crazyfray

Yes, you can, but it means you're damned for eternity Bear in mind that tables for layout brings many other problems rather than just difficult to read code, such as broken layouts whenever either the user stylesheet or the browser stylesheet (which shouldn't, but is known to with some of the more cheeky browsers) overrides your 'borders=0'. If nothing else, try using Lynx (a popular screen reader) to 'hear' your site - not only is this how many partially sighted and all blind users interact with your sight, but it makes it clear how your code is semantically incomprehensible. Also, if your code renders correctly in those browsers, and not Firefox (and more conspicuously, Opera) then you are relying on the incorrect display of those browsers. Not that there's anything wrong with catering for IE and its ~80% market share, but it's pretty well known that you can write valid xhtml (even transitional 1.0) according to the w3c specifications that IE cannot render correctly. If nothing else, as soon as you play with margins and padding you can bet your bottom dollar that IE has it wrong thanks to MS's flawed interpretation of the box model. I'm sure you already knew that Alex, but it winds me up sometimes when people code for IE, and then moan about FF and Opera...almost as much as people that spout standards-compliance on one hand, and then code for IE (not that you were doing either of those ). Anyway, I've fallen off topic. Tables are superb for displaying data, and are unfortunately being avoided by many for this thanks to the general bad press they get for layouts. However, that doesn't change the fact that using them for layout is bad practice, and getting into the form/function separation that CSS should teach you is a good habit for the long term. I think this is relevant, because the majority of situations I've seen where nested tables are used are cases where a table shouldn't be used at all - your table either needs additional columns/rows which are 'joined' by col/rowspan as Alex pointed out, or you should have just the data you want to nest in a table located within a div. That's my 2 cents - I do appreciate that the jury is still out on table usage, but I'm not a big fan - I'm sure it can be done well, but not as easily once someone knows an equivalent level of CSS.

Sorry for delay in reply, didn't see that this had been answered! Definitely .NET (since my next course is on ASP.NET, and from there to ADO ), though if there's any benefit to knowing VB6 I'll probably put a bit of time into picking that up.

First off, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling? Sound obvious, but often if a program's files are corrupted it's the only real way of solving it.

Plus I think that Symantec's knowledge base of virus threats is pretty good - I used it to weed out a vundo threat on my brother's machine recently. Have a look https://us.norton.com/security_response/ The big antivirus companies all tend to maintain similar things, and are often more useful than the programs themselves if you are already infected (your computer that is, not you ).

Always a popular topic :PI quite like using Avira Antivir (as many do here) as my main antivirus, and AVG with the realtime features disabled as a secondary full scan program. I think with the plethora of free antivirus software (of which these two are quite good) around it is a dangerous assumption that one will always be the best, and by using these two in combination I've not had problems - whereas I only installed Avira on my brother's computer, and have been fighting against vundo ever since...Switch when you start to hear lots of issues with your current antivirus package, or that another free one is good, IMO.

Ooh. I like these! Can anyone give more information on what a crypto hash is, though? I like to understand things before I do them (one of my failings in interacting with modern computing ). I vaguely get that it's related to the checksum (which I understand as being a means of ensuring that a file/folders contents have not been altered, and which are usually used to make sure downloads haven't been corrupted), is that right?I think that this is something I may be using to help confirm some my intellectual property in the statistical set-up I'm doing for the school I work for. Many thanks!

Funny stuff. I'd laugh my backside off if that was what the guy/girl intended in the first place - it seems so...crass...to have mentioned the site in that way. I can't see what possible upside this person thought there would be. Surely if you wanted to get their attention, you would make the changes, and then let them know instead?I guess I'm getting too old to understand the mindset, but hey ho

I do wonder, though, how easy it will be to unstick things! According to one of my friends who works there as a nurse, we have enough problems with muppets coming into the ER (or whatever we call it in England, hehe) at our hospital with their hands superglued to themselves as it is. Also, did anyone see the bit in the science central article that MotU kindly provided where they are testing Geckos' pulling power by: ...? Oh my. Seems a little harsh on the poor fellas. Hope they don't pull too hard - I have images in my head of Geckos in a pile on the floor after being 'used up'.

Sure, like any technology you can manage without it if you really need to. Buuut, it makes things so much easier! :DI sometimes leave mine at home if I don't have any need to be contacted, but I must admit I do worry what would happen if someone tried to contact me. Since my sister-in-law is pregnant at the moment, I'm keeping it to hand

Anyone used them though? I get the impression that Pascal isn't taught/used that much now (don't know much about the language, just heard a few references), and I'm quite interested to know if there's any real benefit to this kind of PSP...(not that I'm a big fan of the other ).

The thing about this isn't so much that it disturbs me that much (not like some of us here, I guess!), but that I can't see the point. There's something a little creepy about urns too, so I'm not a big fan of cremation of any kind (and that's basically what this is, burnination with added pressure ), but surely after the novelty wore off (yeah, Uncle Bob is now 4 carat...) you're left with a diamond that just isn't as 'real' as a normal one...it's not fake, but it just isn't right...and a big hole in your pocket to match the already exorbitant funeral fees. Great way for Nunc' Bob to be remembered, leaving the family in debt.Oh so tacky, and oh so pointless. As others have said, better ways to remember people...like using your memory?

I keep hearing that WordPress is a great starter from some people, and that others really regret using it (even in this topic!). Any particular reasons for this? I know it's supposed to be more user friendly, and that there are the usual tradeoffs for that, but it seems quite surprising that it polarises people so much.Bear in mind I've never blogged if you answer

Badminton and basketball here...though most recently I took part in a charity volleyball match.We won, of course No thanks to me, standing around like a useless lemon, but there you go.

Nope, because I don't give my googlemail details away - if I need to use an account for any purpose that even has a chance of generating spam, I give my yahoo one and set up a redirect based on the incoming email address.Yahoo - it's my spam wastebasket.

Useful, thanks. Nice to see some hints on the subject which aren't just telling us 'don't write bad' :PI do wonder where people have got the thin-content values from...don't suppose anyone has any links to search engine algorithm explanations (I know they keep code and specifics to themselves, but there must be some way people know this kind of thing)...else I'd probably not worry the specifics of number 4 there.Cheers.

True, but since != is always comparative (mainly since an additional equals sign (as in !== for does not equal) would be redundant, as you can't set a variable as being 'anything other than' a value) I didn't want to complicate things Still, fair point. EDIT: After all, these are mathematicians

UK here (London specifically - heya to rvalkass ). Wish it were any of the other places with the cold we have ATM (since I could at least ski in Canada ), but hey, can't complain too much.

An alternative for logon for less technical users is: - browse to your 'Startup' folder in Programs- right button, and click 'Explore'- put a shortcut to your program/document/file in this location.(I'm fairly certain you already know this!)I'll give this a try sometime though...looks very handy!

As truefusion noted, you typically convert to CMYK before sending to the printers. There was a good article in Computer Arts Projects on this (the print design issue special). ...flicking through that article, it notes that: Perhaps having multiple spot colours is causing your problems? Spot colours aren't something I've personally dealt with, so that's the best you'll get from me I'm afraid. It's issue 85, perhaps see if you can get a back issue? Or more realistically, Google is your friend

Lol. That topic was always going to get everyone worked up I prefer Opera and Firefox greatly, but as mahirharoon noted IE7 is a massive improvement on the sheer uselessness of IE6. Maybe a little less usable, but without the weekly patches required to try and keep IE6 secure at the height of the troubles. IE6 was a browser that should never have got out of beta in the state it was in. Once there's greater acceptance of CSS standards (and not the buggy implementation that MS seem to want to pass off) then I'll switch to Opera fulltime, but until then Firefox is my usual browser.

Technically, it's those sites that get it wrong...they've been created to account for the bugs in IE6/7. Firefox is pretty much as CSS standards compliant as you get (though it ain't Opera ).

Nice! You're clearly competent with a variety of the tools in Photoshop.I think I like your first one best, though if I were going to be nitpicky, I'd say that I'd have preferred the gradient of the reflection layer to be more gradual and/or softer, as it's distracting me from the text. Oh, and Pros shouldn't have an apostrophe, it's propoganda spread by greengrocers and high-street music shops (*cough* CD's?!? *cough*). Now that's nitpicky... :)Again, great work.

I'm going to ignore the discussion above completely, as it's turning a little aggressive for my liking, and just answer the OP. Have a look here first of all --> http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php This list isn't gospel (for example, there are some very interesting discussions going on about making Flash sites accessible and robot-friendlyat the moment), but it is fairly handy. Note how many of the items refer to things that, ideally, we want to be doing anyway for accessibility and usability purposes. So, content is king (which it should be, since there's little point in getting someone to click your site, only to not find what they want!). Bear in mind that metadata takes 5 minutes to set up, and so is worth doing, but most major search engines place a greater emphasis on content and longevity (as in the most amazingly SEOd site can often be ranked lower than one that is simply well-optimised, with good content, that has built up incoming and external links to reputable sites, and that has been around for a fair while). Basically, the things that users use to determine whether they instinctively trust a site are now being taken into account, and previous techniques that are now considered black-hat (or naughty ) can kill a site's ranking quite quickly. Unless you're a powerful multi-national company, in which case Google love you too much to punish you like they do small businesses...

I like it!Quick questions:1 - Why not run the flash component in the main window from the doormat page? Seems like a redundant pop-up to me.2 - Any sound coming soon? Would be nice feedback on actions performed by the user.Nitpicky criticisms:1 - Support for the back button would be helpful - ActionScript is our friend!2 - Would have preferred the arrows on the picture loaders to be clickable previous/next pointers, to make it more usable for those that don't 'get' the pipes and the spaceship.3 - Some way of viewing the details about the videos (since they're not zoomable) would be good - I can't read size point 4 (or whatever that is once the video scale is accounted for ).4 - An option to either watch high-quality versions of the videos, or to download them.5 - Very nitpicky now Clearer indication of which areas of text are clickable (your home link (the secondary nav one that sends you back to the home page from the subpages) is the same font and colour as the page name (e.g. 'collaboration'), but home is a link, the other a static image).6 - Perhaps a bit more optimisation? I'm on broadband, low contention ratio, and I'm seeing the loading between pages. Bits I particularly liked: - The loading spaceship on the picture loader pages. - That there was a clear visual indication that you could click the images (moving (on homepage), change of brightness) - Zooming transition for the pictures - smooth. - The video with (Ministry of Truth?) the rabbit running into the screen. Pity I couldn't read the details (as mentioned above) - looked very funky! - Heck, the quality of all your animations was superb. - Using hover to get the spaceship in the pipe, changing the picture in the loader. Genius! - the quality of your work is clearly high.All points made using Firefox 2.0.0.11

Have you tried the Adobe site? I've found their own site (not the internal help files!) to be pretty helpful when I've needed support with CS2. To be honest, a quick google search for this brings up Adobe Design centre as the top option, and if you try here https://www.adobe.com/ and scroll down there are a fair few choices. If that's still a little inaccessible, try: http://www.performancegraphics.com/Pages/howtof.html - seems to list some of the things you were looking for http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - video tutorials? now we're getting somewhere! http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - a pdf portal... Finally, how about the imaginatively titled http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ or http://www.planetpdf.com/ ?