Miscellany
Miscellaneous articles
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 7 marks the first major update to Internet Explorer in several years. Explorer 6 has been a bane to us as a web developer. We've been forced to compromise a standards compliant design in order to accommodate an aging browser. IE7 marks some considerable improvements
First off is tabbed browsing. Here, Explorer is playing catch up to Firefox which in turn borrowed from the underrated browser, Opera.
The new IE gets a big tick for the zoom feature which allows users to zoom in on web pages. This is along overdue feature, if you ignore the fact Opera has had that feature for a while.
IE has also enhanced security considerably. Like the new Firefox, it warns of cross browser scripts.
IE 7 has improved it's adherence to web standards. It does a better job than IE6 which plagued designers with a annoyances like the peekaboo bug. IE7 renders this site properly- just like Firefox. However it is not quite there. See how IE handles pure CSS drop down menus at http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/edge/menus/demo.html IE6 changes the colour when you hover a mouse over it. IE7 shows the menus, but it's a mirage; you can never get to the menus that expand out. Load the
same page in Firefox and you'll see how a pure CSS menu should work.
IE7 requires you to reboot your computer unlike Firefox. That suggests to us that IE7 is tied into the operating system. You won't get IE7 on a Mac or Linux like Firefox or Opera. IE7 still has a way to go to meet web standards but we think it a considerable improvement and a worthwhile upgrade, but we'll still recommend Firefox or Opera over it.
Why Bother With Web Standards?
Standards make things standard. I know it's an obvious statement but it's meant to be. The reasons for having standards should be obvious too. The web used to be designed for Netscape or Internet Explorer. You either designed to get the best for one browser or you designed a compromise to suit both. The other way around it was do two designs and set a javascript routine to sniff the browser and direct the use to the appropriate files. This is extra work and what happens if you decide to incorporate another browser into your design? Another set of files?
Enough is is enough. The nature of the web is changing. More and more portable devices are connecting to the net. Handheld computers and 3G phones are but 2 examples. Standards based web pages should display
quite adequately on these devices. Moving to a standards based design helps to future-proof your web site. There is also the issue of accessibility to consider. A standards based web site can be rendered by a speech based browser. By not having your web site accessible, you are not only shutting out part of your audience, you could also be breaking the law in some legal jurisdictions. Moving to a standards based design also helps web designers. As part of the redesign of this site, we separated out he content from the layout. The html files
contain the test and graphics. The layout is handled by cascading style sheets. The beauty of this approach is that if I want to change the look of the site, all I need to do is change the style sheet and voila... a new look site.
Google Adwords Phishing Scam
We recently received an email asking us to to update our Google AdWords. This is clearly a phishing scam that has nothing to do with Google. This makes a change from the regular banking or eBay ones we get.
The link says http://adwords.google.com/select/login while it really points to http://www.adwords.google.com.0lks.cn/select/Login. Note the extra bit in the URL.
Don't get caught out.
The message reads below.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does
not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
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Dear Google AdWords Customer,
We were unable to process your payment.
Your ads will be suspended soon unless we can process your payment.
To prevent your ads from being suspended, please update your payment information.
Please sign in
to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login,
and update your payment information.
11 Spammers Indicted in a US Court
A US federal grand jury in Detroit on the 3rd of January, 2008, indicted 11 people over a wide ranging international fraud. The people included: several Americans, a Russian and a man with Canadian and Hong Kong citizenship. The fraud involved spamming, sending out millions of messages in a "pump and dump" scheme.
Rudd Government Propose Mandatory Filtering for ISPs
The Federal government has come good with one of the promises that is to introduce mandatory Internet filtering. They want to introduce what's called a "clean" feed. People will be able to opt out. But will it actually solve the problem?
