Development

The old dinosaur of IE6 has taken another step closer to its final demise.
On Friday Google announced that from 1st of March 2010 it will no longer support IE6 and from that date, users of older browsers (IE6 included) may find that key functionality in Google Docs and Google Sites will no longer work properly. Other parts of Google will also stop working as changes are made without the excessive amount of effort required to make web 2.0 sites work in a web 0.5 browser.

Google go on to recommend upgrading to one of the following:-
• IE – At least Version 7
• Firefox – Version 3+
• Google Chrome – Version 4+
• Safari – Version 3+

As Project Manager at Zeta I would go further and recommend that you install the most current version of your chosen browser as IE 7 is already outdated with IE 8 being the current version of Internet explorer.

With Google now running as much as 13% of all active internet sites either directly or on behalf of one of the various services Google provides, this is going to make it very difficult for people to put off upgrading for much longer.

So what are you waiting for… Update your web browser now if you have not already!

After the reports last week that Chinese hackers exploited the vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer; we have been reminded again of the importance of developing according to web standards rather than to support a single, specific web browser.

The hackers were able to exploit security vulnerabilities in the 10-year-old browser and operating system  combination of IE6 on Windows XP.

This was a zero-day exploit, which means it was a new-found vulnerability that the vendor (in this case Microsoft) and antivirus / security companies were unaware of. Meaning there was no security fix for this issue.

The main reason many companies including high-street names and government organisations  are still using this dated browser is applications they need to use were not written to be standards compliant and instead were specifically written to work in IE6. This means that despite the fact we have already gone through IE7 and now onto IE8 the old dinosaur of IE6 will not die.

The lesson to be learnt for project sponsors and developers is: if you are creating or designing an application, make sure you future-proof your applications and investment by ensuring you are compliant with the most current standards – rather than tying yourself to a single browser or vendors’ technology – as that will always end up holding you back in the future.

As an internet user, as well as using a good antivirus program, always make sure that you are using the most up-to-date versions of your web browser to increase security.  You might also consider using one of the alternatives to Internet Explorer: Safari, Firefox and Chrome.  Microsoft applications -  which include IE – have been reported as one of the top programs to hack by cyber criminals (Forbes 2009).

Hosting your website on multiple domain names can cause a duplicate content penalty. Many of us have variations of our domain names (such as domain.com and domain.co.uk or domain-name.com and domainname.com) so we need to let the search engines know which one is the primary (canonical) domain using 301 redirects via an apache rewrite rule. more…

When you are deploying a new site to the same IP as an existing site you need to keep the public away while you are uploading the files and ironing out any problems.

One way to do this is to create a new document root directory and edit your vhosts configuration, but when you’re using a control panel like Plesk you are asking for trouble if you start messing around with the file system. more…

It’s estimated that the internet has around 1.5 billion users. It’s an impressive sounding statistic. Until you learn that, in December, the number of connections to mobile devices worldwide reached four billion, a figure that represents 60% of the world’s population.

Similar figures are borne out in the UK. An Ofcom report in November found that there are 26 broadband connections for every 100 people, compared to 121 mobile phones per 100 people. These are significant numbers for anyone who runs a website or blog. As mobile devices become more sophisticated and offer far better web browsing experiences, it becomes increasingly likely that users will be accessing web sites and applications from behind a mobile, not just a desktop or laptop computer.

Apple took the concept of mobile web browsing mainstream when it launched the touch-screen iPhone in the US in June 2007 (a belated UK release followed in November 2007). In the same way that it’s hard to conceive of pre-iPod MP3 players (they were chunky and user unfriendly, as a rule), mobile manufacturers were forced to respond to Apple’s sleek device.
more…