Entries tagged with internet explorer 8 - Channel 10

IE8 Web Accelerator for Zune

sarahintampa — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:50:00 GMT

In the new version of Internet Explorer, accelerators, you can get easy access to online services like email, search, maps, eBay, Encarta, facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, and so much more all from the web page you’re on – no need to open another tab or window and navigate elsewhere. Now, in addition to the accelerators currently available from the IE8 accelerator gallery, other developers are creating their own accelerators and posting them to their blogs.

One new accelerator that I recently came across is the Zune accelerator created by Sean Alexander. This particular accelerator lets you look up music-related info like Artist or Song info in the Zune Marketplace, all from the right-click menu. He mentions there are other accelerators that do similar things, but they are broken out to look up Artist separately from Song; this one combines both into one. Nice! To install Sean’s Zune accelerator click here.

What’s New in IE8 Beta 2

sarahintampa — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:08:00 GMT

The IE team recently announced the availability of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, the latest iteration of the upcoming browser which is now available for download from www.microsoft.com/ie8. This new version of IE features several new improvements and changes, but we decided to list our favorites below.

Smart Address Bar: Taking a note from Firefox 3’s Awesome Bar, the Smart Address Bar offers suggestions as you type based on website history, favorites, and RSS feed. There’s even an autocomplete feature that will suggest sites based on what you’re typing. Domain highlighting is also used to highlight the domain name. This feature allows for improved security and is especially useful in thwarting phishing attacks.

Colored Tab Groups: When you Ctrl+Click a link to open up a new tab, the new tab will have the same color as the original tab. New tabs that you launch on your own will be in a different color. This feature helps you easily visualize how tabs are related to each other.

Enhanced Find On Page Search: Ctrl+F launches a Find-on-Page Toolbar at the top of the page underneath the tabs. Search terms on the page are highlighted and the number of times they appear are counted.

Switching Search Providers Easier: Now when you enter in a search term in the search box, you’ll notice a row of icons that appear below the search suggestions that appear. These icons allow you to change your search provider on the fly from Live Search to Google to Wikipedia to Amazon, eBay, and more…all with the click of a button.

Visual Search: In addition to being able to change providers quickly, sites that support visual search (currently Amazon and Wikipedia) will display a small thumbnail image of the results which you can view without having to visit that page. What a timesaver!

Crash Recovery/Session Saving: You now have the option to reopen the last tab group when closing the browser. Also, if a tab crashes, crash recovery will restore the tab as well as any info you had filled in there such as in the case of writing an email or filing out a form.

InPrivate Browsing: This new technology lets you browse privately, making sure that history, temporary internet files, and cookies are not recorded on the PC

Other new features include an updated look for the IE chrome, improvements to both web slices and accelerators (formerly called “activities”), tools for IT professionals and developers, and a lot more. You can check out the full list of enhancements here as well as read reviews from both Ed Bott and Brandon LeBlanc, who both take a comprehensive look at the new browser.

Want To Beta Test IE8?

sarahintampa — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:55:00 GMT

Recently, Allison Burnett, Program Manager for IE, posted to the IE Team Blog that they were looking for more beta testers to help them work out the kinks in the new browser. According to her post, she mentions that IE8 Beta 2 is “right around the corner" as she invites anyone interested in checking it out to become an official tester. This is a much bigger deal than beta-testing the latest Web 2.0 web app, I guarantee you. Official beta testers for IE 8 will really be helping the team get IE 8 ready for primetime. If you want to be a beta tester, just email the team at Microsoft Connect. And if you just want to download the beta and check out what it can do, you can download it from here.

WebSlices in Wikipedia

sarahintampa — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:07:00 GMT

Guess who just joined the early adopters of Internet Explorer 8's new WebSlices feature? None other than the open-source, free encyclopedia site, Wikipedia. Thanks to Wikipedia user Soum Yasch and others, Wiki templates have been built to support the new IE8 WebSlices. You can see them in action on this page, which is the only one featuring them just yet.

If you hadn't heard, WebSlices are a new IE8 feature that let you subscirbe to content directly within a web page. You access them from your IE Favorites Bar, where you'll be able to click on them and see real-time rich internet content. (via)