Just a small note on the blog design. For the economy of space and for a better appearance, I have started to display links to other sites on the “LinkBoard” located on the lower right (main page only, for now), just below the “Categories” section. A few may be hard to read, but I kind of like the graphic representation better, and this allows me to put a lot more links into a smaller space–and lets me locate the links closer to the top of the page while not pushing other items so far below. If you have a suggestion for a site that fits in with the type of sites I have on the board, let me know.

If you have a monitor set to 800 x 600 resolution–buy a new monitor! Or set the darn thing to a better resolution. Join the 21st century! This site is optimized to for a minimum 1024 x 768 resolution, though you can still read it at 800 x 600 (objects just start crossing over borders and overlapping). I generate the site using the 1280 x 854 monitor on my Macintosh PowerBook G4 (800 DVI), and check it on my Windows PC monitor set to 1280 x 1024. If you don’t know how to set the resolution, then: for Mac OS X, open System Preferences, click on “Displays,” and click on the desired resolution; for Windows, right-click on the Desktop, choose “Properties” at the bottom of the pop-up menu, click the “Settings” tab at top, and set the resolution in the lower half of the dialog box. (Note: on a Windows machine, especially a cheap one, I would advise caution: I have used some Windows computers that, when I set the resolution too high, the monitor blacks out, probably because of insufficient video memory. With luck, the resolution will reset itself in 15 seconds, but if not, I don’t know how to fix that particular problem…)

This blog is also produced with Mozilla/FireFox as a way to check the appearance, not Explorer. I have found Explorer to be notably deficient in its performance in many ways. Mozilla, and it’s little brother FireFox, are tabbed browsers with great pop-up window blockers, superior preference settings, and much more. If you’re using Explorer now, ask yourself why–and if you’re like most people, the answer will be, “because that’s what was on my desktop when I started browsing.” Hardly a compelling reason for choosing software–and if that was your answer, then get your butt over to Mozilla.org and download the free Mozilla or FireFox browsers (FireFox is a streamlined browser, Mozilla is a fully-featured Internet suite including email, web page editing, and more). Both are open-source, with upgrades coming out with good frequency.