This last week Microsoft released it’s beta of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) to the public after much anticipation throughout the tech industry.

I have been running IE9 Beta since it was released and can honestly say it’s my favorite browser so far, it’s fast, the user interface is minimal and clean and best of all supports HTML5 and CSS3 almost completely.

As a web designer it’s always frustrating trying to code sites to work in the various browsers, especially IE6. IE9 is breath of fresh air to say the least.

Head on over to their informational site: http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/ for more information and to grab the beta, it’s well worth your time.

Microsoft has finally released the RTM versions of it’s Windows Phone 7 development applications and controls. I have been eagerly awaiting this release to finally start flushing out my first WP7 application.

I’m not quite ready to talk about what that application actually is but we think it’s pretty cool.

If you are a WP7 developer or interested in getting your hands dirty in the development world then jump on over to Windows phone website for additional information.

Links:

• Windows Developer Website
• Windows Phone Developer Tools RTW (Includes Visual Studio for Windows Phone 7 and Blend 4)
• Additional WP7 Silverlight Controls (ContextMenu, WrapPanel and ToggleSwitch)
• Mobile Advertising SDK

This release of tools now includes the Panorama and Pivot controls which have been showcased throughout many of Microsoft’s examples.

I dropped the ball last week on upcoming events, but I have a great list for you this week, feel free to suggest other area events in the comment area.

Cold Start Happy Hour (Free)

Monday, April 19, 2010 from 7pm to 9pm

Start practicing your elevator pitch, for the second Cold Start Happy Hour, we’re meeting in The Happy Gnome’s back patio in St. Paul.

We want to hear about the projects you’re working on, share with you what we’ve been working on, and both leave with new local projects to evangelize.

The Happy Gnome
498 Selby Ave
Saint Paul, MN 55102

http://coldstart.eventbrite.com/

Bootstrappers Breakfast

Join Other Entrepreneurs Who
Eat Problems For Breakfast.

* Compare Notes
* Exchange Ideas
* Learn from Others’ Mistakes
* Brainstorm with Peers
* Find Partners
* Small Group Atmosphere
* Serious Conversation

Bootstrappers Breakfasts® are for founders of early stage technology startups. It is a chance to compare notes on operational, development, and business issues with peers. These breakfasts were designed for entrepreneurs to share ideas and leverage thoughts with other folks who are serious about growing their business.

Our focus is on issues for growing a business, not on VC fundraising. We promote the bootstrap business model.

http://www.bootstrappersbreakfast.com/
http://www.meetup.com/Bootstrappers-Breakfast-Minneapolis/

MIMA Event: CATFOA 2010: HASHEM BAJWA, (DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL STRATEGY, DROGA5) (Free)

Monday, April 19, 2010
Doors at 5:00 p.m. Event starts at 6:00 p.m.

Welcome to the third installment of the third year of Conversations About The Future Of Advertising, co-sponsored by MCAD+MIMA.

Fine Line Music Cafe
318 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55401

http://www.mima.org/mimaevts/

Twin Cities Silverlight Group (Free)

Windows Phone 7 and Silverlight – Don’t Make Any Assumptions
4/20/2010 12:00 – 1:30 pm

At MIX10 there were a number of announcements and a lot of buzz around Windows Phone 7 and one of its development platforms, Silverlight. While it is undoubtedly tempting to download the CTP bits and start coding, it would be wise to take a step back and come to an understanding of the differences between developing in Silverlight for Windows Phone 7 and developing for traditional (i.e. browser hosted) Silverlight applications.In this session we’ll examine the differences and similarities between the two platforms as well as some other gotchas that come along with developing for Windows Phone 7.

Meeting will be held at the Microsoft Office. 8300 Norman Center Dr., Suite 950, Bloomington, MN 55437

http://www.tcslug.com/

Minnesota Visual Studio User Group

3rd Wed of Every Month @ 5pm

A walkthrough of some the the exciting new features of .NET 4.0.

Microsoft
8300 Norman Center Dr., Suite 950 Bloomington, MN 55437

http://www.vstsmn.com/

Become a LinkedIn Expert – Jobseeker Edition ($99 – $119)

Weekly Event – Every Thursday: 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM (CT)

Maybe you’ve received an e-mail with this message in the Subject line.

Did you ask, “what’s a LinkedIn” or did you just blindly sign up and accept the invitation?

Regardless of which road you took, you need to learn more about the latest trend in job search, social networking. In this presentation you’ll discover what the LinkedIn buzz is all about and how you can leverage this powerful tool to that new job – even in today’s challenging economy.

400 Hwy 169 S
Suite 100 (outside entrance on north side)
Minneapolis, MN 55426

http://linkedinexpertjobseeker.eventbrite.com/

As a web designer I am frequently required to embed a Google or possibly Bing map onto the contact page of a new website. Often times the client or the allotted area for the map can be fairly small making it hard to see the “Pop-up” window which contains the address information and such on the map. Frequently the window will get cut off on the top or it simply is aligned oddly for the size of the map.

The issue:

Notice how the window is cut off and you can’t really see much.

How it should look:

Now you can see the full Pop-up window, yet without having to change the allotted width and height of the map area.

The Solution:

HTML:
<div class="mapContainer">
<iframe width="400" height="550" src="”></div>
</div>

*Note that most of the map code is removed for ease of reading.

CSS:
.mapContainer
{
width:400px;
height: 300px;
overflow: hidden;
}

If you look at the code above you will see a few key elements to make this work.

First, you need to wrap your iFrame in a simple div with a class or id attached to it, in this case it’s just a class called “mapContainer”.

Secondly, in the css code you need to define your height and width, specifically the height. As you will notice I have set the css height to only 300 pixels (my allotted space on my site), but the iFrame height is 550 pixels. (more on this in a bit)

Thirdly, you will notice I have a css attribute: overflow: hidden; – this is important as it allows us to hide anything that may fall outside of our div container.

Now back to the height settings, if you look at the iFrame you will notice it is set to 550px and not the 300px that we have in our css. What we are doing is making the map “extra tall” which in return pull our location marker and pop-up down further inside of the div, thus lining it up the way we want need it to be while not extending outside of our div container since we have the overflow: hidden value set. (You need to fiddle with the height values until you get the desired vertical placement)

And that is all there is to it, pretty simple but very effective.

I have never actually tried it, but I would expect you can have the same results if you need to adjust the horizontal placement as well, just set your iFrame width larger than the css width.

You will only be able to pull the pop-up down and/or right with this technique.

Has anyone else had a similar issue? How did you solve it? Is there a better way? Let me know your thoughts.

Earlier today, a designer, blogger, web standards “king” Jeffrey Zeldman wrote an article called “IE9 Preview” in which he outlines his initial thoughts about IE9, Webkit and overall tone of the IE team.

Zeldman applauses Microsoft’s efforts in it’s improving web standard support into IE such as CSS3, HTML5, SVG and more. On this point I agree with Zeldman that standards support is much desired and sought after by web designers building sites for all the various browsers. On the other hand I disagree with his comments about suggesting that Microsoft should simply switch to webkit so that all/most browsers are running the same engine.

Throughout his article he talks about the issues and drawbacks of the dominance that IE once had and for the moment still maintains (though steadily declining). So then why, at the end of his blog post does he suggest IE should switch to Webkit? It makes no sense to complain about the control of IE as a bad thing then on the flip side praise the idea of total control of another simply because it’s “better”. In my opinion this will lead us down the same path we are trying to get out of with IE6.

Competition is good, always has been and always will be, as someone so embedded in the tech industry as Zeldman is, this seems to have slipped his mind.

Microsoft’s Tone

The primary reason for Zeldman’s blog post was to criticize Microsoft over their tone of announcements. Frankly, the web experiences which Microsoft showed today (in relation to their competitors) is valid reasoning for being excited and even cocky about what they have managed to do. The fact that they were able to play TWO HD videos with minimal CPU usage, using HTML5 on a netbook is pretty impressive. I don’t know of a single company that doesn’t try to show that their product is better than their competitors product, advertising IS being cocky/bragging by nature. Why is he calling Microsoft out but no one else?

If he thinks Microsoft is bad, he should learn about a company called Apple. Do a Youtube search for Mac vs PC and tell me who is cocky, arrogant and bragging. Where are his posts about the misleading advertising in all of Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads? How about Zeldman himself, on his About page he clearly promotes the fact the Business Week calls him the “King of Web Standards”, he doesn’t seem to mind “bragging” and pushing the fact that he is the “KING” in our faces, so why can’t Microsoft brag about what they have developed?

Almost everything Microsoft showed in IE9 today was better than what their competitors are doing for the supposed “Standards”  (which aren’t even standards yet) within other browsers, yet Zeldman bashes Microsoft over it.

People seem to forget that Microsoft can’t just change something overnight, when they change something as big as IE is, then there is lots of potential for lots of things to break and that is bad for everyone. IE9 so far is clearly headed in the right direction, support the fact that Microsoft is working to do things right.