Anith Gopal

Today, Microsoft launched the web page Your Browser Matters .  As outlined in the blog post by the Internet Explorer team, the page is designed to get users to upgrade their browsers: This last point is particularly concerning because data from Net Applications shows that about a quarter of all PCs connecting to the Web are using an outdated version of their browser. This equates to about 340 million PCs worldwide. This is a handy-dandy little webpage you can use to see how secure your browser is.  Here’s my browser using Google Chrome: My Firefox browser only gets a 2 out of 4, while Internet Explorer gets a 4 out of 4!  Now, in fairness, this application was designed by Microsoft and so it is skewed towards the security features that Microsoft considers important.  However, the grading system is transparent: Dangerous Downloads (1 point total) – Does the browser help protect you from websites that are known to distribute socially engineered malware?  IE 9 gets 1 point, Firefox gets 0 and Chrome gets 0.

In today’s post, I’ll provide a high-level overview of features in Internet Explorer that impact the loading of ActiveX controls.

Just a few features showing off why Bing is a better search experience.  Check out the enchanced movie listing feature video below on the left. Then take a look at the Bing map features demo on the right

What are you waiting for? You must try the new Windows Phone 7 it is a great phone! I love the Zune integration. Here is a new ad showing how incredible this phone really is, check it out. 

Overview This is the second installment in an ongoing series of my experiences developing for Windows Phone 7.  I am calling them issues because “episodes” sound a lot like a video series, “parts” would signify a predetermined beginning and end, and “issue” has a nice double entendre .  These are, after all, issues I hit while writing my own application and hopefully an area you won’t after reading this.   If you missed the first issue you can read it here .

These are unofficial Adobe Illustrator templates for building Windows Phone 7 wireframes created by Clarity Consulting.  Read more about them and download here: http://blogs.claritycon.com/windowsphone7/2011/01/12/wicked-wireframes-wp7-vector-ux-kit-3/ Thanks for sharing!

My teammates and I have decided to kick off the new year with a new Firestarter based totally on Silverlight and Windows 7! Like all Firestarters the day will be designed around taking you from the beginning steps of the platform up through more advanced topics.  This event is totally free, open to all east coast developers and will include over six hours of content and free lunch!  Why should I attend? Windows 7 and Silverlight make for a fantastic platform to build and deploy applications.

The Real World Windows Azure series spoke to Rok Bermež, Lead Programmer at Kompas Xnet, and Uroš Žunič, Development Manager at Kompas Xnet, about using the Windows Azure platform to deliver cloud-based website solutions for the company’s customers. Here’s what they had to say: MSDN: Can you give us a quick summary of what Kompas Xnet does and who you serve? Bermež: Kompas Xnet was originally established as the IT support and training group for the Slovenian company KOMPAS d.o.o.

The HTML5 family of specifications provide two different models for vector graphics : canvas and SVG . Why have both?

In the previous step we created a sandbox and a simple report. The design for the report was stored in the Customers.rdlc file. In this step we will play with Customers.rdlc to learn about the basic features available in the report design surface in visual studio

As many of you will know, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is officially being released today – perhaps has already been released as I am writing this. Ubuntu 10.04 is an Long Term Support (LTS) version.

Came across this one while looking for information and think its a great resource that wanted to share.