Internet Explorer: A Browser Breaks

"Enterprises aren't loving Internet Explorer 7, so how can its successor do any better?...

For businesses looking for a standards-compliant Web browser, Internet Explorer won't be the choice in 2008, with IE 6 entrenched and IE 8's release as much as a year away—or more, if closely aligned with Windows 7. For Web developers, the standards headaches will continue as long as IE 6 enterprise adoption remains high...

There is huge competitive opportunity for Mozilla, and even Apple, to exploit Microsoft's browser problems. Both organizations have highly standards-compliant browsers that can be deployed at lower risk."

Safari + Gmail + .docx Attachments = .zip files!

Here's the scenario. You are accessing gmail on a Mac using Safari (2.x or 3.x BETA - 3.x on Leopard is fine), someone sends you a new Microsoft Office .docx format file, you download it, and it shows up as a .zip file. Or worse, that zip file automatically decompresses to a folder - Ugh.

The solution is actually easy, but it's an annoyance since Firefox on Mac will download the file correctly - so it appears to be a problem specific to Safari in these pre-Leopard versions:

Google Groups : "The new default file format is zipped xml, which can get interpreted as a zip file by some software. If this is the case, rename the file extension to .docx and then download the word2007 converter for the version of office you are currently using..."

NOTE: If you have Safari setup to automatically decompress files, you'll have the added hassle of finding that docx.zip file on your desktop as a folder. In this case, delete the folder and then retrieve the .zip version from your Trash and modify the extension on that.

Also, if you don't have Word for Mac, or the converter mentioned above, it's worth noting that NeoOffice for Mac supports the .docx file format - and it's free.

Apple Safari 3 Public Beta Fixes Flash Drop-menu Issue

Apple has released a Beta version of its Safari browser for both Mac and Windows. While this is news itself, I'm more excited about the following revelation.

Anyone out there who has done website work where the design called for drop-down navigation menus which overlap Adobe flash content will be happy about this announcement. In previous versions of the Safari Mac browser, there was a 'bug' where drop down menus would flicker badly if they overlapped Flash content. This issue even plagues www.adobe.com in Safari 2.x!

After testing both the Mac & Windows versions of Safari 3, Apple appears to finally have fixed this problem!



Check out the Apple - Safari 3 Public Beta