Friday, March 27, 2009

Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely? The simple guide

The post about the new dialog for secure/unsecure items in IE8 has had quite a few visits, so I thought I would make it much easier on the visitors to get to what they specifically need, I am guessing they are arriving here mainly to find out:
1 - What the heck does it mean.
2 - What they should do to see the full page.
3 - How can they get rid of the stupid message.
1 - What the heck does it mean?
They inverted the question from the previous dialog:
"This page contains both secure and nonsecure items.
Do you want to display the nonsecure items?"
So that more people will just click the default, and by doing so IE will not display the unsecure items on the page.

2 - I just want to see the entire page, what should I do?
Click NO

3 - How can I get rid of the stupid dialog once and for all?.
The short answer would be: Tools>internet options>security>custom level>display mixed content: Enable.
The long answer is on this other post: How to: Prevent the security dialog about unsecure items in IE

hope this helps! If I didn't answer what you were looking for, please let me know in the comments.

Friday, March 20, 2009

How to: Prevent the security dialog about unsecure items in IE

keywords: IE8, mixed, content, dialog, warning.

In my previous post about the new dialog in IE8 about mixed content, someone asked "How can I prevent this message from reappearing?", I thought it would be a good-to-have post and started writing this, but someone else already answered it (thanks Anonymous), in any case, here's what you need to do if you don't want to see that dialog:
tools>internet options>security>custom level>display mixed content: enable


Note that if the site you are visiting is NOT on the internet zone, you would have to make the changes to the appropiate zone:

here's how you tell which "zone" you are on, on the bottom right hand corner of the browser you should see something like this:


If you double click that, you can make changes to the other zones (Local Intranet, Trusted sites, restricted sites)



Just click the zone you want, and it will bring up the first dialog (from this post) where you can make the change.

This applies to IE8, IE7, IE6 (I don't know about older versions)

Do you want to view only the webpage content that was delivered securely?

keywords: IE8, usability, warning, error, dialog

Update: If you just care about making the dialog disappear go straight to comments or this post for more details, if you want the simple answers check the "simple guide". This post was originally intended for developers but it seems a lot of people are looking for an answer to this puzzle.

IE8 has been released and it's got a few really cool features as well as some really good protection mechanisms, all in all, a fairly good release.

But then I found this while navigating a secure page (Gmail)


Say what???

In what felt like I passed out I had to re-read the full dialog, then took me about 5 seconds to get what the dialog was telling me and about 10 to understand what would happen if I clicked NO.

I'm copying the contents of dialog text here just for SEO

This webpage contains content that will not be delivered using a secure HTTPS connection, which could compromise the security of the entire webpage.

Why did they change the previous dialog?:

This page contains both secure and nonsecure items.
Do you want to display the nonsecure items?



The new dialog seems very confusing to me, the extra text after the question just makes it even more confusing and for as long as I can remember we've had the same old dialog, which seemed fine.

Notice that even the answer is the opposite for the new dialog, maybe this is the reason it feels like asking a negative question.

I think the intent is for users to click the default yes, since 99.99% users don't really read any dialogs, and that will cause IE to not display the unsecure items on the page.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Pure Apple intuitiveness: The new iPod shuffle morse code control

I don't even have to try for this one, these are the instructions to operate the new iPod shuffle that has no controls on it, but defers that to the earphones, which is another WTF all on it's own


This are the buttons you get



You see, having a single button that performs so many different commands kinda defeats the purpose, imagine having an application with a single button to perform all the activities

update: Gizmodo calls it Morse code, I like it

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Pure Mac intuitiveness: The keyboard

The newer Mac keyboards have 2 delete keys, but that's not the WTF (or maybe it is, but whatever).
I have some files on my desktop (is that what is called in Macland?) that I want to delete, so I select the files and hit the first delete key... nothing, the second delete key, nothing... WTF!!

After trying Ctrl, Option, Command, Shift and their combinations with the delete keys, finally found one that worked, I already forgot which one though.

How is that intuitive?

Monday, March 02, 2009

Pure Mac intuitiveness


I think I've had the worst luck with Macs in general; what you see here is a picture of Firefox on my iMac. Every single time I open Firefox, that's what I get and I have to grab that little window somewhere between the red and green little icons, drag it over to the left of my monitor, then make the window bigger. I think this started happening after I removed a monitor from the iMac.

Maybe it's just me, but I just don't see how that's intuitive.

By the way, I wanted to edit the image to add some more context but I didn't find an obvious way to edit the picture, neither from the context menu, or once on the preview, there's gotta be a way (you know, like in Windows, just right click, edit), is just doesn't seem to be all that intuitive.