem o arquivo Global.asax, pelo menos no meu caso, aplicar esta tag simplesmente no <header> não adianta. Por alguma razão a qual não era meu foco investigar, o navegador não faz a página ter o mesmo funcionamento do antigo navegador pois esta não é uma solução infalível. Existe também o recurso que o IE8 oferece que é a Solução de Compatibilidade, que tem a mesma função da tal tag mas em alguns casos é possível que esta solução não seja uma solução de fato. A gente tem um CMS da IVIA rodando por lá, o Content, onde há relatos de que fazer com o que o IE8 se comporte como IE7 resultou em alguns problemas.

Aí consultei um ex-colega de trabalho, que jogou no Google, que descobriu um artigo do Vitor Canova, desenvolvedor .NET do Rio Grande do Sul, que é este aqui.

Bom, acontece que esta solução não funcionou porque o .NET é anterior ao que usamos, então, eu como um cara legal que sou , tive a idéia de aumentar as informações sobre o tema, e otimizar a solução já escrita para ajudar colegas que estão precisando de ajuda por aí. Então fizemos uma readaptação do código para uma solução mais pontual em .NET 2.0. Seguem os passos mastigadinhos pra que você possa tentar aí:

1. Primeiro procure a Master Page do seu projeto, e inclua lá, como primeira meta-tag de toda a página, a tag <meta http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=EmulateIE7″ /> (no cabeçalho logicamente);

2. Compile e rode no navegador. Teste a aplicação e dá uma boa olhada se está tudo ok. Se estiver você nem precisa pular para o próximo passo, senão, vamos em frente.

3. Procure o GLOBAL.asax da sua aplicação (se não existir, então certamente você não precisará de nada além da meta-tag X-UA-Compatible que falei ali acima);

4. Abra o arquivo e crie as funções:

/// <summary>
    /// Método para preparar a renderização compatível com o IE8 (Emular IE7)
/// </summary>
    protected void Application_PreRequestHandlerExecute(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Page p = this.Context.Handler as Page;
        if (p != null)
        {
            p.PreRenderComplete += new EventHandler(p_PreRenderComplete);
        }
    }
/// <summary>
   /// Método que associa o cabeçalho das páginas à compatibilidade IE8
/// </summary>
    protected void p_PreRenderComplete(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        Page page = sender as Page;
        if (page.Header != null)
        {
            HtmlMeta meta = null;
            foreach (Control var in page.Header.Controls)
            {
                HtmlMeta metaAux = var as HtmlMeta;
                if (metaAux != null && metaAux.HttpEquiv == "X-UA-Compatible")
                {
                    meta = metaAux;
                }
            }
            if (meta != null)
            {
                page.Header.Controls.Remove(meta);
                page.Header.Controls.AddAt(0, meta);
            }
        }
    }

5. Agora você precisa recompilar tudo, rodar novamente a aplicação e boa sorte.

Deu tudo certo? Me conta depois.

I found on bug in thick box.js for Jquery.

in some version of IE the popup window is not displaying in the proper position.

Because certain installations of IE7 are incorrectly identified as IE6  thickbox window being centered correctly but outside of the viewport.

To solve this follow the instruction:

In thickbox.js you will find the following code on around line 284.

if ( !(jQuery.browser.msie && jQuery.browser.version < 7)) { // take away IE6 $("#TB_window").css({marginTop: '-' + parseInt((TB_HEIGHT / 2),10) + 'px'}); }

Just replace the above code with the below code.

if ( !(jQuery.browser.msie6)) { // take away IE6 $("#TB_window").css({marginTop: '-' + parseInt((TB_HEIGHT / 2),10) + 'px'}); }

We all hate the new version of IE8 for it’s incompatibility and quirks don’t we? Well apperantly some guys over at Microsoft also does. By implementing a custom HTTP-Header we can simply force the client browser to scale back and render our sites as IE7 did. Ofcourse this is just a temporary solution, eventually you’ll have to upgrade your sites which have some incompatibility issues but for the time being this is a life-saver!

On a per-site basis you can add this custom HTTP-Header through your IIS-console:
X-UA-Compatible: IE=EmulateIE7

If you prefer to only do this for some pages, insert this snippet in the head-tag of the document:
< meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" / >

There is however a disclaimer attached to this work-around. The X-UA-Compatible tag and header override any existing DOCTYPE. Also, the mode specified by the page takes precedent over the HTTP header. For example, you could add the EmulateIE7 HTTP header to a site, and set specific pages to display in IE8 mode (by using the meta-tag with content=”IE8”). So for the time being using the IE=EmulateIE7 compatibility tag is a simple way for users to continue their current experience when browsing your site until you can update with more standards-compliant content. Although adding this tag will prevent most display issues, you may also need to update your site to properly detect IE8.

J.

Seiring dengan berkembangnya teknologi website saat ini, cara orang dalam mengakses dan menikmati sajian informasi yang diberikan oleh website pun semakin berkembang. Jika selama ini teknologi pengembangan web lebih terfokus pada pengembangan client-server, dimana pengakses baru dapat menikmati informasi yang dibutuhkannya setelah hasil request data ke server selesai kemudian ditampilkan di browser client, maka kini telah hadir alternatif lain dari teknologi website ini.
Microsoft Silverlight merupakan sebuah aplikasi yang memberikan pengalaman baru dari sisi client. Dengan memakai plug-in bernama Microsoft Silverlight ini, client diharapkan tidak akan hanya bersikap pasif pada saat menunggu data hasil request ke server selesai dikirim. Konsep yang dipakai dalam pengembangan Microsoft Silverlight sendiri adalah konsep RIA (Rich Internet Application). Konsep ini mengembangkan sisi client untuk dapat mengerjakan fitur interface seperti halnya pada desktop komputer. Untuk mendapatkan hasil yang dikehendaki, sisi client tidak harus selalu me-request ke sisi server, sehingga hasilnya lebih cepat didapat dan responsif. Adapun aplikasi website yang telah banyak memakai konsep RIA ini adalah animasi dan game.
Saat ini Microsoft Silverlight telah dikembangkan ke dalam dua generasi pengembangan, yaitu Silverlight 1.0 RC (Release Candidate) yang mengandalkan Javascript untuk menangani obyek-obyek multimedia dan animasi. Sedangkan generasi Silverlight berikutnya adalah Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh yang telah dikembangkan dengan teknologi .NET Framework.
Untuk saat ini Silverlight baru dapat dinikmati oleh pemakai Sistem Operasi Windows dan Mac OS. Adapun browser yang telah mendukung plug-in ini adalah IE6, IE7, Mozilla Firefox, Opera dan Safari.

Here’s a collection of articles on avoiding truncated borders and content when using negative margins in IE6 and IE7:

The Definitive Guide to using Negative Margins
The Positive Side of Negative Margins
Border Chaos
Solution for Negative Margins and Indentation
Clipping of Negative Margined Blocks in a hasLayout Container
Negative Margin hasLayout Bug

Internet Explorer has got to be every web developer’s nightmare. With the recent release of version 8, things are finally making sense why the browser is so uninterested and sheepish in adopting web standards into the browser. Where contending browsers (Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome and Opera) are making strides in adopting new technologies (like HTML5 and CSS3) that are being thrown out into the wild, Internet Explorer is actually focusing on things that matter, à la security and open-ness.

In a recent interview with the Web Designer magazine, Amy Barzdukas, Microsoft’s general manager for Internet Explorer and Consumer Security said, “Our first competition is really our own past browser [Internet Explorer 6] … and of course, people’s perception of what IE is…” She later added, “Consumers aren’t that worried about [the] ACID3 test [.. but ...] about other pressing matters like security.”

The W3C standards are the actual problem

For a consumer-focused company like Microsoft, stepping up into an aggressive inclusion of web-standards support  is just not feasible enough. For one thing though, web standards aren’t always as clearly defined. Most of the web standards still clog the W3C think tanks as working drafts – which means they are not yet complete at all in any shape or form. Either, there’s a feature that a certain browser vendor isn’t happy with or it dissatisfies some other aspect of design for their rendering capabilities. Take for instance, the new HTML5 specification which asks for support for out-of-the-box video experience and native media support in all browsers. Even though the <video> tag has been clearly defined in the specification, vendors still aren’t sure what formats need to be supported by default – Theora or H.264. Indecision haunts these standards recommendations and adopters.

When the CSS2.1 specification was established in 1999 as a W3 working draft, no one anticipated it would take 10 years until 2009 for it to actually be released as recommended specification. And surprise, surprise – the only browser that does fully support the CSS2.1 specification is none other than IE itself. No other browser supports the complete recommended specification for CSS2.1 and still they are aggressively pursuing CSS3. In the end, a browser that takes this course just ends up with an often incomplete support for the same. In effect, Microsoft has adopted a new strategy that states only taking up specifications that are completed or are near completion. This would imply that not much effort is spent in pruning or trimming edges when those very specifications do change. In an interview with Tech Republic, Ian Hickson, the editor of the HTML5 working draft gave a deadline for the completion of the draft – it was much farther than any one ever expected – all the way in 2022.

Now, the question really is – should Microsoft really start implementing the whole standard straight away. We’ve recently discussed how HTML5 can already be used in today’s browsers with the inclusion of a few hacks. Why not use hacks to do the stuff until W3C shortens the deadline?

Lower-order versions with Internet Explorer

The latest version of Internet Explorer that I have installed here on my system is (as you’ve guessed) version 8. Before it was (you are right) version 7. Now, version 8 is a far cry from its predecessors, in that most of the rendering capabilities for the new version have been included in the design from scratch. Problem with the adoption of newer standards as they appear might also be Microsoft’s deployment strategies – whereby Microsoft delivers products with a higher-order version, like 7 or 8. What contenders do is to often release a few lower-order versions before releasing a final product. Mozilla already has released five lower-order versions for Firefox 3. As of today (28 October 2009), Mozilla would be releasing the Firefox 3.6 beta 1 for testing purposes and feedback.

If Internet Explorer comes up with lower-order version in between releases, there is a far greater chance that Internet Explorer would better equip itself with the growing trends present online today. Anyone for nightly builds? This might just help build a support community for the browser and deliver better features with every release.

I have already talked about the benefits of XP Mode that is part of Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions and how to get it setup but some of the most useful features are not enabled by default. All of the native Windows XP applications that come with a standard Windows XP install are not configured to show up in your Windows 7 Start Menu.  Native applications such as Internet Explorer 6 can be configured to also appear in the Windows 7 Start Menu under XP Mode Applications. IE6 in particular is very useful for Web sites that are not compatible with IE7 or IE8 so I’m going to use it as an example to show you how to configure any native Windows XP application to work in Seamless mode.

The secret is creating an additional shortcut in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ folder on the Windows XP Mode virtual machine for each application you want to publish to the Windows 7 Start Menu.

1. Click on the Windows 7 Start Menu, expand All Programs and navigate through Windows Virtual PC and click Windows XP Mode to start XP Mode in desktop mode.
2. After the Windows XP desktop is displayed, click on the Start Button and select My Computer.
3. Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\ and right click and select New and then Shortcut.
4. Click on the Browse button and select the executable for the native windows app you want to use. For Internet Explorer 6 navigate through C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\ and select IEXPLORE.exe and hit OK. Then, click Next on the Create Shortcut screen once the location is filled in.
5. Type in a name for the shortcut such as Internet Explorer 6 and click Finish.

Eventually the new shortcut you created will show up in the Windows 7 Start Menu under Windows XP Mode Applications within the Windows Virtual PC folder.

Lately I’ve done some work on XSLT and search results from FAST. One of the features of FAST are navigators, they basically make it possible to do faceted searches. And the default XSLT that we were working on did not include counters for the navigators, making it harder for the user to guess/understand the impact of adding a new search term. So I had to add the counters (actually I’m working with a collegue on this). The navigators were outputted like this in the XSLT:

<xsl:element name=”option”>
<xsl:attribute name=”value”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@VALUE”/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”title”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”label”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:call-template name=”trunctext”>
<xsl:with-param name=”param”><xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/></xsl:with-param>
<xsl:with-param name=”length”>45</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:element>

So we changed it like this:

<xsl:element name=”option”>
<xsl:attribute name=”value”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@VALUE”/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”title”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/>
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:attribute name=”label”>
<xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/> (<xsl:value-of select=”@COUNT”/>)
</xsl:attribute>
<xsl:call-template name=”trunctext”>
<xsl:with-param name=”param”><xsl:value-of select=”@NAME”/></xsl:with-param>
<xsl:with-param name=”length”>45</xsl:with-param>
</xsl:call-template>
</xsl:element>

This would indicate to the user that at 12 documents should remain if that navigator was selected. And on our VPCs this worked as expected. It would ouput a listbox with the navigators and the counters would show up. So we commited the change and went home.

The very next day we checked our daily build, expecting the counters to show up. To to our surprise they did not! At first we figured it was just a deployment issue; maybe an old XSLT was causing problems for us? We navigated directly to the .xsl file and inspected it. Imagine our surprise when the XSLT file was the correct file. We fired up our VPCs and tried again; success on the VPC! Now we’re basically kicking into debugmode; look att differences! There might be a minor difference in the source Xml! We run diff tools but no difference is detected, the source is the same! A lot of head scratching and and ohing and uhing later I realize what the difference is (remember kids; when it looks the same, but behave differently; something is different!); on our physical machines we’re running Windows XP and IE6, but on the VPCs we’re running Windows Server 2003 and IE7/8… Our problem isn’t serverside, but a browser compatability issue! OMG! The problem is, IE6 ignores the label attribute! And IE7/8 will display the label value, but not the actual value (if label attribute is present). Once we realized this the solution was easy enough; we just added the counter after the “xsl:call-template” (trunctext) and removed the label attribute all together. Happy days!

Sorry about hte bad formatting…

IEs have an interesting behavior around forms that may drive pixel-perfect designers and implementers nuts.  In certain conditions, IE6, 7 and 8 will “enhance” the form functionality by showing you which button is the submit button by drawing a black, 1 px border around it.

If you’re like most web-devs, you style inputs, textareas, and especially buttons to match the look-and-feel of the overall site.  Usually that entails setting properties like background-image and border.

The issue can be reproduced when the following criteria is fulfilled:

1. use a form in your site
2. use the standard <input type=”submit” /> button to trigger form submission
   • OR use the <button type=”submit”> to trigger form submission
3. style the button visually using CSS

My test page can be downloaded here: test page

In this image, we see a standard form in IE7 with one text input field and one submit button.  Both the inputs are styled with a 1px solid #ccc border and #eee background-color.  Pardon the horrible render; MS Paint doesn’t have a lot of options for export.

In this image we see the same form in IE7 with focus (by clicking into the text input field).

It’s a subtle change, and most won’t notice it.  It only becomes an issue if your UI/UE team gets really antsy about visual changes that they didn’t want.

Two simple fixes come immediately to mind.

1. Change the <input type=”submit” /> or <button> to a simple button and trigger the submit with javascript.
2. Implement a CSS fix that tricks IE into not displaying the border.

For solution 2, the fix is a pretty straightforward one with some caveats.  Add this bit of CSS to whatever style cascades down to the submit button:

.fixIE {
filter : chroma(color=#000000);

}

“Filter” is IE-specific.  “Chroma” will set to transparent whichever color is cited, so in the above case, if an element has or inherits the “fixIE” class, anything with the color #000000 (or black) will be set to transparent.

The caveats should be obvious.  Not only will the extra border be transparent, but if the default text color or background-color is #000, it will rendered transparent.

There’s a slightly less-obvious caveat as well to this.  Even as the color itself is rendered transparent, IE will still draw the border around the button.  The net effect is that as the form receives focus, the submit button will act as if  a 1px margin was applied around the element, and it will visually contract.  It will expand back out to the previous size if focus moves to some other element in the page not contained by the form.

Pretty ugly hack, and I’m inclined to tell you to just use fix 1.

El peor enemigo al maquetar sitios Web

En múltiples ocasiones he manifestado mi molestia con el navegador de Microsoft (Internet Explorer), por muchos es bien sabido lo molesto que resulta maquetar una Web en IE, ya que este interpreta el CSS como se le da la gana, siguiendo sus propias reglas, tal pareciera que Microsoft lo hace a propósito.

Por suerte en las ultimas versiones de IE 7 e IE 8, las cosas han mejorado con respecto a IE 6, lo cual se agradece, lamentablemente aun en estos días existe mucha gente que tiene como navegador por defecto IE 6, lo cual nos obliga a tener que adaptar nuestros sitios para que estos se vean de la mejor manera en dicho navegador.

En Smashingmagazine nos presentan unas series de propiedades CSS y como IE 6, 7, 8, las interpretan, sin duda tener referencias de ellas nos puede ahorrar tiempo en la implementación de nuestro sitio Web. Mucha gente sigue luchando con la adaptacion de sus sitios en todos los navegadores, y tambien muchos solo adaptan sus sitios a las ultimas verciones de los navegadores, esta segunda opcion para mi es la mejor. Ya que permite el desarrollo de los estándares.

Visitar el Articulo completo aquí.

Ok so at work this week I had to re-image my PC. Not a big deal, only takes a few hours. After it’s imaged I then have to install the me-specific applications on our network that aren’t part of the image, and one of them comes (or came) packaged with Windows Live desktop Search and MSN Toolbar. So this toolbar is really handy, it gives you tabs in IE6 (and I turn every other feature right off! And YES we still use IE6, have mercy on me I beg of you!!). So I run all my do-dads and here is the desktop search tool, only no MSN toolbar. Okay, I think, they have removed it from the image. This isn’t a big deal. I will download it manually. I’m a techie enough guy to handle that. So I do. And I installed it. And no tabs!!! The new version is totally different and there are NO TABS! I have to work with NO TABS!!! NO ONE in the free world should have to work with NO TABS!!!
Okay so you’re thinking “upgrade to IE 7 or 8 or firefox” But I CAN’T! They aren’t compatible with our system (I know!!!) and I hate Firefox and it’s fanboys ANYWAY but either way I can’t so I am using IE6 with NO TAAAABBBBSSSS and now I am whining but I can’t help it.
SO!
Here is my question – where can I find the installation file for the older MSN toolbar with tabs? Let me make this absolutely clear – I NEED TABS!!! I already looked on oldversion.com and no deal. Everywhere that used to link to it now links to the new version (which is cool in its own right but utterly useless to me as are most other toolbars, but that’s a whole other rant for a whole other day, suffice to say they are a great idea for anyone whose browser is just FLYING along problem free and who feels it shouldn’t be!)
SOMEBODY got to hook me up with the old MSN toolbar! I’m willing to pay!! (Not monetarily of course. But possibly with a small thank you in a comment. Hey, there’s a recession going on!)

Jacob Gube at Six Revisions has posted a performance comparison between the five major web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.

Chrome performed the best in four of the six tests, though Safari came close to matching it on three (JavaScript speed, CSS rendering speed, and CPU usage).

The clear loser, of course, was Internet Explorer – its best performance was on the browser cache test, where it beat out Safari for fourth place. It lost the JavaScript speed, CSS rendering speed, and DOM selection speed tests by large margins; placed last for CPU usage; and tied for last for page load time.

Keep in mind that these are the results for Internet Explorer 8 – most IE users are still running version 7 or 6, which perform even worse. With this in mind, it’s easy to see why Google opted to develop Chrome Frame to “support” Wave on IE.

Une liste exhaustive des différences entre IE6, IE7 et IE8 est disponible sur SMASHINGMagasine.
A quand une librairie Javascript qui gommerait les problèmes de CSS des différents browsers… ?

Finally got my website working in fullscreen mode, which did take me a fair while to work, although turned out to be very simple!

All though one thing gripes me, why do people not realise that internet explorer is the worst web browser out there, my website text just seems to screw up on the galleries page…and it is optimised for it IE7/8

Ajax or Asynchronous Javascript + XML started with Jesse James Garrett penning an online article on usage of XHR aka XMLHttpRequest object in 2005. Idea behind Ajax was to give user data/page updates without refreshing the page. By Doing so Ajax made static boring HTML pages to be highly interactive and exciting. Later on developers and designers around the world came up with enhanced use cases and patterns for using Ajax. Prior to XHR object ajax kind of functionality was being achieved using lot many hacks, mostly involving hidden frames or iframes, Java Applets and Flash movie. XHR introduced streamlined interface for making server requests and evaluating responses. Despite having XML in it’s name Ajax is format-agnostic; the technique basically is about retrieving data from server without refreshing page.

Microsoft first introducing this functionality in IE5, later an other browsers started implementing and Ajax was the buzz word in late 2005 and early 2006. IE browsers before IE 7 needed using one of MSXML2.XMLHttp ,  MSXML2.XMLHttp.3.0 , and MXSML2.XMLHttp.6.0 to be used in order to create XHR object, code for creating XHR object in browser < IE 7 looks like this.

function createXHR(){

    if(typeof arguments.callee.activeString != "string"){

        var versions = ["MXSML2.XMLHttp.6.0", "MXSML2.XMLHttp.3.0","MXSML2.XMLHttp"];

        for(var i=0, len = versions.length; i<len;i++ ){

            try{

                var xhr = new ActiveXObject(versions[i]);

                arguments.callee.activeXString = versions[i];

                return xhr;

            }catch (ex){

                //skip

            }

        }

    }

    return new ActiveXObject (arguments.callee.activeXString);

}

IE 7, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari all support a native XHR object that can be created using,

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

if you need to support you first check for XMLHttpRequest support, if supported return that object else continue with above mentioned function.

XHR object usage looks like this.

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

xhr.open("get","yourdata.php", false); // arguments in order HTTP method, url, asynchronous true/false;

xhr.send(null)

if you pass third argument asynchronous as false, you are making and synchronous server call, javascript execution wait till server respond with result. when the response is received XHR object will have result assigned to it’s properties as follows:

responseText – Text in body of the response
responseXML -  Contains XML DOM document with response data if the response has content type set to "text/xml" or "application/xml"
status – HTTP status of the request
statusText – Description of HTTP status.

Where are setting third argument asynchronous as true will allow you to make asynchronous call, which doesn’t halt javascript execution till the request is completed. but you need to check readyStage of XHR object to track status of the request, readyState can have following possible values

0 – Un-initialized
1 – Initialized but not called send()
2 – Sent, send() called
3 – Receiving, partial response is received
4 – Complete, received complete response

whenever ready state changes from one to another readystatechange event gets fired, adding a listener/function to this event will let you track status of the XHR request.

// ready state tracked code looks like this

var xhr = createXHR();       

xhr.onreadystatechange = function(){

    if (xhr.readyState == 4){

        if ((xhr.status  > = 200  &  &  xhr.status  <  300) || xhr.status == 304){

            alert(xhr.responseText);

        } else {

            alert(“Request was unsuccessful: “ + xhr.status);

        }

    }

};

xhr.open(“get”, “example.txt”, true);

xhr.send(null);  ((

// you can cancel an asynchronous request by using xhr.abort();

Many Web designers are staging a protest against the old version of Microsoft’s browser, the Internet Explorer 6 (IE6). They allege that the ability of the Web to move forward in a more interactive way is getting hampered due to the browser. Microsoft acknowledged it is recommending IE6 users to upgrade to the newer IE8, but again promised it would support the older version till April 2014.

The designers say that the IE6, which was released in 2001 and since been updated twice by Microsoft is ‘crippling’ the Internet’s potential and slowing down the online experience. They also blame IE6 for giving webmasters a tough job, because they have to write special ‘hacks’ into the Web code to accommodate an outmoded browser. An estimated 15-25 percent of people still use IE6 as their portal to the Internet. Microsoft officials insist they simply can’t end support for IE 6, since it shipped as part of Windows XP.

Recently, a campaign has started, sparked by 40 Internet start-ups who want their users to ditch Microsoft’s eight year old web browser. The campaign is spread to the social networking sites as well. Facebook has been prompting IE6 users to swap out their browsers since February 2009. A petition on Twitter collected nearly 10,000 signatures supporting the effort. Even Google’s YouTube and Digg were taking similar steps to stop their users from using the IE6 browser.

Although Microsoft has released two major versions of Internet Explorer in the past couple of years, for many, the face of Internet Explorer is still the IE6. In large part, the reason is because many of Internet Explorer’s users are the ones who tend not to change the browser that comes with their operating system.

Recently I had a situation where a user couldn’t re-set her homepage using the normal Internet Explorer (IE) options.

This was a problem as the site that was set to her homepage no longer existed and every time she launched IE she would get ‘Page not found’.

In order to resolve this i applied the following registry hack :

1. Winkey + R or Start menu run
2. Type ‘regedit’
3. Go to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
“Start Page”=”http://www.aaronharvey.co.uk/”
4. Change the website to the one you require and you are done.

* Please note that the registry is a very important part of the operating system and you should use extreme caution when making changes.