Firefox 3 and Firefox 2 windows media support

Those of you trying out the Firefox 3 beta or considering it may want access to firefox 2. This is particularly true for developers as you will want to test in both version of the browser and the much loved Firebug plugin is not supported in Firefox 3 yet.

Fortunately there is an excellent guide on getting both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 running at the same time thanks to Hikikomori’s blog redemption in a blog

The problem I encountered is Windows Media Player video embedded in a page will not play. I tried re-installing the plugin but while this works for firefox 2 it does not for firefox 3.

I then recalled I encountered this same problem when first upgrading to Vista. A fix is to copy the needed dll files into the firefox 3 plugin folder. You can just copy the files over from firefox 2 plugins folder or download only the required ones from dll dump.

Quote from last blog post on this topic:

You can find the missing files on dlldump.com

• npdsplay.dll
• npwmsdrm.dll
• npdrmv2.dll

If this doesn’t solve the problem get more indepth help here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=206213

Have Apple got it wrong with the iPhone?

At this year’s dconstruct conference Peter Merholz explained how just packing more features is not a good way of evolving a design and how the iPod and Wii are examples of that. Not the most technically advanced or feature packed compared to rivals but got the user experience part right and is a success as a result. ( here his lecture in the dconstruct podcast here)

The idea of not feature stuffing a phone seemed to be a great idea then. Especially when you consider 80% of people only use 20% of the features of their phones. However, at the price point Apple have launched with you would have to say the that it likely only the 20% elite/pro users that would pony up the record-breakingly expensive fee and contract combination.(see prices here)

Surely early figures will show great sales but hype and a shiny interface will only get you so far. Users that had basic handsets before will love the iPhone as it does the basics incredibly well. But if you have a top-end pocket-PC or symbian phone you’ll be hugely under-whelmed and may see you’re upgrade as a bit of a downgrade.

I’ve been using the iPhone since it launch in the UK a few days ago and the novelty has already begun to where off and I sorely miss my
XDA exec. It’s not just the big features like video calling, 3G Internet, and picture messaging - it’s even little things like being able to select text/numbers on a webpage and paste them into a word doc/email or being able to delete music/video/app without a computer. Also the camera seems to be such an after thought. The quality is so low - not just resolution but sharpness too. There are also no settings to adjust, or support for recording video.

These issues may cause iPhone sales in europe to reach critical mass sooner than Apple may have planned for. Once the mac fans that would buy a brick with the apple logo on and then those that are caught up in the hype/fashion statement of owning one have all purchased the price will have to drop to sub £50 for the real target audience - the 80% that like to use the basics - will start to lap it up. By then I am sure the novelty will have worn off for the serious phone users that like their features and so many will be looking to get out and buy a more feature rich phone. Perhaps by then the Apple iPhone 2 will be out - but will it be too late. Will the pro users be once bitten twice shy? Will Google Andriod be a serious rival by then? Will the next generation of windows mobile have surpassed the iPhone interface?

With all these questions hanging over the iPhone I wouldn’t put money on the long term success of Apple in the mobile market as readily as some who seem to think they will take it by storm like the iPod has with the portable music industry.

The current kings of mobiles remain symbian and windows mobile based smartphones - watch out for the new 8GB Nokia N95 (black) and the XDA Exec if O2 still let you buy them now that they do the iPhone.

Microsoft make a desperate push for IE7

With uptake of the latest Internet Explorer browser being slow compared to that of main rival Firefox, Microsoft have started a big push to encourage more users to make the change.

The first big advantage Microsoft had was having it pre-installed on it’s latest OS - Vista and not allowing the obsolete Internet Explorer 6 to be installed (which would undermine vista security anyway). However, with Vista uptake being slow and with the tech savvy already using firefox, opera or other browsers IE7 is struggling to make much ground.

Latest figures I have from various sites I run/developed show that on sites for web developers or tech savvy users Firefox now has the majority over both all other browsers combined.

On consumer sites it is about 30% IE7, 28% IE6, 40% Firefox and the remaining 2% using other browsers. So although overall Internet explorer has the majority users still, IE7 alone has not caught up with firefox.

On business sites the weighting is slightly more in favour for Internet explorer but then the figure is increased for IE6 rather than IE7.

In a bid to convert more users to IE7 this week we’ve seen them <a href=”http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39289859,00.htm”>remove the validation requirement</a> to download it.

Now they have sent out a newsletter promoting Internet Explorer 7. It seems to be targetted at IE6 users as it focuses on the improved security in IE7 and the fact that it doesn’t render correctly in Firefox:

<em>”The Internet is a vast place–and not every site is friendly. How do you help protect yourself online? With Windows Internet Explorer 7. Already, the Internet Explorer 7 Phishing Filter prevents nearly one million visits per week to known dangerous websites. In just a few clicks, see how the latest version of the world’s most popular web browser can help you be safer online.”</em>

The latest version of <strong>the world’s most popular web browser</strong> may not be a statement the internet explorer team can use for much longer…

As a developer I am happy with this push to IE7 - the sooner we get rid of IE6 the sooner I will stop having to support it. It is currently holding designers/developers back in what can be done as we have to ensure whatever we do is supported it. Binning IE6 will mean - less hacks, more advancement, less development time - resulting in savings for everyone.

Even Microsoft can’t develop HTML emails for Outlook 2007

HTML Newsletter Developers have been complaining about Outlook 2007 since it’s release as it uses word to render emails rather than a web browser. Some have described it as taking email design back 5 years. Microsoft defended their decision for various reasons - mainly for more consistent results for users of Outlook looking to forward/create html emails of their own.

Now it appears even Microsoft are struggling to develop HTML emails that will render correctly in Outlook 2007. The first line of the latest xbox live newsletter reads “Read this issue online if you can’t see the images or are using Outlook 2007“. If even Microsoft can’t develop a newsletter that shows up consistently on it’s webmail (Live mail/hotmail) and Outlook 2007 client how are us as designers/developers supposed to manage. Clearly this should show it’s time to correct the mistake of using word rendering in Outlook 2007 or for designers to follow Microsoft’s example and simply ignore the latest Outlook and simply offer the users links to a page they can view in a web browser.

I don’t know how my employer would feel about me choosing to ignore Outlook 2007 when building the next newsletter but it will certainly be my recommendation. Our overseas offices seem to have ignored the client as I cannot read the emails that I get from them for the services I subscribe to if I use Outlook 07. If enough companies do this maybe this will prompt some action from Microsoft when there users complain.

The Vista Experience

I’ve had Vista Ultimate installed for about a week now and feel ready to give feedback on the new Microsoft OS.

Installation

Having the full Ultimate 32-bit edition I had 3 install options - 1) Upgrade, 2) Clean install from within windows 3) Clean install booting from CD.

I used the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor to see if I could expect any hardware/software issues. While my hardware checked out ok there were several apps that were not Vista friendly. Two were flat out incompatible and required removal before an upgrade should be attempted. This was Norton Internet Security 2006 and Nero Burning Rom OEM.

This is where I think some people come unstuck with upgrades, they don’t check the software incompatiblies before attempting an upgrade. However saying that after removing the offending programs and a couple of the apps classed as minor problems my clean install from within windows failed.

I opted for a clean install booting from the Disc.

Drivers/hardware

After a fairly quick install I thought all my hardware had been detected as Windows looked so good. However, closer inspection showed a lot of missing drivers including my graphics, and sound cards. Without drivers the display was limited to 800×600 but still appeared clear and colourful. I still had sound, if only in stereo. Once the correct drivers were downloaded and installed I could get full surround sound, high-resolution graphics and the long awaited Aero enhancements.

Finding how to turn on the Aero enhancements wasn’t obvious but a quick search of the help solved that.

I thought I would have little use of Flip 3D other than showing off. However, as my Logitech mouse has additional buttons I found one of them activated flip 3D. I could then use the scroll wheel to skip through the open apps. Rather than waiting for the one I want to come to the front I could use the mouse to click any of the programs in the deck to go to it. This soon became a very quick and easy way to navigate between programes. I still use Alt-tab too but Flip 3D is defintely more useful than I imagined.

Ultimate Extras

The main reason I got the Ultimate edition was for the Ultimate Extras. So far it’s not earnt it’s hype. There have been no cool updates to speak of. Even the DreamScene and GroupShot extras demoed at CES are absent. I did manage to download GroupShot from the Microsoft research site (which works great) but this is available to all windows users (even xp I believe) not just Vista Ultimate. DreamScene is still unavailable as far as I can see.

Access rights

As I did a clean install of Vista on a different hard drive my previous XP installation was still intact. A problem I had in the past with dual boot systems was not being able to access some files on the alternate installation due to access rights. This is not a problem for Vista. When trying to view my windows XP documents folder I am warned I do not have Access rights, however, I am offered the option to “take over ownership” As long as you are logged in as an administrator on your Vista build you can take over ownership of any folder and then access it anytime. As to what happens to my XP installation when I try restarting that again I can’t say as I haven’t tried yet.

From the viewpoint of Front-end developer

Of course it wouldn’t be a good blog post without looking at Windows Vista from the viewpoint of a front-end developer.

The first change is of course Internet Explorer 7 being built in to the OS. This means if you were hanging on to IE6 for testing purposes you will need to get the stand-alone edition. I haven’t tested installing this on Vista yet but this worked fine on XP.

Firefox installed seemlessly as always but I encountered a problem when trying to view online video. Although Windows Media Player 11 is installed as part of Vista the required dll files required by firefox and other browsers are missing. This means playing streamed windows media is only possible in IE7. This is quiet a sneaky move by Microsoft but easily remedied. Simply download the missing dll files into the firefox plugins folder (usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins) or better still in the windows media folder so it can be used by all browsers you may install.

You can find the missing files on dlldump.com

• npdsplay.dll
• npwmsdrm.dll
• npdrmv2.dll

If this doesn’t solve the problem get more indepth help here: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=206213

What about the tools of the trade? The Adobe/Macromedia Apps -
You’ll be pleased to know Dreamweaver 8, Flash 8, Photoshop CS2 and Fireworks 8 all run on Vista. However, there are some compatibility issues. If you use the Windows Aero effects you will find they become disabled when you open Fireworks. Windows Vista will switch to “Windows Vista Basic” mode until you close the program. Flash also has issues. It will not force Vista in to Basic mode but you will probably want to do this manually as whenever you enter or exit a set of grouped items the usually near instant transition effect of entering or exiting the group is slowed to a snails pace. This means a 2-3 second wait every time you edit or exit a grouped object - nightmare.

If found no negative side effects in Dreamweaver 8. Photoshop I’ve only opened to see if it would run and haven’t done any indepth testing yet.

The Vista shadow versioning feature could prove useful. Often I make sequence of pages and use one as a template for the next page. In my absent mindedness I sometimes save over my template with the most recent work - trouble. With Shadow backup each individual file is backed up by windows so that I can get back to previous versions of a file if I save over it. Not actually got it to work yet as none of my files seem to have previous versions yet even when I tried a creating a test file. This works like a charm now.

I use a program called PowerDirector from Cyberlink to edit and export video in web friendly formats or for making home movie DVDs. This cannot be run or re-installed anymore. Tech supports solution is to upgrade to their new Premium edition which is Vista Compatible. I am still considering this. Other Apps not liked by Vista is Norton Internet Security 2007.

Continue reading »

Firefox 3 on the horizon

You can download this blog post in audio format here (right-click and save target/link as..) or play it using the podcast player on the right.

Firefox 3 - code named Gran Paradiso is under development. It will use the Gecko 1.9 engine and the latest build released already is said to have passed the CSS Acid2 test. Although Opera, Safari have already achieved this it’s a big landmark for Firefox and a good sign of things to come.

Firefox 2.0 already features the most advanced CSS 3.0 support including CSS rounded corners and alpha transparency and Firefox 3 is set to have full support. Other features include improved graphic rendering and support for Javascript 2.

Of course we can expect there will be many bug fixes and tweaks making Firefox faster and more stable. It has been optimised to make better use of your systems hardware so if you have a good graphics card you should notice big improvements both in visual quality and speed for sites that take advantage of this.
Continue reading »

Hacked to Death iii

While testing Krugle for my pending review I was able to find a Safari hack that works.

You may already have heard of the Safari Stokely Hack. It’s not as straight forward as most IE hacks but it works on even the latest versions of Safari and can be a real life saver.

View details on the Stormdetector website.

Now IE7 is here hacks have to be more specific in their targeting. Some Beta versions of IE7 ignore * html hacks and some apply them (The final release ignores them).

To be sure which browser will be affected by your styles you can use conditional comments.

e.g.
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
(html for IE 6 or older goes here)
<![endif]–>

This goes into your html not your css file. The version(s) of IE you specify will read the code you enter within the comments while other browsers will ignore it. This means you can link to a seperate style sheet with your IE hacks in and it will not affect other browsers.

Selecting versions to affect:
To affect just one version of a browser (e.g. IE7) simply start your conditional comment with <!–[if IE 7]> replacing 7 with whatever browser version you want to target. If you want to target a range of browsers you can insert an extra word before IE.

• lte - less than or equal to
• lt - less than

Because you have targeted a specific set of IE browsers future releases should be happy viewing your page without the hacks getting in the way.

These conditional comments can be used to hide any other html from non-IE browsers too, such as an IE only feature you may have on your page.

Firefox 2 review

Seems every tech blog in the land has picked up on the hot release of the week - Firefox 2.0. I heard a lot of good things about it while still in Beta and I finally got round to giving it a spin today.

IE7 also saw a new release this week but got a lot less attention/praise (unless you work for Microsoft) as it didn’t offer much extra compared to RC1 which I already had installed. Opera’s latest release has impressed as it’s the first browser to pass the Acid2 test.

So is FF2.0 worth the download. Well if you haven’t got Firefox at all it’s an obvious yes. Once you’ve tried Firefox for a couple of weeks you’ll find it a frustrating experience to try and browse the web with anything less. However, I am sure I’m preaching to the converted so I’ll focus on What’s New in 2.0.
Continue reading »

Extension/Plugin of the month (POTM): September

POTM (Plugin Of The Month) is a new feature that I plan to post every month to promote the plugin/extension that has made the biggest impact on either the way I browse or assisted me in producing web pages.

For the month of September the Extension I’ve been loving most has been Google’s Browser Sync.

What this Firefox extension does is enable you to synchronize your bookmarks, history, cookies, saved passwords and even open tabs with your Google account. This means when you use any computer (with FF and web access) you will be able add this extension and carry on browsing where you left off!

All the tabs you had open when you last had Firefox open, whether on that computer or another one can be restored or you can start a new session. Your bookmarks, history, cookies, passwords, auto complete etc. can all be restored.

I say “can” because everything is optional. You can choose to sync as much or as little as you want and you can ask Google Browser Sync to encrypt all you info (this means the first time you use it on a new PC you will be asked for a password/pin).

A word of warning! If you use this feature in an internet café be sure to logout of Google sync before leaving.

This month so far I’ve been loving WebDeveloper Toolbar. I’ll let you know in next month if it is still my number 1 extension for October.

=Dave Long=

Test, Test and Test again

If like me you like to have the latest updates or try beta releases of new products you may already have IE7 installed.Although it is important to ensure your website will work on IE7 is released the price you have to pay may be too high. IE7 upgrade is irreversible. Since it renders pages differently to previous versions you will no longer have a way of testing your work in the current IE release (IE6). Also IE7 will not let you view pages on your local machine. You have to upload the pages to a webhost or setup a local webserver on that machine or network.

The solution?
A company called tredosoft has come up with an installer that will enable you to run multiple versions of IE at the same time. This means you can have IE3 all the way through to 7 all on 1 machine - a testers dream.
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

I choose not to ever support anything older than IE5 so I installed IE5.01, 5.5 and 6.0 in addtion to my existing IE7 setup. The install couldn’t have been easier and I soon had my websites open in 4 browser versions at the same time.

I only use FireFox for browsing and viewing my designs but when it comes to testing I can now ensure IE6 AND IE7 support

Dave Long