CivicActions

It seems there is a clean standards-solution that doesn't succumb to the X-UA-Compatible mess Microsoft has dumped on us, yet let's you author html in standards mode in IE8:

"John Resig points out something that I think a lot of the mainstream chatter around IE8 has missed - if you send it a currently unused DOCTYPE (like HTML 5,) it will not cower in IE7 mode.

"John examines this feature of IE8 in this post: http://ejohn.org/blog/html5-doctype/ .

A List Apart's Issue 253 continues discussing and debating the controversial IE version targeting that ALA announced a month ago. CivicActions blogged about this topic then too.

Jeremy Keith and Jeffrey Zeldman provide very realistic and down-to-earth points of view and arguments both for and against version targeting. Although they each reach different conclusions, neither tries to persuade the reader one way or the other. Rather they leave you more enlightened so that you can make your own decision.

'They Shoot Browsers' by Jeremy Keith was better written in my opinion and has more convincing arguments, including this gem;

"The proposed default behavior for version targeting in Internet Explorer solves the problem of “breaking the web” in much the same way that decapitation solves the problem of headaches."

I'm still not 100% decided, but I'm pretty heavily swaying to the side against version targeting. Having said that, I can understand how and why Microsoft, even with mostly good intentions, came to this solution. I can see and appreciate the short term benefits, however I don't believe that Microsoft can pull this off in the long term. As web developers, we have no reason to believe that Microsoft is capable or even intends to follow through with it's promises

I would never use a drupal module or javascript to fix IE6 suckiness with transparency in 24-bit PNGs.

After battling IE6 and image transparency on many sites I always do one of three things when tackling this issue:

1. Firstly, if only binary transparency is required, I use an 8-bit PNG file. Binary transparency means that each pixel is either transparent xor colored (but not both, hence 'xor' for the eXclusive-or. When can we add 'xor' to the English dictionary?). The pixels in a 24-bit PNG can be both colored and transparent, and have 'alpha' transparency as opposed to binary transparency.
   

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8 is an A List Apart article that was Slashdotted. It explains a new convention/standard designed by the Web Standards Project and Microsoft that aims to improve the support for old websites when new versions of websites come out. It introduces a new meta tag and http header that specifies what versions of each browser the page is compatible with. Such a convention would, in theory, ease the pain when IE8 is released and avoid the frantic chaos that occurred when IE7 was released.

ChangeTheMargins.com is a small campaign for small change that collectively could have a big impact.  The idea is to get people, manufacturers and even software companies to change the margins on the printed page.  Seems pretty simple right?!  We all forgo the generous standard 1.5 inch margin for a more economical .75 inch margin (i would say lets go to .6!).

Looks like it is Microsoft day here on the CA blog. Just heard that Microsoft did not get ISO certification for Office file formats.

This is great news for OpenOffice.org and other free and open source "office" applications.

From the Market Place story above:

Microsoft has suffered an embarrassing rebuff. The company has tried for two years to win the prized "ISO" label for its Office file format.

The 5-year consent decree issued in the Microsoft antitrust case is about to expire. Microsoft says it has learned its lessons, won't misuse its market power again, and argues that the competitive environment has fundamentally changed with new threats from Google and other disruptors.

Many people even believe Microsoft when it says these things. So was this a successful remedy?

A new article on ZDNet says that Microsoft is claiming that free and open-source software violates more than 230 of its patents.

Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith alleges that the Linux kernel violates 42 Microsoft patents, while its user interface and other design elements infringe on a further 65. OpenOffice is accused of infringing 45, along with 83 more in other free and open-source programs.