News.com staff writer Paul Festa draws more public attention to Internet Explorer’s lack of full CSS support in Developers gripe about IE standards inaction. Paul uses Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, and Jakob Nielsen as sources for quotes about Adobe’s move to partner with Opera to improve CSS support in GoLive. In doing so, he nails the issues, shedding a brighter light on the lingering problems with Microsoft’s overly-popular browsing application. IE is a decent browser, but its shortcomings make it a dead-weight which is holding back forward-thinking web design and development. continued

Frank Leahy is a friend and former-colleague from Wired. He was responsible for creating one of the primary Content Management Systems used at Lycos, and made significant contributions to the engineering effort when we redesigned Wired News last year. Frank left Wired a couple months ago, and he and his family of four recently picked up their lives and moved to England, settling temporarily in what looks like an amazing location: Cornwall. Understandably, Frank immediately has more time, and so much to write about that he’s started his own weblog, titled “A Year in Cornwall“. continued

Todd Dominey beats me to the punch, and says everything (and more) about software version naming schemes I was thinking of writing. Inspired by Adobe’s drop of the numerical versions in favor of a letter-based system (“CS”) for their new Creative Suite, the move seems to be a short-sighted marketing ploy in attempt to follow a trend set by Apple, Microsoft, and Macromedia. continued

If you live in the Bay Area (or happen to be visiting next week) and have a passion for typography like I do, no doubt, you’ll be interested in Spaced Out, Black Holes in Typography, happening next Wednesday, 1 October at 7pm. Speakers include heavy hitters of typography Jim Parkinson, Mike Bartalos, and a former HotWired colleague, Max Kisman. (Ahem… just mentioning those three names in the same sentence makes me drool.) The event is $10 for AIGA members, $15 for non-members, and current students attend for free. The perfect teaser for the event: continued

Adaptive Path just published an essay written by Jeff Veen, entitled The Business Value of Web Standards. It’s a short, concise overview focusing on the tangible benefits of designing and coding a site using web standards like XHTML and CSS. Jeff speaks from lots of experience working with (and pioneering in) web standards, from his earlier days at HotWired, to the current consulting he does on client projects with his partners. 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

Yesterday morning, I left my sunny, cloudless, 75°F Noe Valley neighborhood to join Jeff and Bryan 2 miles to the north in Pacific Heights to watch a portion of the T-Mobile International. Fortunately, I had called ahead, and been told to bundle up. When I arrived, Pacific Heights (as is typical in summer months) was enshrouded with fog, it was a chilling 50°F, and a harsh wind whipped through the stately mansions, making it feel even colder. Where else can you go only 2 miles and experience a natural temperature drop of 25°+? To get a feel for what it was like earlier in the morning, see this shot from the womens’ race, which started at 7:30am. continued

In remembrance of the 3,016 lives we lost that day…

If you have a notebook computer, most likely you use (or have been looking for) something of quality to tote said portable. If you’re like me, you want something well-designed, with convenient pockets in all the right places, and a sturdy construction which protects your investment. continued