IE Updates

Oddly, the Windows Update option for Microsoft XP as found in the IE8 Tools menu (Internet Explorer 8) does NOT go to an HTTPS site but instead to http://www.update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate even though just going to https://www.update.microsoft.com/ provides the XP user of IE an HTTPS site for updates!

Why does MS even keep that HTTP target on-line?

What would such a minor update to IE8 have cost the accidental collosus?

IE blogger

 
Internet Explorer was going berserk on this blog!  This was not the case for Google Chrome or Firefox.

Why?

Too many links in the Tag Cloud widget!

I restricted the tags that can appear in the widget and IE behaves.
 

Google Chrome Frame versus IE9

I wonder what is more productive: getting employees  configured with Google's Chrome Frame in IE 8 or inviting users to install the Curl.com runtime engine (the Curl RTE) - which path gets a more useful, maintainable, long-term result for a corporate IT requirement to provide a user with some feature?

If Curl 8.0 removes even a click or two from the RTE install procedure ... ;-)

At one time I could have compared creating and maintaining a Google Gears app and a Curl app, but that is not now even moot ...

That leaves JavaFX or AIR or ? Oh yes, Silverlight.  Without DLL's, right?  Without that "DLL Smell" - right?

And why is this Chrome Frame/IE8 vs IE9 Canvas (HTML5) even a question?  Well, why would a business running fine on Windows XP want to move to Windows 7?  Just to get IE 9 ?  Aside from the agenda of corporate IT, what did Vista provide?

One sure thing that IE9 on Windows Vista or 7 guarantees is HD video with hardware-acceleration for employees viewing YouTube on company time.  And that comes just as Intel announces their intent to move the GPU into the CPU.  Oh vey ... why did your employees in Payroll and A/R or A/P need those nvidia 9800 graphics cards?

Or is this for Account Executives video conferencing with prospects?  Not likely.

If the Help Desk gets a better result with remoting to the client under Windows 7 - fine*; but that PC should not be the same one that they use on your company intranet. Nix that idea.  Their old single core CPU box running XP should serve them fine on your network.  Or did you move them up to 64-bit XP ?  And for that matter, why is their box on the company network box not inexpensive hardware running linux without Microsoft Outlook? Or were you in the cloud on that one?

;-)

* But aren't most of the client employees contacting your Help Desk also still running XP ?

IE8 compatibility and leaks links

Microsoft has their IE8 compatibility page here at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/readiness/developers.aspx

There is a useful discussion in the forum at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/772e4b07-29e1-4909-b77f-f61c503f9579

A long-standing resource is quirksmode.org at  http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/intro.html

David Hammond's webdevout.net shows no blog post since July 24, 2009 at http://www.quirksmode.org/dom/intro.html but still has a lot of information.

The wikipedia quirks_mode article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quirks_mode is also useful.

Here are 2 links on Internet Explorer and memory leaks due to closures with circularities impeding GC:
Understanding and Solving Internet Explorer Leak Patterns
Circular Memory Leak Mitigation
At least msdn one page suggested by David Flanagan in the rhino book is now missing.

David Flanagan slides on ECMAScript 5 at http://davidflanagan.com/Talks/es5/slides.html

IE9 and ECMAScript 5 link at msdn: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2010/06/25/enhanced-scripting-in-ie9-ecmascript-5-support-and-more.aspx

ECMAScript 5 conformance suite link: http://es5conform.codeplex.com/