A cookie, or browser cookie, is a snippet of text stored on your hard drive by your web browser. Typical use for cookies include user authentication, storing site preferences, shopping cart contents, session data, etc.

Internet Explorer does give you the ability to delete cookies from within the browser by going to Tools > Internet Options and deleting cookies from your Browsing History. While this option typically works, there are a few scenarios that may prevent you from deleting cookies from Internet Explorer. In that case you may need to resort to a manual deletion of the cookies.

Manually deleting Internet Explorer's cookies from your hard drive differs depending on which operating system you have. In this post we will discuss Windows 7 and Windows XP. Windows Vista structure is likelly very similar to the Windows 7 instructions but has not be tested against the steps outlined in this blog post.

Windows 7

1. Open Windows Explorer

2. Click "Organize" in the upper left corner

3. Click the "Folder and search options" drop down menu item

4. In the Folder Options window, click the "View" tab

5. In the Advanced settings pane:

   5.a. Turn on "Show hidden files, folders, and drives"

   5.b. Turn off "Hide extensions for known file types"

   5.c. Turn off "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)"

6. Windows will prompt you with an alert box, Click Yes or OK

7. On the Folder Options window, click Apply to accept the changes

8. Click OK to close the Folder Options window

9. Now, in Windows Explorer, you can navigate to and see the content of the Cookies folder

Path to Cookies folders in Windows 7:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Cookies\Low

Replace username with your Windows login name.

10. Select the Cookie or Cookies and delete

11. After you are finished managing your cookies you can revert your changes taken in the steps above

Windows XP

1. With Windows Explorer open go to the menu item "Tools > Folder Options…"

2. In the Folder Options window click the "View" tab.

3. In the Advanced setting pane:

   3.a. Turn on "Show hidden files and folders"

   3.b. Turn off "Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)"

   3.c. Windows will prompt you with an alert box, Click "Yes"

4. On the Folder Options window, click Apply to accept the changes

5. Click OK to close the Folder Options window

6. Now, in Windows Explorer, you can navigate to and see the content of the Cookies folder

Path to Cookies folder in Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Cookies

Replace username with your Windows login name. If you do not login with a username then replace username with "Administrator".

7. Select the Cookie or Cookies and delete 

8. After you are finished managing your cookies you can revert your changes taken in the steps above

In an aspx page you can't include the runat=”server” attribute for a script file.

Problem:

<script src=”~/scripts/jsfile.js” type=”text/javascript”><script>

Including the runat=”server” attribute will produce a compilation error on the page. A work around to this issue is to use the ResolveUrl() method.

Solution:

<script src=”<%ResolveUrl(”~/scripts/jsfile.js”)%>” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Utilizing the ResolveUrl() method will replace the instance of ~ in the string with the value of the application’s path; thus, providing the same benefit that runat=”server” gives you in style sheet links and image tags.

Today Google announced that Caffeine has become it's new search index. Caffeine will provide Google searchers with 50% fresher results and will consist of the largest index of websites that Google has ever provided.

What really sets Caffeine apart is the way it indexes the web. The previous index fetched new content in layers. This would create a significant delay in how fast Google could bring new content. With Caffeine smaller "packets" of the index are constantly being updated to bring you fresher content.

This faster, fresher index by Google will no doubt change how the web is presented, but it will also change the thought of publishing content. Caffeine's ability to better crawl and index the web will increase the emphasis of importance of content you present on your website. Caffeine reinforces the basic theory of SEO, "Content is King" and now Google can find it even faster.

The recent web faceoff series by Mashable pits Twitter vs. Facebook in a poll, “Where do you get more of your news: Twitter or newspapers?”

While posing this question is a great way to gauge social media and its growing importance in our daily lives, I don’t think the comparison of platforms is a fair fight.

Twitter is a medium to share information. And while you could argue that newspapers attempt to do the same, the architecture of each platform is different. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is a means to get to the information. It’s the route to your final destination.  You can’t use Twitter to compile a story or write an editorial. Twitter, and social media and general, is used to share information which is mostly contained elsewhere (i.e. newspapers, TV news websites, and blogs).

There is no doubt that newspapers should be harnessing the power of Twitter to drive traffic and market their product. Maybe the better poll to judge where you get your news is to put newspapers in the ring with blogs in a battle of the big guy vs. the little guy.