While using Safari to browse from one random Blogger blog to another yesterday, I encountered this rather humorous (to me) JavaScript alert message before loading someone’s customized blog template:

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With all due respect to any former colleagues still stuck within the organization, there’s no greater satisfaction than leaving a major internet company over year ago, and now, seeing their home page turn into this.

After writing about the IE Factor several days ago, I thought I’d detail a specific example which had me pulling out my hair last week. I’ll also provide the solution I came up with. As I stated Monday:

Tweaks that should have worked had no effect, prompting me to try things that made absolutely no sense to try.

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I relate it to a driving experience. One in which I drive to a certain destination often enough, that I become more and more familiar with the route that takes me there. I learn the best streets getting to and off the freeway system, every exit along the way. I know the interesting segments, the boring stretches. Most importantly, I start to recognize traffic patterns, and can predict the areas of congestion that will slow me down. No matter which route I take, there’s usually one portion of the trip where I know I’ll slow to a crawling pace. Some routes can’t be avoided, and the delays they bring must be factored into the total time I think the trip will take. continued

It’s not often that I point out or write about standards-compliant site designs and launches which get sent to me by email, especially personal sites. But designer Cameron Adams just launched a site that I think is worth your attention. The Man in Blue boasts a simple, attractive design created with lots of background-image goodness. Notice the soft shadows everywhere, the cracks in the corners which move as the window is resized, and the intricate way lots of small borders match up to create a subtle 3D effect. A brief technical overview highlights a few more features. continued

Mozilla Foundation charges out of the gates today with a handful of new product releases. Heavyweight full-featured browser Mozilla 1.5, lightweight standalone browser Firebird 0.7, and email/newsgroup client Thunderbird 0.3. continued

Separate content from its presentation. One of the lingering mantras of web design and development. It exists as both a rule and a strategic practice. A commandment which promises rewards if followed. But have we iterated this phrase so much as to strip away its meaning? Have we lost sight of what it means to keep the two independent? And is the concept even a real possibility? Is it still merely a myth? continued

Yesterday, VeriSign resorted to more anti-competitive, monopolistic tactics. They’ve placed a wildcard in global DNS records for .com and .net top-level domains, essentially hijacking all unregistered domains, and those with invalid DNS entries. In place of the traditional error page most browsers used to display, any user who enters an unregistered domain ending in .com or .net (including misspellings) now gets redirected to VeriSign’s Site Finder service, which displays a page entirely controlled by VeriSign, supposedly providing links to the possible intended destination. continued

Dan Cederholm starts a brilliantly simple concept of quiz questions to spark discussion and debate on semantics. He calls the first one a “doozy”. But with different questions and code snippets, one can imagine the issues might become complicated very quickly. continued