SuperWasp

Productivity tips, reviews, tools, software and gadgets.

IE Tester - Test your sites against IE8, IE7, IE6, and IE5.5

IETester is a free tool to test your websites against all major versions of Internet Explorer. It has the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 2, IE7, IE6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP.

Download: IETester v0.2.3 (24Mb)

Labels: browser, CSS, developer, IE, IE6, IE7, IE8, Microsoft, Vista, Windows, Windows Vista, XP

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  Posted by oVan on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 | PermaLink | 0 comments

Fix: Localhost unavailable with ESET NOD32

Developers using Visual Studio will probably encounter this problem after installing ESET NOD32 antivirus or ESET Smart Security Antivirus+Firewall: browsing the web with Internet Explorer works fine except for websites you develop yourself (localhost).

Disabling the firewall or antivirus features doesn't solve this problem, however replacing localhost with 127.0.0.1 (or using FireFox) does solve it.

The real problem is easily fixed though.

Windows Vista:

In the start menu, type "notepad %system%\drivers\etc\hosts" and instead of pressing enter, right-click on the notepad icon in the top of the list (see screenshot). In the context menu you must click on "Run as administrator".

Windows XP and 2000:

Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) and type these commands:

cd %system%\drivers\etc

attrib -r -h -s hosts

notepad hosts

You will then see the following file in notepad:

The last line contains the problem. It reads:

::1             localhost

You can either remove this line and save the file, or comment it out with a pound/hash character #. Voila, fixed!

Labels: Administrator, fix, IE, IE6, IE7, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft, problem, Vista, Visual Studio 2005, Visual Studion 2008, vs2005, vs2008, web develoment, Windows, Windows Vista

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  Posted by oVan on Friday, March 21, 2008 | PermaLink | 4 comments

New VirtualPC images released for IE6 and IE7

As expected, Microsoft has released updated VirtualPC hard disk images with IE6 and IE7. These contain a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, and either IE6 or IE7 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit. For more information on installing and using these images, read the blog post about running IE6 and IE7 on a single machine.

These new images will expire on December 7, 2007. By that time Microsoft will probably release updated images again.

Remember that you can download Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 for free!

Labels: IE, IE6, IE7, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 7, Virtual PC 2007, VPC, VPC2007

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  Posted by oVan on Tuesday, August 21, 2007 | PermaLink | 0 comments

Apple Safari 3 for Windows (beta)

Apple has released a public beta of their Safari browser version 3, including a Windows-version.



Here are the top reasons Apple wants you to know:

1. Blazing Performance


2. Elegant User Interface


3. Easy Bookmarks


4. Pop-up Blocking


5. Inline Find


6. Tabbed Browsing


7. SnapBack


8. Forms AutoFill


9. Built-in RSS


10. Resizable Text Fields


11. Private Browsing


12. Security

That list looks pretty compelling! I might add another reason, especially for web developers: it is the easiest way to know how your website might look on an Apple. If you install it together with Firefox 1.5 in the free Microsoft VirtualPC with IE6, you can easily test IE6, IE7, Safari 3, Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2.0 on a single Vista or XP machine without much trouble.

Update: In my follow-up post, I list no less than 22 problems with Safari on Windows that I've encountered in the first hour of usage. Suffice to say that I have uninstalled it now, and I'll revert to my previously reported method of cross-platform checking.

Labels: Apple, browser, IE, Microsoft, Safari, Windows

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  Posted by oVan on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 | PermaLink | 0 comments

IE Developer Toolbar 1.0 Final Released

Microsoft has released the final release (v1.0) of the Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar.

For those of you who are not familiar with the IE Developer Toolbar, here's a bit of info:

Overview

The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides several features for exploring and understanding Web pages. These features enable you to:

• Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a Web page.


• Locate and select specific elements on a Web page through a variety of techniques.


• Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.


• View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.


• Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.


• Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS web feed links.


• Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.


• Immediately resize the browser window to a new resolution.


• Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.


• Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align and measure objects on your pages.


• Find the style rules used to set specific style values on an element.


• View the formatted and syntax colored source of HTML and CSS.


• The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately.

Although there aren't any major new features since beta 3, they've added some reliability fixes and polished the whole toolbar a bit.

Release Notes:

• If Internet Explorer is running while you install the Developer Toolbar,
  you must restart Internet Explorer before the Developer Toolbar will work properly.


• The Developer Toolbar icon may not be visible by default.  If you
  do not see it after restarting Internet Explorer, click the right-facing
  arrows at the end of the IE7 command bar to view all available toolbar
  buttons.


• Some menu items are unavailable (grayed out) when running Internet
  Explorer in Protected Mode on Windows Vista.  To use those options,
  temporarily turn off Protected Mode or right-click the Internet Explorer
  icon in the Programs menu and choose 'Run as administrator'.


• In IE6 or in IE7 with tabbed browsing off, using the validation links
  will navigate the current window to the validation page.  To launch the
  validation links in a new window, open the Tools menu, click Internet Options..., and uncheck "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts" in the Advanced tab, or use IE7 with tabbed browsing enabled.

» Download Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar 1.0

Labels: CSS, developer, DOM, html, IE, IE6, IE7, Internet Explorer 7, Microsoft, toolbar

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  Posted by oVan on Friday, May 11, 2007 | PermaLink | 0 comments

Microsoft Silverlight, not there yet!

You've probably read about Microsoft Silverlight by now, the new and fancy name for WPF/E that runs on both Windows and Mac, and on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera.
The trouble is that their website will only showcase it's own Silverlight techniques on April 30. If you want to give it a test-run yourself, you're stuck with the old February CTP. This leaves me with an unfinished impression that will not, eeuh, impress potential developers and companies yet.
Maybe you want to download some Silverlight goodies while you're waiting on Microsoft to finish up? Perhaps a nice widescreen wallpaper, "Silverlight Dawn" or "Silverlight Dusk"? Too bad they offer very strange resolutions — anyone heard of 1400x864 or 1600x800 (which turns out to be 1600x1050 instead of the industry standard 1680x1050). I guess it's time for a better wallpaper from Ultimate Vistas!

Labels: download, Expression, Firefox, free, IE, Mac, Microsoft, Opera, Silverlight, wallpaper, Windows, WPF, WPF/E

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  Posted by oVan on Wednesday, April 18, 2007 | PermaLink | 0 comments