As a someone who likes to think that the individual still has some choice over
many aspects of their lives I relish the WWW and it's ability to allow ME to choose
how and what I 'consume' online [unlike established media such as TV which treats
me like an idiot and bombards me with crap I couldn't care less about such as
the AFL].
For example I really enjoy the fact that Netscape 7.0 for the Macintosh allows
me to turn off the most annoying of web advertising [I assume it's the same on
the PC version], unasked for POP up Ads. This feature plus several others I have
picked up in my travels makes me feel empowered knowing that I am able to 'choose'
the information I need or want and receive it the way I want. Other strategies
I employ are more simple, I only visit MSN.com if I really have too [AOL I may
have looked at out of curiosity], places like www.versiontracker.com are much
more suitable for my needs in these situations, and I have very little interest
in corporate sites like nike.com, however places like adobe.com and macromedia.com,
both corporate sites, are essential places to visit as I use their software at
work and home. I visit these corporate sites because I choose to, an
idea that 'trad media' just can't come to terms with 1. Hence the failure
of many sites like wishlist.com.au
Another strategy I picked up in my cyber travels is the knowledge on how to edit
a file in my preferences folder that blocks most ads out there anyway, contact
me if you'd like more info.
Anyway I digress, given the state of the pre version 4 browser market it's a wonder any body ever bothered to design a web site, take this site for example, husqvarnaviking.com an attractive and expensively produced site designed to the quirks of 4.0 browsers and not updated since. As a result, users of newer, more compliant browsers are actually sent away [or told to get an old browser if they wish to see the site. [This kind of coding does nobody any good: not the site's owners and not web users.]2 You betcha' I'm using THE latest version of Netscape Communicator Version 7, I own the latest version of Internet Explorer Version 5.1 for the Mac as well. So husqvarnaviking has lost me, never to return and I'll do my best to discourage others from visiting - never underestimate the power of word of mouth.
You see, call me a hypocrite but I always felt the web was meant to empower it's users, to allow them access to any and all the information they needed. If I have to read a page using a certain browser or Operating System [OS] then it is forcing me to use a piece of software/OS that for my own reasons I choose not to use and you can promptly stick it up your arse as far as I'm concerned. Solomon Lew's web site is a case in point, don't bother it didn't work for me on Saturday [19-10-02] so I expect it won't be fixed, cause there was not even a 'contact the webmaster' link anywhere to be seen.
The answer to all this is XHTML CSS 2 the two W3C compliant standards for coding web pages, crickey even Macromedia has enabled the latest version of their powerful web editing software to code pages in XHTML. If you're confused about (X)HTML, CSS, and validation, read the NYPL Style Guide. If you don't understand the premise of authoring to common standards instead of to the peculiarities of individual browsers, read "Why Don't You Code For Netscape?" at A List Apart 3.
There are plenty of tutorial sites out there to enable you to learn CSS, people will often offer snippets of CSS code to help you on your way, the CSS on the front page is borrowed form webstandards.org and modified slightly to read in my Voice so to speak. I originally got the CSS code for my site form projectVII.com, opened in Dreamweaver I managed to make a little more sense of how it all worked and now continue to expend it and modify it to my needs.
Now all we need to do is convince the TV networks that some of us aren't interested in year round sport, and we'll change channels the minute yet another inane ad comes on the box!
Of course having said all this I make no claims to the Validity of the code herein, I still use tables for lay out, as I can't accept the cross browser quirks I get with the <div> tag!
1 This entire piece is my opinion except where footnoted, I make no claims to the validity of my own opinions, except that they are opinions, and they are mine!
2 Taken from the webstandards.org web site and used without their permission, sorry guys, you got the credit though!
3 Same as 2.