Leaving a reasonable time for addons, extensions and themes to catch up, we’ve now installed Firefox 3.0.

Immediately, an anomaly appeared on the front page of the Sibagraphics site - a bottom scroll bar. This turned out to be from the top flash animations, one of which was floated right and the other left from id css instructions within the objects themselves.

This was simply solved by removing the ids and putting them in divs around the objects!

The site validates and is similar in all browsers, even the annoying and insecure IE6 which 24% of viewers worldwide still apparently use. Many of these would be corporate users who have unique company software reliant on that dodgy old M$ version.

Rather than use the M$ Virtual PC software in order to run two versions of IE, we found the very handy free Tredisoft solution, which will install standalone versions of IE from IE3 - IE6 if desired. Works a treat and naturally is not bulky and cumbersome!

While I have long been a fan of fixed width 3 column site layouts, here’s a reference site which has a library of percentage based column layouts.

Looking forward to trying them with images in some of the columns. I have employed my own three column div layout designs on several of my sites using a fixed width method - for example view source at Success Foods, the Medicine Room, Ground Events, Mike Jackson, Eurofilter Asia Pacific and Richard’s Corner.

Linda Hari Scholes is a professional Noosa wedding celebrant with a flair for conducting ceremonies tailored to your individual requirements. Linda has assumed ownership of the Noosa Celebrant site from Lynette Gordon, who has now moved her marriage officiant business to Sydney.

The new site is themed around roses … and I have used photos of the delightful Delbard Matisse roses growing in my garden for the background and icons. The site also features XHTML coding and advanced CSS techniques.

Effective weight management can be easy with delicious nutritionally complete Success Foods weight loss products. Success Foods also incorporate a weight management program involving pharmacists and counsellors.

This new site features difficult and advanced CSS positioning and a flash animation banner.

Noosa hinterland real estate agency, Countryside Realty, is a great resource for people looking to relocate to or invest in Noosa Shire. Not only have this friendly sales team moved to new premises in Cooroy, but they have a new look for their site.

The site has been upgraded to XHTML 1.0 and utilises advanced CSS for positioning.

The site of long time client, Dr. MacLeod’s, who distribute dietary supplements and weight management programs to doctors, pharmacies, hospitals and nursing homes, has had a complete revamp.

The design features a rounded box body container, with smaller rounded boxes within the overall container - with not a table to be found, except where semantically appropriate.

Noosa Golf Villas provides an independent, boutique Noosa real estate service for luxury properties in Noosa Springs. As well as managing real estate sales, the agency offers golfing holiday makers affordable rental accommodation in lovely homes close to the golf course, lagoons and lake.

This new site features flash animation on the front with fixed CSS styling throughout. The site look is inspired by spanish colours including villa terracottas.

The wonderful site, A List Apart, from which I’ve learnt perhaps more than from any other about web design, has just been upgraded. It now features a four column layout, but strangely is built to accept a minimum browser size of 1024 x 768. The sophisticated css visual effects more than compensate.

Sibagraphics has completed the code revamp and optimisation for the site of famous Australian children’s and family entertainer, Mike Jackson. Well known for his Dr Knickerbocker song, Mike is now launching his new Uke ‘n Play book and CD kit.

The site has been upgraded to a 3 column div layout in XHTML 1.0 which has streamlined the markup, reducing page size and loading times. Pages have been individually metatagged and matched with content.

Soil enrichment specialists, LimePlus have launched their new site which promotes their supply, delivery and spreading of organic and inorganic fertilisers on the Sunshine Coast.

The site employs advanced CSS list rollovers and positioning.

Looking for experienced, professional secretaries to help out on a casual or regular basis? S&M Secretarial run an efficient office assistance service which can complement and supplement your existing business staff. Visit the new S&M Secretarial site and discover how these clever women can assist you.

Their new site features a three column css layout with css rounded corner boxes, designed and coded by Sibagraphics.

The new site for Eurofilter Asia Pacific, who design, engineer and sell air filtration equipment, has been completed. Featuring CSS rollovers, the design of the site reflects the company’s logo, colour theme and solid presence in their industry niche.

Although IE only styled scroll bars can look ‘pretty’, I’ve lost patience with them because they are a proprietary, non-web standard addition which needs to be dodged round to ensure W3C CSS validation. And since IE only has 87% or thereabouts of the browser market these days and coloured scroll bars only work in DTD Quirks mode … why bother.

Here’s how I include them when desired, in a way that permits validation. Firstly, use a free visual scroll bar styling program like this online tool or this one and obtain the scroll bar css. Then convert it to javascript (HTML Kit has a nifty plugin that does it with a click of a button), save it with a .js file extension and link it in the head of your markup document/s.

<script language="JavaScript" xsrc="js/css.js" mce_src="js/css.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

No problems updating the Siblog to WordPress 1.5 …. I managed to retain all mods with no problem. With any luck the spammers will be frustrated further.

While I was at it, I’ve updated Sibagraphics and client forums … slightly more complex but very worthwhile. I’ve also implemented some considerable css compression by (1) converting all hex colours to shorthand names eg. #003366 becomes #036, and (2) including line-height sizes in font styles eg. font: italic bold .75em/1.2em verdana, sans-serif.

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.