This is neat! This site offers 40 “template” layouts for a site using valid CSS and HTML. They have been tested in all reasonable versions of Internet Explorer (5.5 to 7), Opera, Firefox and Safari. You can download and use the templates if you wish. Very good work!

I happen to like the Wuhan WordPress Theme and have found it works pretty well, even with WordPress 2.0 and 2.0.1. I have found difficulty using it with the page fold menu. Anyway, it doesn’t look too swell in Internet Explorer 7 beta. I have decided it is time to give in and start using Microsoft proprietary code to get my stylesheets. I used a bunch of the hacks previously in order to be proud, but … many are now broken with the advent of version 7, that seems to act suprisingly like it should instead of like a Microsoft Browser.

If you have gotten the Wuhan Theme from Alex King’s wonderful site, you got a broken Wuhan as it doesn’t have the proper stylesheet for Internet Explorer. So go to the theme author’s site and get a copy instead and upload the ie stylesheet. It will be obvious which file it is as it has ie in the file name: style-ie.css.

Next, edit the header file to insert this:
<link rel=stylesheet type="e;text/css"e; href="e;<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’); ?>/style.css"e;>
<!–[if lt IE 7]>
<link rel=stylesheet type="e;text/css"e; href="e;<?php bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’); ?>/style-ie.css"e;>
<![endif]–>

In place of the existing coding that has conditionals for Internet Explorer:
< ?php if (eregi("e;MSIE"e;,getenv("e;HTTP_USER_AGENT"e;)) || eregi("e;Internet Explorer"e;,getenv("e;HTTP_USER_AGENT"e;))) { ?>/style-ie.css"e;>
< ?php } else { ?> /style.css"e;>
< ?php } ?>

If you are not supposed to really use tables to control layout, then you should be able to use css to control layout. However, to get a table like alignment, nothing beats a table … until now perhaps. Here is a solution that allows you to get alignment of items using div’s with css. Table free design again becomes a reality.

CoComment is a site that looks very promising. It will allow you to track where you leave comments, put a copy of the comments you leave here and there on your own website for your readers. It brings everything full circle. Sadly it is a popularity contest apparently as you need an invitation code and nobody sent me one. Maybe I can trade a gmail invite (or wait that was then) or a Newsvine tip or two?

I love finding sites that help you pick colors. Today I happened onto a nice utility on-line that lets you select from many preset color patterns and then shows you how they might be used. My only slam on it is that it will not let you pick two colors as the base and then contrast and compare between them. I already have my first two colors and am looking for the third. So this is not the answer tonight, it will be many other days. This is hitting my permanent web design toolbox.

Besides hiring me of course, you can spend a lot of time figuring it out. We have had good success in getting pages ranked well in Google quite quickly. We do not use any “word spam” techniques to do it either. In fact we wouldn’t do it. Anyway, we have tried in the past to share our thoughts on SEO – or search engine optimization – with others. We hope others have found it helpful.

Let’s get “Scientificish”

I regularly read Mike Industries as I find he has a lot of good information. He sort of wants to be the number one “Mike” in Google. Can he make it? To figure out how the rankings work (or don’t work) he tried an experiment that was a bit scientificish (I figure we have a shot at going one/two for that term). His research on what Google did with some newly generated web pages concerning the word “lodefizzle” generated some very interesting results.

Validate that Code

Go validate the code on your page, and then, have a read because as he says:

Conclusion: It’s not clear that validity helps search engine ranking, but it’s definitely true that certain errors in your code can get you completely removed from indexes.

I remember the first time I looked for my name in Lexis/Nexis back in the early 1980’s. The name Don was tough to find because of many sub-parts under the ancient indexes available at that time because I could be found under either Don or Donald, so you had to leave it open. I got donut, don’t, etc. Eventually I had to construct a better way to search for Don or Donald and my last name, allowing for the fact that I might or might not have an initial or middle name in there as well. It took a bit, but I did eventually find myself. I am sure Google has raised the search bar … and suffice it to say I am no Mike. I doubt I could count far enough down to find myself. So I’ll just toil on in obsurity.

Goodnight as I go cry myself to sleep…

Today a friend of mine, Richard Dooling, suggested that a note to the side of his webpage reminded him of a sticky note. So I say … why not actually use a sticky note? It makes sense to me. So I spun up a sticky note that is expandable and runs in a div done in CSS. It does require two images to work correctly. Feel free to donate a couple of dollars if you decide to use it … or just rip it off if you must.