Microsoft Says IE9 Closes Performance Gap
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Goodbye IE6
In my day job working for a small IT consultancy, I often come across corporate IT systems still using Internet Explorer 6 as the default browser.
When we recommend upgrading, we often get the response that some of their most used sites only work with IE6. These sites tend to be goverment departments (e.g the UK land registry was one), and so we shrug our sholders and move on.
Yesterday we had a request to our helpdesk from an IT department to assist in helping diagnose why a user was unable to access a particular government site (this time the UK gambling commission). After some quick diagnosis we discovered that the site did not work with IE6, but worked happily with IE7 and 8. HURRAY!! We now had a senior employee who needed a newer version of IE. A company upgrade plan is now being drawn up. Shame we couldn't get them to go for Firefox or Chrome.... but hopefully we are seeing the end of the hateful IE6!
MonoTouch.Info with a pinch of search
MonoTouch.Info has now been running since the beta of MonoTouch and the community support has been terrific and it is really appreciated. Even better than the support we have received is the great content that is being generated by members of the community.
MonoTouch.Info has been growing fast and we now have over 150 MonoTouch related entries on the site with more being added every week. As the content grew we wanted to make it easier to find what you need to make great iPhone / iPod Touch applications.
We see the site being used in two main ways:
- Browsing - You're not looking for anything in particular but you feel like browsing the site to see what great MonoTouch content has been generated by the community.
- Searching - You know you've seen an article somewhere and you'd like to find it again or you have a question and you want to see if someone has written an article, posted an answer to the forum/mailing list or added something to the wiki that may help you.
Yesterday when you performed a search it would search the summaries of each entry and return a list of any entries that matched the single keyword you entered. You would then click through to get more details and then click through to the content. We try to offer a nice summary of an entry for those of you who are browsing, but a summary doesn't cover the entire content of the entry so you could in fact be missing out on the content you're actually looking for.
Today when you perform a search we don't search the summary of the entries listed on our site, we actually search the content of the entries we've linked to! This allows you to get more accurate results and ensures you don't miss out of any of the great content out there.
On top of that we also include all of the content on the official monotouch site, wiki, forums and mailing list. We see these as official sources and therefore include the whole site in our index. One other site we include in our index is StackOverflow.com. The reason we include stackoverflow.com is because it is a source of great content. As a MonoTouch developer you might have a C# question, an Objective-C question, a .NET framework library related question or an iPhone SDK related question. StackOverflow.com has these types of questions covered and a great community of people asking and answering questions.
What about Filtering?
To make things easier we've also introduced the ability to filter the results via a key character (simply prefix your search terms with one of these characters e.g. a monotouch would search all articles for the word monotouch):
- a - search all article entries
- b - search all book entries
- e - search all event entries
- l - search all library entries
- n - search all news entries
- p - search all podcast entries
- q - search for questions/answers on forums.monotouch.net, the monotouch mailing list and stackoverflow.com
- s - search all sample entries
- t - search all tool entries
- v - search all video entries
- w - search all website entries (only the homepage is indexed apart from wiki.monotouch.net and monotouch.net)
Can I only search the content by visiting your website?
Ideally we would love other sites to have a search box that made use of the MonoTouch.Info search index and we are looking at adding instructions on how you can add a search box to your site (search parameters are sent via a querystring so it is very easy to add support to your own site).
Individuals have two main choices (other than going directly to our site):
- If you are using a browser that supports Search Providers (e.g. Firefox or Internet Explorer) you can add us as a Search Provider
- You can add our Bookmarklet to your browser which will let you quickly search from your browser no mater what site you are on
Internet Explorer
When you are on the MonoTouch.Info website if you click on the down arrow next to your search box within Internet Explorer you should see the option of adding MonoTouch.Info as a Search Provider.
Firefox
Similar to Internet Explorer you should see a down arrow next to your search box within Firefox. Clicking on that should give you the option: Add "MonoTouch.Info". Once you have added it you should have the option to search for content using the MonoTouch.Info search engine:
Safari
With Safari you will need to use our bookmarklet. First ensure that your Bookmarks Bar is showing (View -> Show Bookmarks Bar). Once that is showing simply drag the bookmarklet to your Bookmarks Bar. It will ask you for a name to save the bookmark under (you can keep the default) and then you'll have the following available (clicking it will open a search box for you to type your query):
Chrome
With Chrome you'll need to use our bookmarklet. To show your Bookmarks Bar use Ctrl + b. Once that is showing simply drag the bookmarklet to your Bookmarks Bar. You can then simply click on the link whenever you want to search for MonoTouch content.
Opera
If you are using Opera you will need to use our bookmarklet. You'll need to drag our bookmarketlet to your Personal Bar (View->Toolbars->Personal Bar). You can then simply click on the link whenever you want to search for MonoTouch content.
This is just one of the features we wanted to add to MonoTouch.Info. There are still plenty more things we wish to add in the future in order to make it easier to find content that will help you develop your MonoTouch based applications.
Thank you for using the site!
MonoTouch.Info
http://monotouch.info
Official Google Blog: What is a browser?
As it turns out, my mom's not the only one who is confused about web browsers — even though the browser is one of the most-used programs on computers.For my mom, my friends and everyone else who may be wondering about web browsers, I created a one minute video to help explain what they're all about about:
Just asked in the office a few people if they know what is a browser, no one knows what a browser is. The second question was which browser do they use, answer "Don't know". Next I asked them if they know what Google Chrome is, the answer was "Google what?".
recipe for disaster: Facebook Connect + AJAX + Internet Explorer
I just had an unbelievable debugging experience with our facebook connect site:
One of our pages includes three main elements:- a link to post to your facebook stream
- an link to update part of the page with AJAX
- an input form
I had the page working fine in all sane browsers, and went to verify that everything was kosher on internet explorer. You're really not going to believe this.
- open the facebook "post to your stream" dialog box
- post the message (or close the box, didn't matter)
- click the AJAX link
I tested the page in every different way, and those steps had to be performed in exactly that order to reproduce the effect, but it consistently disabled all text areas on the page. Debugging javascript in internet explorer isn't the most enjoyable experience - the IE javascript debugger is a major downgrade from firebug. I tried using firebug lite, but the above sequence actually DISABLED THE FIREBUG CONSOLE!?!?
The Solution:The hack I worked out to fix this mess is more unbelievable than the problem. I noticed that if I clicked on one of the input fields after opening the facebook dialog box, the form fields wouldn't be disabled after subsequently making the ajax call. It really didn't matter which form field i clicked, as long as it happened between closing the facebook dialog and making the ajax call. So I stuck a hidden form in the top of the page:
<div style="overflow: hidden; width: 1px; height: 1px;">
<form>
<textarea id="ajax_fix"></textarea>
</form>
</div>
Then, I appended the following callback to FB.Connect.streamPublish (which gets called after the dialog is closed): if ($("ajax_fix")) {$("ajax_fix").focus();}; . . . and problem solved. I still don't believe it. It's clearly a ridiculous hack. I just don't know whether to feel dirty for putting it in or triumphant for getting it to work.
Google humilha desenvolvedores do IE
Steve Ballmer está com raiva. Muita raiva. Andou dizendo por aí que o Chrome e o Safari são um erro estatístico. O motivo? Aposto que foi o Chrome Frame.
O Google sabia que, com o lançamento do Wave, tinha um problema sério para resolver. O Internet Explorer, criticado por uma multidão, ainda é usado por muito mais gente. E todo esse pessoal, ávido por experimentar o serviço, iria se decepcionar ao descobrir que havia uma incompatibilidade com o navegador. Jogariam, inclusive, a culpa na empresa de Mountain View. Um maremoto de insatisfação estava se formando.
Não é de hoje que o Internet Explorer recebe críticas. O IE 6, considerado o pior browser da atualidade, ainda é dominante. Os webmasters ficam desesperados pelas limitações que o software impõe ao trabalho e às inovações. Mesmo o IE 8 não é totalmente compatível com HTML 5. Todo mundo reclamava, todo mundo xingava, mas ninguém tomava uma atitude. Foi aí que os engenheiros comandados por Larry Page e Sergey Brin resolveram dar uma patada na Microsoft.
O pensamento deve ter sido o seguinte: “Se todo mundo fala mal há anos e os caras não se tocam, nós vamos dar um jeito”. O pior é que eles conseguiram. O Google Chrome Frame roda dentro do IE sempre que um site pedir isso. A instalação é muito simples e deixa as versões 6, 7 e 8 do navegador muito melhores do que quando foram criadas. Para completar a provocação, o logo do Internet Explorer, localizado no canto superior esquerdo da janela, é trocado pelo símbolo do Chrome quando o plug-in está ativo.
Claro que Ballmer não gostou. Os desenvolvedores do IE também devem ter ficado irados. Afinal, foi como se uma alma penada tivesse possuído o programa. O pessoal da Microsoft tentou exorcizar o Chrome, dizendo que ele é perigoso. Mas os usuários não caíram nessa. Dessa vez, Ballmer deveria ter agradecido o trabalho prestado pelo Google. Afinal, não pagou nada por ele.
Foto: Luc Van Braekel/Flickr
