The [recently released] Acid3 test, like its predecessor, allows for subjecting modern browsers to advanced testing of its standards compliance. Acid2, which most current browsers pass (including IE8 Beta 1), was mainly focused on CSS rendering.

• WaSP Press Release
• Take the Acid3 Browser Test
• Acid3 Overview

Acid3 - on the other hand - doesn’t evaluate a single technology. It was designed to test the whole Web 2.0 experience (ECMAScript, W3C Document Model 2, etc.). It basically determines the level of interactivity a browser can deliver.

Firefox 3 B3
vs.
IE7

This extremely hard test evaluates a series of 100 criteria and exposes a number of flaws in all leading browsing suites, including IE, Opera, Safari and Firefox. Upcoming versions of Safari and Firefox are to score in the 80-90 range, whereas IE8 scores in the disappointing sub-50 range.

IE7 has been reported to flunk completely with results not even peaking above the 20% mark.

Web design and icons naturally go together, whether it’s to merely spruce up the scenery or to accentuate important link elements on a page, there are no two ways about it. Some glossy or matte professional looking icons can really add that extra level of finesse to any design. The word ‘professional’ doesn’t always need to imply costliness, though.

Many talented graphics artists alike are producing sleek icons without wanting a dime back for them. All you need to do is use them gracefully and give the creator some well-deserved credit.

NX06 is a slightly older set of Windows icons which could nicely do for web design as well. It’s prominently black and would perfectly fit designs that feature a lot of blacks or grays. It was inspired by Longhorn (Windows Vista’s codename) and OS X.

PNG format, size 192*192 px.

• Click here for NX06 at DeviantArt
• Direct download link (DeviantArt)
• Artist’s DeviantArt Profile

This artist has not published usage guidelines for this work. Use respectfully and give credit to the rightful owner of the work.

Every browser has its own set of default styling for web pages. In case a particular website doesn’t provide enough styling for a certain element, it applies these instead. The differences between browsers can result into unforeseen results. A good example of this behavior is the difference in margins and paddings defined for lists (<ul>, <ol>, <dl>).

One technique you could use is:

* {
	margin: 0; padding: 0;
} 

Yes, this will neutralize everything to 0 margin and padding, but it’ll also have its effects on headings, forms, blockquotes, etc. Everything will be aligned crisply to the left side of the page, while this may not entirely be your intention.

@charset "utf-8";
/*-- Initialization Stylesheet --*/

/* v2.1, by Faruk Ates - www.kurafire.net
   Addendum by Robert Nyman - www.robertnyman.com */

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements we want to clean out entirely: */
html, body, form, fieldset {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
	font: medium Calibri, Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

/* Neutralize styling:
   Elements with a vertical margin: */
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, pre,
blockquote, ul, ol, dl, address {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}

/* Apply left margin:
   Only to the few elements that need it: */
li, dd, blockquote {
	margin-left: 1em;
}

/* Miscellaneous conveniences: */
form label {
	cursor: pointer;
}
fieldset {
	border: none;
}

/* Form field text-scaling */
input, select, textarea {
	font-size: 100%;
}

clipped from www.simplebits.com Webkit now supports the @font-face CSS property, enabling the designer to specify downloadable fonts in their web pages. The worry that all web pages will be suddently ruined with crappy free fonts everywhere overshadows the fact that some good can come out of the ability to at least have a choice to use those crappy (and/or potential useful) fonts. Give us all a chance, eh? imagine using a downloadble dingbat font for displaying icons instead of GIF or JPEG images. Suddenly text and icons become truly scalable together. Finally a way to make MySpace look even worse (-;

WebKit is the open source browser engine driving many Mac OS X applications like Safari (the browser), Dashboard, Mail, etc., and is a derivative of KDE (familiar to some geeks) technology.

Without wanting to sound ignorant, but I haven’t really kept up with Apple software, so if I’m completely honest, I must admit I wasn’t aware of WebKit and looked it up. That put aside, as the folks at SimpleBits suggest, this property raises excitement amongst the web design addicts. It’s so enticing because as a web designer, you want your creation to strike the users in all glory, fonts-galore included. The latter has always been a problem due to the variety of systems and browsers roaming the Internet and inherently, because of this variety, one webpage can look 10 times different in 10 different setups. To aid this, the @font-face property allows the designer to designate a single font which will automatically be downloaded in case the visitor doesn’t come equipped with it.

While this may sound like utter web developer ecstasy, the Internet could (and more like will) become (even more, if at all possible) contaminated with sickening free fonts/dingbats. Amateur wannabe designers will indeed, as stated in the last remark, be given the opportunity to make MySpace look even worse.

It’s funny how recognizable these mistakes are, as I usually get worked up when I encounter these dorky mistakes and near-instantaneously click the back-button. To me these are obvious mistakes, yet oh so omni-present.

• PDF files are print, not online reading
  – Agreed. There’s nothing worse than plowing through a big-butted PDF that takes ages to load (don’t get me started on the way Adobe Reader loads every page individually whilst scrolling…)
• Don’t violate design conventions
  – While you might think putting your navigational elements at the far bottom of the page is cool, I think your page isn’t worth browsing through to look for them.
• Don’t use totally wrong color-themes, like white on yellow (no!)
  – It really does hurt to read yellow text on a white backgroud, believe me.
• Make your text scan-able
  – Or at least make an effort.
• Don’t use fixed font sizes
  – No, this does not only apply to old people, since I’m the kind of person who likes to enlarge text on a website for prolonged reading. I do this so I won’t strain my eyes for too long, as I use a pretty high screen resolution. I’m sure others agree it’s not very agreable to read a wall of text at a font size of 8 or 10. Spare me or I’ll click away (it’s fine to design this way, but please, let me use my ‘CTRL-+’, thank you).

Follow the link below for the complete article:

clipped from www.articlefollow.com Users hate coming across a PDF file while browsing PDF is an undifferentiated blob of content Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky. They (users) form their expectations for your site based on what’s commonly done on most other sites A wall of text is deadly Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read. Respect the user’s preferences and let them resize text as needed. Also, specify font sizes in relative terms