I enjoy Guy Thomas' weekly "Best Practice Ezine". In this weekly all-text newsletter, he gives advice on scripting, management, and other issues of interest in IT. You can get your copy by surfing over to his website at: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/

Last week's issue included a nice run-down of the features of IE8 along with some of Guy's impressions:

• Activities - Look out for little green arrows. If you right click on an area of the web page, then context sensitive Smart Tags provide extra information, for example maps, translations.
• Web Slices - These are a cross between RSS feeds and Gadgets. You may have seen Google's or Vista's gadget offerings, these web slices are the same idea but with a different name. Current examples include, stock prices and weather forecasts. Clearly one reason for this Beta release of IE8 is so that developers can start creating libraries of Web Slices.
• Add-ons - Microsoft are pushing Silverlight for multimedia. But for IE8 there will be a myriad of other Add-ons, for example Stumbleupon and Trailfire.
• Improved Phishing Filter - Microsoft say there will be an improved Phishing Filter. Guy just muses, 'What is happening with phishing'. Has it increased, but I haven't noticed because my present filter does its job, or have the baddies given up phishing and are now moving on to other evil tactics?
• CSS 2.1 compliance. (CSS 3.0? Ajax) Acid Compatibility. As I mentioned earlier, the drive for html compliance could present the biggest visual change when you use IE8 as it will literally reveal poor html in old websites. A bit like up-rating the light-bulb in a dimly-lit, dusty, dingy room, only for the bright light reveals all the flaws.
• IE7 Emulation - This feature is especially useful in this beta version. If you install this IE8 beta, browsing will become a nightmare, the only way out of jail is to hit the IE7 Emulation button. After a while you will probably think, 'Guy was right, let's wait for better version of IE8'. I also want to be fair to IE8, a whole new version number 7 --> 8 means that there are likely to be good and worthwhile features, and it's not fair to judge IE8 by an early beta version.

I haven't played with IE8 myself yet, making the conscious decision to leave it alone until it gets a bit more fully fleshed out. I've blogged before about my concerns associated with IE8's major shift towards a strong adoption of web standards.

What are your thoughts?