Mark Edgington

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) – the new version of Microsoft’s web browser – is likely to be released in the before the end of the year. This release promises to deliver greater standards support and better performance. However, with the release of any new product there is always a risk incompatibilities or bugs.

The risks posed with the release of IE8 are that the browser may not be compatible with sites already in service . These risks are minimized if you have  committed to standards based development as the IE8 development team is focusing heavily on standards support.

In addition, IE8 (and all subsequent versions) allow site maintainers to define how the browser should render pages. Where a site maintainer believes their site will render incorrectly in IE8 they can set a meta tag within the page that will force IE8 to render pages as IE7 would. This means that you can avoid rendering problems, either temporarily while we determine impact, or permanently where we believe it is not cost effective to fix.

A first beta version of IE 8 was released for developer review earlier this year and a second beta is expected in the next few months. The initial beta release is lacking significant amounts of functionality scheduled for inclusion in the final release and therefore not suited to site testing at this stage. However, based on feedback the following may potentially be an issue with the final release:

1.     Incomplete or buggy CSS 2.1 support

Action to take:

a.     Assess the severity on the site affected.

b.    Enable IE7 mode on site

c.     Determine effort to fix

d.    If viable apply fix and enable IE8 mode on site

2.     Some content may not be accessible when using assistive technologies (AT)

This is outside our mosts remit as it is a failure of the software. Additionally you need to posses the  AT equipment to test.

Action to take: none.

3.     Printing reverting to IE7 mode

This should not be an issue if sites  have already been tested with IE7.

Action to take: none.

The best action is to track developments as subsequent beta versions are released. When the 2nd beta release is available we will test with a sample of current sites. From this estimate the likely impact of the final browser release and take a view on whether IE7 mode should be enabled on current sites prior to release.

Upon final release test current sites:
·        Visual conformance comparing screen for screen with IE7

·        Rendering of flash content

·        Functional testing client-side functionality for failure and script errors

·        Functional testing forms for failure

This is best carried out on review servers were suitable, or by disabling IE7 mode on the live site during testing.

It is very likely that issues encountered in beta versions will be resolved on final release. I would therefore advise that you do not embark on full testing or make changes until the final release is available.

You should however plan to enable the meta tag to allow us to turn on/off IE7 mode at site level. You will need to estimate the effort involved for each platform. This feature will allow you to manage the impact of new IE versions ongoing.

Thanks go to  John Hunter who complied this for me.

When iPod shuffle is set to shuffle songs it will play all the audio files on iPod shuffle that are not audiobooks. Podcasts of type .m4b or AAC will not play on iPod shuffle when it is in shuffle mode, which is the intended behavior, although a podcast of type .mp3 or .wav may play while in shuffle mode.

 To play an audiobook or podcast that is on iPod shuffle, set the switch on iPod shuffle to play in any order

CushyCMS is a fast, simple and free content management system that aims to make life easier for web designers by simplifying content management. Using CushyCMS, web designers can give content editors (for example a client) access to part, full or many pages at a granular level (headings, images, sidebars, etc), enabling them to update or create standards-compliant content directly from a browser without messing with the sites coding.

It’s in beta at the moment, but works well.  I made a site editable in about 15 minutes www.JScudamore.com , it’s a tool with great potential for small sites run be a single individual.

I attended QCon a few weeks back and Gregor Hohpe of Google was the host of the Architecture track.  This ended with a panel and each had a Rubik’s cube, only Gregor got anywhere near solving it; i think he could have done it if he had any time to look at it.  Anyway, for the past week Ive been trying to  solve it and now succeed on every attempt in less than 3 mins.  I’m pretty happy about this as i remember first seeing one on my granddads key chain in the 80’s, at which point i managed one layer and gave up . So twenty years is not much of a record, but goes to show you can return and conquer at any time.

Ive been back in the office for 1 week, so how has QCon helped.

Conversation around cloud computing has been a big hit. I got some good contacts and these have lead to investigation on using the Elastic computing and S3 services from amazon for one of our clients. Thoughts from ‘ The Zen of Agile Management’ have allowed me to view our Agile and Prince 2 processes in a new light; I expect my observations to work round to discussion and change in the coming weeks. Also the Domain Specific Language knowledge has invigorated conversation around framework and language selection on projects. All in all a good week.

Yesturday I found a company pass in the street.  It had a name and a picture on it so I typed in the name to Google, found a facebook page and sent a message.  Owner and pass reunited.  The joy of tech.  Also I feel more warmly towards facebook,  as Ive found a use.  I may have to wait another 2 years or so to find something else to return, but it will be worth the wait

In short fantastic. I’ve attended many larger conferences and I found the smaller size more enabling for communication, both with the speakers and conference attendees. I attended tutorials on Agile management and DSL’s (Domain Specific Languages) and followed tracks on cloud computing, effective design and architectures. Each of these had a great set of speakers and there was only one session in the whole week that I felt was weak. I left the conference armed with lots of ideas and inspiration and a handful of excellent contacts. I also have a stack of notes that I am digesting and hope to put some clearer views together than my short blog posts on sessions from my N810.

After a number of comments around the conference regarding the near fanatical religious nature of the guys on the Ruby stream, i had to attend. I was not disappointed. If you broke the panel down into individuals i believe you would get a very balanced discussion around the sessions subject, When is Rails an appropriate choice however as a panel lead by Nic Williams, was in my opinion hindered. Why? well Nic is quite obviously an intelligent guy, with alot to offer, but on this occasion (maybe due to the fact that it was the end of the day), all he offered was general sweeping statements, about the greatness of Ruby; which may well be true, but a little backing up would have been nice. The problem for me was, i really wanted to know when rails, would be an appropriate choice. I came away with comments regarding the fact that it does not run the same on Windows as Unix, and you start to get worried business sponsors; especially if there development team are stocked with Windows PC’s and there not that keen to run Virtual PC for development purposes. Couple this with the only use pushed was for CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) apps and you don’t feel particular informed. Does this sound like a recipe for world domination?

I actually was happy with my view of Ruby and Rails before i went. I think its a great language and framework for the right problem, CRUD applications. I also think that Ruby’s usefulness has been expanded into the Java world by JRuby and the IDE integration in Netbeans and INteliJ. The tie ins with Java, allow it to be used clearly as an external DSL (Domain Specific Language) that can augment the general problem solving capabilities of Java with a fantastic and agile language like Ruby. It would have been nice to expand my knowledge beyond what i knew, rather than just be told ‘Rubys Great, use it’ for an hour.

Poor Rod Johnson had obviously been up all night working on his Java One slides (there was a deadline on the 14th) . He looked completely exhasted and near drifted off to sleep at some moments; obviously a little bored with some of the subjects or answers the panel were giving. However, even through this, he still, IMO gave some of the best comments the panel made. He also kept on making little notes, not sure if these were inspired thoughts from the conferance (as he stated) or just the ravings of a tired man. I wish i had them to look at.

A fascinating talk, or maybe a tutorial on how the world of market risk works within BNP Paribas . By outlining clearly the problem space and problems faced by IT departments in the banking world;procurement and strategic sign-off and procurement. You got a good feel for how the architecture came together. In this case i felt that the open source decisions, many made due to restrictions, lead ultimately to success and what i would expect to be a happy development team. Probably the most surprising part of the architecture where a set of processes running from Java Main; it seemed to have come about as application servers where the remit of another team, and asking them for involvement was not an option.