There and Back Again

Over the last three days i’ve had a chance to play with IE7 running on windows Vista, and I have to say its much improved.

The biggest improvements from my point of view are in its developer tools. The web developer toolbar that i’ve always loved from firefox has been cloned and is now available in IE. It also has a built in DOM inspector.

All my sites that worked in IE6 still work in IE7. That doesn’t mean all sites will, but its seems like its really only going to mean changes if your using lots of CSS hacks, and the fixes in those cases will be just removing the hacks.

IE7 will be the catch-up release. It brings IE up to a reasonable level of standards compliance, it gives developers usable tools, and it adds the biggest UI features like tabs.

New feaature wise the biggest additions are RSS support and Infocard.

Of those I think infocard has the biggest chance to change the way we use the web on a regular basis. Its just an application of basic crypto ideas we’ve know for quite awhile, but I think if people start using it, we can finally stop having to remember 500 different username/passwords, and more importantly we can stop storing them on every server under the sun.

I didn’t think i’d be when I showed up at the conference, but I’m really happy with the direction of IE7 and the releases planned after that. Without the boat anchor of IE6 holding back the web, we have the chance for some real innovation.

So the mix keynote today was called “Beyond the Browser”, I have more notes then im putting here, but since I don’t have a good enough battery im stuck in the half paper half digital world :-(.

My main thoughts from the presentation are:

Smart Client Applications

WinFX/WPF stand alone applications are part of Microsoft’s plan to try to pull content that normally lives in a browser out as stand along windows applications. They are using features like vector and 3d graphics to be the pull for this. I think this is more of Microsoft still not getting the web. Why would anyone want to download/install and learn to use a new application to read a magazine online. Or more importanly I might be willing to do it for 1 magazine but I want too for 5.

On one hand Microsoft is pushing RSS which moves all our content into 1 central place where the user doesn’t even have to worry about polling. But on the other hand they are pushing for a custom application for each site. I think the centralized RSS approach everything in the browser will win, since thats what always has, but I could be wrong.

To me the exciting technology is Windows Presentation Framework, WPF (Wow thats a horrible name) which seems to be Microsofts competitor to flash. If they end up getting it running everything it might well kill flash, since:
It has real widgets
It has 3d
You can use a real programming language if you want
Its not any more proprietary then flash

Now i do think you’re going to see more normal client applications using RSS, and web services etc. But thats not the same thing as creating a custom application to view every website.

Office Add-ins

Nothing much exciting here. You can use web services in Excel which is handy, not only in consumer areas, but also in business applications.

In Office 12 there is also add-in support for Outlook. The example they showed in this was an Ebay add-in which created a my ebay folder in Outlook. This looks pretty neat, and im sure people who use ebay will find it useful. The problem of course with something like this is the same problem with toolbar add-in’s in IE. Its great if you use 1 or 2, but if every 3rd party app you install brings one along, the next thing you know you got 10 annoying extra folders in outlook, and now you have to figure out how to turn them off.

Vista Sidebar Gadgets

Vista ads a sidebar, it takes gadets. Think of dashboard only in a bar on the edge of the desktop. They look pretty good to me, nice place to put weather, or news, or even a music player. My only concern is lack of room unlike the dashboard, and how you see the items (there might be a hot key but no one talked about it). Of course there will also be tons of worthless gadgets, but i think this will be useful.

Mobile devices

Ultra Mobile devices look great. Its normal windows running a normal browser, with lots of power. In a 7inch screen lenn then 2lb form factor. I don’t know if i’ll ever use one, but I could see a doctor using Clearhealth on one.

There was also a lot of talk about the windows mobile stuff. I don’t really have an opinion on this, I just want a phone that actually works correctly and has an easy to use address book. I guess the tech choice here is Java/ME or microsoft’s .NET stuff, seems that the Java stuff might actually have an edge so it works with more phones, but I don’t really have a good idea (or care) about the market.

TV Connection Devices

This is pretty much Windows Media center and its extenders.

Extender wise the Xbox 360 seems to be the perfect match for media center. You put that next to the TV and can keep the PC in another room.
It even comes with a remote. Though the remote sucks, its the standard 30 button monster, but its not any worse then the majority of the rest of the consumer electronics industry.

A lot of time was spent showing custom Media Center applications, many exist today and they look really nice. Now the select Ui for them isn’t there. So there is a comedy central custom app that gives you a nice rich comedy central experience. But if your flipping through the channels and end up on comedy central there is nothing tieing the custom view to the tv channel its associated with.

Now the biggest problem with using media center as a dvr is digital cable. The version in vista has cable card support so things will be getting better. But cable card isn’t all that great yet since it doesn’t support pay per view etc. Hopefully the cable industry will get the next version out soon.

We also got a quick preview of some of hte new UI. Its the same style you get in the new media center. Lots of graphical browsing. I’m not quite sure why people would want to browse through 500 cd’s (or dvds) using there album covers, but i guess the thought process is, looking at a stack of CD’s was such a great process in real life lets replicate it on a computer. Obviously I don’t think it works at that well, but with just a remote as a browser i’m not sure there is a better approach. And it does look spiffy.

Notes from MIX:
This is a panel discussion on the future of IE.

Lots of guys from outside of Microsoft, and a couple of the major IE guys.

• Andy Clarke - Web standards project
• Dean Hachamovitch - IE General Manager
• Molly Holzschlag - Web standards project
• Eric Meyer - That CSS guy
• Mike Rowan
• Chris - Long time IE dev

Dean:

Dean’s Stuff were going to do:
Great Standards platform, layout script
Safety - security trust
end user experience

Dean’s Balance points:
Is the user in control or is the developer in control

1. Standards vs Compatibility (example ssl following the rfc broke many lists)
2. Security vs Compatible
3. Security vs End user experience (SSL when you just have an IP)
4. Simplicity vs Control
5. Frequency of Updates

Andy:
Multiple versions of IE, running multiple, IE as a critical update

Molly:
Talked about Web standards project working with Microsoft
Wants lots of communication

Eric:
More communication, IE6 is the new Netscape 4
Implement the CSS3 modules that make sense
CSS3 selectors
Color/Background module

Mike:
Wants to see more security improvements

Chris:
Happy about web2.0 platform
Wants to see the standards core grow

I someone managed to lose the rest of these notes.

On a whole I’d say people complained a lot. When they had a chance to ask questions. The IE team answered well, but I’d have to say Microsoft seems focused on updating the browser. Obviously they won’t be updating everything tomorrow, but they do have ie7 and two more updates currently in the works.

Presentation by Dean Hachomovitch, IE General Manager

IE: 1195-2001

1.0 August 1995
4.0 October 1997
6.0 Oct 2001

Asleep since then

“We Messed Up”
Microsoft gets that we want updates to IE
A promise to deliver

The goal:
great browser experience
customer confidence
rich site experience

IE7 Beta 2 Preview
Build 5335 For Windows XP SP2

Great Browser Experience

IE7 UI changes
Minimal chrome
User configurable search bar
Uses the Open Search standard (developed by A9)
Automatic discovery that a site provides search
Search can be used just while there on the site or easily added to your search engine list

Quick tabs features, thumbnail view tab management (around the same thing as the Reveal extension for FF, but I think does it better)

Printing with shrink to fit that actually works, easy to change margins graphically, good multiple page view
Page zoom, graphics work correctly

Customer Confidence

People change security settings to make certain sites work.
IE7 gives you a message on start when your have unsafe settings and makes it a single click to fix things

Phishing
Survey showing people cutting back in using ecommerce because of fear

3 Layers of fraud detection
Phising Filter
High Assurance Certificates
“InfoCard”

Fullscreen warnings that happen before the page even loads when url doesn’t match cert
if you goto the site it then runs the phishing filter, red address bar
If you goto a site with a High assurance cert you get a green address bar, more info available from clicking right next to the address bar

Info card is a way to remove username/passwords as a way to authenticate
didn’t give details but it looks to be replacing it with a crptographic system
Infocard fades the desktop when your using its selection UI, making it harder to fake

A card can be tied to data on the server, can be any type of informaiton, card contains a list of what type of your grabbing.
InfoCard uses open web services protocols

Rich site experience

CSS/HTML
RSS
“Atlas”
Windows Presentation Foundation

CSS

CSS Goal, making every day better for every developer

Uses position is everything for demos of fixes

Note just bug features but also new features

Also uses Eric Meyers CSS/Edge

RSS

Goal is to make RSS more mainstreme
RSS detection, nice feed viewer, subscriptions to the windows common feed list
Newgator has support for synchronization between your local common feed list, and its online aggregation list

Feed browser supports a filter/search box
A feed can set how it should sort the list using the simple list rss extensions
Yahoo/Amazon/Google already use the simple list extension

Easy to make a flikr RSS feed be a screen saver

Atlas

AJAX made easy

I didn’t stay for the rest, I was hungry

These are my notes from the keynote, i’m not sure i’ll keep such good ones for the rest of the conference, but they give you a good idea about Mix is about.

Bill Gates

Started out with a bit of humor, searching You Tube for Bill Gates. An amazing number of funny videos.

Focued on the new experience’s of the web, new technologies, new devices. 2 foot experience vs the 10 foot experience (PC vs Media center PC on the big screen). Browser and going beyond the browser.

Next Generation Browsing
Need to make browsing a richer experience, hard at work on IE7, very significant release.
Streamlined user interface, tab, zoom, better printing
Security (current browser is down the learning curve in rich media security), IE7 runs in low rights mode. Opt-in for all active controls, blocking phishing using patterns (replication service). Shows how long a site has had an SSL certificate. Using technology to prevent social attacks.
Development platfrom, css, transparents pngs, especially new RSS.

New release is out today (from last night this release is layout complete)

Expecting big uptake on IE7, will be the only option in Vista, people are willing to update there browser.

“We wanted to long for a browser release”
Already working on the next two releases, releasing faster then the standard windows release cycle

RSS
Have added Simple extensions
RSS usage will explode, going beyond just text, photos, podcats
Start of the programmable web, ebay is the example of the extreme of this.
Async communications, messanging making people think differently about what is possible
ws-*, windows communication framework, industry support for strong standard
Ray Ozzy, websites being modular, specilization, working together

How interactive are they
without JavaScript not at all, JavaScript driven development is a super valuable approach
Atlas is microsoft’s development platform
1997 started Microsoft’s support for this, Outlook web access was Microsofts first big app to use it
InfoPath, Excel features pushed to the browser
Atlas works with any modern browser, focused on ASP.net but works without it
Atlas has been released for production usage today.

Atlas raises the floor
WPF raises the ceiling
Exploits video card features, but you don’t have to worry about the GPU
declaritive model

Beyond Browsing
Rich client code that focuses on user experience
Extensibility to have code run on the client without Microsoft Office

Media Center
48% of retail PC’s in December shipped with Windows Media center edition (Yeah i’ve noticed all the adds too)
XBox360 Windows media center extender

Mobile environment
Variety of devices, showed the new palm windows mobile device. Showed a new motoralla device that looks a lot like a blackberry with a bigger screen.

Oragami device
Showed a samsung Oragami device
full windows, focus on pen computing

New generation of Software
Live software
Internet driven, can connect to other sites, Microsoft’s focus is on building a platform to make this happen. Seems to be a focus on the services coming from Microsoft. Multiple devices different users interfaces, but a still consistent.
Platform facilitates lots of different business models.

Tools
the new Expression tools

Two examples

MySpace, Aber Whitcomb CTO

65 million registered users
growing at 260K users per day
#2 trafficed site on Internet
Sql Server 2005, ASP.net 2.0
Brought together all the features on other social sites into myspace
ASP.net at 9M users, big performance gains
17M members middle tier with cache, using 64bit of ASP.net to increase amount of ram
26M members switched to 64big sql server 2005

Lot of legacy ASP code, upgrade to new ASP.net code has been huge speed up

Showed the new MySpace gadget for Windows Vista. Same login from the gadget too the browser (im guessing thats ie7 specific?)
Using Atlas to make a rich profile editor, just a basic drag and drop feature. Great improvement for MySpace, but i’ve seen much better UI’s for customization.

BBC

Ashley Highfield Directory of New Media & Technology
BBC is a huge content site, large consumption of rich media as well as standard news articles.
Distribution costs falling on the web, 7million pounds for a terestial TV station, 700K for a satellite, 70K for a web based station using Peer to peer and multicasting.

Quality of service, doesn’t matter for news, but matters for drama
Multicast for streaming
Download for normal peer to peer

Digital Rights Management, easy for the audience
1 Week free in the UK, after that pay
In the US always have to pay

Look at ease of use, Windows Vista BBC Gadget
really neat overlay right on the desktop, live search right on the desktop
Really nice features available from Vista UI wise, gadets may push people’s browsing experience out of the browser
Showed planet earth off the media center, nice Hi-def. Downloading hi-def is amazing, once the BBC starts offering it, there going to be getting some of my money.
BBC’s major challenge is getting there entire archive online

This monday through wednesday i’ve had the luck to be at the Mix06 conference in Las Vegas Neveda.
I got in yesterday, registered checked out IE7 and the new Origami mobile devices, and then went and lost some money in a poker game.

I’ll write more about IE7 latter today, but from what i’ve seen so far its going to be a big step up from IE6 in terms of developer features which should make my life a whole lot easier.

On the origami front the devices look pretty nice. I was using one of the small touch screen devices, and the size weight and input was very nice. If they ever get the price down I think these ultra portables are going to be great. Well now to listen to Bill Gates :-).