Helpdesk

As is not uncommon in the web development world, I was so mad at IE I was ready to delete my bootcamp partition off my Mac and microwave my windows 7 disc.  I was working on a website and it would render fine in any browser but IE.  As it turns out, IE thought it should be in compatibility mode.  Here’s the fix – a meta declaration:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=8" />

You tell IE to render in its version 8 rendering engine.  For those daring enough, you can replace 8 with edge.  However, you can never tell what bugs will be in future versions of IE.

A List Apart has a good and thorough article on doctypes and rendering in IE 8.

–Ben

Sources:  A List Apart

Wow.  I went looking for GUI automation such that I could automatically dump our deadlines to PDF and email them offsite.  I found:

• Automation Anywhere for $700 to $7,000
• Ranorex for $300 to $1500
• a bunch of test suites
• Auto It for FREE

I went and looked Auto It up and I couldn’t believe the power.  The scripting was easy to understand and I loved that I could emulate keyboard shortcuts.  It took me about two hours from install to finishing automating Starting Abacus (our docketing program), logging in, running a report, selecting cutePDF as a printer, saving the PDF with the date in the filename, exiting Abacus and using blat to email the PDF to two people.

Check Auto It out.  Its awesome.

–Ben

References:  Auto It, Automation Anywhere, Ranorex

Apparently a Gizmodo reader found a prototype next generation iPhone lost in a bar.  What gives the story credence is that it was remotely wiped and they say that Apple is looking for it.  It appears to be recognized correctly as an iPhone, but since the new firmware is not public, the phone cannot be re-enabled.

Here’s a small estimated feature breakdown:

• iPhone OS 4.0
• 2 Volume buttons
• Camera Button
• Forward Facing Camera
• Enhanced Backwards camera with flash
• micro-sim

See a preview video below:

Hit up the links if you want the full scoop.

–Ben

Sources:  Gizmodo

If you haven’t heard, Apple is now suing HTC over a group of its patents. What I did find interesting is that Apple was having “top-secret” discussions with C-level people before the suit was filed (according to a post at Fortune).

Why HTC?  Erica Ogg at CNET thinks it is because of a close HTC and Google relationship (and frenemy stuff).  Philip Elmer-DeWitt thinks it may be that there were few, if any, suppliers problems that would crop up.  John Paczkowski believes it may be that HTC has the fewest number of patents and may be the low hanging fruit, however Nilay Patel thinks that analysis may be unconvincing (same post).

Personally, I think it is the fact that HTC has established itself as the Android purveyor/expert and they appear to be smaller than the other companies.  They’ve built the Nexus One, G1 and a slew of other devices.  The only other Android maker that people know is Motorola because of its Droid.

–Ben

Sources:  Fortune, CNet, All Things Digital, Phandroid, HTCPedia

For those of you who wonder why the Nexus one touch screen has multi-touch reversals, a good article has been written about the G1′s same problems.  Basically, if the two touch points are on a diagonal line, the hardware cannot know upon which diagonal the touch points lie.  So it makes a best guess.

–Ben

Source:  Luke Hutchison

Wow.  Just read an article stating that the Nexus One’s axis inversion when using multi-touch is likely a sensor problem – IE no over the air (OTA) update will fix it.  On the bright side, the Droid multitouch works great.  If you want to try it out yourself, the app is called Multitouch Visible Test and is available on the Android Market.

Here’s the video evidence.  Looks damning to me.

–Ben

Sources:  Phandroid, Robert Green’s DIY, Android Developers Group

Just saw an article that said there was a leaked ROM of android 2.1 for Droid.  Now, most people probably shouldn’t download it because of the risks, but it does appear to be a final version.

Here’s a video:

–Ben

Source:  Softsailor

On a side note, PCWorld claimed Android was doomed.  Galen Gruman has a hypothesis that basically states that manufacturers can choose what features to implement and whether to allow an upgrade to the next OS.

Wow.  Personally, I think manufacturer choice was a good thing.  I also think that while consumers may want to run the latest OS, that we recognize that many of our devices are underpowered for some tasks.  Plus, it should count as an advantage, not a detriment that there is even possible an upgrade path.

When we look at the actual world, Linux is fractured – but its still very successful and often tailored to the desired device.  Ruby on Rails (the language and framework) has strange compatibility problems between versions, but its still on fire in the the development community.  Both are open source.  Android is open source.

In sum, I think Galen is reading tea leaves in an alarmist fashion (ie I don’t think the facts he sees add up to the death of Android – but the contrary).  Microsoft has been predicting the death of Linux for years.  Despite their best efforts, it hasn’t happened.  I think Android is here to stay as well.

–Ben

Source:  PCWorld

PCWorld has a report that shows that Verizon’s uptick in phones isn’t all its cracked up to be.  In fact, the report states that Verizon has had problems keeping up with the demand (see the reliability numbers).  Verizon apparently has also been hampered by an uninterrupted signal – only 76% of the time was it uninterrupted.

Personally, I’ve seen in on my train ride into work.  I keep dropping into 1x instead of 3G.  So, let’s hope Verizon gets back on top.  We bought into the network because it was the best, right?

Verizon’s come back is that their map is bigger.  Bigger isn’t necessarily better if it drops speed.  1 in 4, it appears.

–Ben

Source:  PCWorld