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Aug

29

Customize IE8 Beta 2 to fit your needs

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

In Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 - users get some added customization benefits to the Internet Explorer layout I think folks will enjoy. To many folks, being able to customize the browser controls is very important. So I’ve got some customization tips for IE8 Beta 2 I’d like to share with you.

If you right-click on the IE8 toolbar area, you can uncheck the “Lock the Toolbars” option. This allows you to use your mouse to move the Command Bar and Favorites Bar. There are a variety of places you can move these around in the IE8 toolbar area.



In the top screenshot, you can see that I moved the Command Bar to be on the same level as the Favorites Bar. I can customize how much space either the Command Bar or the Favorites Bar use on that level. I can give the Favorites Bar more room or give it less for the Command Bar. In the middle screenshot, I was able to move the Favorites Bar onto the level shared by IE8’s Tabs. Essentially this is switching the Favorites Bar and Command Bar from the default configuration. And in the third screenshot, I was able to hide the Favorites Bar and “make IE8 look like IE7″. You can also hide the Command Bar as well if you wish. And for those who like having the Menu Bar (File, Edit, etc) you can right click on the IE8 toolbar area and choose “Menu Bar” to have that appear.


I was also able to move the Favorites button down to the Tabs level - separating it from the Favorites Bar. This is neat because it gives some added room for additions to the Favorites Bar if needed.



Another new customization option for IE8 is the ability to choose to have the Stop and Refresh buttons appear before the Smart Address Bar instead of after.



Have you ever wanted to quickly close a 3rd party toolbar you have installed in Internet Explorer? IE8 provides an excellent way of quickly closing those toolbars. When you activate a toolbar (you can activate a installed toolbar by right-clicking on the toolbar area and choosing the toolbar you wish to have appear) you’ll notice a new “x” icon appear next to it on the left. When you click this “x” it turns off that toolbar (by turning it off - it disappears from the toolbar area in IE8).



I recently installed the Microsoft Live Labs Listas Toolbar. When I no longer wanted the Listas Toolbar to show up in IE8, I just clicked the “x” and it disappeared. I can choose to activate it again later when I need it. My personal preference is to keep my browser clean of toolbars. However I know many people who enjoy the added benefit to their browsing experience that many toolbars offer - a good example is the Windows Live Toolbar. I have toolbars installed just not configured to show up all the time. I activate them when I want to use then and deactivate them when I’m done.


And my last little tip for customizing IE8 may or may not be of any value to you.


When you put your mouse in the area *between* the inline search box and the Smart Address Bar - you’ll notice you can increase or decrease the amount of space the search box has. Here is my search box before:



Here it is after:



I decided I wanted a little more room for my search box.


I hope these customization tips help you customize IE8 to be the way you want it to be. I guess I’m boring though - I personally keep things as they are by default in IE ;-)

Aug

28

Tweakguides.com: Breath of Fresh Air

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

I finally got around to reading this juicy, albeit lengthy, Tweakguide.com article, Vista Annoyances Resolved, last night in which Koroush Ghazi takes an objective view of Windows Vista from inception to its current state. You see, like a lot of us, Koroush is tired of reading, in his (assuming he’s a he) words, “what can only be described as a plethora of articles on Windows Vista, almost all of them repetitive, one-sided and of little practical use.” The main driver of this type of FUD is the hunger for traffic. If sex sells on TV and in advertising, bashing Windows Vista sells on the internet. As the article points out this has resulted in what the  New York times coined as “blog stress” to refer to the never ending need to break company news and expose corporate blunders, mostly unsubstantiated.

So what I find refreshing about this article is, it attempts to provide a blow by blow of reviews and articles that reveal the good, the bad … and the ugly. All of his claims and opinions are backed up by articles, reports, and data readily available to anyone with some time on their hands and is familiar with this thing called the Internet. For the conspiracy theorists out there, Microsoft has no relationship with Koroush beyond that fact that he uses our products. He includes a full disclaimer on page 3.


Some of the “neat” stuff Koroush points out are things we are pretty proud of, especially the security enhancements in Windows Vista. There’s been an ongoing debate whether or not it’s actually better than XP. Koroush unearths some numbers:


In a comparison of Vista and XP security advisories issued by Microsoft between November 2006 and July 2008, Windows XP had 64 advisories rated Critical or Important, whereas Vista had 33 of the same type. Similarly, comparing the advisories issued by Secunia in 2008 Windows XP had 35% of its advisories rated Highly Critical or above, compared with Windows Vista’s 29%. In fact as of late August 2008 XP still shows 30 unpatched security advisories, the highest one rated Moderately Critical; Vista shows 2 unpatched security advisories, the highest one rated Less Critical.


There’s also been some speculation that XP’s adoption curve and reception was much faster and more favorable than Windows Vista.  We understand that people get tired of Microsoft constantly saying “Vista is great! Vista is selling like hot cakes!” (it is, by the way!), which is why it’s great to see Koroush point out that there is evidence out there to demonstrate that Windows Vista is on the right track. It’s also refreshing to see that Koroush kept an open mind and took the time to understand what normal adoption rates look like.  


The above information is provided simply to demonstrate that Windows XP was subject to the exact same types of criticisms and concerns as Windows Vista, many of them totally baseless or sensationalist as we now know. It took roughly three years or more for XP to reach the point (SP2) where users began to start trusting it, and started blaming their errors and problems on things other than the OS itself.


He also outlines some very creative solutions to common issues he’s noticed users may be hitting up against like slower than desired performance or driver support. While we appreciate his efforts, we don’t recommend or endorse the tweaks included in the article.


Like I said, the article is long, but it’s full of interesting information, tips and tricks for the PC users. And again, it’s great to see that there is a cure for blog stress…

Aug

27

A Comprehensive Look at Internet Explorer Beta 2

Category: Vista News | Leave a Comment

Today, the Internet Explorer Team has made available Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 for all to download. You can read the IE Team’s announcement of the new release and very important milestone here from IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch on the IEBlog.

Download: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2


Also be sure to read this post from Program Manager Jane Maliouta on upgrading to IE8 Beta 2. It includes some very important information such as how to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 and more.


Internet Explorer 8 comes packed with new features designed to make browsing the web much easier and finding what you want much quicker. Matter of fact, based on my own experiences with IE8 these past few weeks, finding your “stuff” quicker is a very strong theme in IE8. I’ve discovered with IE8 that browsing the web is much more efficient. There are some brand new features in IE8 I’d like to call out, based on my own experiences that I think users will find very useful in browsing the web. I’ve found these features in IE8 so useful in fact that I am using IE8 Beta 2 on all my PCs. Keep in mind there are far too many new features and changes in IE8 for me to highlight in a single post. I’m only going to cover some of IE8’s biggest new features and features I use the most.


First off: when you fire up IE8 you’ll notice that the IE “chrome” has changed from the glossy metallic look to a softer light blue look with less gloss.




 


The most notable change to the UI in Internet Explorer 8 users will take notice of is the Favorites Bar. And this is one of the new features in IE8 I use the most. Essentially - the Favorites Bar is designed to help users highlight there most used Favorites and other information they want quick access to.


Side note on customization in IE8: Many readers of this blog have expressed to me unhappiness with the lack of customization in IE7. IE8 brings some changes that allow much more customization that I think users will be happy with. You can unlock the toolbars and drag the IE menu bar to a variety of places in IE8. You can also right click in IE8’s menu and choose Customize where you can have the refresh and stop buttons moved to the front of the Address Bar. Those who also prefer not to have the Favorites Bar showing will be pleased to know you can turn it off (although I don’t know why you would want to!).


The Favorites Bar is also a key component to another new feature in IE8: Web Slices.  Web Slices are little “slices” of information within a website that can be subscribed to and added to the Favorites Bar. As information within these Web Slices update, they become bold in the Favorites Bar signifying new information is available within a specific Web Slice.  When I visit a website that has a Web Slice, instead of the standard orange RSS icon I get a green Web Slice icon. I visited Digg (a favorite website of mine) with IE8 and noticed that they have a Web Slice available for top “dugg” topics.



I clicked on the green Web Slice icon and added the Digg Web Slice to my Favorites Bar. There, I can click on the Digg Web Slice to check out the current top dugg posts.



Digg is one of my favorite Web Slices along with the Facebook Web Slice. The Facebook Web Slice allows you to stay on top of your Facebook friend’s Status Updates. I found this very useful.


TIP: You can resize the Web Slice “window” by grabbing the bottom right-hand corner.


You are able to add RSS feeds you subscribe to in IE8 to the Favorites Bar as well. To stay on top of all the tech news happening in the blogosphere - I am constantly watching Techmeme. By subscribing to Techmeme’s RSS feed and adding it to my Favorites Bar in IE8 - it’s easier for me to keep tabs on the latest geek news.



When I subscribed to the Techmeme RSS feed, all I had to do was make sure “Add to Favorites Bar” was checked and when I hit subscribe - it automatically appeared in my Favorites Bar. When the feed updates, just like with Web Slices the RSS feed will become bold.


IE8 introduces the Smart Address Bar designed to help you get to where you want to go on the web quicker. One of the most common tasks for users in web browsers is getting back to websites they use regularly. Much of my web browsing is essentially getting to websites I regularly visit and check. With the Smart Address Bar - getting back to these sites is much easier.



The Smart Address Bar matches what I type in the address bar with websites in History, Favorites, and RSS Feeds. It also features an Autocomplete Suggestion as well for whatever website I am trying to get to. I’ve found that IE8’s Autocomplete Suggestion has been pretty spot on which is great. Mistyped entries can also be deleted by simply clicking the red X to the right of any entry. Autocomplete works across your history as well as your feeds. Domain Highlighting is also used in the Smart Address Bar in IE8. This allows me to quickly identify which domain I’m on. If I am on the Windows Vista Team Blog, the Smart Address Bar will show the URL for the site as http://www.windowsvistablog.com/. However, only windowsvistablog.com is highlighted. Believe it or not this is actually a security feature. Domain Highlighting is designed to aid users in identifying deceptive phishing websites. If a user suddenly discovers a domain highlighted that doesn’t make sense and seems a little shady, they can proceed in reporting the site via IE8 as a phishing site.


The second most common thing I do in the web browser is web search. IE8 has some impressive enhancements to its inline search box that make search. When I search for something, I can quickly switch between multiple search providers by clicking the search provider icon.



With Live Search as a search provider (the default search provider on my PCs), when I typed in something I was looking for - Live Search offers me suggestions in real-time to help me find what I’m looking for. When searching the web via IE8’s inline search box - it also searches your web history as well.


So what if you want to find something on a specific webpage you are on? IE8 is very accommodating with this scenario. Using the feature Find-on-Page (Ctrl + F), I can quickly get search results for something I am looking for on single page.



When I press Ctrl + F, the Find-on-Page Toolbar appears (under the tabs) and allows me to search the site. In the above screenshot, I searched the Featured Community website Windows-Now for the term “windows”. As you can see, Find-on-Page highlights each instance of the term I am searching for and also counts the results. Find-on-Page found 20 results for the word “windows” on this specific page on Windows-Now.


Another way to find information within specific websites is to use Accelerators in IE8. In IE8 Beta 1 we called these “Activities” but in IE8 Beta 2 they are now called Accelerators. Accelerators appear in IE8 when you highlight text and right-click on the blue Accelerator icon. Here I highlighted the word “virtual machine” and used the Encarta Accelerator to find the definition of “virtual machine”.



If I am visiting a website that has an address that I want to quickly map - I can use the Live Search Maps Accelerator to quickly map the address. Accelerators don’t have to just come from Microsoft. 3rd parties can take full advantage of creating Accelerators and users can quickly add in IE8.


TIP: You can manage Accelerators, Search Providers, and Toolbars & Extensions all in one spot via IE8’s updated Manage Add-ons Panel by going to Tools and then Manage Add-ons.


There are a few more things I’d like to call out in IE8 I think users will enjoy. Managing Tabs in IE8 is enhanced to accommodate getting to those websites you like to visit. For example, when I open a new tab in IE8, it allows me to re-open closed tabs. For me, many closed tabs were websites I often visit so it’s nice to be able to simply open a new tab and quickly re-open a website I want to get to again.



The new tab screen also allows you to access Accelerators as well.


Another new thing with tabs is Tab Groups. I have a habit of right-clicking on hyperlinks and clicking “Open in New Tab”. When I do this - a new tab is of course opened but the tab that I opened a new tab on as well as the new tab is colored. These Tab Groups allow me to keep track of groups of tabs that I am going between. I’ve found this incredibly useful in managing what I do in IE8.



Speaking of tabs, IE8 comes with a crash recovery feature for when a tab in IE8 crashes it is automatically reloaded and restored. The real beauty of this feature is that, unlike other browsers, IE8 does not need to restart in the event of a crash. You could be watching a video in one tab and if another tab crashes you won’t miss a thing. It’ crash recovery done right. Any information entered on the page such as a email you’re writing in Windows Live Hotmail or a form you are filling out is automatically restored.


As many folks know by now, the Internet Explorer Team has focused on making IE8 standards compliant. IE8 passes the Acid2 Test and offers full support for the CSS 2.1 specification. These are just two of the many changes made in IE8 to support standards and interoperability. Because of these changes, users may notice some of their websites make not look correctly because they were designed for older browsers. IE8 comes with a feature called Compatibility View that lets users quickly switch from IE8’s standards compliant layout engine to IE7’s layout engine.



Unlike in Beta 1 of IE8, switching into Compatibility View doesn’t require the restart of IE8. When you click on the Compatibility View button on a specific website - that website is refreshed in “compatibility mode”. Compatibility View works on a per-website (domain) basis.


For more information on Compatibility Mode in IE8 Beta 2 - read this in-depth post from IE Lead Program Manager Scott Dickens.


I am just touching the tip of the iceberg here with IE8 features. Expect more in-depth coverage from the folks working on these features in IE8 from the IE Team themselves over on the IEBlog in the coming weeks.


Congratulations to the IE Team for this excellent release!


Also take note of a brand new website launching for IE8 called the Internet Explorer Gallery at http://www.ie8gallery.com/en/.


The Internet Explorer Gallery allows you to find all kinds of neat Accelerators, Web Slices, and Search Providers. It’s a great place to start after you get Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 installed!

keep looking »
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