The inevitable has happened. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 late last week. This is the final step before Microsoft pushes IE7 on an unsuspecting public... I mean, makes IE7 publicly available. No other release candidates are planned.
One of the handiest "tricks" I've come across is having a layout template library at your fingertips. It's taken me a while to build mine, but now I have a tried-and-true layout for most of the common designs. It makes life a lot easier if you can grab a layout "skeleton," knowing that it will work for the design and won't present you with nasty little surprises halfway through.
Every once in a while it suddenly hits me that I have too many computers in my life. This week has been one of those moments. So to speak. My über fast Dell desktop at work is my newest darling, but it's a bit heavy to lug into meetings and on a plane. I had no choice. I had to renege on our delicately haggled agreement and swipe back the Toshiba laptop I'd handed down to my husband. In exchange I set him up on The Big Monster, the custom-built PC I got last fall when I was still doing freelance work and that practically blows back your hair when you push the "on" button.
I've been working long hours lately on some cool projects at the university. I thought only freelancers worked such ungodly hours. Not! Turns out I hadn't taken into account the universal appeal of turning little digital squiggles into virtual realms of color, shape and context. I'd also forgotten about Remote Desktop.
On Thursday, Congress passed the Cope Act, a bill that would allow phone, cable and other Internet service provider companies to regulate web site delivery--despite 800,000 signatures for Net Neutrality gathered by SaveTheInternet.com.
Web standards showcases and galleries are closing right and left. The Weekly Standards is gone. Stylegala is for sale. Last month the Web Standards Awards closed up shop. Web standards are more accepted than they've ever been. The tide has begun to turn for CSS. But is this, as Simon Collison has said, "the end of an era...The galleries themselves are now little more than windows into a transitional era of web design"?
All right. I admit it. I am a computer spud. Day after day I slump in front of a computer, staring at a glowing LCD screen, sometimes not budging for hours at a time. Ergonomics for me mostly means shifting into a cross-legged position when slouching on my tailbone gets too uncomfortable. Needless to say, I'm suffering the inevitable consequences. My rear is expanding, my eye sight is going, and by the end of the day my posture resembles that of a hunchback.
Yes, that's right. Applause. And yes, that crunching sound is me, eating my own words.
I downloaded IE7 Beta this week and, cringing inwardly, viewed a new CSS template from my current project on it. Holy cow and by George!, it actually rendered my design correctly. You could have knocked me down with a feather. (I believe this will be a Cliche Day for me.)