Concise well-written article entitled “Sink the Splash Pages” describing why splash pages with no textual and or news content are a no no for search engine and visitor friendliness.

Another place for great CSS styling and optimisation tips at Real World Style. This site also has useful 2 and 3 column CSS styling tutorials.

Useful info on float problems with div tags with IE Mac 5 and other browsers.

Good resource site for ironing out IE dilemmas when designing at Windows Explorer vs The Standards.

The W3 people provide a handy checklist for web accessibility … although many web development businesses do not consider standards and accessibility important, Sibagraphics strives to employ accessibility methods and means so that everyone can enjoy and benefit from client site information.

Great article on character encoding which has a fair explanation of the uses of utf and other encoding for internationalisation. For php users, there are ways round the limitations of php’s 256 character set.

As well as through the font checking utilities on this site, the perennial problem of font sizing methods acceptable for all browsers is discussed by Owen Briggs at his site. He supplies some handy cross-browser comparison screen shots.

Owen leans towards using percentages due to their compatability. I’ve recently started setting html {font-size:100%} then body {font-size:90%} and em units throughout the rest of the style sheet. Wondering whether it may be best to go back to using percentages only as it doesn’t seem to make much difference as long as the base font is set at 100%.

Since joining the Web Standards Group mail list, I’ve been updating and learning new CSS skills which will be very handy.

By far the most useful forum I’ve ever found on styling tricks, it’s extremely active, full of specific resources.

Added to the Sibagraphics desktop wallpapers available for download are a couple of photos from our South Island New Zealand travels, one from the delightful east coast seaside town of Kaikoura and another from the fabled Milford Sound on the west coast.

We are now back from holidays to discover Sibagraphics has also won a Web Smarty Featured Site award for October 2004.

Success again for Sibagraphics, with Alan Le Chong’s HandwritingAustralia.com site receiving a prestigious Web Smarty Award for Featured Site for October, 2004.

What a useful article! Psychological testing of people’s eye movements over web news sites …

Eyetrack III - What You Most Need to Know

I’m pleased to see that Sibagraphics already incorporates many of the techniques encompassed in this article, which confirms advice we’ve had from a qualified psychologist in the past, such as the use of a single column for text, top navigation menus and effective use of headlines.

I bought a most glorious rose at the Pomona Markets on Saturday … it’s a French Delbard rose called “Henri Matisse”, from the Delbard Painters series. It’s an expensive rose because the breed is patented by Delbard, though worthwhile for its fascinating beauty and perfume. My new rose bush has three new buds which will open in a few days.

The last rose I acquired a year ago was a lovely yellow full bloomed variety which has a heady perfume and is a delicious creamy rich yellow. I’ve converted the photos I took of these two beauties into wallpaper for download by rose afficionados and other floral fanatics.

Successfully upgraded to WordPress 1.2.1 with no issues discovered as yet.

There’s a swag of new buttons including arrows for navigation in the linkware section of this site. Feel free to download and use on your web site.