Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2

 

Microsoft has launched the beta 2 release of their new Internet Explorer (IE8) in English, German, simplified Chinese and Japanese, and then follow with another 21 languages in mid-September.

Why a new web browser ?

This was done for appropriate reasons by all for the time they were created, this helped the browsers render existing content on the web but over the years as web developers have adopted new standards browsers needed to adapt and while Internet Explorer 7 did a lot it was not completely standards compliant so the goal for IE8 is to make the “Standards mode” much better than IE7 but also keep the IE7 standards available in IE8.

What are some of the Cool IE 8 features ?

• Accelerators – Highlight an address, click the blue button and hover over “Map” or try Right Clicking a Page and Choosing Translate with Windows Live. Check out the new IE Gallery that has cool accelerators and slices from Digg to FaceBook to Ebay
• Web Slices – Visit Live Search, search for “Seattle Weather” (or major city relevant to your region), hover over the rich search result and click the green button.  Click it to add a Weather Web Slice to your Favorites Bar.
• Search Suggestions – Go to your Instant Search Box (top right) and type a search to see search suggestions in action.
• Navigation – Use the new Smart Address Bar to quickly find sites you’ve visited before.  The Smart Address Bar searches your history, favorites AND feeds for pages that match what you’re typing.
• Security:  IE8 has the best security features in the market today from its updated Smartscreen phishing and malware filter to domain highlighting to the industry leading cross-site scripting filter so I feel my machines, my identity and my family will be safer on the Internet.

How do you maintain IE7 Compatibility ?

You can tell IE8 to use the IE7 Standards mode by adding a meta tag

‘<META http-equiv=”X-UA-Compatible” content=”IE=7″>’

Also you should start updating your sites content to comply with the CSS 2.1 standard in order for IE8 Standards to render your site well.

Where can I get more information ?

• Download IE8 Beta 2 here today!
• Watch the IE8 videos and become a IE8 Facebook fan

Silverlight – Brings You 2008 Summer Olympics

   

Today starts the excitement around the XXIX Olympiad, Microsoft and NBC Sports have teamed to deliver event coverage on a scale never seen before on the Internet, let alone on TV.  In order to get the amazing, crisp HD video quality on the web that’s always optimized for your connection using Silverlight’s new adaptive streaming capability click on Silverlight.

NBC and Microsoft will be streaming more than 3,500 hours of Olympics video to millions of online viewers in the United States, including LIVE coverage of every minute of competition from 25 sports.  This is the largest media event ever done on the web, an unprecedented moment in the history of the Internet. 

MSN will provide distribution of NBC Olympics video content to all of the US visitors.  The MSN site is designed to handle more than 2.3 terabytes/second of traffic and will provide a flawless viewing experience for customers.   Silverlight 2  is the core technology behind the Olympics video player and provides the high-quality, interactive experience.

To get up to the minute updates on medal counts by athletes, sport  or country competing in the 2008 Summer Games use Live Search Olympics Instant Answer:

1.       athletes : Medal Counts

2.       Sport: Sport

3.       Country: Country

In addition the Zune Marketplace from Microsoft will kick off a series of daily 2008 Olympic Games videos from NBC Sports, giving viewers special on-the-go access to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games for approximately 99 cents–$1.99 per episode.

The combination of this unpredented amount of video coverage from NBC and Microsoft technology will change the way people experience live sports.

 

 

Look out Linux – PHP 130% Faster on Windows Server 2008

 

 

 

PHP the website language that ran smoothly on Linux or Unix now runs fasters on Windows Server 2008  with “performance and stability”  as mentioned in this Information Week. 

 

The new  Windows Server 2008 has built-in Web and virtualization technologies that enables companies to lower TCO and increase the reliability and flexibility of their server infrastructure (more info available on Microsoft). The New virtualization tools, Web resources, and security enhancements help save time, reduce costs, and provide a platform for a dynamic IT and optimized datacenter. Some of the other integrated powerful new tools are like IIS7, Windows Server Manager, and Windows PowerShell, allow more control over servers and streamline Web, configuration, and management tasks. And finally there is advance security and reliability enhancements like Network Access Protection and the Read-Only Domain Controller harden the operating system and protect server environment. 

One of the significant boost for PHP application to run efficiently on Windows Server 2008 is the support of FastCGI. The recent test done by Singaporean travel portal StreetDirectory.com as mentioned in this  post ”PHP application run 130% faster on Windows Server 2008″.  This impressive performance is also attributable to the open source design of Windows Server 2008 as mentioned in port25 by Sam Ramji  Senior Director of Platform at Microsoft.

In summary as show in this cool splash Windows Server 2008 “it runs on legs of steel..master of self defense..it manages, updates and implements 7/24/365”.

The Mojave Experiment

The “Mojave Experiment” happened in San Francisco, where Microsoft spoke to Windows XP users who had negative impression about Windows Vista. The subjects were put on video, asked about their impressions, and then show a “new” operating system, code-name Mojave. More than 90 percent gave positive feedback on what they saw. They then were told that “Mojave” was actually Windows Vista.

I am currently a user of Vista and prior to that I have used XP, Linux desktops and MAC etc. and definitely concur with the feedback that the experience with Vista is much superior. At same token I would also say some of the bad press on Vista was our own go to market stumbling with Vista, and some of it was from the success that Apple has had with its “Get a Mac” TV ads.

This is part of a broader strategy to re-invigorate Windows brand and as one executive stated in an internal memo, “time to tell our story”, we have real people experiencing “Mojave”. In summary I would say power of brand, perception and marketing go a long way for a product. Please read more about Mojave Experiment.