"People who think they know it all are particularly annoying to those of us that do."

This was one of my Dad's favorite lines. Intended as humor, of course, it's relevant to this two cents, which is an accounting for my own recent "Oops, know I don't"...

While I was researching and re-writing my HTML for the website redesign, I learned two very important things. The first was that copious sections of my code was just plain wrong. Yes, it worked. That is, the popular browsers rendered it the way I wrote it. But it was wrong.

The second, and most interesting here, is the fact that the browsers not only allow bad HTML, but that they're designed that way.

Lazy Authors and Lenient Browsers - I'll borrow from Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, authors of great HTML books...

The web has filled with billions of pages, most of which are not compliant with any defined version of HTML. Due to the early days of no standards, and the rapid growth of the web, quick development of bad pages has been (and is) the norm. Web authors easily and often unknowingly produce bad code and never know it. It's too easy.

Be lenient in what you accept, and strict in what you produce. Browsers are lenient acceptors of bad data, because they can't afford to start being strict. Otherwise, users would abandon them because they would display more errors than intended web page content! Hence, a vicious cycle: bad pages=lenient browsers=lazy authors=bad pages.

I am very happy to have found and corrected my years-old bad HTML, but isn't it a shame? As big an economic, research, and socially relevant thing the web is, yet how full of bad, broken code it is. I venture to say that many of the ugly heads rearing themselves through security flaws and such are one obvious result of this misguided evolution.

I thought I knew HTML, and that is particularly annoying now that I do.

This section is where I usually put my two cents, and I welcome and appreciate your opinions and feedback. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think: About this newsletter, the website, or anything else! Send me your comments, questions or rants. If you want, I'll publish your "two cents" in an upcoming issue!

Since I have no new imagery to show you this time, I decided to highlight an older work. This is the first image I did specifically for a music CD. I worked with the musician several years ago, and did this for his first recording endeavor, entitled "Keyboards & Guitars: Volume I".

Here is the "flipside".

Roosl's Mail Filter and Roosl's Text Machine have both been updated with several enhancements and new features.

NEW Wildcard domain blocking now includes support for country code top-level domains (CCTLD)! Notice how much spam comes from domains outside the USA? More and more of my blocking rules have been for domains ending with .de (Germany), .fr (France), .jp (Japan), and many more. The newest version of my filter supports blocking these entire country code top-level domains! This enhancement allows you to completely block all mail from all domains under a CCTLD with only one entry!
Read all the details and review the extensive user guide.

• Search files for words or phrases, even use wildcard searches.
• Perform global search and replace.
• Sort lists of any size.
• Cut fields or columns in any order from lists.
• "Pipe" output from one command to another.

If you haven't been to the website recently, you should check it out. The entire site has been redesigned with a new, consistent "look and feel".

I know you'll like the new design!

I was framed.

The new design began with my wanting a new look to replace the old "frame" design. As I edited the HTML toward that end, I decided to also incorporate some newer (well, two year old) standards.

One of these is "cascading style sheets", whose incorporation adds a great deal of "style" (and consistency) to the presentation. All the rewriting enabled me to eliminate a bunch of invalid and deprecated elements. Maintenance and updates are much easier as well.

Other than the complete new visual and navigation aspects, the site is also now compliant with current HTML 4.01 standards. Each page has passed validation testing by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

This summer, I'll be switching the website to the new ISP. I've been with my old hosting ISP since 1996 and they've been great. Of course it doesn't matter where in the world one's ISP is, but I'm looking forward to this new relationship.

My visitors will not notice the hosting change.

/* Control loop for daily routine */

while faith==TRUE
  switch Earthly_problem
    case doubt
      let God
      break;
    case fear
      let God
      break;
    case worry
      let God
      break;
  endswitch
  if faith==FALSE then
    faith=TRUE
  endif
endwhile

Forever grateful to God for His given blessings, I'll never say enough about what His presence and meaning are to me in my life...