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Answer Upon - Internet Explorer 7: Is Your Site Ready?
Branding is the rather subtle art of getting your business name out in front of the buying public. Branding with promotional products is an excellent way to achieve this goal.Promotional products are great marketing tools for nearly every business. The idea is to provide the buying public with something in addition to whatever it is they purchase from you. The items should have some perceived value and tie into the overall theme of your business. If you have any doubt at all about how this should work, just think about the infomercials you see on television. They always try to get you to buy the primary product by throwing in promotional items that make the overall deal seem to good to pass.Most companies understand the basic idea behind promotional products. The problem, however, is that is where they stop. This is a mistake as promotional products can pay off in both immediate sales and longer term branding. To get the most out of promotional products, you need to do one thing.A majority of promotional products are offered with customization. This simply means that you have the ability to modify the basic product a bit to reflect your business name and logo. If you are going to offer promotional products, you absolutely must take this step. Now comes the key element.The promotional products you offer should be usable in public. It sounds simple, but think about it for a minute. To maximize the branding aspect, you want to make sure the product is used around other people, to wit, the buying public. Consider the following example.Assume I am selling sporting goods for the outdoors. You know – backpacks, sleeping bags, camping equipment, first aid and so on. I can offer promotional products that both entice a person to buy from me, but also will be displayed by them to friends and family that are with them on trips. They essentially become my salesperson.So, what kind of useable promotional products would I offer? They could include things such as bottles of insect repellent, multitask knives, fold-up chairs, camping journals and so on. The only restrictions are it has something to do with the outdoors and they would actually use it while in the outdoors.Now, there is another step that can be taken for certain businesses with promotional items. If you can find something unique with an element of cooln
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As
Almost assuredly you do, especially when your most important external and internal audiences behave in ways that stop you from achieving your organizational objectives.With that attitude, you could have a long wait before you see community leaders strengthening their bonds with you; customers making repeat purchases; unions bargaining more frequently in good faith; prospects becoming customers; employees beginning to value their jobs; political leaders and legislators starting to think of you as a key player in the business community, and suppliers working hard to expand your relationship.Lighten up and use public relations in your own best interest, and benefit from a really cost-effective assist to your business, non-profit or association.And there’s another reason to do so. Tough times require tough tactics. Luckily, PR firepower can do for you what it was meant to do – help you achieve your operating objectives by moving those people whose behaviors have the greatest impact on your organization, to actions YOU desire,You know it’s worth it, so give it a shot!Best place to start is by listing your most important audiences, or “publics,” and ranking them according to the impact they have on your enterprise. Let’s work on the outside audience at the top of that list.How aware are you and your colleagues as to how that audience views you? Could there be negative perceptions out there that, inevitably, will morph into behaviors that hurt your organization?You really can’t afford to ignore that possibility.So get out there and interact with members of that target audience and ask questions. The alternative is to spend a LOT of money on a professional survey. Instead, make the time commitment to do some home-grown research. After all, PR best practice says you should be in regular touch with target audience members anyway, so this interaction is probably long overdue.Ask questions like “Do you know anything about us? Have you heard anything good or bad about us?” Stay alert to hesitant and evasive responses. Notice any negative undertones? Do inaccuracies crop up? Any misconceptions or rumors that need your attention?The answers you gather are the fodder for your new public relations goal – i.e., the specific perception to be altered, followed by the behavior change you want.W
At some point during the next few months (the fourth quarter of this year,) Microsoft will be rolling out this upgrade as a high-priority, automatic update. That means that most Windows XP users will simply be online one day when they’ll receive a popup alert from the system tray saying that updates are ready for their computer. Virtually overnight, you’ll find most of your site visitors have made the switch.
This all seems straightforward enough until you consider someone like my father. My father is in his 70s. He browses the ‘Net daily. If presented with the option to install a security update, he has been trained to click accept (without trying to comprehend what specifically it is patching). If he accepts this and suddenly his browser experience changes (sites that used to render properly no longer work) he’ll be completely confused. He wouldn’t know how to uninstall.
- Tom Raftery IE7 + Automatic Update = support nightmare
Frankly, this is true for the majority of your users. Like it or not, once the change is made, there’ll be no going back. Certain questions then arise:
- What will they see when they go to your site?
- Should you panic?
- Will you need to recode?
- Are you ready for the new toys? (Didn’t expect that last one, did you.)
Let’s have a look at what this change will mean for your site.
Things to Be Happy About
Those of us that routinely use other browsers or check our sites out in multiple browsers will find a lot of very familiar things integrated into IE7. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m happy for the changes and improvements they’ve made, but on the other, I find it annoying that a majority of non-technically-oriented web users will think of these as Microsoft innovations rather than Microsoft trying to catch up with everyone else’s innovations. Still, there is a lot to be happy about in this upgrade. Some of it–like improved web standards and CSS support–might require changes for some sites (That’s a good thing, really.) and some of it–like RSS integration–are an open opportunity to provide new services and gain a larger audience.
Tabbed Browsing
That’s right, tabbed browsing has finally made its way to Internet Explorer (boldly going where everyone else has been for quite some time.) If you’re like me and you regularly have to have a number of applications running simultaneously and then additionally have to open several different browsers to compare page layouts, then you’ll truly appreciate this addition. I can finally have ONE window of Internet Explorer open with a number of web pages displayed in different tabs (as I always could in other browsers.)
My only regret here is that there’s not yet a good, all-purpose, cross-browser compatible script to automatically open external links in new tabs rather than new windows. This would make a nice addition to Paul Boag’s External Links script that I (like many others) use so extensively. However, I’m sure that one will come along eventually.
RSS Integration
This is truly an awesome feature. I know that it’s already been a standard part of other browsers, but, because 70% to 90% of your users are surfing the web with nothing but Internet Explorer, the sudden ability to read and subscribe to RSS feeds right in their browser will be a totally new experience. If your site already has an RSS feed, then now’s the time to start planning how you might promote it to a more main-stream audience as well as how you might make it a more prominent part of your pages. If your site doesn’t, then now’s the time to start working on one.
The new feed button for IE7 remains grayed out and inactive while viewing pages without a recognizable feed (RSS1, RSS2, Atom, etc.) and then springs to vivid, orange life when viewing a page that has one. I don’t know about you, but I’d like it to be one of MY sites that a user first notices this strange new button on. You know it has to be tried at least once just to see what it does, and what it does is tell your users that there’s even more content available from your site then they may have ever been aware of otherwise.
The drop-down list of available feeds and feed types next to the button is a potential source of confusion for non-technical users, but most will simply click the main button and get the topmost, default feed. Upon clicking it, however, they get not only a new feed page, but some helpful information about feeds and how to use them. My favorite part, though, is the bolded statement in the yellow box that says, "You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content." That’s practically an unsolicited advertisement for viewing your feed. I really have to thank Microsoft for including that.
Between all the browsers that I’ve tried (Firefox, Opera, and IE7) and all the feed readers I’ve tried out (including Outlook 2007 RSS) nothing beats the simplicity and ease of reading feeds of IE7.
- Greg Kniffin RSS Feed Readin' - IE7 is king
They’ve even gone a step further and added a sidebar allowing users to sort or filter your feed by date, title, author, and even category. Those categories, by the way, are the ones you’ve assigned to each piece of feed content. A little careful forethought in this department could net you some permanent, new site users viewing your content and, more especially, your advertising–especially if you pad every RSS "post" with some kind of incentive to click back through to your main pages.
Extensibility
One of the problems that Internet Explorer has always had was its inherent lack of extensibility. It was a proprietary, Microsoft application meant to do only what Microsoft had in mind when they shipped it–nothing more. This misguided approach froze it into being a passive browser. Firefox, with its numerous extensions, changed all that along with everyone’s concept of what a browser could be and what it can do.
With IE7, Microsoft has seen the light of following this approach, and they’re not stepping in with nothing either. They’re starting right out with some heavy-hitters, two of which immediately caught my eye, the Developer Toolbar–the Internet Explorer answer to Chris Pederick’s indispensable Web Developer add-in for Firefox–and Fiddler which is an HTTP Debugger that lets you fiddle around in that particular pot of code.
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As
The process to go public via initial public offering (IPO) or Direct Public Offering (DPO) follows a prescribed path. While some elements can be handled simultaneously, there are a number of parts that must be done sequentially. As a result, it will often take between six and nine months for a private company to go public.We have highlighted the major time elements to provide a basic understanding of the process.1. The financial audit: Completing the financial audits is perhaps the most time consuming part of the IPO process. The actual timeframe will largely depend on the current state of your financial books and records. If your firm is organized, has internally generated income statements, balance sheets and statements of cash flow - with notations, you should be in pretty good shape. If your books and records are already prepared by a CPA, reviewed by an accounting firm or audited - that is best. Generally, it will take about 30 days for a start-up to be audited, while it can take 60-120+ days for a large operating business to be audited.2. Preparation of the registration statement: Preparing the registration statement to be filed with the SEC requires a complete review of all corporate and financial books, records and documents. The better organized companies are able to provide all of the necessary documents upon request. The review itself can take a few days to few weeks. Once complete, the registration statement can be drafted normally within two to eight weeks. Usually, the registration statement is done before the financial audits. Once the financial audits are complete, they are integrated into the registration statement and filed with the SEC.3. The SEC review process: Once the registration statement is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the review and comment phase follows a certain path. Generally, the SEC will review the initial filings and will respond with comments in approximately 30 days. At that point, the company and its advisors are responsible for addressing each of the comments. This could take several hours to several days, depending on the nature of the comments. Once the response is completed, a revised registration statement is filed with the SEC. The review and comment process continues until the SEC is satisfied. This normally takes between 60 days and 120 days,
- What will they see when they go to your site?
- Should you panic?
- Will you need to recode?
- Are you ready for the new toys? (Didn’t expect that last one, did you.)
Let’s have a look at what this change will mean for your site.
Things to Be Happy About
Those of us that routinely use other browsers or check our sites out in multiple browsers will find a lot of very familiar things integrated into IE7. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I’m happy for the changes and improvements they’ve made, but on the other, I find it annoying that a majority of non-technically-oriented web users will think of these as Microsoft innovations rather than Microsoft trying to catch up with everyone else’s innovations. Still, there is a lot to be happy about in this upgrade. Some of it–like improved web standards and CSS support–might require changes for some sites (That’s a good thing, really.) and some of it–like RSS integration–are an open opportunity to provide new services and gain a larger audience.
Tabbed Browsing
That’s right, tabbed browsing has finally made its way to Internet Explorer (boldly going where everyone else has been for quite some time.) If you’re like me and you regularly have to have a number of applications running simultaneously and then additionally have to open several different browsers to compare page layouts, then you’ll truly appreciate this addition. I can finally have ONE window of Internet Explorer open with a number of web pages displayed in different tabs (as I always could in other browsers.)
My only regret here is that there’s not yet a good, all-purpose, cross-browser compatible script to automatically open external links in new tabs rather than new windows. This would make a nice addition to Paul Boag’s External Links script that I (like many others) use so extensively. However, I’m sure that one will come along eventually.
RSS Integration
This is truly an awesome feature. I know that it’s already been a standard part of other browsers, but, because 70% to 90% of your users are surfing the web with nothing but Internet Explorer, the sudden ability to read and subscribe to RSS feeds right in their browser will be a totally new experience. If your site already has an RSS feed, then now’s the time to start planning how you might promote it to a more main-stream audience as well as how you might make it a more prominent part of your pages. If your site doesn’t, then now’s the time to start working on one.
The new feed button for IE7 remains grayed out and inactive while viewing pages without a recognizable feed (RSS1, RSS2, Atom, etc.) and then springs to vivid, orange life when viewing a page that has one. I don’t know about you, but I’d like it to be one of MY sites that a user first notices this strange new button on. You know it has to be tried at least once just to see what it does, and what it does is tell your users that there’s even more content available from your site then they may have ever been aware of otherwise.
The drop-down list of available feeds and feed types next to the button is a potential source of confusion for non-technical users, but most will simply click the main button and get the topmost, default feed. Upon clicking it, however, they get not only a new feed page, but some helpful information about feeds and how to use them. My favorite part, though, is the bolded statement in the yellow box that says, "You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content." That’s practically an unsolicited advertisement for viewing your feed. I really have to thank Microsoft for including that.
Between all the browsers that I’ve tried (Firefox, Opera, and IE7) and all the feed readers I’ve tried out (including Outlook 2007 RSS) nothing beats the simplicity and ease of reading feeds of IE7.
- Greg Kniffin RSS Feed Readin' - IE7 is king
They’ve even gone a step further and added a sidebar allowing users to sort or filter your feed by date, title, author, and even category. Those categories, by the way, are the ones you’ve assigned to each piece of feed content. A little careful forethought in this department could net you some permanent, new site users viewing your content and, more especially, your advertising–especially if you pad every RSS "post" with some kind of incentive to click back through to your main pages.
Extensibility
One of the problems that Internet Explorer has always had was its inherent lack of extensibility. It was a proprietary, Microsoft application meant to do only what Microsoft had in mind when they shipped it–nothing more. This misguided approach froze it into being a passive browser. Firefox, with its numerous extensions, changed all that along with everyone’s concept of what a browser could be and what it can do.
With IE7, Microsoft has seen the light of following this approach, and they’re not stepping in with nothing either. They’re starting right out with some heavy-hitters, two of which immediately caught my eye, the Developer Toolbar–the Internet Explorer answer to Chris Pederick’s indispensable Web Developer add-in for Firefox–and Fiddler which is an HTTP Debugger that lets you fiddle around in that particular pot of code.
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As
Where would your business be without a proper plan? A business plan sets the direction for the future of the business. It gives the business owner or manager a sense of guidance, listing the goals and objectives of the business from the start.Writing a business plan requires your attention; a successful business plan cannot be rushed. Once a concept for a business has been developed, looking at the many facets of owning and operating your business is the next most crucial step. Often, your local county council will be able to assist you with gathering the required information of a legal aspect, as should your local business enterprise people. The balance of the work will be up to you! You will need to research products for your business to sell, at the same time as researching other enterprises that may be in immediate competition to you. In addition, you need to research the marketplace to see whether there is a need for your business service or product.With the research out of the way, sitting down to write a business plan requires focus. Your business plan will become the bible of your business for at least the next 3 to 5 years so it is important to make it clear, concise and comprehensive. Most enterprises will complete a SWOT analysis to determine their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the business. While the business is in infancy, brainstorming would be the most accurate way of performing the analysis, as the business would not yet have customers and profitability would not yet have been experienced. However, it is very important to remember that a good business plan is flexible and can be changed as your business experiences grow.After completing a SWOT analysis, you will need to create your business name if it has not already been determined, as well as your vision and values, your business goals and long term purpose and how you will achieve all of this when the business is up and running. Writing each thought down regardless of how insignicant you feel it is will allow you to collect everything pertinent to your business for easy reference when needed. Who knows, the thought of today may turn into a million dollars in a short time! A business plan is the roadmap to a successful business!Don't let the small stuff get in your way of taking control
RSS Integration
This is truly an awesome feature. I know that it’s already been a standard part of other browsers, but, because 70% to 90% of your users are surfing the web with nothing but Internet Explorer, the sudden ability to read and subscribe to RSS feeds right in their browser will be a totally new experience. If your site already has an RSS feed, then now’s the time to start planning how you might promote it to a more main-stream audience as well as how you might make it a more prominent part of your pages. If your site doesn’t, then now’s the time to start working on one.
The new feed button for IE7 remains grayed out and inactive while viewing pages without a recognizable feed (RSS1, RSS2, Atom, etc.) and then springs to vivid, orange life when viewing a page that has one. I don’t know about you, but I’d like it to be one of MY sites that a user first notices this strange new button on. You know it has to be tried at least once just to see what it does, and what it does is tell your users that there’s even more content available from your site then they may have ever been aware of otherwise.
The drop-down list of available feeds and feed types next to the button is a potential source of confusion for non-technical users, but most will simply click the main button and get the topmost, default feed. Upon clicking it, however, they get not only a new feed page, but some helpful information about feeds and how to use them. My favorite part, though, is the bolded statement in the yellow box that says, "You are viewing a feed that contains frequently updated content." That’s practically an unsolicited advertisement for viewing your feed. I really have to thank Microsoft for including that.
Between all the browsers that I’ve tried (Firefox, Opera, and IE7) and all the feed readers I’ve tried out (including Outlook 2007 RSS) nothing beats the simplicity and ease of reading feeds of IE7.
- Greg Kniffin RSS Feed Readin' - IE7 is king
They’ve even gone a step further and added a sidebar allowing users to sort or filter your feed by date, title, author, and even category. Those categories, by the way, are the ones you’ve assigned to each piece of feed content. A little careful forethought in this department could net you some permanent, new site users viewing your content and, more especially, your advertising–especially if you pad every RSS "post" with some kind of incentive to click back through to your main pages.
Extensibility
One of the problems that Internet Explorer has always had was its inherent lack of extensibility. It was a proprietary, Microsoft application meant to do only what Microsoft had in mind when they shipped it–nothing more. This misguided approach froze it into being a passive browser. Firefox, with its numerous extensions, changed all that along with everyone’s concept of what a browser could be and what it can do.
With IE7, Microsoft has seen the light of following this approach, and they’re not stepping in with nothing either. They’re starting right out with some heavy-hitters, two of which immediately caught my eye, the Developer Toolbar–the Internet Explorer answer to Chris Pederick’s indispensable Web Developer add-in for Firefox–and Fiddler which is an HTTP Debugger that lets you fiddle around in that particular pot of code.
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As
The Science of Getting Rich is a timeless classic written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. It is a bold title for a book and suggests that getting rich is a predictable outcome if one can master the principles outlined in the book. Here is how Wallace D. Wattles puts it in his own words, "The ownership of money and property comes as a result of doing things in a certain way. Those who do things in this certain way, whether on purpose or accidentally, get rich. Those who do not do things in this certain way, no matter how hard they work or how able they are, remain poor. It is a natural law that like causes always produce like effects. Therefore, any man or woman who learns to do things in this certain way will infallibly get rich."However, learning how to do things in that "certain way" as described by Wallace D. Wattles may be more challenging for some as the book was written nearly 100 years ago. Some of the language is a little dated and much of its wisdom lost from a modern day perspective.Fortunately, a new training seminar for the Science of Getting Rich has brought the wisdom of this timeless classic back to life for modern readers. Called "the Science of Getting Rich", this program is the most comprehensive training system for mastering Wallace D. Wattles wealth creation philosophies and principles since its creation. It comprises written, audio and live seminar formats for learning, applying and mastering the Science of Getting Rich.A unique "twist" to the program is the fact that it has an in-built vehicle for creating substantial financial wealth through its affiliate program. This is truly a unique wealth eduction and wealth building program designed to empower any individual with the resources to get rich. It is a program whose time has come. The program would not be possible without the original text from Wallace D. Wattles, the skills of leading teachers of our time, the phenomenal success of "the Secret" and the Internet as a learning and distribution tool.Click here to get your 7 lessons, learn more about the Secret Science of Getting Rich and the details of the affiliate program.
Between all the browsers that I’ve tried (Firefox, Opera, and IE7) and all the feed readers I’ve tried out (including Outlook 2007 RSS) nothing beats the simplicity and ease of reading feeds of IE7.
- Greg Kniffin RSS Feed Readin' - IE7 is king
They’ve even gone a step further and added a sidebar allowing users to sort or filter your feed by date, title, author, and even category. Those categories, by the way, are the ones you’ve assigned to each piece of feed content. A little careful forethought in this department could net you some permanent, new site users viewing your content and, more especially, your advertising–especially if you pad every RSS "post" with some kind of incentive to click back through to your main pages.
Extensibility
One of the problems that Internet Explorer has always had was its inherent lack of extensibility. It was a proprietary, Microsoft application meant to do only what Microsoft had in mind when they shipped it–nothing more. This misguided approach froze it into being a passive browser. Firefox, with its numerous extensions, changed all that along with everyone’s concept of what a browser could be and what it can do.
With IE7, Microsoft has seen the light of following this approach, and they’re not stepping in with nothing either. They’re starting right out with some heavy-hitters, two of which immediately caught my eye, the Developer Toolbar–the Internet Explorer answer to Chris Pederick’s indispensable Web Developer add-in for Firefox–and Fiddler which is an HTTP Debugger that lets you fiddle around in that particular pot of code.
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As
Ultimately, somebody who fills in the form to join your list wants you to provide them with information. They will also be willing to buy from you, since the information you provide demonstrates that you can be trusted to know about your subject, and therefore what the best products are. If you want to buy a new video recorder do you go to a department store for advice, or buy from a friend that you know is able to be honest and provide you with the best information?A list, if used properly, can be a group of people who regard you as a knowledgeable friend, who they can trust to provide them with accurate information. Since you are easily contacted they will know that anything you offer them will be a useful product.You have built your list from people who have read your articles and have developed enough of a bond as to click to your web page and fill in the form you have offered them. A list of 1,000 people built this way is worth 10,000 causal visitors. People read you articles because they are interested in what you write. They join your list because they want to know more and will buy from you when you can provide them with items that will be useful to them.Use article marketing for list building, and your business will have a far better chance of flourishing and not only of making money for you, but of providing a list of friends who trust you and will believe you when you recommend a product to them.
Of course, it remains to be seen if they can harness the kind of voluntary developer community that Firefox has, but they are off to a good start. At least this kind of "raising the bar" back and forth between the various browsers will continue to benefit all of us out here in the trenches.
Security Features
After taking it on the chin for ages, Microsoft has gotten downright serious with security–perhaps a little overboard in some ways–but serious nonetheless. One of the better aspects of this new security consciousness is their phishing filter. IE7 will block access to (or at least warn you about) fake sites that pretend to be trusted sites in order to get you to reveal private information, download malignant software, or just look around while it loads crap onto your computer in the background.
None of the phishing features in IE7 appears to cause problems with legitimate Web sites. I tested all the features in both application suites in all environments, without once running afoul of this particular feature. In fact, developers should be happy about this feature, because it means that nefarious individuals are less likely to hijack users that are coming to your Web site.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
IE7 defaults to blocking most pop-ups now. As an underhanded advertising method, this is better dropped anyway, but, as a legitimate method of delivering small pieces of extra content like product information or item pictures, this might require a little rethinking. It’s also more aggressive about cookies. A good P3P Privacy Policy should prevent most problems of this nature. There are also safeguards in place to protect against old or inappropriate SSL certificates. If yours is out of date or contains invalid information, it’s time to get that fixed now.
Better CSS Support
After working with the Web Standards Project (WaSP) since July of 2005, believe it or not, IE7 now sports CSS 2.1 compliance. That means that Internet Explorer, still the most popular browser on the planet, has made a major move–at least for Microsoft–toward the world of web standards. It’s a start.
With all these major bug fixes in place, there are those of us–myself included–who may have to revisit some of our CSS files to double-check their compatibility with IE7.
If your layout relied on us "growing" the box (if your content did not fit the dimensions you gave it) then this can lead to breaks. You can easily discover breaks related to overflow by observing content suddenly overlapping other content.
- IEBlog Cascading Style Sheet Compatibility in Internet Explorer 7
Some of the CSS hacks we’ve been using for awhile are no longer valid. I’m sure new ones will come into play. Currently, the Star-HTML hack is still okay, but others may not fair so well. It’s worth running through their posted list and checking for any hacks you may have used. Frankly, it’s just time to move away from that whole way of coding. (I’m saying that for my benefit since I’m sure that you already knew that.)
After all this, they still treat ALT text as a tooltip. Will someone please tell them that that’s a bug and not a feature. I’m so tired of it.
PNG Support
Real PNG support and everything that goes with it has finally made it to Internet Explorer.
You can now display Portable Network Graphics (PNG) images without relying on odd workarounds to implement transparency. However, some older features are also gone. If you rely on the Dynsrc attribute of the IMG tag, you’ll need to change your Web page, because it no longer works in IE7.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
I’m looking forward to seeing a lot more sites taking advantage of the real power inherent in PNG images. The combined use of lossless graphics images with layered transparencies and semi-transparencies can not only create stunningly vivid pages but, with a little imagination, whole new ways of presenting content.
Things to Worry About
Although most sites tend to look the same in IE7 as they did in IE6, there are some potential problems. Most of these have to do with site applications (like shopping carts and such) and the use of ActiveX controls. John Mueller outlined these in detail on the DevSource website, and I really encourage you to take the time to read through all five parts of his article on Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7, because I’m only scratching the surface here.
Don’t wait until Microsoft releases IE7 to begin testing your applications. Based on what I’ve seen so far, unless you’re using pretty much pure HTML on static pages, your application is going to break in some way.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
ActiveX Problems
I don’t know if anyone else remembers it this way, but I seem to recall that ActiveX was developed by Microsoft as an extension of OLE back in the mid to late 90’s and pushed as an incredible new way to make the web work directly with your already existing desktop applications–especially the Microsoft ones., Now, in a bizarre turn of events, they’re trying to protect users from their own creation.
After having seen many examples of just how bad malignant ActiveX controls can get, Microsoft finally decided to add some protection for users in IE7. Unfortunately, this halfway measure doesn’t really help anyone. Users will be annoyed by having to OK every ActiveX control, every time one appears on a Web page.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
If you haven’t done it already, lose the ActiveX reliance. It’s just going to be more and more of a problem over time.
Since most other browsers (including Firefox) ignore ActiveX controls, you might want to phase out use of ActiveX in your applications. They were always a bad idea. Unfortunately, this one change is going to break many applications; everything from shopping carts to data collaboration.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
Header Information & Range Checking
If you’ve gone out of your way to provide appropriate content to your users based on the browser he or she is using or whether or not a specific plugin is available, then you’re to be commended. You went above and beyond the call of duty for the sake of your users. Unfortunately, you may now have more work to do.
A check of the request header information that IE7 provides shows that some applications will break when they employ poor range-checking methods. My test system shows that IE7 supports nine file types by default… The user agent information is also different… If your application checks for specific version numbers, rather than a range of numbers, it may stop working with IE7.
- John Mueller Making Your Apps work with Internet Explorer 7
Multiple Home Pages
This is kind of a weird thing to get used to and you may not think of it as something to worry about. The idea here is that you can have more than one home page, and they’ll all open up in separate tabs of which you can set the order.
While that’s all well and good, I can easily picture a lot of web developers running out and dusting off their old "Make this your homepage" JavaScript link. I tested this in IE7 Beta 3, and yes it does still work. If you click on one of these links, it will bring up an "Add or Change Home Page" dialog box. This will allow you make that page your only home page or add it to your home page tabs. So what’s the matter with that, you may ask. Well, frankly, familiarity breeds contempt.
I, personally, don
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