Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer

Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer is a free utility that lets you compare how a web page will look in IE 6 and 8.

Now that Internet Explorer 8 is trying to stick closer to the internationally-agreed standards for web pages, many older pages will not display properly in version 8.  Here’s a way for webmasters to check.

How-To Speed Up, Customize, and Secure Firefox, Chrome, IE8, and Opera

MaximumPC has a post on  How-To: Speed Up, Customize, and Secure Firefox, Chrome, IE8, and Opera.

Lots of good advice on improving your browsers performance.

My Internet Explorer Cannot Connect to Secure Web Sites

My Internet Explorer Cannot Connect to Secure Web Sites is an Internet Fixes post.

When your IE can’t seem to connect properly to a secure site (such as the Library’s databases, or a site with password protection, or a payment page), you can check here for possible solutions.

Xenocode browser sandbox

Xenocode lets you Run IE8/IE7/IE6, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera from the web.

Now you can test out how your website looks in a variety of browsers without having to have them all on your own computer.

Is IE8 really slow? Tip to speed it up!

ZDNet’s Ed Bott, in his post Is IE8 really fat and slow? includes a tip “that re-registers the ActiveX Interface Marshaling Library, an obscure DLL that most people (even Microsoft experts) had never heard about.”

Using this may speed up your Internet Explorer 8 so you can use it faster.

Microsoft’s SuperPreview

Microsoft’s SuperPreview is a ZDNet post on the “tool allows developers and designers to see how their sites look and work with different browsers so they can debug them more easily.”

“SuperPreview is part of Microsoft’s forthcoming Expression Web 3 release. Microsoft made available for download a subset of the full SuperPreview tool — the part that developers and designers  can use to compare how their sites look in Internet Explorer (IE) 6, 7 and 8. The full release of SuperPreview will allow developers to also compare how their sites look in Firefox, Sarari…”

How to Block a Website in Internet Explorer 7

How to Block a Website in Internet Explorer 7 in 5 steps (with pictures) is a wikihow post on something useful to IE users.

IE doesn’t make it too simple, but many popups tend to be from the same sources, so if you don’t get too specific (stop listing the URL at the first / and use an asterisk * in the first part: *.adplace.com/ for example), you can cut down on those annoying popups once you get enough sources listed.

Xmarks now syncs bookmarks across browsers

Xmarks is the new incarnation of a personal recommended favorite add-on for Firefox, but now it is available for IE and Safari!

Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) is a free bookmark synchronizing service, which now can be used with Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari browsers.  Now you can sync your bookmarks (including your bookmarks toolbar) in any of these browsers (just install the freeware on the computer you’re currently using) and it syncs all the bookmarks to the latest ones you have.

If you’re using Firefox, it also syncs your Sage RSS feeds too.

Final Builds Site – Internet Explorer Collection

Final Builds Site – Internet Explorer Collection is a site for web site developers.

Internet Explorer prefers to install new versions over old ones, which makes it difficult to test your web site on older versions than you currently have.

This site offers IE from 1.2.0.2 up to a beta version of 8, which allows you to test as far back as you’re likely to need.

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC

If only everyone used the same updated software… but they don’t.

TredoSoft has a post on how to Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft.

Using a special installer, you can put older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer on your computer and see how your web site works with them.

Transmute converts your bookmarks between browsers

Transmute is a “freeware bookmark conversion utility.”

“This amazing utility will help you to try out different web browsers, synchronize bookmarks between systems, organize bookmarks, convert bookmarks for use in bookmark managers, share bookmarks with others and more. And best of all, it’s free!”

When you want to try out a different browser, this is one way to convert your bookmarks to the new browser.

Transmute is the first and only bookmark converter to export bookmarks between all of the major web browsers:

Google Chrome
Transmute supports the new Chrome browser, including dev channel releases.
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox 1 & 2 are supported as well as Firefox 3, with its new database model.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Vista are fully supported.
Opera
Opera browser hotlists are also well supported for easy importing and exporting.
Apple Safari
Safari is the web browser from the people behind the iPhone and iPod.
Chromium
Chromium is the open-source project behind Google Chrome.
Flock
Flock is a social web browser based on Mozilla Firefox.

CSS tables instead of HTML?

Digital Web Magazine – Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong says that once IE8 is widely used, all tables for web pages can be handled with CSS instead of HTML.

What sites do you trust?

Internet Fixes has instructions on adding web sites you trust to the Internet Explorer Trusted Zone — or the Restricted Zone, if you’d rather keep away from them.

Gizmo’s Best Free Add-ins for Internet Explorer

So, you didn’t know you could add extra features and functions to Microsoft Internet Explorer?

Check out Gizmo’s Best Free Add-ins for Internet Explorer.

PriceAdvance add-ons for IE and Firefox

PriceAdvance has add-ons for both IE and Firefox, which search for products that you’re currently viewing, to see if other prices can be found elsewhere.  Freeware add-ons.

Note: some proxy servers may interfere with this add-on working.

IE7Pro to boost Internet Explorer 7

So, Internet Explorer 7 isn’t enough for you? You say you want more functionality, more features, faster browsing?

So get IE7Pro and see if that’ll do ya. Freeware.

“IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Webpage Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins, MiniDM, Google sponsored search,IE Faster and many more power packed features. You can customize not just Internet Explorer, but even your favorite website according to your need and taste using IE7Pro.”

Less than perfect web pages?

Let’s face it — not every web page programmer graduated at the top of the class….

Sometimes, you get those annoying messages from Internet Explorer, such as “A Runtime Error has occurred. Do you wish to Debug?” or “Internet Explorer Script Error. An error has occurred in the script on line 1. Do you wish to continue running scripts on this page?”

Internet Fixes has advice on why that might happen, and how to disable the warning in Internet Explorer if you still must see as much as possible on that page.

You may also be able to get past the problem by using another browser to view the page, such as Firefox.

Tabs in Internet Explorer? What will they think of next…

Firefox seems to have inspired a number of improvements in Internet Explorer 7, and one of them is the use of opening tabs instead of new windows.  The tabs can appear across the top of the IE window, just under the toolbars, and show all the sites you are connected to at the moment.

Instructions on setting up this option in Internet Explorer 7 are available at Internet Fixes.

Vista having problems with Internet Explorer?

You got Vista, and now you get the message “IE has encountered a problem and needs to close”.

Ouch.

You probably need to run a System File Check, and the instructions are available at Internet Fixes.

Vista has some compatibility problems with add-ons to IE, and if the System File Check doesn’t fix that, you’ll need to disable the add-ons one by one until you find the culprit (or culprits).

Drawn a blank with Internet Explorer 6?

Microsoft provides monthly updates for Windows and other Microsoft programs.  Sometimes these can “break” something else in the process of fixing an existing problem or security leak.

Internet Explorer is a prime candidate for problems, and we see it happen often in the library.  While we can’t fix the library computers ourselves, you can fix your computer at home if you’re prepared to hack your Registry.

WARNING: back up your Registry first.  This is not for beginners.  Beginners should just switch to using Firefox (and of course, anyone else is invited to switch to Firefox also!).

Instructions for changing the Registry for Internet Explorer 6 are at Internet Fixes.