spiderwebwoman : Web Standards

Firefox 3.5.6 works in Expression Web 3 SuperPreview

Kathleen Anderson — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:19:14 GMT

The Expression Web Team blog blogged last month about a Firefox bug their customers encountered using SuperPreview with Firefox version 3.5.5. With the newest release of Firefox 3.5.6, the Mozilla team has fixed the bug. They recommend that you update to this latest version of Firefox 3.5 to use it again in SuperPreview.

More at: Expression Web team blog

Express yourself for less

Kathleen Anderson — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:57:00 GMT

From now until December 28, 2009, Expression Web 3 and Expression Studio 3 (Full & upgrade) are 30% off at the Microsoft Store.

This promotion is US only and requires no promo code.

Free Internet Explorer debugging tool: Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview for Windows Internet Explorer

Kathleen Anderson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:44:19 GMT

Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer is a free stand-alone visual debugging tool that makes it faster and easier to migrate your sites from Internet Explorer 6 to Internet Explorer 7 or 8. Expression Web SuperPreview for Internet Explorer shows your web pages rendered in Internet Explorer 6 and either Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8, depending on which version you have installed on your machine.

More at the Expression Web team blog

Microsoft Expression 2 on sale for 50% off - limited time offer – hurry!

Kathleen Anderson — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:29:15 GMT

There’s a great deal going on now at the Microsoft Online Store. All Expression 2 products are on sale for 50% off. This is a great deal – Expression Web 2 normally sells for $299.95 – it’s on sale now for only $149.95. Also, buying Expression 2 now will enable you to get Expression 3 at upgrade pricing when Version 3 is released - there will not be a free upgrade/grace period option.

This offer is US only.

Creating Accessible Online Forms with Expression Web 2

Kathleen Anderson — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:24:00 GMT

I’ve had another article published in the Microsoft Expression Newsletter - Creating Accessible Online Forms with Expression Web 2. This article focuses on what makes an online form not accessible and how to create accessible forms.

More at: Creating Accessible Online Forms with Expression Web 2

Designing Web Sites for Accessibility with Expression Web 2

Kathleen Anderson — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:09:00 GMT

I’ve just had an article published in the latest issue of the Microsoft Expression Newsletter - Designing Web Sites for Accessibility with Expression Web 2. The article covers the reasons why you should make your web site accessible to people with disabilities, and how to use the tools in Expression Web 2 to make your web content accessible. I’m hoping this is the first in a series – there are many topics to be covered that there wasn’t room for in this article. You can subscribe to the Expression Newsletter and receive it by email every other month.

Register for MIX09 by Feb 13 and Save $400

Kathleen Anderson — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:54:09 GMT

To take advantage of this offer, go to MIX 09 registration (https://register.visitmix.com/registrationselect.aspx) and select the "Register for the event using an RSVP Code" option. Enter the RSVP code MIX09offer to receive your discounted conference pass.

At MIX09, you’ll get in-depth exposure to exciting new Microsoft technologies, exchange ideas with fellow developers and designers, meet the industry’s thought leaders and be inspired. MIX09 brings together the best ideas, sessions, parties and people, and it’s where you’ll find everything you need to <3 your Web.

Explore the next wave of opportunities and help redefine the boundaries between content and commerce, PC and TV, Windows® and the Web
Be inspired by an impressive lineup of UX, design and development sessions
Connect with experts on a wide range of topics for one-on-one guidance and inspiration
Learn about the future of Silverlight™, Internet Explorer®, Expression®, ASP.NET and other web technologies from Microsoft
Network with executives from Microsoft and some of the world’s largest web sites and interactive agencies

MIX09 brings together the best ideas, sessions, and people, and it’s where you’ll find everything you need to <3 your Web.

W3C MobileOK Checks Mobile Friendliness of Websites

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:56:44 GMT

Earlier this month, the World Wide Web Consortium announced the availability of the W3C mobileOK checker, a free service that performs various tests on a Web page to help you determine its level of mobile-friendliness.

According to W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee, mobileOK checker builds on the suite of quality assurance tools already offered by W3C and "does a nice job helping you improve your content one step at a time."

To help ensure the best user experience across a variety of mobile devices, the Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group defined a set of recommended guidelines to follow when creating Web documents: the Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 specification.

The checker is at: http://validator.w3.org/mobile/

More at: W3C MobileOK Checks Mobile Friendliness of Websites - ReadWriteWeb

Chris Koenig : Microsoft Expression at 50% Off!

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:44:00 GMT

Hey friends – I just heard from Renee, the Microsoft Expression Product Manager, that there is a KILLER offer going on right now for a 50% off discount on Microsoft Expression Studio, Expression Blend and Expression Web when you buy through the Microsoft Online Store. This offer is only good for a limited time, so if you’re in the market for Expression, get over to our new Online Store right now! Expression Studio would make a GREAT gift for the most special people in your office.

Edit: This offer is good in the US only.

H/T to Chris Koenig : Microsoft Expression at 50% Off!

Spread Firefox | Download Day 2008

Kathleen Anderson — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:02:34 GMT

Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 will be posted on the Spread Firefox web site. Pledge to download Firefox 3during Download day and they will send you an email when the day arrives.

Link: Spread Firefox | Download Day 2008

Expression Studio 2 RTMs today!

Kathleen Anderson — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:06:27 GMT

Last year the Microsoft Expression team shipped a new suite of tools for creative professionals. This first release of Expression Studio marked a significant milestone in the history of development tools at Microsoft, delivering superior designer-developer workflow and providing designers a set of interaction design, graphic design, Web design, digital asset management and video production tools to deliver better user experiences on Windows and the Web.

I am pleased to announce, just one year later, the team has done it again with today’s release of Microsoft Expression Studio 2.

More at: Somasegar's WebLog : Expression Studio 2 RTMs today!

Expression Web 2 Beta - "FrontPage" Design Time Includes are back

Kathleen Anderson — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:22:00 GMT

One of the reasons I haven't used Expression Web as my main design tool is the lack of a built-in feature comparable to the FrontPage Design Time Include Component. I'm happy to report that the Include function is back in the Expression Web 2 Beta. It's not a button on the Standard Toolbar, but there is a way to add it and the functionality is there. It works the same way it does in FrontPage 2003.

Expression Web 2 Beta released

Kathleen Anderson — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:18:00 GMT

Building on the successful launch of Microsoft Expression Web and after listening closely to your feedback, we are excited to announce the release of Microsoft Expression Web 2 Beta. This Beta release expands your toolset beyond HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, by putting PHP, Silverlight, and ASP.NET AJAX within your reach.

Stacked with new features, Expression Web 2 provides essential tools to design standards-based websites. Web professionals can now author websites on the PHP platform more efficiently with features such as PHP syntax highlighting and statement completion (IntelliSense). Additionally for PHP, we provide an elegant solution that current Expression Web users rave about for previewing ASP.NET pages: Expression Web 2 lets you preview PHP pages locally without a separate development web server! Expression Web 2 supports interactive web content such as Silverlight and Flash, enabling you to easily include this content in your sites. Improved workflow enables you to import Adobe Photoshop designs into your sites with layer visibility control, and reimport changes with layer settings retained. New and enhanced productivity features boost your performance!

Note: You can safely install the BETA of Expression Web 2 on a computer that also has Expression Web 1 on it. If you participated in a private preview program for Expression Web 2, you should uninstall the private preview version of Expression Web 2 before you install the BETA version.

To download and install the Expression Web 2 Beta, click here.

To submit suggestions and bugs, click here.

Link: Expression Web team blog : Expression Web 2 BETA

Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit

Kathleen Anderson — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:20:41 GMT

Welcome to the Windows^®Internet Explorer^®8 Readiness Toolkit, the first place to look when you’re ready to optimize web sites and applications for Internet Explorer 8. Here is a message from Chris Wilson, IE Platform Architect:

"Welcome to Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1, the latest test release of the most popular browser!
This release contains some great advances in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and layout, programming model, performance, reliability, usability and service integration. We are eager to ensure that the transition to Internet Explorer 8 is seamless for you and your audience, and to give you a head start on using many of the new features with your sites and services. We encourage you to test your sites and services, and our platform implementation, and give us feedback!"

Link: Internet Explorer 8 Readiness Toolkit

Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8

Kathleen Anderson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:05:39 GMT

IE8 will act like IE8, not IE7.

We’ve decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we’ve posted previously.

Why Change?

Microsoft recently published a set of Interoperability Principles. Thinking about IE8’s behavior with these principles in mind, interpreting web content in the most standards compliant way possible is a better thing to do.

We think that acting in accordance with principles is important, and IE8’s default is a demonstration of the interoperability principles in action. While we do not believe any current legal requirements would dictate which rendering mode a browser must use, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue. As stated above, we think it’s the better choice.

The rest of this blog post provides context around the different modes, the technical challenge, and what it means going forward.

More at: IEBlog : Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8

Cool Offer and Information for Canadian Web Designers

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:51:00 GMT

If you use FrontPage (or you know someone who uses FrontPage) - we have good news for you if you are considering upgrading your toolset. Expression Web provides a really solid Web authoring tool to create and maintain sites based on standards-compliant code. I have a non-technical friend (a theatre producer) who bought Expression Web on my advice (he was a hardcore FrontPage user), and he found Expression Web very easy to use and intuitive.

The Expression team has a great upgrade offer - if you purchase Expression Web between now and June 30 2008, you can receive a free 80 GB USB drive and a complimentary copy of "Microsoft Expression Web Step by Step"! Visit this site to learn more about the offer.

Canadian Developers : Cool Offer and Information for Canadian Web Designers

The Signal Episode 8: Erik Saltwell, PHP, and Wordpress

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 14:36:34 GMT

Listen to Erik Saltwell and Nishant Kothary talk about user experience, why “designer” is an imprecise term, the aesthetics of markup, upcoming features in Expression Web, PHP IntelliSense and #includes, the WordPress and PHP session at MIX08, and Erik on customer intimacy (SFW).

It's almost 40 minutes long, but very enlightening and well worth your time. Really makes me wish I could go to MIX08, but it's just not in the cards for me this year.

Added two tools to my designer toolbox today - Safari for Windows and JSLint

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:02:00 GMT

I've always wondered what my sites looked like, and more importantly, if they worked, on a Mac. I've got my eye on the MacBook Pro, but I'm waiting until Leopard with BootCamp comes out. Today, I downloaded Safari for Windows, and sure enough, I found a drop down menu on one of my sites that didn't work. It had no options in the drop down list other than the first one, no "Submit" button and worse than that, all the content underneath it was gone! I eyeballed the JavaScript and couldn't find the problem, so I Googled for Javascript validator and found JSLint. The author, Douglas Crockford, keeps it up-to-date and it's free. All you need to do is copy your page source into a text box on the page and hit the JSLint button. It will validate as much of your script as it can, and it's pretty clear about telling you what the problem is. I was able to fix the page and get it working in Safari in no time. I highly recommend adding both of these tools to your toolbox.

Phizzpop! at ReMIX07 in Boston

Kathleen Anderson — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 22:53:00 GMT

Phizzpop is a new part of MIX Online that lets agency designers and developers interact, share, and show off their stuff. It's going to be announced at ReMIX07 in Boston next week (have you registered yet?), but you can view a demo and try it for yourself now.

Another reason why you should attend ReMIX07 in Boston

Kathleen Anderson — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 13:34:00 GMT

According to Jeff Barnes, every ReMIX07 Boston attendee will receive a voucher for a $120 online shopping spree at the Microsoft Company store. I'm assuming this is a voucher to spend $120 of your own money, as opposed to being a $120 gift certificate, but it's a great deal. I've shopped at the Company Store both in person and online, and the merchandise and prices are great!