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<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> The circus around Seinfeld's ads won't shoo Vista away guardian.co.uk, UK - 32 minutes ago (There's a US class action lawsuit about Microsoft's use of the "Windows Vista Capable" label.) But those things should no longer be problems. ... More...

During a visit to the Microsoft campus this week, I got to spend some time with Microsoft Surface! More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Create a custom backup tool with Vista’s Robocopy TechRepublic, KY - 16 minutes ago Fortunately, you can simplify your additional backup operation in Microsoft Windows Vista by using a tool called Robocopy. As you may know, Robocopy has ... More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=37J-k6CXr0oJ&imgurl=www.geekzone.co.nz/images/news/MicrosoftExplorerMouseBlueTrack.jpg width=57 height=80 alt="" border=1> Geekzone <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Snazzy Microsoft mice happy hardware tale Seattle Times, United States - 12 hours ago It includes a battery-life-indicator light and a dedicated button for Windows Flip3D, a Vista Aero feature for scrolling through open windows on the desktop ... Microsoft LifeCam Show and LifeCam VX-5500 make the scene engadget all 220 news articles More...

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, Internet Explorer 8, as of Beta 2, offers native JSON parsing and serialization. This new native JSON functionality enables Internet Explorer 8 aware AJAX applications to run both faster and safer! What’s JSON? For those of you that are not die hard AJAX developers, allow me to provide a bit of background. JSON is a simple human readable data interchange format often used by AJAX applications when transmitting data between the server and the web application. For example, imagine that you select a contact name from your favorite web mail client so that you can see the contact information. The server might send down a stream of data to the web application (which is running in the browser) that looks like this: { "firstName": "cyra", "lastName": "richardson", "address": { "streetAddress": "1 Microsoft way", "city": "Redmond", "state": "WA", "postalCode": 98052 }, "phoneNumbers": [ "425-777-7777", "206-777-7777" ] } Fortunately, this format is syntactically compatible with Javascript. Many applications today will use the Javascript eval() function to convert the data payload into a Javascript object. Using eval() is a dangerous and expensive approach. eval() parses the string as a general Jscript expression and executes it. If the string being passed to eval() has been tampered with, it could contain unexpected data or even someone else’s code – which is now injected into your web application. There are libraries, written in Javascript, that are designed to more safely parse untrusted JSON payloads. Some libraries do a strict verification of the data payload using a parser written in Jscript (http://www.json.org/json_parser.js). Some libraries, like json2.js, do a sanity check on the input string using a regular expression then use the faster eval() for parsing. The ideal solution is a native implementation that protects the application from code injection, is fast and available everywhere. Native JSON in IE8 Jscript The Jscript engine for IE8 now has a full native implementation of JSON that significantly improves the speed of serialization, deserialization and improves the overall safety of parsing untrusted payloads while maintaining compliance with JSON support as described in ES3.1 Proposal Working Draft APIs We defined a new built-in object ‘JSON’. The object can be modified or overridden. It looks like math or any other intrinsic global object. In addition to the JSON object, special functions, toJSON(), are added to the prototypes of Date, Number, String, boolean objects. The JSON object has two functions: parse() and stringify() . Example: var jsObjString = "{\"memberNull\" : null, \"memberNum\" : 3, \"memberStr\" : \"StringJSON\", \"memberBool\" : true , \"memberObj\" : { \"mnum\" : 1, \"mbool\" : false}, \"memberX\" : {}, \"memberArray\" : [33, \"StringTst\",null,{}]"; var jsObjStringParsed = JSON.parse(jsObjString); var jsObjStringBack = JSON.stringify(jsObjStringParsed); The object produced by the parse() method and serialized back by stringify() method is the same as: var jsObjStringParsed = { "memberNull" : null, "memberNum" : 3, "memberStr" : "StringJSON", "memberBool" : true , "memberObj" : { "mnum" : 1, "mbool" : false }, "memberX" : {}, "memberArray" : [ 33, "StringTst", null, {} ] }; JSON.parse(source, reviver) The JSON.parse method does the the deserialization. It takes the string in JSON format (specified by the argument source) and produces a JScript object or array. The optional revive argument is a user defined function used for post parse changes. The resulting object or array is traversed recursively, the reviver function is applied to every member. Each member value is replaced with the value returned by the reviver. If the reviver returns null, the object member is deleted. The traversal and the call on reviver are done in postorder. That’s right; every object is ‘revived´ after all its members are ‘revived”. The reviver is mainly used to recognize the ISO like strings and transform them in Date objects. As of today, JSON format is not round tripping in Date objects because there is no JScript standard Date literal. ES3.1 draft contains an example of how to make up for this issue using a reviver function. JSON.stringify(value, replacer, space) This is the serialization method. It takes the object or the array specified by the value argument and produces a string in JSON format. The value object or array is visited recursively and serialized as specified by the JSON format . If value has a method ‘toJSON()’ then this method acts as a first filter. The original value is replaced by value.toJSON(key) and the resulted value is serialized. The argument key is a string. It is the member name, key, when a object member like (key : value) is serialized. For the root object the key is the empty string. Date.prototype.toJSON() produces a clean string with no characters to escape. It acts as the de facto serializer because stringify() would return the original string unchanged. Date objects are serialized via toJSON() method. Number.prototype.toJSON(), String.prototype.toJSON(), Boolean.prototype.toJSON() functions return the ValueOf(). They are intended for correct serialization of objects like “ var num = new Number(3.14);” The optional replacer argument acts as a filter and it is applied recursively. It could be a function or an array.If the replacer is a function then replacer(key,value) is invoked for each object member key:value . For the root object we call replacer(“”,value). If the replacer is an array, it must be an array of strings. The elements of the array are the names of the members selected for serialization. The order of serialization is the order of the names in the array. An array replacer is ignored when serializing an array. The optional space argument is about how to format the output text. If it is omitted, the text will be packed without extra whitespace. If it is a number, it specifies the number of spaces to indent at each level. If it is a string (such as '\t' or ' '), it contains the characters used to indent at each level. How does this affect existing pages? The ES3.1 proposal for JSON is the form factor used by the popular json2.js. Well, we take over the name JSON. The global JSON object can be overridden. Still, it is not an undefined object anymore. It is the same with introducing new keywords in a language; taking over a name would eventually affect some existing code. The pages that make use of json2.js are unlikely to be affected. With very few exceptions, all these pages will continue to work, only faster. The pages that define their private implementation of the JSON object could be affected, especially when the private implementation of JSON object is defined by a pattern like “if(!this.JSON) { JSON=…}”. There are two main options to work around this kind of issues: 1. Migrate existing code to use native JSON support If the private JSON implementation is based on some of version of json2.js the migration should be very simple. 2. Opt out of the native JSON support and continue to use the existing private JSON object This can be done by renaming or overriding the JSON name. Renaming means to change over all code using the ‘JSON’ name into some different name like ‘MyJSON’. Overriding means to ensure the private JSON definition overrides all code using the native default JSON definition. In most of the cases, just removing the condition “if(!this.JSON)” should do the trick. Considering the standardization effort in 3.1, using the name ‘JSON’ Is consistent with our desire to be interoperable through well defined interfaces. There is a lot more about to talk about the native JSON. The parser is not eval() based, it is a standalone implementation. It is the native equivalent of the reference parser provided at JSON support. It is as safe as (http://www.json.org/json_parser.js ) and it is a lot faster. So if you are using eval() or even your own JSON library, consider checking for the native implementation in IE8 to get increased performance and safer operation. Corneliu Barsan Senior Developer JScript team http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=8938684 More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=XoB8OeyJ9UIJ&imgurl=blogs.zdnet.com/security/images/ms_office_mahjong.jpg width=60 height=80 alt="" border=1> ZDNet <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> MS Patch Tuesday: 8 critical security holes patched ZDNet - 19 hours ago It is rated critical for all supported versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and also affects several OS ... Microsoft Patches Critical Flaws in GDI+ DaniWeb all 62 news articles More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Microsoft Patches Critical Flaws in GDI+ DaniWeb, VA - 2 minutes ago GDI+, introduced with Windows XP , is also used in Vista and Windows server editions, and just about every Microsoft application and Windows component is ... More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Editor's blog: Microsoft's charm offensive Management Today, UK - 13 minutes ago The punters get frustrated with Vista and wonder why Macs look so much cooler than PCs (which isn’t Microsoft’s fault). Love and a 95 per cent market share ... More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Microsoft: IE8 interface was higher priority than speed ZDNet UK, UK - 25 minutes ago Stephane Kimmerlin, product marketing director, Windows client business group, Asia-Pacific, Microsoft, said during a press demonstration of IE8 beta 2 that ... IE8 is praised but doubts over compliance remain Small Business all 14 news articles More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Snazzy Microsoft mice happy hardware tale Seattle Times, United States - 6 minutes ago It includes a battery-life-indicator light and a dedicated button for Windows Flip3D, a Vista Aero feature for scrolling through open windows on the desktop ... More...

Apple unveiled the 2008 iPods today: Here's a photo gallery showing off the new iPod nano and touch! More...

For Beta 1, we discussed some of the technical improvements (like domain highlighting, multi-line paste, and improved click behavior) we made to IE8’s address bar. For Beta 2, we took the covers off of even bigger changes which fit in with our goal of making navigation easier and faster with IE8. Starting with Beta 2, when you type in the Address Bar, IE8 returns results not just based on the URL of the sites you’ve visited, but the title and other properties as well. It has an updated look that shows you both the title and address (URL) of each match and we also highlight the matches so they’re easy to see. Here’s a screenshot: http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/MSN.png The new dropdown is easy to scan visually, displays the results by group (more on that below), sorts based on our relevancy algorithm (more on that later too), and subtly highlights matches based on what you’ve typed. The difference between this and IE7 is quite noticeable. For instance, I, Christopher, watch and play a lot of soccer (or futbol if you prefer), and IE7 unfortunately didn’t help me get to my soccer sites very easily. Only sites that begin with the word ‘soccer’ in their domain appear (with one possible exception), and without titles, it’s hard to tell which page is which: http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/Soccer%20with%20IE7.png With IE8, not only do I get more results, but it’s easier to see what’s what. I can tell much more about the sites I’m viewing with an at-a-glance compared to IE7 (I expanded the History section in this screenshot): http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/Soccer%20in%20IE8.png As Paul pointed out , this means you’ll spend less time looking for the sites you’re interested in, and more time using them, and do so with fewer steps. Find What You’re Looking For More Easily With IE8 The IE8 Smart Address bar Autocomplete also supports multiple word searches. Results will match all the words you type, so the more you type, the more refined your results will be. http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/Multiword.png You can search across a site’s page title or address, and for RSS Feeds and Favorites, you can also search for them by local name and folder name as well. For Feed Items, you can also search by Item Title. IE does a prefix word breaking by default, meaning “Be” will match “Beijing” but “jing” would not (prefix means we search starting at the beginning of every word). The word breaking engine splits words at common delimiters like spaces, hyphens, and slashes. Folders: The Tags You’re Already Using Most people organize their Favorites into folders, so think of your Favorites and Feeds folder hierarchy as your tagging system. Type a subfolder name from your Favorites or RSS folder, and all the Favorites or Feeds under that node will be among the set of results returned to you to choose from. In this case, we searched for ‘restaurants’ and all the Favorites under the Restaurants folder were returned as possible results, even those that didn’t have that word in their title, local name, or URL: http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/Folder%20Tags.png Using The New Dropdown To Go Where You Want You’ll note we group the results into 6 sections: Typed Addresses, Autocomplete Suggestion, History, Favorites, Feeds, and Keyboard Shortcuts. IE will show all available matches in each section (with the exception of the keyboard shortcut section, which shows what will happen if you enter certain keystrokes). This way you can easily tell what’s what, and won’t have to remember any control characters to filter results. Unlike other browsers, IE8 will show both read and unread items from RSS Feeds and Feed Items downloaded by those feeds. This helps for times when you know you read something, but can’t remember where. IE8 makes it easy to tell where everything came from: http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/MSN.png Typed Addresses The top section (which shows msnbc.com but no title) is an address I’ve typed (or pasted) manually into the address bar. This section appears directly below the Address Bar, and does not have a header section (for consistency with the OS). IE shows up to 5 typed addresses that match what you’ve typed, and the results are sorted alphabetically. Autocomplete Suggestion The Autocomplete Suggestion is the ‘best’ match based on what you typed, and is always available with the SHIFT+ENTER shortcut. Autocomplete Suggestion takes the place of Inline Autocomplete which was available in Beta 1. The presentation may be different, but it is essentially doing the same function, only a little smarter thanks to our relevancy engine which helps determine the best match. We’ll discuss more about the Autocomplete Suggestion in a future post. History Every time you browse to a web page (unless you’re in InPrivate Browsing mode), IE writes out the page to its internal ‘History’ storage, part of the collection of pages you’ve been to. This section in the dropdown will display the top matches from that collection. Every page you visit will end up here, whether it’s a Favorite or Feed you click on, or a website you browse past. That means that most of the time (unless you’ve just cleared your browsing history), you’ll have several options in your History to choose from, and the top History item is the one IE8 will choose as its Autocomplete Suggestion. IE shows the top 5 History matches by default, and up to 20 matches if you expand the section. Favorites This is where Favorites that match what you’ve typed will appear. If you’ve visited a Favorite recently, then it will probably also have a matching History entry. Remember, when you type in the Address Bar, we search for Favorites based on their Local Name, their URL, and the Folder they’re in. IE shows up to 5 matching Favorites by default, and up to 20 if you expand the section. Feeds Internet Explorer shows both Feeds & Feed Items in this section. Feeds are what you subscribe to, and Feed Items are the stories that get downloaded by those Feeds. Both read & unread items can be shown in this list. For Feeds, IE searches the local name (whatever you called it when you subscribed to it), the URL it points to, the name the Feed owner gave it, and the folder it’s in. For Feed Items, it also searches the title of each Feed Item. This means that the Feeds section can be a rich source of information, especially if you’ve subscribed to a lot of active feeds. IE will show up to 5 matching Feeds and/or Feed Items by default, and up to 20 if you expand the section. (IE does not distinguish between read and unread items in this view.) Keyboard shortcuts This is where IE will show you handy shortcuts you can use to modify what you’ve typed – just expand the section to see what they are by clicking the down arrow at the bottom of the section. We’ll blog more about the keyboard section in a future post. If any section has no matches for what you typed, it will be hidden completely. If any section has more than 5 results to show you, IE will show you only the first 5 – but just click the header row to show up to the top 20 matches. Click it again to collapse that group. Groups don’t stick open – they’ll default to show the top 5 each time the dropdown closes and reopens. Relevancy Sorting Prior to IE8 Beta 2, IE would simply sort the list of URLs that match what you typed alphabetically. Starting with Beta 2, IE8 will sort your History, Favorites, and Feeds/Feed Items by relevancy. As you type, IE is not only querying across all the data types for string matches, but also sorting them based on how often you’ve selected them from the list before, how well what you’ve typed matches each item, and how often you go there. Simplistically, this means that the sites you interact with the most will be the ones most likely to be offered to you when you type. Based on the data we got back from IE8 Beta 2 (from both internal development and immediately following the release of Beta 2), the result that people selected from the dropdown was in the top5 of a given section over 90% of the time. We’ll blog more on relevancy in a future post. Delete Unwanted Items Directly From the Dropdown IE8 includes the ability to delete anything you see in the dropdown. You can delete typed addresses (like typos), History entries, Favorites, Feeds, and Feed Items from the list. Deleting anything from the list performs an actual deletion (as opposed to merely hiding it from the list), so you’ll be asked to confirm the operation, just like if you deleted it from the Favorites Center. One note on that - if you’ve set your Recycle Bin to not prompt on delete, the dropdown (and the Favorites Center) won’t ask you to confirm deleting a Favorite. This also means you can recover deleted Favorites from your Recycle Bin if you mistakenly delete one. If you delete a Feed item, IE marks that item internally so it won’t be downloaded by the RSS engine again (although there’s nothing stopping the publisher from re-publishing that item later). http://ieblog.members.winisp.net/images/Delete.png IE8: Better With Windows Search Much of IE8’s new functionality that I’ve described here is made possible by Windows Search, which it uses as its search engine to quickly search for and display results back to you. IE8 users don’t have to run Windows Search to get the new look, but for the best experience in the dropdown we recommend you do. Windows Vista users are already running Windows Search 3, but anyone running at least Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008, or Windows Vista Service Pack 1 can update to Windows Search 4 for free by visiting the Windows Search download website. We’ll talk more about IE8 with and without Windows Search, provide answers to common questions, and reveal other interesting things you can do with the new dropdown in future posts. Thanks, and enjoy browsing with IE8! Christopher Vaughan Program Manager Seth McLaughlin Program Manager http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=8923204 More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=r-Wcer_yDAMJ&imgurl=s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CG767_advert_D_20080907231000.jpg width=80 height=53 alt="" border=1> Wall Street Journal <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Updated: Seinfeld Makes His Microsoft Debut Adweek, NY - Sep 5, 2008 There's no overt sales pitch for specific Microsoft products like the oft-maligned Windows Vista operating system, though the company's logo does appear ... Microsoft Starts Windows Ad Campaign, With Nod to Shareholders Redmondmag.com Seinfeld's Microsoft ad slammed as 'pathetic' Metro Seinfeld and Microsoft: A Commercial About Nothing DaniWeb Brand Republic - Sync all 620 news articles More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=r-Wcer_yDAMJ&imgurl=s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CG767_advert_D_20080907231000.jpg width=80 height=53 alt="" border=1> Wall Street Journal <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Geeky Gates joins deadpan Seinfeld to save Windows Vista from ... Economic Times, India - Sep 6, 2008 The 160 millon-pound campaign is aimed at combating the public's perception that the company's latest PC operating system Windows Vista is hard to use ... Seinfeld's Microsoft ad slammed as 'pathetic' Metro Microsoft Starts Windows Ad Campaign, With Nod to Shareholders Redmondmag.com Seinfeld and Microsoft: A Commercial About Nothing DaniWeb Adweek - Sync all 620 news articles More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=r-Wcer_yDAMJ&imgurl=s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CG767_advert_D_20080907231000.jpg width=80 height=53 alt="" border=1> Wall Street Journal <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Geeky Gates joins deadpan Seinfeld to save Windows Vista from ... Economic Times, India - Sep 6, 2008 The 160 millon-pound campaign is aimed at combating the public's perception that the company's latest PC operating system Windows Vista is hard to use ... Yikes. New Gates/Seinfeld TV spot not funny (at all) Sync Microsoft Starts Windows Ad Campaign, With Nod to Shareholders Redmondmag.com Updated: Seinfeld Makes His Microsoft Debut Adweek Metro - ZDNet all 620 news articles More...

One of the key themes for IE8 is developer productivity. IE8 Beta 1 improved developer productivity through an optimized core scripting engine and script debugger. In this release, we continued to invest in the areas that bring more power and productivity to the web developer community. Here is a quick summary of the work that we’ve done for IE8 Beta 2: Scripting Engine Many enhancements have been done to the scripting engine. One feature that will bring a lot of value to the AJAX developers is the introduction of native JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). With JSON becoming the de-facto data interchange language for contemporary web applications; we have included native JSON support within the JScript engine. With this, developers can use a native JSON object to serialize and de-serialize JScript objects. This feature makes Internet Explorer 8 the first browser to support JSON natively! Script Debugger You have experienced the script debugger in IE8 beta 1. We’ve made it even better in IE8 beta 2. You can view script in syntax colored code similar to what you might expect in code editors such as Visual Studio™. The console shows all the script errors in a webpage at a central location. We also support the console.log mechanism to log the errors effectively. The Console is extensible for you to add your own commands through custom scripts. Script Profiler This is one of the new features of the IE8 Developer Tools. It will help you identify and fix performance bottlenecks in scripts so that they can run better and faster. The Script Profiler comes with an easy-to-use UI and powerful features such as ‘Call Tree View’ and ‘Export’ functionality. The Profiler output can be exported to tools like Excel so you can visualize the execution times through charts and graphs. Does this sound interesting? Check out the JScript PM Channel 9 video to learn more. Stay tuned for more in depth details on these features in future posts. Shreesh Dubey JScript Team Product Unit Manager edit: title adjustment http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=8937393 More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Microsoft LifeCam Show and LifeCam VX-5500 make the scene engadget, CA - 2 minutes ago Both include a one-touch Windows LiveCall button that pops open your contact list and new LifeCam software which allows you to send video messages, ... More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=XoB8OeyJ9UIJ&imgurl=blogs.zdnet.com/security/images/ms_office_mahjong.jpg width=60 height=80 alt="" border=1> ZDNet <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> MS Patch Tuesday: 8 critical security holes patched ZDNet - 11 minutes ago It is rated critical for all supported versions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and also affects several OS ... More...

In my latest commentary, I take an early look at Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Microsoft's new standalone virtualization product! More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=vtqzeyNZlfoJ&imgurl=media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/09/08/PH2008090802608.jpg width=80 height=65 alt="" border=1> Washington Post <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Bill and Jerry’s excellent (not!) adventure Bizmology, TX - 45 minutes ago Many wonder how this commercial promotes Windows or Vista. In truth, it really doesn’t. As this blog post notes, the 90-second spot is meant to introduce a ... Video: Tech Test: Google Chrome Lacks Polish AssociatedPress Mozilla updates new browser VNUNet.com Week in review: Google's Chrome shines CNET News SDA India Magazine - SOL all 504 news articles More...

<img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Bill and Jerry’s excellent (not!) adventure Bizmology, TX - 7 minutes ago Many wonder how this commercial promotes Windows or Vista. In truth, it really doesn’t. As this blog post notes, the 90-second spot is meant to introduce a ... More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=vtqzeyNZlfoJ&imgurl=media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/09/08/PH2008090802608.jpg width=80 height=65 alt="" border=1> Washington Post <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Google's Chrome a work in progress Houston Chronicle, United States - 1 hour ago For now, Chrome is only available for Windows XP and Vista, with Macintosh and Linux versions still in development. When you first download Chrome from ... Video: Tech Test: Google Chrome Lacks Polish AssociatedPress Week in review: Google's Chrome shines CNET News Google's Chrome Officially SOL Winston-Salem Journal all 466 news articles More...

As you may know, all browsers have a set of CSS features that are either considered a vendor extension (e.g. -ms-interpolation-mode), are partial implementations of properties that are fully defined in the CSS specifications, or are implementation of properties that exist in the CSS specifications, but aren’t completely defined. According to the CSS 2.1 Specification, any of the properties that fall under the categories listed previously must have a vendor specific prefix, such as '-ms-' for Microsoft, '-moz-' for Mozilla, '-o-' for Opera, and so on. As part of our plan to reach full CSS 2.1 compliance with Internet Explorer 8, we have decided to place all properties that fulfill one of the following conditions behind the '-ms-' prefix: If the property is a Microsoft extension (not defined in a CSS specification/module) If the property is part of a CSS specification or module that hasn’t received Candidate Recommendation status from the W3C If the property is a partial implementation of a property that is defined in a CSS specification or module This change applies to the following properties, and therefore they should all be prefixed with '-ms-' when writing pages for Internet Explorer 8 (please note that if Internet Explorer 8 users are viewing your site in Compatibility View, they will see your page exactly as it would have been rendered in Internet Explorer 7, and in that case the prefix is neither needed nor acknowledged by the parser): PropertyTypeW3C Status-ms-acceleratorExtension -ms-background-position-xCSS3Working Draft-ms-background-position-yCSS3Working Draft-ms-behaviorExtension -ms-block-progressionCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-filterExtension -ms-ime-modeExtension -ms-layout-gridCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-layout-grid-charCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-layout-grid-lineCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-layout-grid-modeCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-layout-grid-typeCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-line-breakCSS3Working Draft-ms-line-grid-modeCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-interpolation-modeExtension -ms-overflow-xCSS3Working Draft-ms-overflow-yCSS3Working Draft-ms-scrollbar-3dlight-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-arrow-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-base-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-darkshadow-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-face-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-highlight-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-shadow-colorExtension -ms-scrollbar-track-colorExtension -ms-text-align-lastCSS3Working Draft-ms-text-autospaceCSS3Working Draft-ms-text-justifyCSS3Working Draft-ms-text-kashida-spaceCSS3Working Draft-ms-text-overflowCSS3Working Draft-ms-text-underline-positionExtension -ms-word-breakCSS3Working Draft-ms-word-wrapCSS3Working Draft-ms-writing-modeCSS3Editor's Draft-ms-zoomExtension We understand the work involved in going back to pages you have already written and adding properties with the '-ms-' prefix, but we highly encourage you to do so in order for your page to be written in as compliant a manner as possible. However, in order to ease the transition, the non-prefixed versions of properties that existed in Internet Explorer 7, though considered deprecated, will continue to function in Internet Explorer 8. Changes in the filter property syntax Unfortunately, the original filter syntax was not CSS 2.1 compliant. For example, the equals sign, the colon, and the commas (highlighted in red) are illegal in the following context: filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80, FinishOpacity=70, Style=2); Since our CSS parser has been re-designed to comply with standards, the old filter syntax will be ignored as it should according to the CSS Specification. Therefore, it is now required that the defined filter is fully quoted. The proper way of writing out the filter defined above (with changes needed highlighted in green) would be: -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=80, FinishOpacity=70, Style=2)"; In order to guarantee that users of both Internet Explorer 7 and 8 experience the filter, you can include both syntaxes listed above. Due to a peculiarity in our parser, you need to include the updated syntax first before the older syntax in order for the filter to work properly in Compatibility View (This is a known bug and will be fixed upon final release of IE8). Here is a CSS stylesheet example: #transparentDiv { -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=50)"; filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=50); opacity: .5; } Thanks for your time and we are glad to hear your feedback! Harel M. Williams Program Manager edit: modified header http://blogs.msdn.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=8935166 More...

<img src=http://news.google.com/news?imgefp=g_h8Wl4UaFAJ&imgurl=www.chattahbox.com/images/Google_Gmail_IE6.jpg width=80 height=58 alt="" border=1> ChattahBox <img alt="" height="1" width="1"> Mozilla updates new browser VNUNet.com, UK - 2 hours ago ... the ability to drag and drop tabs between different windows and better integration with Microsoft’s Aero interface that is found in Vista. ... Video: Tech Test: Google Chrome Lacks Polish AssociatedPress Week in review: Google's Chrome shines CNET News Google's Chrome Officially SOL Winston-Salem Journal all 489 news articles More...

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