The day is here: Internet Explorer 7 released this morning, though it is only available to users running Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003. Though it does not yet appear on the list of available updates through Windows Update, you can download it from Microsoft.com. [ News: ZDNet | CNet ] In a CNet review, the reviewing editor notes how the browser is still not compliant with standards set by W3C and recommends switching to Firefox.

“IE 7 was Microsoft’s one chance to leapfrog ahead of the competition, but the company has only barely caught sight of the current front-runners. For more features and greater security, switch to Mozilla Firefox.” ~ CNet [ article ]

There is already a version branded by Yahoo! that includes the Yahoo! toolbar, links to Yahoo’s tools (like Yahoo! Mail), and the default homepage set to Yahoo. Of course, Yahoo! is catching some flak, since it released its “optimized” version prior to Microsoft’s own official release. [ ZDNet ]

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 2.0 in the coming weeks. You can download the current beta, Firefox 2.0 RC3, or the current public release, Firefox 1.5.0.7, from Mozilla.com. [ v2.0 RC3: download | release notes. v1.5: download | release notes ]

Both NAnt and NAntContrib released version 0.85 on Sunday. The changes to NAnt from 0.85 rc4 only include a few bug fixes. NAntContrib has added the ability to specify the encoding on SQL files. All-in-all, not much has changed since 0.85 rc4, but that is a good thing, since it indicates the version is finally ready for release. The first release candidate was made available nearly two years ago.

Despite the minimal changes in the final package, consider upgrading just to get rid of the ‘release candidate’ tag.

NAnt v0.85 [ homepage | download | release notes ]
NAntContrib v0.85 [ homepage | download | release notes ]

I’ve been working on creating a Flash component for within our LMS that allows a student to view their completion statuses in a curriculum, as well as allows managers to view the curriculum status of all of their students. The component relies on Web Services to volley data with the server. I was having some trouble binding data from my WebServiceConnector to my DataSets because, as it turned out, Flash was holding on to a cached version of the WSDL–a cached version that was ultimately obsolete.

I was on the hunt to find the source, and kill the evil cache file. After clearing out every Temp folder I could think of, I started playing around in my Local Settings folder and it turns out that Flash will forever-store cached copies of your WSDL deep within your ‘Documents and settings’.

C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\[your flash version]\en\Configuration\WebServices\

I just booted every file in the WebServices directory, but I am assuming that you could get away with just deleting ‘WSDLCacheMap.xml’, or if you want to keep the remainder of your cache, just delete the appropriate WSDL cache file (ex: WSDLkgzmcu.wsdl). In any event, once you have exercised your delete button, simply restart Flash and reload the WSC instance, and you will be good to go.

For those that missed the announcement last week (like I did), the latest version of CruiseControl.Net has been released.

I plan on checking it out this week, then possibly upgrading our Build environment on Saturday. There are some modifications that I am really excited about:

• Log4Net is used. (Default: Rolling file appender for logging server output.) If the traditional Log4Net configuration block is included in the application configuration file, I will probably change that to the ADONet appender, instead.
• Users can volunteer to fix a broken build. How sweet is that!?!
• <prebuild /> section allows custom tasks to run prior to the build. This one is a big bonus; previously, if something went wrong with the build, often the external log files (NUnit, FXCop) from the previous build would get included in the current build’s report. Now the prebuild can give them the boot.
• Caching is used on WebDashboard. We have some huge log files and some not-so-powerful build servers. Sometimes it takes the machine a while to process the XSL. I am hoping that caching will help with that.
• WebDashboard can stop and start projects. I am very excited about the ability to pause individual projects without having to modify the setup or stop the entire service.

This seems like a nice package (Release Notes). I am eager to pull it down and give it a go.

One gotcha that everyone should be aware of: Old versions of the dashboard and CCTray are incompatible with the new version of the service, so both will need to be replaced. Give your development team a heads-up, so they know to replace their tray installation as soon as the new server version is installed and online.

This just toasted two hours of my morning, and ended with a “Huh. I never would have thought of that!” moment. And whenever I have one of those, I like to toss the problem and the solution up here in the hopes of saving two hours from someone else’s morning, someday.

Problem
We have a Scorm course. The course is coded in Flash and heavily relies on FLVs. For one of our client’s sites, we just rebuilt the Staging environment, upgrading to Windows 2003. Ever since the rebuild, this course in question hasn’t worked in the Staging environment. It works fine in Production, but not in Staging. It’s the same code, but it works in once place and not in the other. I hate it when that happens.

Turns out that we didn’t have and needed a MIME for FLVs.

Solution
Crack open INetMgr. (These directions are for IIS6)

1. Right-click the server, and hit ‘Properties’
2. In the Properties window, click the “MIME Types…” button
3. In the MIME Types window, click “New…”
4. Extension: .flv
5. MIME Type: video/x-flv
6. OK, OK, OK, you’re done

Thanks to Don DiCicco for finding the solution to this one. He googled up a link to a similar post on this same problem / solution. And thanks to good ol’ JT for posting the original solution, whoever you are.

I’m finally leaving the apartment world and entering the brotherhood of the house-poor. The process is exciting, interesting, and oftentimes overwhelming. However, last week when the home inspectors came to check the place out, I was amused by yet another situation where my QA skills applied. Functional testing, automated testing, performance testing: it was all done.

Ways to Performance Test a House:
The water system
Turn on every water faucet in the house at the same time. Can the system handle it? Does the water pressure drop? Can the well pump keep up? Turn on the outside water faucets and the sprinkler system. How does it do now? If the house can handle it, you should not have to worry about the shower getting cold when the toilet is flushed.

The electrical system
Similar to the water system test, what happens when you turn on every light in the house? How about if you also start the dishwasher and the clothes dryer? The air conditioner, too? Maybe do the water test at the same time, since the well pump draws from the power system, too. Get some electrical system meters to make sure the power does not die down when the load is high.

Ways to Functional Test a House:
The electrical system
Aside from making sure that the lights to actually turn on, the outlets work, and that the doorbell actually dings, there are some other cool tricks that were done against my house. I forget the name of the toy, but the inspectors had this cool gadget that would simulate a short in the system, like someone splashing water on an outlet or getting frisky with a fork. The gadget would test that the GFCI outlets would actually trip under such a scenario. Purposely overloading the system to make sure that the safeguards did their job. It’s like pulling the network cable from a MSCS Cluster to make sure that the servers would actually fail over. I thought this one was the most fun of all the night’s tests.

Ways to Security Test a House:
I used to carry a long expired medical insurance card in my wallet. Sometimes I would lock myself out of the house, most commonly when I took the garbage out, and I would use the card to pop the door and get back in. (I would always have my wallet with me, even if I forgot my keys.) I wasn’t thrilled that I could do that, but it did come in handy from time-to-time.

I’m sure there are other ways to test a house. Anyone else have any creative tasks?

Microsoft has announced that the upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 will be “high priority” in Windows Update, essentially forcing the upgrade on XP users everywhere (news.com). Microsoft has released a toolkit to disable automatic delivery of the browser upgrade, however this is a pro-active path; if a user does nothing, they are going to get the new version. My poor grandma (Usability: What Would Grandma Do?), who has no idea about any of this, is getting the upgrade. If you have Windows XP, and you have an internet connection, you pretty much are destined for this upgrade.

Now, I don’t think that is entirely a bad thing. Far too many people just blindly use this paperweight we call a computer. They don’t read manuals, they don’t educate themselves on this thing, they just start pressing buttons. When they get a phishing email about “Your bank account has been compromised. Please send me your account number and password so that I can fix it,” they reply with their credentials. “Click here and win an iPod” and they click. “Check out this email attachment of dancing babies” and they get yet another virus. Because of this we have to monkey-proof computers, and add far too many security checks on systems, and overall make developer-life a little more painful. So, I think this is a good thing. Yeah, I drank the Microsoft kool-aid, but I’m all for this automated upgrade to help make up for the swiss cheese that is Internet Explorer 6. I’m going to continue using Firefox as my browser, anyway, but if this makes my OS a little more secure…good!

But what does this mean to us, the development / testing community? Test now. Test often. In a few short months a few million people will unknowingly get IE7, and at that time we will no longer have any excuse about whether or not our systems work. Our stuff needs to work on IE7-Day. So download the beta, and start testing your web apps to make sure everything still works. Microsoft hasn’t been too browser-compliant in the past, and other than competition from Firefox I don’t see a lot of reason that they would start, so there is good reason to suspect things might break. Start testing now, or you will be scrambling in a few months when your help desk lights up like a Christmas tree.