Resize Internet Explorer to the resolution of your choice without tweaking the OS settings

Tested on IE7 and IE9.
Here is a useful way to change the resolution of Internet Explorer if you need to test
a webapp on a specific resolution. It is pretty useful if you do not want to change the OS settings and/or if you need to test several resolutions.

In IE, you create bookmarklets which are JavaScript scripts that are intended to be run from a web browser’s bookmarks bar or menu.

  1. Add a favorite (shortcut : CTRL+D)
  2. Choose a name (for instance : 1024×768)
  3. Display the favorites
  4. Right-click on the favorite and edit its properties
  5. Add the URL : javascript:(function(){ window.resizeTo(1024,768); })();
  6. Click OK. On IE7, you get a warning message (“JavaScript is not a recognized protocole”). Ignore it.
  7. Follow the same steps to add another bookmarklet for another resolution.
    Then to change the resolution, you just need to select the favorite.

I quickly tried it on Firefox 10, it does not work. If anyone figures it out, please let me know.
Did Firefox take away the ability to use javascript: in the address bar ?
javascript:alert(7*45) does not even work in FF 10 (?!?)
Some discussion that i found on the matter : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688841

Scalability (with Terracotta)

Last night, I attended a meeting about Terracotta and the presenter was the creator, Ari Zilka. Among his slides was what i found an interesting slide about Terracotta’s advantages : scalability and availability.

I reproduced it here. Scalability is a term often used in the computing area.

Writing data in memory is less scalable than writing on hard disks but on the other side data written in memory is more available (in terms of speed access) than data written on disks.

Link: http://www.terracotta.org/web/download/attachments/14155789/fig_104_1_grad.png

Web trend map 2008

The coolest gift for geeks, the A0 poster of the 2008 Web Trend Map (841mm x 1189mm / 33.25in x 46.75in), is now up for grabs:

http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-3-get-it/

http://informationarchitects.jp/start/

http://informationarchitects.jp/ia-trendmap-2007v2/