About this site and the author

Alan Gresley

I live north of Sydney, Australia. I am talented in many things, but it took me 38 years before I discovered CSS. I stumbled onto CSS and good web design techniques in late September 2006, and seven months and many sleepless nights later, I find myself creating this site.

This site's coding and validation

The XHTML and CSS on this site has been completely created with Notepad Lite. Yes, I like a web editor that I can control instead of it controlling me. The pages on this Site are valid XHTML and CSS3.

Browser Filters and Hacks

Originally when this site was launched it used IE conditional comments to feed IE some different CSS. Having to hack my XHTML just for that browser, gradually bugged me so out they went. Now I use import filters to send just plain code to legacy browsers and two CSS hacks to target IE7, one being used below so this text can be read properly in the part about site rendering. There are twelve hacks to target IE6 and IE5.

Filter to hide CSS from older browsers

@import "advance-styles.css"/**/;

@import url("basic-styles.css");

Hacks to target IE7

*:first-child+html

*+html and *~html (can backfire, please see these test).

Hack to target IE6 and IE5

* html (also targets IE7 under certain conditions, please see this test).

"and as we look at the stars.., we can only ponder..,
there must be quite a zoo on the other side."

MS, please make the great big step towards standards compliance with the next browser before killing these new CSS hacks that target IE7.

Site rendering different in different browsers

The site renders consistently across most browsers. On a few of the pages, the site puts IE6 under a bit off stress though, but a missing background here and there plus some very wide pages is to be expected with that browser. My passion really is to create good design for the good browsers and in doing so, I may regrettably cause some unusual rendering for IE7.

Browser Support for this site

This site uses mostly CSS2.1 which was first specified in 1999. Eight years down the track this site will not show correctly in Internet Explorer 6, but as this browser is slowly replaced by Internet Explorer 7 which has better support for CSS2, the greater the percentage of browser share that this site will show correctly in.

This site has be tested in IE 5.5, IE 6, IE 7, FF 1.5, FF 2.0.0.7 and Opera 9.10 on Windows XP SP2. I would like to have this site checked in Safari and other browsers for Mac. Please contact me if this site is effected in these browser for Mac. Lastly, I have made no attempt to support Netscape 4.

Site style and inspiration

After trying to achieve a fluid design before this site, I was to stumble onto Ingo Chao" site satzansatz -- CSS. The way this site was fluid no matter the size of viewpoint and how the content had a maximum width impressed me. So I borrowed a few styles.

The metallic appearance I borrowed slightly from The Man in Blue. It seems my site makes a good face for a love child.

This site logo and header were inspired by a similar effect seen on the Westciv site and after reading the tutorial the rising tide about the site redesign, I thought, mmm, a challenge.

I would truly like to show my gratitude to Duncan Hill. He helped me a lot with my early understanding of CSS. Thank you.

Site Timeline

2000:

I begin my grand adventure with web design with tables layouts. The first site was called genea-logos which is Latin for genealogy.

Sep 2006:

My first ever time I hear of CSS. "What is CSS?" I was to ask.

7 Apr 2007:

Started work on this site.

5 Jul 2007:

Site officially launched.

12 Nov 2007:

CSS and XHTML finally overhauled with XML prolog added. Now IE5 is supported.

Other talents

I am also talented in Fine Arts, Music, Antiques and Philosophy to name a few.

Last revised: 12 Nov 2007