
photo credit: flickr jeffwilcox
ITS are pushing us to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 – if you use IE for your web access and use Blackboard you MUST upgrade to use the new version of Blackboard coming over the summer for use in the next academic year.
From ITS:
7 reasons to change to Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) – upgrade now
It’s easy to upgrade from IE6 – find out about the new features in IE7 and how to install it
To find out which version you are using, open Internet Explorer and press F1 to open the help dialogue box. If the logo on the right displays an ‘e’ in a square box and doesn’t state the version number, then you are still using IE6.
There are plenty of reasons to change to Internet Explorer 7 and it’s easy to install:
1. Tabbed browsing
If you want to keep your current page open and browse for something else, just start a new tab. This means there’s only one copy of IE7 open (which uses less PC resources) and you can easily jump from one page to the next. You can open multiple tabs then close them individually or all in one go.
Even better than tabbed browsing – if you have a lot of pages open in tabs already you can view thumbnail previews of them to help you navigate to the correct one more quickly
2. Supports Blackboard 9
Blackboard 9 is being introduced in August 2009. Certain functions will not work with IE6, so why not upgrade now so that you’re ready for the changeover. IE6 will not be supported after October 2009.
3. Page zoom
You can quickly zoom in on a web page to make it easier to read. The whole layout including the navigation, pictures and text can now be magnified.
4. Improved printing
IE7 will automatically scale the page to fit when printing whereas if the page if it is too wide to fit the print area in IE6 then text will be lost.
5. Instant search box
The Google search box appears on the toolbar so you don’t need to navigate to your search engine first – just start a new tab, type in your search & go.
6. Newer and improved security
Improved security is available in IE7. Malicious coders look to exploit vulnerabilities in older browsers – you are more at risk from viruses, malware and hacking if you don’t have the latest supported version.
7. End of support
Support for IE6 will be phased out from the beginning of the new academic year 2009/10
What’s new in IE7