Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

Microsoft: Hey Wordpress.com – how would you like to take over our 30 million Live Spaces users?

Wordpress: Sure – what do we owe you for it?

Microsoft: Nothing. And we’ll even tell everyone how good your service and company is too.

Wordpress: Gee Thanks! You did say you were calling from Microsoft right?

Interesting news – microsoft is killing live spaces and telling everyone to move on over to wordpress. They announced it in this blog post. It’s really very unlike what i think the general perception is of Microsoft. Sounds like a great move to me though – I mean does microsoft have to be the best in every area? I’d be happy to see more innovation in the microsoft stuff that we ARE using – windows, word, excel, powerpoint.  So kudos to them for picking their fights, knowing where to focus and knowing how to hand the ball over when they’re not going to hit a homerun. And happy early christmas to wordpress.com!

I wonder what other areas Microsoft should get out of while they’re at it…

I had a horrible time figuring out how to install the CTP for SQL Server Express 2008. There were so many options that it felt more like I was installing a linux app. Anyways – for posterity sake – this post spelled it out very clearly with screenshots and everything. I hope it saves someone else the headaches I went through.

First note – I had vista ultimate but still had to install PowerShell which you can download from here. Grab the x86 version unless you have a 64 bit system.

And one other note – there were a ton of different installers but make sure you get the one on this page because the ‘with Tools’ part means that it includes the Management tool.

Download IE8 from here.

And developers info here.

According to the Readiness Toolkit page they’re looking out for us developers.

Internet Explorer 8 is the only modern browser that comes with extensive developer tools built right in, including visual layout and CSS support, script debuggers, script performance profiler, browser and document type rendering options, and much more. In addition, new features such as Web Slices and Accelerators give developers new ways to reach and maintain contact with their customers like never before.

Sounds great! We’ll see. I think i’ll stick with my developer tools that were NOT built by committees at Microsoft. Even more promising though is that this spells the end for IE 6 so maybe I’ll hear less moaning and groaning from Amber in the near future.

Internet Explorer 8 is out there and aparently going to be relased next month and it looks like it is so standards compliant that all of our hard CSS development work is going to come back to haunt us. It’s so different from IE7 that they needed to create a special button to change the rendering engine so that it shows sites using the old IE 7 flaws.  It sounds different from Quirksmode too – sounds more like the firefox plugin that changes to render sites with IE. What’s more there is a list of sites 2,400 long and growing where it will automatically use this incompatibility rending mode.
I’m not complaining though. In fact, I’m happy about it! I think that maybe it’s microsoft’s version of a stimulus package for the tech sector. What better way to pump some money into the web economy than to break everyone’s website! I got started in programming back with the Y2K bug – maybe now we have a little mini version of that – the IE8 bug that can keep swarms of developers busy and fed for at least a few more months.

Internet Explorer 8 is on the way

I read this post earlier on about Microsoft’s new “Fix It” button that is being integrated into help screens. It does sound like a really helpful and forward thinking step to help people fix problems with their PC’s. Macros have been around forever in windows and office and it makes perfect sense to pair them into help and how-to things – especially for simpler problems.

What are you doing to my computer with that wrench?

On the downside, I hope it doesn’t set off a load of UAC prompts and then there’s the malware… I can already picture that…

Here’s the full article: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10157210-56.html

And a list of things they can fix! http://support.microsoft.com/fixit