Our customer feedback is overwhelmingly positive. In fact, you can read some of these comments on our website. We’re also on independent review sites such as TrustPilot too.

However, in recent times a handful of customers have commented that they perceive the MIDAS user interface (UI) a little “dated”.

We wanted to begin addressing this for our next MIDAS update. For v4.20 we’ve introduced a number of changes and improvements in this area. You can read about these changes in this blog post.

But it’s also useful to explain some of the challenges we’ve faced with regards to the UI over the years.

Ensuring maximum browser compatibility

As you may or may not know, MIDAS has been in continuous active development for well over a decade. Our philosophy has always been to support ALL popular web browsers. That includes Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Apple Safari, and more recently Microsoft Edge.

Supporting all these browsers has been an enormous task over the years. But we feel strongly that our users should have a choice of which web browser they use. We’ve been committed to ensuring a consistent MIDAS experience across browsers. We believe users shouldn’t forced to use one particular browser in order to use our MIDAS software.

Slow development of Internet Explorer

It’s fair to say that the most difficult web browser to maintain support for over the years continues to be Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The challenge has primarily been because IE has always lagged way behind all other vendor’s browser offerings in terms of its development, updates, and support for the latest standards. Essentially, the web has developed and evolved significantly over the years we’ve been developing MIDAS. Yet over this period, Internet Explorer hasn’t kept up.

To some extent we’ve been “held back” over the years by our decision to continue to support customers who force their uses to use Internet Explorer. However, as of today the only version of Internet Explorer we officially support is 11. We’ve already deprecated support for IE10 & 9, IE8, IE7, and IE6 over the past decade.

Continuing to support MIDAS in IE11 for the very small (and ever decreasing) percentage of our users who continue to use this old browser, limits how we can develop MIDAS, particularly in terms of the user interface.

The demise of Internet Explorer 11

Whilst we would have loved to have dropped IE11 support long ago, Microsoft continue to support IE11. They have committed to providing mainstream support for IE11 until the end of life of the operating systems upon which it’s installed. This includes Windows 7, 8 and 10. Windows 7 & 8 have both now reached their EOL (End Of Life) for mainstream support. Windows 10 however is still actively supported by Microsoft and will continue to be for the foreseeable future (for a minimum of at least two years).

That’s why we’ve taken the difficult – but necessary – decision that at some point during 2019 we’ll officially be dropping IE11 support in MIDAS.

This won’t necessarily mean that MIDAS will suddenly cease to function for IE11 users next year. But it does mean that over time new features and new user interface elements and enhancements may not display or – even function correctly – if you continue to access MIDAS using Internet Explorer 11.

Migrating from Internet Explorer

If you’re currently an IE11 user, there is however, plenty of time to switch to a different web browser. There’s also plenty of choice when it comes to modern alternative web browsers.

MIDAS will continue to be supported in recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Opera.

We appreciate that this may affect a very small number of users. However, we hope this post gives some insight and understanding as to why we’re making this decision. We’re also confident that this will give you plenty of time to switch to an alternative, more modern, web browser.

If you have any questions or concerns over how this may impact you and your organization’s use of MIDAS, please don’t hesitate to contact us. Our friendly team will be only too happy to help!

The post MIDAS and Internet Explorer 11 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

This isn’t strictly true!

What in fact Microsoft have announced is that “Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical support and security updates“.

What this essentially means is that if you’re a Windows 7 user with Internet Explorer 9 or 10 installed, only Internet Explorer 11 will continue to be supported going forward.

However, if you’re a Windows Vista user, the highest version of Internet Explorer that can physically be installed on that operating system is IE 9. Therefore, if you’re currently running IE 7 or 8, only IE 9 will be supported on your operating system going forward, so you should update to IE 9.

The following table from Microsoft outlines which versions of Internet Explorer they will continue to support as from today:

Our web-based room booking and resource scheduling software, MIDAS, is currently supported in IE9+ and all other major browsers.

Over the years we have previously dropped support for MIDAS in IE6 in 2011, IE7 in 2012, and most recently IE8 in 2013.

Whilst we have no immediate plans to drop support for IE9, it’s likely that our support for this aging browser will within the next couple of years. Therefore, if you’re using an older Windows operating system, like using Internet Explorer, and can’t update to a more recent version of Windows, we’d encourage you to at least ensure that your browser is the most up-to-date it can be for your particular operating system.

The post Microsoft kills off Internet Explorer 9 & 10… well, not quite! appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

“Open Source” is a term referring to software that whose source code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone. All other major web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari are based on open-source components). Presently, Internet Explorer is the only one of the big 5 browsers to remain entirely “closed source”.

As part of their #AskIE event on Twitter today, questions were invited on the current status and development of Internet Explorer. One question in particular was posed as to whether Internet Explorer would “ever consider going open source to speed up develop/bug fixing?“. The response to this question from the people behind the browser was “We consider many things!“

Why is this significant?

Well, Microsoft have come under much criticism in the past over how slowly they release major updates to their browser. Five years passed, for example, between the releases of IE6 and IE7, and then another 3 before IE8! (Compare that with say Mozilla, who’ve been releasing major updates to Firefox every six weeks for some time now!). Whilst there were of course critical “security updates” and patches to IE in those big gaps between major releases, no “new features” or support for new web standards were introduced. This meant a headache for developers of websites and web based apps.

Developers had to ensure “backwards compatibility” with “stagnant” versions of IE. At the same time, developers wished they could take advantage of newer web standards and technologies which all the other major browsers supported, yet IE didn’t.

In the development of our browser based room booking system, MIDAS, we’ve had to take difficult decisions in the past. We’ve previously decided to drop support for IE6, IE7 and then most recently IE8. This was despite these browsers still having notable market share at the time we took those decisions.

To add to that, whenever Microsoft have released a “major” update to Internet Explorer, it’s not always available for all Windows Operating Systems. Windows XP users for example can’t run anything higher than IE8. Actually, if you’re still using Windows XP… well, you really shouldn’t be!!

Would Internet Explorer becoming “open source” help?

Well, first of all, more developers would be able to get involved in the project by adding support for new and emerging technologies and standards. Secondly, it would also mean that bugs could be more readily identified and fixed. These two factors alone would undoubtedly lead to a faster release cycle, and greater compatibility with the latest standards!

In terms of support for the latest web standards, Internet Explorer is way behind. IE11 (the current version of IE generally available) is only 67% compatible with the latest web standards. This compares to Opera 22 and Firefox 30, both on 85%, with Google Chrome 35 edging ahead with 86% compatibility (Source: caniuse.com)

We’d love to see a faster release cycle for Internet Explorer and the same support for technologies and standards in IE that other browsers have had for some time!

On a positive note, earlier this week, a new “developer preview” of Internet Explorer emerged. This was made available through the new “Internet Explorer Developer Channel“. This preview is designed to give developers like us a first look at what to expect in IE12. The big question now is how long will it be until IE12 actually becomes available to end users? Will Microsoft wait until Windows 9 is released (Like they did with IE10 and Windows 8), or will we see the next major update to Internet Explorer sooner?

Let’s hope so!

The post Could Internet Explorer become open source? appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

We put the latest web browsers head-to-head to try to find out which one is best!

In developing a powerful and feature-rich browser based room booking and resource scheduling system that’s supported in all five major browsers, we often get asked “So, which is the best web browser?”.

This time last year we put Chrome 23, Firefox 16, Internet Explorer 9 & 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5 head-to-head

Now, twelve months on, and less than a week since Internet Explorer 11 became available for Windows 7, Firefox celebrated its ninth birthday, and just a day after Google Chrome 31 is released, we decided it was high time to once again put the latest web browsers offerings “head-to-head” and independently, rigorously test and benchmark them to find out which one of the five major browsers is currently “the best”….

Browsers Tested

Google Chrome 31	Mozilla Firefox 25	Internet Explorer 11	Opera 17	Apple Safari 5

The Tests

We broadly tested four key areas of browser performance: Speed, Memory Usage, Compliance with standards, and Javascript Performance.

1. Speed

The “Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser upon its first run after a computer reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which its user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.

The “Non-Cold Start” test measures the time taken to load up the browser on second and subsequent runs after its first run after a reboot. This is measured from the point at which the browser is executed until the point at which the user interface (UI) is ready to accept input.

With the browser open, an empty cache, and showing a blank page (about:blank), the “Page Load Time (No-Cached Load)” test measures the time taken to completely load a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the “Enter” key is pressed on the URL in the browser’s address bar until the point at which the test web page has fully loaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).

With the browser open, and the test web page already loaded in a single tab, the “Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)” test measures the time taken to reload a complex web page. This is measured from the point at which the F5 key (refresh) is pressed until the point at which the test web page has fully reloaded (as reported by an “onLoad” event on the test web page).

2. Memory Usage

The “Base Memory Usage (Blank Tab)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with just a single blank (about:blank) tab open.

The “Memory Usage (10 open tabs)” test measures the amount of memory used by the browser with 10 tabs open, each displaying the home page of a popular website.

3. Compliance

The “HTML5 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the HTML5 specification.

The “CSS3 Compliance” test measures how well each browser conforms to the current state of the CSS3 specification.

4. Javascript Performance

There are a number of different Javascript Performance Benchmark tests available today, all of which give quite different results. We’ve analyzed results from 6 of the most popular Benchmarking Tests and aggregated the results below:

Individual details of each of the 6 individual Javascript benchmark test suits used to arrived at these aggregated scores may be found in our full test report, available to view/download at the end of this page.

Summary

Category	Test	Winner	Runner-Up
Speed	Cold Start
	Non-Cold Start
	Page Load Time (Non-Cached Load)
	Page Load Time (Reload from Cache)
Memory Usage	Base Memory
	10 Open Tabs
Compliance	HTML5
	CSS3
Performance	Javascript Performance (Aggregate)

Results

1st Place	2nd Place	3rd Place	4th Place	5th Place
Google Chrome 31	Opera 17	Internet Explorer 11	Mozilla Firefox 25	Apple Safari 5

The above overall positions were derived based upon the sum of the positions that each browser finished in, in each of our tests. For example, in our HTML 5 compliance test, Chrome came first and so was assigned 1 point, Safari came 5th and so was assigned 5 points. Browsers were then ranked according to the lowest number of points to give the 1st-5th places above (1st being the best)

Analysis

Google Chrome
When we last tested the five major browsers back in November 2012, Chrome came first in 8 out of 13 our tests, making it a clear winner!
A year later, and Chrome is still going strong, coming top in 8 out of 15 tests, and second in a further two tests.
Where Chrome still doesn’t perform quite as well is when it comes to its memory usage, using well over 3 times as much memory with a single blank tab open than Internet Explorer 11.

Mozilla Firefox
We were a little surprised that Firefox only came top in 3 out of 15 tests, and only once came runner-up. To Firefox’s credit, its main strength still seems to be in its memory usage. With 10 websites open in separate tabs, the amount of memory used was less than half that of Chrome with the same ten sites open.

Internet Explorer
We were pleasantly surprised by the improvement of Internet Explorer 11 over previous versions as well as other browsers.
IE11 came top in a couple of our tests, and runner-up in a further three.
Where IE11 appears to have improved most over earlier versions of Microsoft’s browser in is the length of time taken to load and pages (either from a server, or from the cache) as well as start/restart the browser itself. In our tests, starting IE11 took just 0.01463 seconds! – some 280x quicker than Opera started.
That said, in general Internet Explorer 11 still has a way to go to come up to par with the other major browsers in terms of HTML 5 compliance.

Opera
A lot has changed with Opera since we last tested browsers twelve months ago. Since then, Opera have switched from using their own “Presto” layout rendering engine to instead using the same engine as Chrome.
Whilst this change has been received with mixed reviews by Opera users, with some unhappy that many of Opera’s original features were dropped, our test results actually show that the “new” Opera is a browser to be reckoned with, out performing Internet Explorer 11, Firefox 25 and Safari 5 in our tests.
Opera 17 came top in 3 out of our 15 tests, and runner-up in 6.
The browser also scored highly on HTML5/CSS3 compliance and in our aggregated Javascript performance tests, however, Opera’s memory usage was fairly high, second only to Chrome. Opera 17 was slow to start, however, once running it loaded and rendered web pages swiftly.

Safari
Our browsers tests were performed on a Windows machine (test specifics are included at the end of this report). Whilst the latest version of Safari is 7, Apple took the decision after the release of Safari 5.1 to no longer continue developing Safari for Windows users – a mistake in our view! Therefore, the most recent version of Safari available to Windows users is 5.1.7, which was used in our testing.
Given that Safari 5.1.7 is now the oldest of the 5 browsers tested, it follows that is doesn’t perform as well as its peers.
However, surprisingly, it did come runner-up in both our memory tests as well as our non-cold start test.

Conclusions – From a Developers Perspective

From our perspective, as developers of a leading web-based room booking and resource scheduling solution, perhaps the most important factors in determining which browser is “best” are compliance with the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards. As we work hard to ensure our software works well in all the major browsers, this is where having universal standards between browsers becomes so important. In theory, a website (or in our case, a web app), should look and behave the same regardless of the browser being used, which should in theory happen if all browsers complied 100% with standards! Chrome 31 currently comes the closest to the HTML 5 standard with 93% compliance, but as can be seen, CSS3 compliance still has a long way to go for all browsers, with the winning browser in the CSS3 compliance test (Opera 17) only achieving 58% compliance.

Speed (page load time) and Javascript Performance are also important factors for us, as we want our web app to be as fast and responsive as possible. Opera 17 and Chrome 25 loaded pages faster in our tests, with Internet Explorer 11 following close behind. As for performance, both Chrome 25 and Opera 17 outperformed other browsers in our aggregated Javascript performance test scores.

A few surprising finds:

• Microsoft have made some significant steps forward with Internet Explorer 11 over earlier incarnations of their browser.
• Opera 17 performed better than expected
• Firefox 25 performed worse than expected, finishing an overall 4th place in our tests.

MIDAS, our popular Browser-Based Room & Resource Scheduling Software is currently supported in all browser versions we’ve tested here. Find out more at https://mid.as

Conclusions – So which browser should I use then!?

• If you work with lots of browser tabs open at once, and/or the amount of available memory on your system is limited, Firefox 25 would seem a good choice of browser to use, as this used the less memory than other browsers under the same conditions.

• If you regularly open and close your browser, Internet Explorer 11 or Firefox 25 would seem a good choice as these browsers start up quickly. If, however, you tend to keep your browser running most of the time, Opera 17 would be a better choice, as even though its start-up time is considerably longer, initial page load times are the quickest of all the browsers we tested

• If you’re still using an earlier version of Internet Explorer – it’s certainly worth upgrading to IE11, or if that’s not possible (for example, if you’re using Windows XP, you won’t be able to update your Internet Explorer past version 8!), maybe it’s time to try a different browser!?

• At the end of the day, use the browser that you feel most comfortable with! …BUT make sure you keep it up-to-date, and don’t ignore the competition – if you do, you risk being left behind as other browsers overtake yours in terms of their speed, security, memory usage, standard compliance, and performance!

• In recent years, browsers such as Internet Explorer and Opera have been somewhat overlooked by many regular internet users – but if you’ve not used these browsers for years having previously dismissed them – a lot has changed, and it’s certainly worth giving them a second look again now!

View/Download The Complete Web Browser Test Report HERE

Test Specifics

Browsers Tested: Chrome 31.0.1650.48 m | Firefox 25.0 | Internet Explorer 11.0.9600.16428 | Opera 17 (Build 1652) | Safari 5.1.7 (7534.57.2)

Browser tests were performed on an Intel® Atom™ CPU D525 @ 1.80GHz system, with 4GB Ram, running Windows Home Server 2011 SP1 (Windows Server 2008 R2) 64-bit. Each browser was a clean install, using default install and browsers settings, and with no extensions/addons installed or enabled.

Speed tests were measured using Rob Keir’s millisecond timer and PassMark AppTimer v1.0. Each speed test was performed 10 times for each browser, and the results averaged to provide the data presented in this report.

Compliance Tests: HTML5 | CSS3

Javascript Performance Tests: Dromaeo | Speed-Battle | Sunspider | Peacekeeper | Octane | BrowserMark

Memory usage was measured 60 seconds after tabs had finished loading and was measured through the Windows Task Manager. Memory usage includes all associated processes running with the browser (for example, running Safari spawns both “Safari.exe” and “WebKit2WebProcess.exe” processes, the memory usage of both is taken into account)

The 10 sites open in tabs when measuring memory usage (10 open tabs) were:
https//mid.as | http://news.bbc.co.uk | http://facebook.com | https://twitter.com | http://google.co.uk | https://youtube.com | http://wikipedia.org | http://linkedin.com | http://bing.com | http://amazon.co.uk

Test Date: 13 November 2013

The post Best Browser: IE11, Chrome 31, Firefox 25, Opera 17, or Safari 5? appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – IE11 coming later this year? / IE10 available for Windows 7 / Farewell IE8
• Firefox – v20 now available… and a new rendering engine on the horizon?
• Chrome – v26 out now… and ANOTHER new rendering engine on the horizon?!
• Opera – 12.15 now available… and a change in rendering engine to.. WebKit? no wait.. Blink?
• Safari – What will all these rendering engine changes to other browsers mean for Safari?

Internet Explorer

Microsoft are busy working on their next update for Windows 8, currently billed as being “Windows 8.1”. It’s expected to be available in the latter half of this year. Windows 8.1 will almost be a kind of “service pack” for Windows 8, but will also contain a number of improvements and updates to apps & software. Perhaps the most exciting updating coming with Windows 8.1 will be Internet Explorer 11.

Yes, that’s right, no sooner is IE10 out of the door, and Microsoft are following it up with IE11 in a relatively short space of time (well, for them anyway!). We think this is great to see from Microsoft! In the past, updates to their flagship browser have been few and far between. Compare that with Mozilla’s current release cycle for Firefox, churning out a new version of Firefox every 6 weeks!

MIDAS will be supported in IE11 when it becomes available. It remains presently unknown as to whether IE11 will be “exclusive” to Windows 8.1, or if like IE10, it will also be made available for Windows 7 users as well.

…and yes, you did read that right – Internet Explorer 10 is available for Windows 7 right now! (and has been for over a month). If you’re a Windows 7 and Internet Explorer user, we strongly recommend that you update to IE10 get the best out of MIDAS.

Finally, if you’re still an Internet Explorer 8 user please read our “Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8” post. Essentially, please upgrade your browser… as we won’t be supporting MIDAS in IE8 indefinitely!

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla’s rapid release cycle means that we’re now up to Firefox version 20! In a tweet yesterday, the Firefox team claim that with their latest version of Firefox “you can get the web up to 7 times faster than older versions”.

Mozilla also announced last week that they were collaborating with Samsung on a new rendering engine, named “Servo”. A “rendering engine” is essentially what converts raw web page code into what you actually see on your browser screen. Mozilla’s long standing rendering engine has been “Gecko”, but according to Mozilla;

“Servo is a research project to develop a new web browser engine. Our goal is to create an architecture that takes advantage of parallelism at many levels, both on the CPU and GPU, while eliminating common sources of bugs and security vulnerabilities associated with incorrect memory management and data races. With Servo, we aim to take the kinds of fluid, richer multimedia experiences expected in today’s smart phone and tablet applications to the next level on tomorrow’s web and tomorrow’s hardware.”

“Servo” is still in its early days and according to Mozilla;

“It’s too early to say how [Servo] will be adopted going forward. No decision has been made as to whether Servo will replace Gecko. Gecko remains the ‘productised’ web engine for Mozilla.“

So it may be that Servo ends up being a rendering engine for Mozilla’s smartphone/tablet browsers, and Gecko remains for desktop Firefox editions. This could get confusing, but it’s more likely over time that Mozilla will standardize their rendering engine across all platforms.

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v20+ recommended)

Google Chrome

The current version of Google’s Chrome browser is v26. Ever since its first release – which was only 4 years ago! – Chrome has always used the WebKit rendering engine, most notably used by Apple’s Safari web browser. Chrome’s subsequent input into the WebKit project has really driven WebKit development forward in the last four years. WebKit is now arguably the most standards-compliant of all the rendering engines currently used by the major browsers.

However, Google recently announced that they would be developing a new rendering engine for Chrome, called “Blink”. Blink is expected to make it into builds of Chrome within just 10 weeks! Unlike Mozilla’s “Servo” engine, which is being built from the ground up, Blink is heavily based on the WebKit project.

Google have released a Blink Q&A video if you’re interested in learning more about this new rendering engine and its implementation

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v26+ recommended)

Opera

Opera are having a bit of a turbulent time of late, and in some respects appear to be loosing a sense of focus and direction!
The Opera browser was first released in late 1994. This makes it the longest running browser that’s still in active development and current use today.

Apart from its longevity, what also makes Opera unique is their own “Presto” rendering engine.

Now, you may remember that back in January, we reported that Opera were making a switch from Presto to WebKit. Well, at least for their mobile browser offerings.

Then in February, it was confirmed that Opera would drop Presto for their entire range on browsers (not just mobile).

This was a move that surprised a lot of analysts, and received a mixed response from Opera’s loyal user base.

Whilst it would have been sad to see a very mature rendering engine being put out to pasture, it would have meant that with Google and Opera both contributing to WebKit (along with Safari). This would provide more continuity between browsing experiences on the three browsers. Also with three major organizations contributing to the development of WebKit, it would have become very powerful. It would certainly have Mozilla and Internet Explorer (who don’t use WebKit) quaking in their boots!

…but this was before Google announced Blink… and shortly afterwards, Opera changed their minds. Opera decided to jump on the Blink band-wagon too, after having gone all out and confirming they were moving to WebKit!!

So it’s a little confusing at the moment as to the direction that Opera are going down! ..but as things stand, here are the list of rendering engines that the five major browsers are using/will be using in the near future:

Browser	Current Rending Engine	Future Rendering Engine
Internet Explorer	Trident	Trident
Mozilla Firefox	Gecko	Servo?
Google Chrome	WebKit	Blink
Opera	Presto	Blink?
Apple Safari	WebKit	WebKit

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

Safari

As you’ll know from our previous Web Browser Roundups – it’s been pretty quiet on the Safari development front in recent months. There’s not much happening on the face of it!

Safari’s rendering engine is WebKit, and last month it looked like both Google and Opera would begin contributing code to the WebKit project. In fact, Opera even began contributing code to WebKit.

This was before Google announced it was moving away from WebKit in favor of a new rendering engine, Blink. Then Opera followed suit and announced it was also teaming up with Google for the new Blink rendering engine.

So what will this mean for WebKit and the Safari browser that will soon be the sole user and primary contributor to the WebKit project?

Well, it remains to be seen! WebKit was successfully developed without Google’s input in the days before Chrome. It may well survive without Google’s input in the future. But with Google and Opera pooling resources into Blink, and Firefox potentially introducing a new rendering engine too, the WebKit team (and Safari) are going to be facing a tough challenge to keep up!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

The post Web Browser Roundup – April 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

To allow us to continue to develop new and exciting features for MIDAS, occasionally it becomes necessary for us to “phase out” support for older browsers. This is when a browser’s market share drops very low, and it becomes too difficult and time-consuming to maintain compatibility with, limiting the capabilities of our scheduling software – which relies on your web browser.

For example, if you’re still running MIDAS in IE8 you’re already missing out on some features. This includes the ability to quickly drag-and-drop bookings around the booking grid to instantly reschedule them! We’ve not purposefully held this feature back from IE8 – the browser itself simply doesn’t support it!

Browser compatibility with the latest web technologies and standards (HTML5, CSS3, SVG, etc)

Source: caniuse.com

We have previously dropped support for Internet Explorer 6, back in 2010. Two years later in early 2012 we also dropped support for Internet Explorer 7.

Back in November 2012, we first indicated that in the near future we would be dropping support for Internet Explorer 8.

At the start of this year, we gave further notice that IE8 support would likely be dropped “during the course of 2013“. At the same time we introduced a new feature to help notify users if their browser is too old:

Major companies such as Google have already discontinued support for Internet Explorer 8. Google took the decision in September 2012 to drop IE8 support across their range of services (including YouTube, Gmail, Docs, Drive, Blogger, etc) with effect from 15th November 2012.

Microsoft’s 10th and latest incarnation of Internet Explorer was first introduced with Windows 8. Last month, IE10 also became available to Windows 7 users.

Given the global availability now of Internet Explorer 10, it is highly likely that we will be dropping IE8 support for our room scheduling software before the end of 2013. (We’ve already seen a noticeable 4.6% drop in IE8 usage from our “hosted” clients alone so far in 2013!)

What does this mean?

Firstly, once we no longer support IE8, we won’t simply “block” MIDAS from being accessed via Internet Explorer 8! It may well be that subsequent updates to our browser-based scheduling software continue to function to some extent in IE8 after we officially drop IE8 support.

However, it does mean that we will no longer “test” MIDAS in IE8. Therefore, should you use IE8 and contact our support team with any issues, you will be advised in the first instance to update your browser.

Internet Explorer 9 and 10 continue to be supported at this time, along with recent versions of all other major browsers. A full list of supported browsers can be found at https://mid.as/browsers

…but I currently use Internet Explorer 8 – what should I do?

If you’re a Windows 7 user accessing MIDAS though Internet Explorer, you can update your browser to IE10. This won’t apply if you’re running Windows 8, which already comes with IE10!

Alternatively, if you’re a Windows Vista user and use Internet Explorer, although you won’t be able to update up to IE10, you can still update Internet Explorer as far as version 9.

Our decision to drop support for IE8 will only impact a very limited number of MIDAS users; specifically those who presently use MIDAS in Internet Explorer on Windows XP. Unfortunately, the highest version of Internet Explorer that can be installed on Windows XP systems is IE8.

If you fall into this category, the good news is that MIDAS is also supported in recent versions of all other major browsers too. This includes Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari. All of these can be installed on Windows XP to allow you to continue using MIDAS! However, given that Microsoft themselves will cease all support for their XP operating system in 2014, perhaps now’s the time to be thinking about updating your 12-year old operating system anyway!?

So we apologize in advance if you are one of the small handful of users this decision may affect later this year. It’s never an easy decision for us to drop support for a browser – but we hope you’ll understand our reasons behind this move, to allow us to continue to develop a world-class web based scheduling solution that’s at the forefront of today’s new web technologies and standards!

By giving plenty of advanced notice again now – and with the introduction at the start of the year of notifications if your browser is too old – we hope you’ll take the opportunity to update your browser before our support for IE8 ends later this year!

The post Saying farewell to Internet Explorer 8… appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

Today, Microsoft have announced that Internet Explorer 10 is now out of “Preview” and fully available for Windows 7.

According to Microsoft, when compared to IE9, IE10 is “20% faster for real world Web sites” and has a “60% increase in supported modern Web standards“

If you’re a MIDAS user who uses Internet Explorer, please update your browser to IE10. This will ensure that you have the best possible experience when using our web-based room booking system.

If you’ve already been using the “Release Preview” of IE 10, simply visit windows.microsoft.com/ie in your IE10 “Release Preview”. You’ll then be prompted to update to the latest version.

To download IE10 in other languages, go to http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/downloads/ie-10/worldwide-languages

Internet Explorer 10 should be rolled out to Windows 7 users via Windows Update over the coming weeks. We’ve noticed however that the “About” box of today’s IE10 release (pictured above) contains letters “RTM” next to the “Update Versions”.

What does “RTM” stand for?

“RTM” stands for “Release To Manufacturing”. This is a term used for software that’s made available to computer builders and manufactures before it’s actually fully released to the public.

Take Windows operating systems for example. “Windows 7 RTM” was made available to manufacturers months before Windows 7 actually became available to consumers. This was to allow manufacturers to have devices ready for the day of the actual launch of Windows 7. “RTM” editions of Microsoft software are generally not available directly to the wider public. This makes today’s IE10 release rather unusual! It also makes it unlikely that IE 10.0.9200.16521 (Today’s build) will be the same build that ends up being delivered through Windows Update.

…but perhaps the presence of “RTM” in the About dialog is just a small oversight on Microsoft’s part. After all, it does still state “© 2012” on the dialog after all, despite it being 2013!

UPDATE: IE10 is now available for Windows 7 through Windows Update. However, although it’s classed as an “Important” update, it is not selected by default! So if you have your Windows Update settings to “Install Important Updates Automatically”, this won’t currently also install IE10. You will instead need to manually check for updates, and “tick” the box next to the “Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7” update in order to install

The post Internet Explorer 10 now available for Windows 7 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – Speculation continues over the IE10 release date for Windows 7
• Chrome – The most actively developed browser?
• Firefox – 18.0.2 now available.. development slowing down?
• Safari – Are its days numbered?
• Opera – 300 million active users and a full move to WebKit confirmed!

Internet Explorer

At the very end of last month, Microsoft released an IE10 Update Blocker Toolkit. This led to speculation that IE10 for Windows 7 may be just around the corner!

There was some speculation that IE10 may have been pushed through Windows Update on 12th February to coincide with Microsoft’s monthly “Patch Tuesday”, when they were already planning on releasing some “critical updates” to Internet Explorer.

Whilst the critical updates for IE were included in this month’s Patch Tuesday, IE10 itself wasn’t. This isn’t entirely surprising, given that the update blocker (which prevents IE10 from being downloaded/installed via Windows Update) was only made available 13 days earlier. 13 days is hardly enough time for corporate environments (for which the blocker is aimed) to deploy the blocker throughout their IT infrastructure.

It’s instead more likely that IE10 will make a proper appearance for Windows 7 users at the end of the month, or in early March. This is based on when previous “IE blockers” were released. That’s assuming of course the IE team can be dragged away from devoting their time/energy/resources to developing endless web-based games, such as Contre Jour, to showcase how “great” Internet Explorer is. Instead, we think they really should focus instead on developing their actual web browser!

Anyway, you can read more about our predictions for when IE10 will likely be fully available in our blog post, “…and the final release date for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 is…“

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Google Chrome

Chrome continues to receive regular updates – in fact the Stable channel was updated only yesterday for Linux users to fix *another* Flash vulnerability!

These frequently discovered Flash vulnerabilities are not confined to Chrome. They can affect any browser on a computer with Flash installed. This is also why Microsoft pushed a couple of “critical updates” to Internet Explorer yesterday.

In our opinion, the sooner Flash is killed off the better! For today’s modern web browser, it serves no real purpose! Everything that Flash can do can these days be accomplished through a use of HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript.

You won’t find any Flash on our website, or within our scheduling web app.

Anyway, back to Chrome; So far this month, there have been no fewer than 3 updates to the “Stable” channel. If you’re a normal Chrome user, you’ll automatically receive updates from the “Stable” channel. Two updates were made to the Chrome Beta for Android, two to the “Dev” channel, and one update to the “Beta” channel… and we’re only halfway through the month!

Google Chrome is arguably the most “actively” developed web browser at the present time.

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v24+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox

At the start of the month, Mozilla, released Firefox 18.0.2.

Primarily a security & stability update, 18.0.2 does have a handful of new features/improvements, most notably:

• Faster JavaScript performance
• Better image quality when scaling
• Improved browser start-up time. (Chrome already has the fastest start-up times out of all the major browsers we tested a couple of months back to determine “Which Browser is Best?“)
• Support for Retina Display on OS X 10.7 and up

In recent times, Mozilla have been releasing a “major” update to Firefox every six weeks or so. However, we wonder if this release cycle may now start to slow down whilst the Mozilla team focus more of their attention on their upcoming “Firefox OS” project.

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v18+ recommended)

Safari

Sadly, once again, there’s no new Safari news to report! As you’ll know from our November update, Safari development has taken back seat over at Apple in recent times. Apple instead have been seemingly more focused on their hardware offerings, than on their web browser. As we reported at the end of last year, they’ve currently ceased development on the Windows version of Safari.

And with other browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox available (and soon to become available) for iPad and iOS users, you do have to wonder whether Safari’s days are numbered? Will it be long before Apple take the decision to cease Safari development completely?!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera

Last month we reported that Opera were dropping their own rendering engine, “Presto”, in favor of “WebKit” for a new mobile browser “Ice”. WebKit is the rendering engine already used by the likes of Safari and Chrome.

At the time, there was no word as to whether this move would mean that “Presto” was to also be ultimately phased out of their desktop browser offering as well.

Well, now this has been confirmed in an official Opera Press Release. The primary reason for the press release was to mark the fact that Opera now has an impressive 300 million monthly users across its various browser products. In the release CTO of Opera Software, Håkon Wium Lie, also writes:

“The WebKit engine is already very good, and we aim to take part in making it even better. It supports the standards we care about, and it has the performance we need. It makes more sense to have our experts working with the open source communities to further improve WebKit and Chromium, rather than developing our own rendering engine [Presto] further.”

No timescale has been given for this transition. It’s likely though to be a gradual progression over to WebKit rather than a sudden overnight switch.

In some respects it will be sad to see the “Presto” engine go. The more different browser rendering engines there are, the more competition there is to be the “best” and most up-to-date standards compliant browser. But in many other respects, this could actually be a very good move!

WebKit is actively in development by both Apple and Google, and is what powers their respective browsers. Add to this mix the extensive development expertise that the Opera team have. We do mean extensive too! Opera has been in constant development since 1994!). It will likely have Firefox (which uses its own “Gecko” engine), and Internet Explorer (which uses its own “Trident” engine) pretty worried!

Because Chrome, Safari, and soon Opera too, will use the same rendering engine, in theory web pages (and apps) should look identical in which ever of these browsers you use. This should make life easier for web developers! (In practice this isn’t quite true, as each browser has a different release cycle, so new features in the WebKit engine itself make it into one browser weeks, if not months, before another).

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

The post Web Browser Roundup – February 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

Why was Internet Explorer 10 not made available to Windows 7 at the same time as Windows 8? Could it be that Microsoft intentionally delayed the release in order to encourage/boost sales of Windows 8? Whatever the reasons, it’s finally looking like IE10 is about to be officially rolled out to Windows 7 through Windows Update!

Whilst Microsoft remain tight-lipped over the precise release date, there are a number of indicators that point to a release this month.

The strongest indicator follows an announcement on Microsoft’s official IE blog yesterday that the “IE10 Automatic Update Blocker Toolkit” is now available to download.

What’s the “IE10 Automatic Update Blocker Toolkit”?

Basically it’s a small application that can be run to prevent IE10 being delivered to your computer through Windows Update when it becomes available.

Why would you want to do that?

Well, most people wouldn’t – that is unless you’re a large organization/company who’s IT department isn’t ready/doesn’t want to update to IE10 just yet. The reason is usually because they’re worried about compatibility issues with web based business applications deployed within their organization.

With our web-based room scheduling software, MIDAS, there are no such worries – MIDAS runs great in Internet Explorer 10!

So if your organization uses MIDAS, we’d encourage you to deploy IE10 as soon as it becomes available!

Does the availability of this update blocker hint at an IE10 release date?

Well, Microsoft have previously released update blockers just prior to the release of IE9, 8, etc

For example:

• IE7 was released on Wednesday 18th October 2006 (the IE8 blocker was released 84 days earlier in July 2006)
• IE8 was released on Thursday 19th March 2009 (the IE8 blocker was released 73 days earlier in January 2009)
• IE9 was released on Monday 14th March 2011 (the IE9 blocker was released 32 days earlier in February 2011)

So the length of time between a “blocker” being made available and the actual browser release has decreased for each major incarnation of IE over the years. It’s sensible then to assume, given that the IE10 blocker was made available yesterday, that IE10 can expect to be fully released before the end of the month!

Patch Tuesday

Now, the second Tuesday of each month, is affectionately known in the IT world as “Patch Tuesday”. Traditionally the day on which Microsoft regularly release a big update of security patches. “Patch Tuesday” this month will be 12th February. So could Microsoft be gearing up to release IE10 through Windows Update on the same day?! …is 13 days a long enough time period to allow all those IT departments wishing to prevent an automatic update to IE10 to deploy the blocker? After all, we’ve noticed that Microsoft tend to panda more to the needs/demands of large corporation’s IT departments than to regular home users. So they’re unlikely to push IE10 through a Windows Updates update until they’re happy that those who want to block it, have done.

Either way, as soon as we learn that IE10 has been fully released and available through Windows Update, we’ll be sure to let you know!

…and if you’re an IE user we’d certainly encourage upgrading to IE10 when you can, it really is a big leap forward from IE9!

UPDATE: 26th February 2013: Internet Explorer 10 is now fully available to download for Windows 7

The post The release date for Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 7 is… appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.

• Internet Explorer – Microsoft’s self-proclaimed comeback – has IE really “grown up”?
• Chrome – v24 out now, v25 around the corner – with voice control!?
• Firefox – 64-bit development fiasco, but “Junior” for iPad and Firefox OS on their way!
• Safari – It’s oh so quiet! Shhhh…
• Opera – Continuing to improve stability and security… plus a new Android and iOS browser coming, and a possible move to WebKit?

Internet Explorer:

At the tail end of 2012, Microsoft released a video on YouTube touting the comeback of its Internet Explorer browser. The video focuses on how people “love to hate” Internet Explorer. In the video, an individual is depicted trolling news stories, videos and Twitter accounts about how much Microsoft’s browser “sucks”.

The video ends by the troll typing “IE sucks… less,” after which Microsoft proclaims “progress” is being made and that “comebacks come in many shapes and sizes.”

Following that, the video mentions Microsoft’s new website to promote the campaign, TheBrowserYouLovedToHate.com.

Now, Microsoft’s IE “comeback” campaign is gathering more pace. By specifically targeting those who grew up in the 1990’s, and using the Twitter hashtag “#childofthe90s”, Microsoft are flooding the social network with a host of photographs of 90’s children’s toys with the tag line “You grew up. So did we. Reconnect with the new IE“

It’s all well and good Microsoft promoting that IE has made a “comeback”… but has IE really grown up?

Their latest incarnation is Internet Explorer 10. This is available for Windows 8, and currently as a IE 10 “Preview” for Windows 7. Back in November, we put IE10 “head-to-head” with the other current browser offerings from Mozilla, Google, Apple, and Opera software. You can read our full test report and conclusions here, and you’ll see that IE10 performance was rather disappointing!

So has Internet Explorer “grown up”? Well, in comparison to earlier versions of IE – yes. Yet in comparison to the latest offerings from the other major browser vendors, Internet Explorer still has a LOT of growing up to do!

For us to be convinced that their flagship browser has truly “made a comeback”, Microsoft’s will need to ensure that they now maintain and update IE on a more frequent basis, as all the other major browsers do! …otherwise this self-proclaimed “comeback” will be short-lived!

Months, or in IE’s case – years – between major browser updates really doesn’t cut it in the highly competitive – and ever evolving – browser market we’re in today!

MIDAS is currently supported in Internet Explorer 8+ (v10+ recommended)

Google Chrome:

Earlier this month, Google pushed an update to their Chrome browser, bringing the version number up to 24. Google’s main claim with this new version is that performance has improved “26.3% since Chrome 15”.

Now, Chrome 15 may seem like seem it was released a long time ago. In actual fact it was less than a year ago that Chrome 15 was the “latest” offering of Chrome!

If you’re a regular follower of our blog, you’ll know there’s been a whole version number supremacy battle going on between browser vendors in recent times! In a blog post, Google justify their “rapid release schedule” and lack of noticeable “new features” in Chrome 24 by saying “What you may not know is that things are changing under the hood every six weeks, thanks to auto-update. It’s like a mechanic stopping by every six weeks to give your car a new engine”

So whilst v24 may have lacked in the way of “new features”, v25 promises to have support for the new and emerging “Web Speech API”. This may ultimately allow websites, and web apps – such as our own Room Scheduling System – to be voice controlled! …which is quite exciting, and ever so slightly reminiscent of this scene from Star Trek IV…

In other Chrome news; if you’ve got an Android smartphone, did you know that you can get the Google Chrome browser for your mobile device?! …well, only if your device runs Android 4.0+, which is a shame, given that mobile versions of both Opera and Firefox are currently available for earlier Android devices.

MIDAS is currently supported in Chrome 9+ (v24+ recommended)

Mozilla Firefox:

Mozilla seem to be loosing a bit of direction of late! Back in November, we reported on a number of setbacks for Firefox. Including a major update that was subsequently withdrawn, a large fine imposed by the EU, and a drop in market share.

Well, since then, there’s been more controversy! Mozilla announced that they would no longer be developing a 64-bit Windows version of Firefox.

Mozilla Engineering Manager Benjamin Smedberg made the decision to kill off development. He outlined his view on the matter in a post titled “Turn off win64 builds” on a Google Groups development board. Smedberg blames the decision partly due to 3rd party plugins, commenting “Many plugins are not available in 64-bit versions.”

However, following a backlash by users, his decision was subsequently reversed.

In a later post on the Mozilla Google Groups support page, Smedberg admitted that “there was significant negative feedback” on the move to cancel 64-bit development of Firefox. After his change of heart, he then claimed “I believe that we can keep a set of users happy by making a modification to the original plan“. This plan essentially involved moving all users of 64-bit builds of Firefox back to the 32-bit channel, and then having those users manually download a new 64-bit build.

Aside from the 64-bit Firefox fiasco, Mozilla have recently announced a number of other projects they have in the pipeline. Namely, a new web browser “built from the ground up” for the iPad, called “Junior” (expected in the first half of 2013). Interestingly, Junior will use WebKit layout rendering (also used by Chrome & Safari), rather than Mozilla’s own “Gecko” rendering. This may however be a restriction imposed by Apple, rather than by choice.

Plus, Mozilla have been working on their own mobile operating system, “Firefox OS”, with developer preview phones now available!

Will Firefox OS have any impact on the mobile os market?

With iOS, Android, and Windows Phone being the key players, Firefox OS will have a hard job taking a significant market share! Many mobile phone providers have tried to launch their own proprietary operating systems before and failed. So it remains to be seen exactly what impact Firefox OS will have!

MIDAS is currently supported in Firefox 4+ (v18+ recommended)

Safari:

Sadly, there’s just no new Safari news to report this time! As you’ll know from our last update, Safari development seems to have taken a back seat at Apple in recent times. Apple are seemingly more focused on their hardware offerings, than on their web browser. In fact, as we reported, they’ve ceased development on the Windows version of Safari. Perhaps they feel they can no longer compete with the likes of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome and prefer to stick with an operating system where Safari has the monopoly.

However, with a version of Firefox soon to become available to iPad users, Safari’s dominance on iOS may soon be in jeopardy. This might actually be a good thing, as it may drive Apple to further develop Safari!

MIDAS is currently supported in Safari 4+ (v5+ recommended)

Opera:

Whilst the other major browser vendors had a bit of a break over Christmas, it seems like development over at Opera continued at a pace! Since we last reported on Opera, version 12.11 was released in late November. 12.12 was released just a few days before Christmas, and now 12.13 looks set for imminent release in the next couple of days.

There’s nothing major to report on these releases. They primarily just contain “stability and security improvements”. But it’s good that Opera are commitment to the continued improvement of their desktop browser even during the festive period.

It doesn’t end there though. Opera are pushing forward with their various other browser offerings. Their latest project, “Ice”, will see a minimalist browser being introduced for both Android and iOS devices.

According to Opera’s CEO, “Ice” is “a reboot of your average web browser, it has no buttons, no menus, and all you see is content … Everything is gesture based and that’s what Opera is all about.“

What’s interesting is that Opera will drop their own “Presto” layout rendering engine, and instead use WebKit rendering for “Ice”. There’s no word yet whether this move will ultimately mean that “Presto” is also phased out of their desktop browser as well.

In many respects, this would be a good move from our point of view. As a developer, as it would certainly simplify development somewhat!

We always ensure that our browser based scheduling solution runs smoothly in the 5 major browsers. This means we have to make sure that MIDAS looks as close to identical as possible regardless of which browser you use. At present, different browsers use different “rendering” (or “layout”) engines. This is how a browser interprets the code that goes to make up a web page (or web app) and subsequently displays (“renders”) it to your screen.

At present there are 4 main browser layout/rendering engines:

• “Trident” – Used by Internet Explorer
• “Gecko” – Used by Firefox
• “WebKit” – Used by Chrome and Safari
• “Presto” – Used by Opera

Both Chrome and Safari use the same rendering engine. In theory web pages (and apps) should look identical in both browser. In practice this isn’t quite true, as each browser is updated on a different release cycle. As such, new features of the WebKit engine make it into sooner into one browser than the other. But if Opera also make the switch to WebKit at some point, in theory, sites/apps should look identical in Chrome, Safari AND Opera.

MIDAS is currently supported in Opera 9+ (v12+ recommended)

As a New Year is an ideal time to make a fresh start with your room bookings. To celebrate the start 2013 we’re offering 13% off new purchases of our web based software throughout January! – simply use Promo Code “NEWYEAR13” on our website when making your purchase.

The post Web Browser Roundup – January 2013 appeared first on MIDAS - Room Booking System | Blog.