PeteL's Blog

Apologies for going dark the last little while, I'm going to do my best to change that again.  Lots of stuff going on here that I'm really excited about, but before I get into that, I want to do an unscientific survey.

 We currently offer developers and designers the following VPC images:

• XP + SP2 with IE6
• XP + SP2 with IE7

We're looking at the next batch now, and I'm curious, if we were to add one more, which of the following would you prefer?

• Vista with IE7
• Vista + SP1 with IE7

Also, if you're a Mac user, and want to see either VPC images compressed with ZIP, or Parallels users, a comment would be appreciated.  No promises on these, I just want to understand what is more important to you.

Thanks!
PEte

Two quick notes that I wanted to get out there.

IE8.  Yep, it officially has a name now.  Check out the post from Dean on the IE blog.

I've uploaded the new VPC images and am just waiting for them to propagate through the severs, now.  I expect it to be live within the next 24 hours.

PEte

Just a quick note to say that the IE6 and IE7 VPC images are being updated as we speak, and I suspect the new versions should be online Monday or Tuesday. 

A couple of days ago, I got an email from the guys at DebugBar letting me know that they had just released their Beta1 for Debug Bar 5.0.  They've got a pretty good tool bar for doing web design and web development in IE.  Their DebugBar adds features like a DOM Inspector, an HTTP Inspector, a JavaScript Console and Inspector, an HTML Validator among other things.  It's free for personal use, and the commercial license is easy to obtain.

There are a couple of other tools worth pointing out as well

• Fiddler2 a web debugging proxy written by one of the PM's on the IE team
• IE Developer Tool Bar the Microsoft IE Developer Toolbar.  There's lots of info on it here
• IE6 and IE7 Virtual PC images
• Visual Web Developer Express 2008 has great JavaScript debugging features
• AjaxView a great tool from MS Research for remotely monitoring web2.0 applications for doing perf work
• Nikhil's Web Development Helper is an add-on that helps AJAX and ASP.NET developers see what is going on with their code

Hope this helps!

PEte

I have three copies of Beginning Expression Web by Zak Ruvalcaba to give away.  Heck, I'll even throw in a copy of Expression Web!

First three people to email me with your full name, mailing address and phone number*  get them :)

*Microsoft Legal wants me to tell you: One copy per person/mailing address.  I'll delete your contact info once I've shipped the package to you.  If you're outside the USA, you're responsible for any taxes, etc...

EDIT: These three books are gone.  Thanks for the interest! :)

Phew.  I've been pretty heads down the last month on a couple of different projects, and one of the biggers ones just went live today!  This morning, I posted an item to the IE blog announcing that we're removing click to activate from Internet Explorer!  The first "preview" patch will be available in early December, and then it will be included in the April 2008 Cumulitive Update for IE.

I saw one person on the IE blog comment and ask why we're taking so long to just up and remove this.  The simple answer is many customers don't like it when we make big changes to IE.  It's that whole breaking the web thing that Chris keeps talking about.  We do not expect any changes to the way web pages operate, but we want to give time for you to play with it and see for yourself.

For web developers and designers, this doesn't change anything.  Your pages will still work in the same way that they did before.  If you've been using the JS insertion method, great.  If not, no worries there either. 

And don't forget, MIX registration opened this morning! 

Confession time, I'm an online shopping addict.  Amazon and I get along really well.  Well, Amazon and my bank account don't get along well, but Amazon and I do.  Along with many other online stores, I tend to do a good bit of shopping online.  This morning, I got a tracking notification for a package that is being shipped to me, and it occurred to me this morning that you could easily create a search provider for UPS (or most other shippers for that matter) and have it appear in your IE7 Inline Search box really easily. 

The easiest way to add it is to go to Add Search Providers to Internet Explorer 7 and in the "Create Your Own" box, add http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?sort_by=status&error_carried=true&tracknums_displayed=1&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&loc=en-us&InquiryNumber1=TEST&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes to the URL text box, then give it a name.  Finally, click on the INSTALL button, and it'll add the UPS package tracking to your search provider. 

Now, all you have to do is put a tracking number in your search box, and hit enter.  Bingo, you've got results!

It's crazy to me that I've been in this new role for just over a year now, in fact, it's just about 13 months.  In that time, I've seen IE7 ship, taken on new products like Expression Web and Visual Web Developer, met so many fantastic developers and designers and have had the awesome opportunity to travel all over the place for work.

Today, we updated the installation experience to make IE7 available to as many Windows users as possible.  As of today, IE7 will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation, and will be available to all Windows XP users.  If you're not already running IE7, you can get it from the Internet Explorer home page on Microsoft.com.  We've made a few other small tweaks to the UI, including enabling the menu bar by default, and created a new MSI installer that simplifies deployment for IT administrators in the enterprise environment.

But what changes did we make for developers?  In short, none.  The IE7 Installation and Availability Update is all about changing the packaging and setup.  The binaries didn't change, so pages will render and behave exactly as they did with the version of IE7 many people already have today.  We decided that rather than releasing a new build with a few small fixes now, we would put our major efforts into the next version of Internet Explorer.  Keeping the browser text matrix small is important to most of the developers we talk to.  This means that you don't need to retest your website if you've already tested it with IE7.

There is a KB article on the changes that we made available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940767

I'm excited about what Internet Explorer has in store for the future, we're busy working on the next version of Internet Explorer; and I am looking forward to sharing it with you!

Whew, I'm back from my 17 day cruise in the Mediterranian and while it's good to be back, I sure missed a lot!  I'm still trying to get things sorted, but in the mean time I figured I'd share this little juicy bit with you.

Verio is offering free Windows based hosting for anyone who wants it!  They don't require a credit card, and the offer is good through January 2010, so you get a good couple of years out of this.  The offer is not available online (huh?), so you have to call and deal with a human.  And since it's a 1-800 number, that'll make it a bit harder for those outside the USA. 

In any event, if you want to take advantage of it, call Verio at 1.800.932.7483!  And feel free to pass along

Just a quick note to let everyone know the IE VPC images will be coming VERY shortly.  Since this is the first time I've had someone else create them, it's taken a little longer than I expected it to. 

 I hope to have the images online sometime tomorrow, and I'll post once they're up both here and on the IE blog. 

Sorry for being so quiet lately, things have been a little nutty, but in a good way.  We've been pretty heads down working on all kinds of fun stuff, the next version of IE, the next version of Expression Web and getting ready to launch Visual Studio 2008.  I'm really excited to see that one ship.  I worked on it for almost a year before I transitioned to this role, and I know almost all the folks on the team, and am amazed at what they've pulled off!

I just got an email from Mariet, who was the primary coordinator of the ReMIX sessions in Europe this spring.  All of the sessions in Amsterdam were video taped, and are now available online!  So if you didn't make it to MIX or ReMIX, you can see some of the sessions, myself included on the ReMIX website. 

PS: We should have the new VPC images up in the next day or two.  I'll be sure to post when they are up!

So as it turns out, it's been a while since I last posted.  Things have been a little nutty around here.  We just finished our fiscal year, and have started planning for our next fiscal year.  It's been really exciting, lots of cool stuff happening around the next version of IE, planning for Expression Web 2, and getting ready for the launch of Visual Web Developer.

Visual Web Developer Beta 2

In fact, Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, including Visual Web Developer Express Beta 2 is now available! I'm really excited that they're now available as they've come a long way since Beta 1. 

If I had to name my top three fav features of VWD 2008, I guess I would say that they are:

1. JavaScript enhancements, including intellisense, and debugging
2. CSS and HTML enhancements
3. Data Access Improvements with LINQ

I'm really excited to see these guys get to Beta2.  This is the team that I was on before I moved to my current role, and I've got a special place in my heart for them.  They've done some awesome work here, and I'd recommend checking out VWD or VS Pro.

Web Developer Tools

At TechEd this year, John Hrvatin presented a chalk talk about developer tools for Internet Explorer.  It was fantastically well attended, the room was overflowing!  We're looking at ways we can rebroadcast the session online to share with all involved.  But he did post a blog post a couple of weeks after TechEd with a summary of all the tools.  It's certainly worth checking out.

I think my top three tools are:

• IE Developer Toolbar
• Fiddler
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (okay, so it's not a add-on, but it works great with IE or any other web browser for web development)

IE VPCs

I've had a few emails the last week or two asking if we're going to update the IE VPCs that are available, as the time-bomb expiry is approaching.  I've already started working on them, and should have them online in the next couple of weeks.  I'm aiming to get them up by the 10th of August. 

This round, instead of building them myself, I'm working with someone else to get them built, so it's a bit of a different process.  I've given them all the instructions that I have, and once I get the images from them, I'll do a few tests on them to make sure everything works correctly, and then roll them out.

We'll release an IE6 and an IE7 VPC image again this time both based on Windows XP SP2 + the latest patches.

Yep, the internet is on!  I think most of the comments I got yesterday all revolved around the fact that I posted all my presentations in PPTX format.  I work for Microsoft, and well, I use PowerPoint to create my presentations.  I figured most people, even if they didn't have PowerPoint on their machines would at least have the viewer so they could see the slides, but it sounds like quite a few people would rather have a PDF or some other format.  So, here you go!

TechEd: Top 5 Web Blunders
ReMIX: Building Your Own Video Site
ReMIX: Implementing Rich UI
ReMIX: A Tour Around VS2008
ReMIX: Search Engine Optimization for Rich Media

Note that these are stored on my personal website, so I can't guarantee how long they'll last as they're not on an official Microsoft server. 

I've also included with this post the source to the VS2008 demo that I did.  I had to swap the pictures out and replace them with corporate clip art, but the rest of the content is the same.  I included the source for what I started with, and the source that I finished with so that you can see where I started, and where I finished.  If you want to follow along, you can watch the original demo at the MIX site

I think that this was my favorite session I did while doing all my ReMIX presentations.  It was the one I found most interesting, and most relevant to the work that I do, and see many web developers and designers doing every day.

I'm not sure if there is video for this session, but if it shows up, I'll be sure to link to it.  In the mean time, I've included the slides for you to check out, and I'll try to get a blog post out about in the next week or two summarizing the info in the deck.