March 2009 - Posts
After my post about IE8 last week I got an email from someone asking me to explain more about other security features and also the Compatibility View that you can use. As always with a new bro
wser, there might be web sites that are not displayed correctly. With compatibility view you can still see web sites designed for older browsers as they should be. You find the Compatibility View button just right to the address bar. When you install IE8 you get the choice to opt-in to a list of sites that will automatically be displayed in Compatibility View. The sites of the list are added there based on customer feedback and usage. You can also have your own list of sites that will always be opened in Compatibility View. From the Command Bar, select Tools, and then select Compatibility View Settings to add and remove sites from this list.
Around security I wanted to mention something about Malware and Phishing and what we do to protect you against that. In IE7 we introduced the Phishing Filter to help you avoid these type of attacks. In IE8 we build upon that and add anti-malware support, better performance etc. The result is the Smart Screen Filter. You will get warned when you access a site that is known for distributing malware. If you try to download something from that site you will also receive a warning. The Smart Screen Filter is of course optional and you can turn it on and off as you go but we highly recommend you to have it on as default. Read more about this here
If you are interested in learning more about all the security features of IE8, I recommend you to check the Security tag of the IE8 Blog
I just came across a really good site that we have built to try to help out in today’s tough economic environment. It’s called Thrive you find useful links, videos and other material. It starts with a welcome message from Tony Scott, CIO at Microsoft, and then focuses on 3 things:
- Advance Your Career: You find recommendations on how to write a resume, how and why to get certified, free online trainings available, how to use body language during an interview etc.
- Enhance Your Technical Skills: You find interviews, web casts, radio shows etc focusing on Virtualization and Desktop Optimization
- Align IT with Business: You find web casts, white papers, analytics reports around how to save cost, how to calculate Return On Investment (ROI), case studies etc.
I really think you should take a look at this. Especially the career and alignment parts is something we so often forget about. Even if you’re an expert in your job with a competence that is needed in your company we all need to understand how we can show that technology helps the business against competitors and that you are betting on the right thing!
The April Edition of TechNet Magazine is now available online. This issue focuses on the upcoming release of Internet Explorer 8 and what is new in the interface for end users, like Web Slices and Accelerators but also on security enhancements, enterprise features and developer tools. Check out the article on “What’s New in Internet Explorer 8”. You also find articles on High Performance Computing, Active Directory and much more.
Internet Explorer 8 is now released and available for download! This is a faster browser than previous versions and as an end user you get some new cool features like Accelerators, Web Slices and InPrivate Browsing.
With Accelerators you can highlight a word and by right clicking you can chose from a menu of things to do with the highlighted text. If you highlight a city you can map it, do a search on it or look it up on Wikipedia. You find tons of Accelerators on the Add-ons Gallery. I found one that translates English words into Swedish, wonderful!
Web Slices helps you keep up to date on things like news, weather reports or maybe what’s showing at the movie theatre. By adding a Web Slice in your tool bar, you can in one click see the latest entries on a web page without going there. In some cases it’s very much like RSS feeds, especially for news but one example is eBay, where you can keep track on a specific auction and what bids come in. See a list of Web Slices here or look for this 
green icon when you visit web pages.
When you open up a new tab you can click InPrivate Browsing. IE8 will then start a new browser session that won't record any information, including searches and history.
That was a few reasons for using IE8, download it now if you’re running Windows XP or Windows Vista. If you’re running Windows 7 Beta you have to wait for an update from Windows Update.
You also have to view this funny video about The History of Internet, do you remember the Hamster Dance?
I just found a report talking about how Microsoft works with external security researches to understand how to best protect the code against attacks and how to fix vulnerabilities. The report is part of a series that you can find on the Windows Server Compare site and others include information on threat modelling, security education etc. You find all reports here
If you are interested in security I also recommend you to subscribe to our Security Newsletter that we send every month. Click here to subscribe or look at the latest version of the newsletter.
Hi!
This is my first blog post in this portal so I want to first say Welcome! I hope that this portal will be useful to all IT Pros in Vietnam and that you will find useful content, networking opportunities and all sorts of technical information. Spread the word that this portal exists, the more members, the more content and knowledge we can share!