PeteL's Blog

TechEd09 - Top 10 Mistakes Made By Web Developers

PeteL — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:59:00 GMT

I consider myself a developer more than a designer. In fact, I’m pretty bad at web design. I know what looks nice, and I know what doesn’t work well, but I’m not so good at creating kick butt designs. So, at TechEd last year, I presented “Top 10 Mistakes Made By Web Developers” and it went over extremely well, and I was asked to do it again this year. I did it twice at TechEd EMEA in Barcelona, and was asked to do it twice this year as we filled the room the first time!

Since it was an Interactive session, it’s not recorded, nor are the slides put online but I offered to share some of the sites I used both as good sites and bad sites and also share the slides!

I’ll be posting the demo code from WUX310 later this week!

Thanks!

VPC’s are coming…

PeteL — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:47:53 GMT

Since several people have asked, the new VPC’s are propping now. I suspect they should be up and available within the next 12 hours. Watch the IE or IETeam twitter accounts for updates.

Running Multiple Versions Of IE On The Same Box

PeteL — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:27:50 GMT

There are applications out there that will put IE4/5/6/7/8 on the same machine and let you switch between the different versions of IE, but there are a couple of problems with this. I typically describe this type of situation as a Frankenbuild. Any time you start messing with Windows core components, and changing OS level DLL’s, you’re setting yourself up for heartache. You also don’t know if you’re replacing the whole set, or just a subset of the DLLs. For example, if you’ve got IE8 installed on the box, and you put the IE6 rendering engine in, you have the IE6 rendering engine, the IE8 JavaScript engine and the IE8 networking stack. Hmm, no real customer is ever going to see that. You never know what the tool is replacing, if it’s the whole IE stack, or just the components.

Another example would be having IE8 installed, then putting the IE7 rendering and JavaScript components in. Great, so you’ve got almost the whole stack, but we made significant changes to how the Phishing Filter works between 7 and 8. What if what you’re looking at or testing will hit that, and you get a completely different behavior than what a real IE7 user would see.

There’s also a security issue there, who is to know if the DLL you just placed on your machine is a real IE5 component, or if it’s a Trojan that is going to send your browser sessions to some unknown host. While I’d say this is unlikely, it’s not impossible.

We strongly recommend people use VPC images for testing different versions of IE, we even make those VPC’s available for people to download. They’re time bombed, because we’re basically giving a copy of Windows away, but users can also build their own.

Setting X-UA-Compatible with ASP.NET Pages

PeteL — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:47:00 GMT

I got an email today asking about the best way to go about adding the X-UA-Compatible tags on ASP.NET pages where you’ve got a master page, and may want to over ride the X-UA-Compatible tag in some content pages, but not others.

After playing around with it in Visual Studio for a few minutes, I pulled together the following scenarios:

Access To The Server

The optimal way to do this, if you have server level access, is to add the IE=EmulateIE7 as an HTTP Response Header from the server. Then, any pages served from that server will be rendered in IE7 mode. If Internet Explorer finds the X-UA-Compatible tag in both the HTTP Response Header, and as a META tag, the META tag will win out. Thus, if you've added the IE=EmulateIE7 to the server, you can over ride it by using the following code snippet:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     HtmlMeta xuac = new HtmlMeta();
     xuac.HttpEquiv = "X-UA-Compatible";
     xuac.Content = "IE=EmulateIE8";
     Header.Controls.AddAt(0, xuac);
}

One quick note about the Page_Load method, you'll note I use the Header.Controls.AddAt(0, xuac) method. The X-UA-Compatible tag needs to occur BEFORE any code on the page is run, if it doesn't IE will ignore the X-UA-Compatible tag; so it's best to makes sure this is the first tag on the page.

No Server Access

If you don't have access to the server, and you want to put the X-UA-Compatible tag in the ASP.NET MASTER page, you could do something like this:

In the master page, I'd create a Content Place Holder:

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="cphMeta" runat="server">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

Then, in the individual pages, where you want to override, and go to IE8 standards, you'd insert

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="cphMeta" runat="server">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" />
</asp:Content>

Top 10 Web Mistakes [From TechEd EMEA]

PeteL — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:20:00 GMT

I just finished presenting my last session of TechEd EMEA for 2008 and I'm sad to be leaving! But, hopefully I'll get another chance next year.

My last session was a repeat of "Top 10 Web Mistakes" and I said I'd post some of the sites that I showed during the session, so here they are.

Sites That Suck
http://www.teacherxpress.com/
How am I supposed to find content on this site?

http://www.continental.com
Some validation errors are okay, others, maybe not so much.

http://www.samanzerin.com/
I don't even know where to start, figuratively or literally.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/seattle/flowmaps/bridges.htm
http://wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/
Nice to see consistency on here. :)

http://www.toyjoy.com/
Only pop ups? Really?

http://twitter.com/home
Think about your work flow.

http://www.miniusa.com/#
Try turning JavaScript off and count the clicks to a 404.

http://www.ccps.k12.fl.us/schools/LBHS/
A little too much flash for me.

http://www.barcelona.com/
Hmm, ad too much?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/home/index.html
Let's find a creative way of putting ads on a page.

http://users.hunterlink.net.au/~mbbjsj/index.htm
http://www.havenworks.com/
http://www.5safepoints.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20060613061524/http:/moire.ch/
If only there were a group like Doctors Without Boarders, Designers Without Boarders.

Sites That Rock
http://www.BrightCreative.com
GREAT use of isolating hacks!

Thanks for a great time in Barcelona!

IE For Developers at Web 2.0 Expo

PeteL — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:21:00 GMT

Here's the slide deck from my session at Web 2.0 Expo last week. I cut out a few things in order to get it to fit in the 50 minute slot they allotted me, so it's kind of short, if you're looking for full details, check out the deck from Fronteers as it has a bit more detail on things.

I did add a bit about search providers to this deck, so there is a little new stuff there.

It was great to be in NYC for the week, and I met a lot of great people. It was exciting to see all the people who want to see IE8 and hear their excitement about standards and the new features! I can't wait to deliver!

Fronteers Session

PeteL — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:27:00 GMT

Here's the deck that I presented today at Fronteers 2008. Seems like people got something out of it, and was told by a couple of people that "wow, I have nothing to complain about any more"! Love it!

I'm Back!

PeteL — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:04:00 GMT

hello! i'm back. :)

a couple of months ago, I did an interview with Craig shoemaker about one of the session I did at TechEd this year, and he posted the interview a few weeks ago. I figured this would be a good place to start my blogging again!

Top Web Design Mistakes

http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/mistakes

Pete LePage is Product Manager of Internet Explorer Developer Division and he doesn’t want your web site to stink. Sharing from his talk given at TechEd 2008, Pete highlights 10 common web design mistakes and tells you how you can bypass the same blunders. Pete also tells us how future features of Internet Explorer will help your visitors leave your site with a smile.

IE VPC's - Which Ones Next?

PeteL — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:58:00 GMT

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

"IE8" and VPC's

PeteL — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:16:03 GMT

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

IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

PeteL — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:09:03 GMT

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.

Web Tools Or Tools For Web People

PeteL — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 22:22:16 GMT

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

Beginning Expression Web

PeteL — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:53:00 GMT

~~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! :)

I'm not going to Click To Activate anymore (soon)

PeteL — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:04:26 GMT

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!

UPS Package Tracking In Your IE7 Search Bar

PeteL — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 16:13:41 GMT

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!